An attitude of gratitude

Perhaps the biggest motivating and uplifting morale boost in the life of an addict is the acknowledgement of gratitude. In treatment, we began every day with a meeting devoted to clients expressing gratitude for something in their life, whether at home or in treatment. Imagine how much better our lives would be if we did a first-things-first rundown every morning of everything in our lives for which we are grateful. It was an absolutely vital focus, and for good reason. Addicts are almost without fail using “at” something; focusing on the things in life for which we are grateful transfers our focus from our junk to our possibilities. When you aren’t fixating on how bad you have it you appreciate just how good you have it.

As naturally fixating beings, we addicts have a tendency to lock in with laser-like intensity on certain things in our lives. More often than not, these end up being the negative day-to-day struggles. Unfortunately, this doesn’t end when we get clean either. It takes a concerted, daily effort to remember all the things for which we should be grateful. Most of us have scores of positive things in our lives, but an addict will nearly without fail zone in on the one or two negatives out of the bunch. It’s just in our nature.

One thing that helps maintain an “attitude of gratitude” is to begin the day with a mental checklist of myabe 10 things in our lives for which we are grateful on that day. We as humans just do better and lead happier lives when we focus on all the good that is around us, all the blessings in our lives.  Days, weeks, months or even years can be lost in the blink of an eye to being caught up in focusing on the negative things in our immediate surroundings. For an addict, this can lead to a relapse; at the other end of this relapse can be deadly consequences. Nearly every daily happening has potentially dire effects for an addict depending on the perspective with which he or she chooses to view it.

For what are you grateful today? What are you taking for granted today? On what negative thing are you too fixated today?

Unconditional love

The biggest thing that people who have active addicts in their lives seem to struggle with is the idea that they can somehow blackmail or force an addict to recover. That blackmail can come in the form of emotional pleas (If you really loved me, you’d sober up) Pavlovian psychological warfare (If you don’t stop looking at porn, I won’t have sex with you) or fear mongering (You’re going to die awfully young if you don’t change your ways). The fact of the matter is, even if these tactics work in the short-run, they are destined for failure over a longer timeline.

A person’s sobriety can never be dependent upon anything human or related to other humans. You see, as humans we are assured to disappoint and upset each other fairly frequently. The last thing an addict needs is an excuse to drink or use in reaction to something someone else thinks, says, does or doesn’t do. If an addict bases his or her motivation for getting or staying sober on anything in their environment instead of something inside themselves that no one else can corrupt, they almost surely fail.  We come with enough built-in, preconceived personal excuses to use and abuse our “drugs of choice.”

If you suspect that there is an addict in your life, your best approach to getting them to help themselves is NOT to force anything or anyone on them. Love them in a truly unconditional way, but don’t enable or condone their behaviors. Chances are they are just as guilt-riddled and full of shame as anyone else in active addiction, so you don’t have to make grand gestures to punish them. Just let them know you love them anyway. No big hyper-emotional scenes or pleading, no blackmail in any form and no manipulation. We are master manipulators and can see right through your bull, to be honest. We learn to play that stuff against you pretty quickly, so just love us for who we are.

Now, when the time comes for tough love, don’t hold back (bit of a confusing transition, I admit). There can be no reservation. Remember that not giving us money we didn’t earn, not allowing us to stay with you rent-free while still using, or really not doing anything for us that we can’t do for ourselves isn’t really blackmail; it is simply requiring of us that we be adult and handle our responsibilities as such. None of these things should even be offered to the active addict, because it’s probably in the form of you attempting to leverage them into sobering up.  These things can’t be the carrot dangling off a rope at the end of the proverbial stick, because all of it is temporary. What happens when it stops or becomes unavailable? Nothing on this Earth is permanent enough to be a truly solid foundation or motivation for successful addiction recovery.

Worried that you may have an active addict in your life? Put down the torch and pitchfork. Give them a hug.

Denial. It's not just a river in Egypt...

Denial is one of the most difficult recovery deterrents to overcome. No one wants to believe that they have a problem, even after all the regrettable, forgettable nights (that they can’t remember anyway). Overcoming it means being forced to admit that there is something that has defeated the addict, something they cannot control with all their power, intellect and stubbornness.

Most addicts and people in general evaluate their lives, their problems and successes against the people around them, and by so doing set themselves up for failure. There’s always someone better or worse off, and this can become a way an addict can justify his or her using behaviors. The problem inherent with this is that it masks your need to be accountable to and for yourself. If you always live your life in comparison to those around you you’ll be continuously disappointed and, frankly, disappointing as well. You can’t live up to your true potential as a person when you never measure yourself against your own possibilities.

When in the company of an active and unacknowledged addict, you may hear some things that are quite often denial indicators:

“You can’t be addicted to ___, so I’m not an addict.”

The fact of the matter is that you can be addicted to anything that you do that is an escape or a coping mechanism. It may not be a chemical dependence, but addiction is psychological at its’ root anyway. If you have to catch a buzz to be happy, it may be time to look at your life realistically.

“I’m not as bad as ____. He’s a real addict.”

This is a prime example of living life comparatively and giving yourself a pass for bad behaviors. Are you worse off than you should be, irrespective of anyone else around you? It may be time to evaluate your life and compare it to the life you want.

“But I only drink/use on the weekends.”

For the record, there’s no such thing as casual or recreational consumption of cocaine, but I used to throw this one around a lot. What I failed to mention was the fact that I got blackout, stumbling stupid drunk on the weekends. I often used coke to “sober up.” Quite the strategist, huh? It isn’t the frequency that counts the most; it is the motivation and the amount when it does happen.

