You aren't alone

Reaching out for help is a vital and conversely difficult necessity. You cannot recover from addiction alone; if you could, you would have before the insanity of the disease took a complete hold on your life and probably almost cost you everything (or perhaps did). In life, you have to humble yourself enough to know that you will never know everything about anything (especially yourself).

It goes against an addict’s very nature to seek the help of others. We are loners and naturally isolate ourselves, in addition to being egocentrics with self-esteem issues (paradox intended). It isn’t uncommon for an addict (whether active or recovering) to feel completely alone and isolated in a room full of people. We feel like outcasts and certainly play the role, at least in our own minds.

Pride is a huge issue many people battle, but to the addict who has yet to find humility pride is both his or her best friend and our constant undoing. It drives us onward at breakneck pace towards a cliff whose existence we vehemently deny. “That can’t happen to me; maybe everyone else, but not me. I’ve got it all under control. I can stop any time I choose.” For the addict, this is the prime example of false bravado mixed with hubris. Control is an illusion, and the sooner anyone can see past that façade the better.

Oftentimes people talk about an addict hitting “rock bottom” and the fact that everyone’s bottom is different. While this is true, I submit to you that for most of us our bottom directly correlates to the point where our ego is smashed and humility introduces itself. The bottom is when you have simply had enough and are willing to go no lower, to lose no more. Our pride typically has been dashed against the rocks, along with our hopes, dreams and aspirations (at least for the time being). Only when you have laid all of this ego down, lost every bit of it without finding it again are you able to accept the path you must take without any reservations.

Is pride holding you back? Do you need to reach out to someone for help, addiction or not? What are you waiting for? Lay down your pride and your chains together, because they are one in the same.

Three Things for My Three Years

For the uninitiated, one thing that you can be sure to hear if you are picking up a “year or multiples” chip in a twelve step program is “How did you do it?” In honor of my little sobriety baby’s third birthday, I want to set out for your scrutiny some things I have learned. Some things I have done have worked and some have definitely not. Some of the means by which I attempt to maintain sobriety and serenity on a daily basis contain nuggets of experience and hope that others in recovery may be able to mine out of the madness.

1. Taking things one day at a time is something that everyone probably thinks they do. Most don’t realize how often they do not do this simple mental exercise and how much serenity they are missing as a result. Move on from the past and don’t worry about a future that you can neither guarantee nor change today. Be concerned with the here and now, be present in the present moment and watch as the days become longer and more full, more satisfying to your soul.

2. One of the biggest obstacles I unknowingly faced was the idea that anyone or anything other than my own thoughts was a threat to my sobriety. My only true threat of relapse exists solely between my two ears. No person, place or thing of this world has the ability to control my thoughts or actions. I make my own choices and am solely accountable for them. I am ducking my natural responsibility for my own life when I begin to think that anyone or anything in my environment can truly threaten my sobriety.

3. The most ever-present, vital thing that has kept me sober is maintaining and enhancing my relationship with my Higher Power. Having faith in something, somewhere that can relieve a person of the madness and obsession is the cornerstone of the 12-step program. We addicts in recovery have to hold onto the faith that something out there has the power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Faith, hope and love, not necessarily the brand of man-made extra-doctrinal religion that has tried to cloud our world today. Simple faith and spirituality and an effort for nearly constant and conscious contact with my Higher Power has been the glue that has held my life together when collapse and destruction seemed imminent.

I hope that helps someone, somewhere. Many, many thanks go to my family (new and old) and my dear friends. My Sigma Chi and Masonic brothers and my brothers and sisters at the SSF Submission Academy have all played a tremendous role in my recovery. My family at Grace Community Church has been vital to my happiness, growth and fulfillment as well. My loving and amazingly supportive wife Erica means more to me than I could have ever realized before I knew her. She lights up my life with her energy, creativity and love. Here’s to another twenty-four hours. 

Expectations or Acceptance?

Expectations can be as dangerous to an addict (or any person, for that matter) as a cyanide pill swallowed with a bottle of Drano.

Unfortunately we as humans have a tendency to let people down and to fail to live up to expectations. It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of being human, no matter how much we strive to be otherwise. It is in our nature to be imperfect, and once an addict builds expectations and gets disappointed it can often be followed swiftly by relapse and the well-documented consequences thereof.

One way that a person can insulate themselves against this disappointment and potential resentment is to begin to change their expectations into hopes. If you merely hope that a person will do the right thing or hope that an outcome is favorable, then you aren’t setting yourself up for an eventual, inevitable disappointment.

The fact remains that you will be hurt and disappointed in this life. No one is immune to these negative emotions, but you can choose how you respond when events conspire to drag you down.  That much is the only thing that is in fact within your power to control.

