Busting Addiction and Its Myths

It's one thing to feel your feelings and quite another to have them rule you.

1. When I was drinking and using, I was ruled by my emotions. I had no filter, no guidance.
2. I bounced between fear and desire. I was afraid of many things: fear of looking bad of being rejected, of not being cool, of losing my job (I was fired three times before I woke up), afraid of permanent insanity, of being broke (I was broke a lot). Name a fear, and I had it.
3. Fear manifests itself in several different ways: anxieties from mild to severe, but always anxious, nightmares, obsessions, depression, anger (provoke by fear). Fear of losing something that I valued or fear of not getting what I want.
4. FEAR is an acronym for F... Everything And Run, or: False Evidence Appearing Real.
5. Then there’s the flip side: being ruled by desire, by a craving and wanting and longing for escape from reality, for getting and staying high or drunk or both, for sex, for recognition (the ego stroke), for looking cool, for having the nicest car, or clothes, or the best-looking girlfriend. All superficial stuff.
6. It wasn’t until I started living by a set of principles as taught by AA that I finally came to a serene place, no longer ruled by fear or desire. No longer ruled purely by emotion. I let the principles of honesty and kindness, and courage rule my life.
7. FEAR now stood for its antidote: Face Everything And Recover.

One of the things we talk about in our recovery is the idea of “one day at a time”.  This is a greater challenge for many in early recovery than it appears. While in treatment, we were kept very busy, and we were super-focused on what we needed to do that day.

1. Once treatment is over, or for those who just came in the from the cold without treatment, you need to be conscious of the importance of the “daily reprieve” because that is all you ever get.
2. I once told a guy I was sponsoring that he could stay sober forever if he stayed sober today. He says: “Why is that boss?” I said that he could stay sober forever because it’s always today. It is not yesterday or tomorrow. It’s today. The eternal Now. The reprieve is just for today, not for tomorrow.
3. Therefore, it becomes important that those just starting out by creating a daily schedule – I call it a personalized set of rituals – that keeps you on track every day.
4. An example that works for many, me included, is to start the day with the 3d and 7th step prayer, followed by a reading of the Daily Reflection. I like to read the “On awakening” section on page 86-88 of the Big Book to get my head further into the game.
5. Attending a 12-step meeting (in my case, it’s AA) several times a week is critical. That’s where Fellowship comes in. That’s where you can share freely, make true friends and learn how others work the program. It cures loneliness and isolation, one of the main enemies of recovery.
6. Then there is reading something from the literature every day. If you're new to AA, start at the beginning and read the first 164 pages of the Big Book. Then read them over again a few times. Take a look at the inside the front cover of the Big Book. There is a list of great literature which you can order from www.aa.org
7. It’s important that you stay in touch with your sponsor who will help guide you through the days and weeks. Work with him or her to create your daily and weekly plan. Your sponsor will help you build a solid foundation for life, one day at a time.

I asked a wise man in my program his definition of his life's purpose, and he said: “My goal is to stay sober every day of my life, taking one day at a time, and that’s how I’ll make my sobriety permanent.”  There’s magic in living one day, one moment at a time.

1. Your anxiety evaporates when you understand that the future does not really exist, that it’s just an idea in your mind, and you do not have to live there. "Fear is the price you pay to trespass into the future” is an old AA saying.
2. Your emotions get all riled up when you start to see the future as a real thing. Mark Twain, American writer and philosopher famously said: “I have experienced many terrible things, most of which have never happened. “
3. The past is another place you don’t want to live in, or dwell on. My counsellor in early recovery told me: “It’s OK to play the videotape, just don’t stare at it. It isn’t going to change, anyway”.
4. Until you reconcile with the truth of what you did to yourself and others as you work the 12 Steps, the past will likely haunt you with resentments, regrets, shame and hurt.  That’s why a) it’s best to stay in today, in the moment and b) get into your recovery and be fearless and thorough from the very start.

One of the most difficult things to do is to resist peer pressure to drink or use. Here are some thoughts on how to neutralise that threat.

1. Chances are that the people you thought were your true friends were maybe not. They hung around with you or you with them when the real attraction was the opportunity to drink and abuse drugs, and often both.
2. So, the first order of business is to jettison those people who are a danger to your sobriety. Like saying “go away” to your dealer.  It’s a problem if you owe him any money. But don't let that scare you into making a deal with him that has you dipping back into the pot for more pot.
3. Same goes for your bartender. You owe him or her no explanation for not going back to that bar. If it’s connected to the restaurant, just don’t eat there anymore. Easy.
4. Your so-called friends who are still using and drinking might pressure you to join them in the “fun”. It always takes a while to separate the wheat from the chafe, anyway. Your true friends will support your recovery, not try to subvert it.
5. An easy out, if asked why you’re not drinking in a social situation such as a wedding, is to just say: “Oh, I’m not drinking today”. And chances are they’ll leave you alone and not try to push anything on you.
6. You are best, however, to stay out of situations that may serve as triggers for you, at least in the early going. There’s an old saying in AA:” Hang around the barber shop long enough and sooner or later, you’ll get a haircut.”

In this podcast, we discuss what to do just in case you slip and have yourself a relapse.