Now, not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, much the same way that not everyone who plays golf is a “golfer” or who runs is actually a marathoner. Whether or not a person has a problem is something that only they can truly determine for themselves. Thus, the motivation to change has to come from within as well.

Dropping a lil' knowledge bomb

One of my main goals for this whole exercise is to help educate “normal” people on the insanity and struggle inherent in the day-to-day life of the addict, both active and in recovery. You have to understand that it isn’t as simple as not drinking, not using, not looking at porn or not overeating. All of the behaviors that you actually see or hear about are simply the real problem manifesting itself outwardly. 

This business of addiction is a mental and spiritual sickness; a compulsion from which the human mind cannot escape by itself. An addict finds him- or herself often acting out of the addiction when there isn’t even a desire to get high. It becomes simply a means to maintain the status quo. Feeling normal and cognizant and sane and just plain okay all become byproducts of our use and abuse.

The underlying sickness is something that never completely goes away, even long after the last bottle gets smashed or the last “gagger” line of coke is choked back. Selfishness and self-centeredness of a much greater-than-average level is present in the addicted mind, as are guilt, shame, embarrassment and remorse over the past.

You see, an addict feels and experiences things in a perpetually over-the-top extreme. That’s why most of us got started. We felt we had to escape this hyper-emotional state. We were afraid to feel things in their entirety because the feelings consumed us. That is one of the most difficult things to sort through once we put down the bottle or the eightball or the gallon of ice cream or we unsubscribe from the websites. Our minds and hearts are raw and we are kids again, learning how to deal with emotions good or bad without the escape that is our addiction. We have lost our crutch and are learning how to walk again.

This question of how to deal with the amplified feelings and emotions, urges and compulsions is one that is virtually without answer in worldly terms. Thus the centerpiece of the Twelve Step program: the belief in a higher power that can help rid us of our afflictions. We have proven time and time again that we are totally incapable of handling it ourselves. Without the hope that comes from the faith in some power greater than ourselves that can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, utter despair exists. Ultimately this can lead to relapse and, with respect to the progressive nature of this disease, an untimely and tragic death.

Discontinuing the using behavior is an absolute necessity. It is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however. Putting down the whiskey bottle somehow proves to be the easy part. Trying to live without driving yourself and everyone around you utterly insane proves to be the real task.

Well well, friends...

Blog 1 

After much internal debate, advice seeking and procrastination, I have decided to author a recovery blog. I have haggled with myself over whether or not this may serve any real and useful purpose. I believe it will. Offering “normal people” some insight into the insanity that is the mind of an addict and alcoholic (both active and in recovery) may just help someone, somewhere.

An introduction is in order. If you are reading this, the odds are strongly in favor of you already knowing my story, but it is important to be sure that I tell it as often as I can. It serves as a reminder to me of where I have been, where I am now and where I hope to be going.

I wasted little time in seeking out the very thing that would one day help push me beyond the borders of sanity. I took my first drink sometime in elementary or middle school at a friend’s house. I tasted my first beer on a trip with my father at the end of my sixth grade year. Within a few years I had also experienced my first drunk. While I honestly didn’t drink often throughout high school, it was mainly due to the lack of access. I partook basically every time I had the opportunity. I never really had any opportunity to use drugs, but followed the same pattern of immersion once the chance to smoke a bit of the fabled “weed” presented itself during my senior year of high school. Within weeks I was getting high on an almost-daily basis. Thanks to my use of marijuana I spent the summer after my senior year and my entire first year of college on criminal probation, stemming from a run–in with the law in May of 1999.

I began my post-secondary education at Austin Peay in the fall of 1999 and was initiated into my fraternity on December 4^th. As an undergraduate in my fraternity chapter I served as Vice President, pledge trainer, (2x) Recruitment Chairman, (2x) and held several other positions. In college I also served in Student Government, the Interfraternity Council and the Student Organization Council. I was also a functioning alcoholic of the most severe sort, and that later morphed into some pretty severe drug abuse and addiction as well. I reignited my love affair with Mary Jane, and I was especially fond of cocaine, although I’d certainly never turn down ecstasy, acid, ‘shrooms or any pills. I managed to finally catch a DUI charge just out of college and spend a few days in the county jail. This only temporarily inconvenienced my drinking and using.

The cycle of active addiction followed me out of college and into the professional world, culminating in the loss of a position as the Director of Financial Services for a local technical school after fellow staff members smelled alcohol on my breath at 9 in the morning. I had been drinking since about 7:30 am that day, although I blamed it on a hard previous night to the faculty and staff assembled to confront me that morning. After a few difficult and dark days I decided that I needed to do something to change the road I was taking; it was leading to certain early death and was wrought with absolute misery and self-loathing. I checked myself into an inpatient rehabilitation center called Buffalo Valley in Hohenwald, TN in Mid-December of 2009. God willing, I will be 3 years clean and sober this November 4th.

I have had many reservations about writing a blog. It seems to me that many bloggers out there are just a bit too stuck up their own hind parts to see the light of day and I don’t wish to become this sort of self-righteous panderer. This whole thing is fairly self-serving, as carrying the message of my suffering and day-to-day struggles will be as therapeutic for me as it may be insightful to you. At any rate, this is me putting myself out there for the world to see, critique, relate and bear witness to. I hope something I say someday impacts a life in a positive way. Thank you for accompanying me on my journey.