You can choose to accept that “it is what it is,” that you have no power to change the past or others and simply decide to relinquish your illusory control of the situation. Accept that you can only control your own thoughts and emotions and stop being as sensitive and reactive as you have been, and watch as life goes from “in the red” to cruise control.

As an addict, you must come to accept that there are certain things you simply cannot do as other normal people can.  This is such a hard lesson for the prideful, egotistical addict, but one that is absolutely necessary. The sooner you make peace with this as a fact and accept it, the sooner you can move forward less embittered and more empowered. Accept that there are things in this life that you can do absolutely nothing to effect and focus on the things that you can control, i.e. your emotions and your responses.

Expectations can often lead to disappointments. Acceptance inevitably leads to serenity. Which would you rather experience today?

Self Will Run Riot

Addicts are prime examples of what can go wrong when the insanity of mental and spiritual sickness takes the reigns.  Case studies in impulse control issues, addicts often make horrendous decisions and later blame everyone and everything except themselves when their lives fall apart.

In rooms of recovery, a favorite saying is “My very best thinking is what got me here.” Before we become truly aware of our plight, our obsessive self-centered thinking causes us to destroy our lives and most of our relationships, so our own decision making process has quite literally left us with no choice but to set ourselves to the work of recovery or languish in misery until we die. The maturation in recovery is often indicated by the realization that addicts’ troubles are almost solely of their own doing, and that simplifying the decision-making process is a necessity.

You see, the mind of an addict is perverted by all-encompassing selfishness and self-centeredness. We are so egocentric that left up to our own devices the addict (both active and in recovery) can literally tie any and everything that happens in the world to him or herself.  It’s a twisted and paranoid form of the Six Degrees of Separation game, and the only spoils of victory are isolation and mistrust. 

We are masters of conspiracy theory and our tendency towards fixation makes us chronic over-analyzers. Surely everyone is out to harm us or “get” us, especially those teetotalers who keep trying to convince us that we have a drinking (or smoking or snorting or pill-popping or chronic masturbation) problem. Surely none of these bad things that have befallen us can be of our own doing. Surely our attempts to control everything can’t have resulted in our crumbling and insecure existence.

All these mental and spiritual issues make surrendering our will and the care of our lives to our conception of a Higher Power a necessity. We have to simplify our decision-making to “doing the next right thing.” You see, if we can compartmentalize our lives into segments of a day, things don’t seem so overwhelming and impossible. If all I focus on is doing the next right thing when the opportunity comes, it doesn’t leave me with much room for worry or the frightened anticipation of horrible events that probably won’t ever come to pass except inside my own twisted imagination.

Thoreau encourages us all to simplify our lives, and simplicity is exactly what the addict needs to make it through the day.  Keep it simple, and you just might make it through another 24 hours clean and sober and happy.

Dealing with life on life’s terms

One of the first, best indicators of a possible problem with any potentially addictive behavior is its’ use as a coping mechanism. The after work beer to mellow out after a tough day that turns into ten and a few shots before you know it, or the occasional weekend toke that creeps into your week as a requisite daily “wake and bake” or any other potentially harmful behavior upon which you feel a growing reliance as a method for dealing with life.

Normal people deal with life as it comes at them. Addicts are too busy running for shelter every time the breeze blows, and one of the more difficult parts of sobriety is learning how to deal with life’s difficulties as a capable, clear-headed adult. You see, no one makes a recovering addict the mistaken promise that things will suddenly get easier; in fact, they are often more difficult since we have abandoned our emotional crutch for a more honest way of living.

It isn’t as though our Higher Power sends everyone in our lives a memo that they are to take it easy on us or give us a break, although we inevitably feel cheated that this hasn’t somehow happened. No one should have to cut us much slack, because we have done nothing but give ourselves “a break” throughout the entirety of our active addiction. We cope with our shortcomings and wrongdoings by bellying up to the bar or partaking in any number of other harmful behaviors rather than facing them, owning them and setting them right.

We spend years refusing to accept responsibility for our mistakes outwardly, even as we inwardly rip ourselves to shreds with guilt, shame and remorse. You’ll never meet a person more capable of self-loathing than an addict, either active or recovering. In fact, the larger-than-life persona most of us project when we have the chance is simply a way to “throw you off the trail” of our shattered sense of self-worth. We have a harder than average time forgiving others because we struggle mightily to forgive ourselves. We are case studies in psychosis and neuroses.

