To the family

The impact of addiction on the family and loved ones of the addict is unmistakably hard to quantify and impossible to deny. The addict is selfishness personified while whirling away recklessly in the throes of active addiction and as such he or she rarely if ever stops to consider the profound effect of our choices on friends and loved ones. Countless broken marriages, ruined relationships with children, shattered trusts and pains too deep to be easily forgiven litter the trail of recovery. The simple fact is that we are incapable of justly loving others while we are busy trying to kill ourselves.

Family members are right in the epicenter of “Hurricane Self,” a most apt description of the still-suffering addict. We make rash decisions based on little else outside of whimsical, fleeting impulse while damning the consequences. We don’t stop and consider the effects of our actions on any scale outside of immediate pleasure or pain.

We are enslaved by the need to place our own desires above anything and everything else and as a result we don’t really care what we do to others until the behaviors force us to pay consequences. We then miraculously sprout a conscience in the very same location burned bare by our scathing self-hatred and our guilt and shame know no limits.

The next phase is one of remorse accompanied by some form of expressing deep regret. We then fish for sympathy by telling anyone in earshot that we always screw things up and that we aren’t worth anything and probably never will be. We swiftly turn the focus from the wrongs we have committed to why you should feel as sorry for us as we do for ourselves. The rollercoaster won’t stop until we drive ourselves off on another binge that is destined to bring about this same dramatic sequence: stupidity, apology, and self-loathing. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I have no right to offer much advice to families of addicts, but I can say what I feel helped me start to turn the corner. Nothing short of unconditional love tempered by a refusal to validate my behavior was ever impactful in a positive way. You can love someone without co-signing on his or her self-destruction.

The tough sort of love, the firm-but-fair and unconditional type was all that ever made me feel okay about being me. That’s all that really works to this day. I still shut down in a very unhealthy way when confronted negatively or by nagging “suggestions.” In order to speak love into the life of an addict you must acknowledge our mistakes but make sure that we know beyond any doubt that you love us anyway. At some point we grant ourselves permission to believe you, and the healing has begun. Further down that same road we begin to internalize the source of our love and can then prove quite capable of loving ourselves and others as well. Admitting our wrongs and becoming willing to make amends for them must follow. Once we can begin to make those amends to our family members we have been put firmly on the path to living happily, feeling joyous and truly free. 

It's Been Awhile

Welcome back, long-lost readership. I have to confess that I took a break from posting because I’d really lost sight of the reasons and aims with which this particular blog began and I needed time to evaluate my ability to return to them. You see I had become dangerously egocentric in the author’s chair and was obsessively focusing on the views, comments, “likes” on Facebook and all the little metric tallies that don’t amount to much outside of an ego stroke in the grand scheme of things.

I began this blog to serve a twofold purpose: to educate “normals” and to help recovering and still-suffering addicts find benefit from whatever of experience, strength and hope that I have to offer.  At no point did I make it a goal to have a certain readership, and in all honesty the broad scope of influence I’d hoped to achieve was merely a function of increasing the levels upon which I fulfilled my purpose in writing. I never imagined I’d become so obsessive about how many people were reading my posts on a nearly minute-to-minute basis.

An addict must take great care to never place him or her self at the epicenter of much of anything, personal projects included. This blog can never be more about me than it is about the message I am trying to deliver. A few occurrences in my personal life helped serve to realign my perspective for the better and bring to light the limits of my personal ability to influence (read: control) other addicts or the disease at large.

The mental illness of addiction is one that cannot be treated by anything other than a willingness to change and the humility required to go to any lengths to stay sober. It’s been said (very accurately, I might add) that recovery from addiction is not for those who need it. Recovery is for those that want it. In the heat of the moment or the throes of desperation the addict will fall back to the comfort zone of personal manipulation and say or do anything temporarily to relieve the stress, strain and spotlight that accompanies a climactic event or confrontation of their illness.  This type of emotional manipulation is as natural as breathing and it takes great effort to avoid falling back into this behavior.

Without due care and attention to our recovery we all will fall back into another place of comfort known as the ego, the self and self-will. Without the mirror provided by some type of fellowship (i.e. AA, NA, or another recovery group filled with other people suffering from our illness) we often cannot see our behaviors for what they are and slip into a sort of emotional or mental relapse state, preceding only the physical response that is sure to follow if we don’t change the road we’re on.

Becoming again a more active participant in my own recovery, as well as the perspective that accompanies the fellowship of other addicts have served to enlighten my thinking in regard to the unhealthy internal focus I’d adopted with this blog. You see, I was delivering the message but I was not keeping my motives in check. One without the other is never good enough for very long. I have decided to divorce myself from the wrong motives, serve the right ones and persevere in my mission while regularly checking my ego at the proverbial door.

That’s all for now. I truly hope that I’ll be seeing you again soon, friends.