All we can ask is a bit of kindness patience and understanding. You see, we are learning the life skills that you picked up years ago. No one said it was easy, although that would be exactly the thing to make an addict take up this way of life. We are drawn towards the “easier, softer way.” It may not be easy, but living a genuine, real and honest life is worth the struggle. It is worth feeling all the pain and anguish and confusion to simply be able to feel something again. In life, most often you simply have to take the good with the bad and know that it is all exactly as it should be. It is all working together for the good, one day at a time.

The disease of addiction

The average person is able to do certain things without feeling compelled to do them to excess. They don’t feel this burning, incessant desire within themselves to take part in a behavior that is destroying their bodies, minds, spirits, relationships and lives. That is a telltale indicator of the insanity of addiction; why on Earth would someone continue to do something that is harmful to him or her each and every time they do it, to one degree or another?

You see, this mental and spiritual affliction may manifest itself in a variety of ways, but it boils down to a central issue; the problem of an addict is the addict him or herself. We are our own problem and our own worst enemy. We loathe ourselves and routinely sabotage our own happiness and well-being. It is in our nature long after the last drink, toke, fix or toot has faded into the sunset, and even exhibits itself in people who have the addict tendency and are fortunate enough not to be caught up in fully acting on it.

Addiction is a heartless, cunning and baffling adversary. It is a spiritual sickness and not simply a demonstration of weakness or a lack of restraint. It’s a well documented fact that addicts, once clean and living their programs of recovery are some of the hardest-working and most valued members of the workforce; our tendency to fixate and our natural stubbornness are re-channeled into something productive and worthwhile.

If you have never felt the compulsion of addiction, you cannot understand the desperation inherent in that feeling of being drawn like a moth to a flame towards the very thing that is ruining your life, your relationships and ultimately killing you. You know it is wrong, but you can’t stop.  You don’t want to, and couldn’t even if you did. You cannot control the monster. You know your limits and how badly it will hurt you, but you don’t care. You are driven onward like a lemming rushing off a cliff into the ocean of emptiness, guilt and shame but you cannot turn away. Something inside you just will not allow it. Eventually you come to understand that something outside you is the only thing that can treat this infection of your soul. You cannot defeat this affliction on your own. The hope inherent in the Twelve Step philosophy is that your conception of your Higher Power can and will if you are willing to give over control and care of your life.

Buddhists teach that understanding is the root of love, and that you cannot have love without a real understanding of the place from where a person is coming. I hope somehow I am helping increase your understanding and in turn the love of your fellow humans.  If I help even one person “get it,” I am accomplishing what I set out to do.

The number one offender

Resentments

Everyone has people, places or events towards which they harbor resentment, even if they don’t choose to see it.  For a “regular” (read: non-addicted) person, these are very unhealthy and can cause stress, strife and discontent. For an addict, resentments often mean living the life of a “dry drunk,” or in some instances relapse, which can eventually lead to an untimely death directly preceded by a horribly miserable existence. 

Resentments are “the number one offender” for addicts, and truth be told for people in general. Often people are harboring resentment unbeknownst to them. How many people have you “forgiven” only to have a few cross words cause all the negative thoughts, feelings and emotions to boil over once more? Some hurts wound more deeply than others and are harder to let heal.  These resentments are the baggage filled with cinderblocks that hold you back whenever you would rather be moving forward. For addicts, they are a cancer that eats away at our spirit until we are consumed by our anger and hatred. Remember, no half-measures with this bunch. Life can become a rather love-hate existence without any gray “dislike” in the middle.

Some resentments are right in your face every single day. It is a burden that becomes too much at times, and defines the whole “Living life on life’s terms” ideology. When we were in our active addiction, it was exactly the kind of thing that landed us on the barstool every night, and eventually led us to the morning drink. In my case it also lead me to stashing bottles in my car at work, but that’s a whole different post for another time.

For me, the resentment was primarily of myself. I’d cheated myself out of the kind of future I thought I deserved because I decided it was okay to be a constant underachiever in school. I resented the car wreck I’d gotten in, my dad for passing away, and my successful friends. There was honestly a little bit of resentment for everything and everyone in my life. It was a stockpile of resentment that I cashed in every day and replenished every night. Nothing ever got better because I refused to see things for what they were and refused to stop feeling sorry for myself. That is a pretty common story among addicts. The perpetual victim who always blames everyone else for the things he has done to himself.

Are you harboring resentments, jealousies or grudges? Try and write them down, each and every one. Figure out your role in the situation and take responsibility for the wrong you have done and take a moment to forgive someone (there’s probably a bunch of forgiveness that needs to occur for almost everyone in your life). Want to be free? This is certainly one key to that lock. If you truly forgive someone, you are setting both that person and yourself free to fly.