1. It is a well-known fact that relapse is characteristic of the disease of addiction and alcoholism. A lucky few make it long term on the first try, and I hope you are one of them.
2. The vast majority usually need to get to the next lower rung on the ladder to Hell before they wake up and ask for help. But don’t let the fact that you can come back be used as an excuse that “I can always come back in from the cold.” Because the disease is so powerful, you might not make it back.
3. Addicts and alcoholics don’t wake up because they see the light. They wake up because they feel the heat.  They have to arrive at their own conclusion that they are now desperate enough to reach out for help.
4. Those who have a sponsor will hear the sponsor say: “Don’t call me after you’ve been drinking and now, you’re crying to me. Call whenever you feel like drinking or using.”
5. So that is my point: call your sponsor whenever a craving hits you, and if you don’t have a sponsor, get one now. And of you slip up, call your sponsor or any of the other numbers you should have collected by now if you can't reach your sponsor.
6. In other words, get back in the saddle as soon as possible. The less time between your slip and your re-entry, the better the chances of making it, period.

Let’s talk about emotions – how to identify what they are and the importance to your recovery of honestly sharing how you feel.

1. I was taught in treatment that there six primary emotions, and of course, countless nuances of these emotions. Think of them as the primary colours of your emotional rainbow.  In truth, you could feel all of them at the same time, but in varying degrees of intensity. When you feel something, but can’t identify it, ask yourself: Am I glad, mad, sad, afraid, ashamed or hurt? Each of these feelings lend themselves to variants. For example: there are many shades of mad – angry, resentful, rageful, annoyed, irritated, pissed off, dissatisfied and so on.
2. Why is it important that you identify your feelings? Well, you’ve been stuffing them for so long, you don’t know how to truly feel something without getting freaked out. Whenever you had an unpleasant feeling, you used alcohol and/or drugs to snuff it out. Addicts run from their feelings. They especially run from shame, which some call a master emotion because it can define an addict’s persona.
3. There’s an old saying that goes like this: “The good news is you get your feelings back. The bad news is you get your feelings back.” Before recovery, your feelings were like a coiled spring, shoved down by substance abuse. Stop the drinking and drugs, and what happens? You relieve the pressure, but the spring now whipsaws up and down until it finds its equilibrium. That’s why some call early recovery an emotional rollercoaster.
4. Why is it critical that you are honest about what you feel and that you share your feelings with people you trust? Respectful people will honour your feelings as essential to who you are as a human being. All you have to do is identify what it is your feeling and share your feelings openly. You’ve bottled them up for way too long. You can expect to experience emotions that may be contrary, such as mad and glad.  Anger, for example, rarely travels alone. It is often triggered by hurt. Anger is the default emotion for males in our society. It was for me. Until I got in touch with my sadness over losing my daughter in a divorce, I would just get angry. Until I got in touch with the hurt, I would just get pissed off.

Let’s talk about some of the ways your thinking will change as you get exposed to ideas that may be foreign to you but start to make a lot more sense when you experience the miracle of recovery.

1. You thought you could do this alone and discover that your own puny willpower is of no use whatsoever in fighting this disease. In fact, alcoholics and addicts are some of the most wilful people who have ever walked the earth, but then they discover that addiction will simply not yield to willpower. No matter how hard or how many times they have tried.
2. Addiction will yield, however to a power greater than yourself – any power that’s not just you.  You can call your group a higher power, or you can go with the Spirit of the Universe, or with any number of conceptions such as a Christian God, Buddha’s teachings or what is found in the Holy Koran.   It says in the Big Book of AA :”The purpose of this book is to help you find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem”. You get to define your own higher power. How brilliant is that?
3. It never occurred to me that I would find liberation in discipline. That feels like a contradiction in terms, but it really isn’t. Allow me to explain. When I was drinking and using, I followed every desire and whim chasing a high, chasing sex, or excitement or whatever my ego demanded I must have now. I was equally the victim of my own fears – fear of looking bad in your eyes, fear of financial disaster, afraid of losing my job or my lover. I had no rudder to guide my thinking or actions.
4. It wasn’t until I began to live by a set of principles as taught by AA that I was freed from my compulsions to drink, abuse drugs, or chase pleasures wantonly. I finally had some rules to live by: honesty, kindness, and altruism as opposed to selfishness all the way, all the time.
5. I also learned that there was victory in surrender, another apparent contradiction. It wasn’t until I admitted I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable that I regained the power of choice – the choice not to drink, one day at a time. I went on to embrace the idea that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And it all started with surrender – the admission of powerlessness paved the way for real power, real victory over King Alcohol.

As I alluded to earlier, every person in early recovery needs a toolbox to which he or she can turn and use a tool that could save their sobriety and perhaps even their very lives.

In addition to the basics, I’ve already mentioned which are: attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous (the two major groups for recovering people), get a sponsor who will guide you through the 12 steps, and work the Steps diligently. It doesn't hurt to find a Power greater than yourself to help you on the path of becoming a spiritual person.

Some tools of practical use also include the following:

1. Start eating in a healthier way. It’s 100% true that active alcoholics and addicts have horrible eating habits before they get clean. Getting the right nourishment into your depleted system will go a long way to help your body and your brain recover from the damage that you’ve likely caused due to negligence.
2. Start getting into a “normal” sleep routine. The all-nighters are a thing of the past now, so try to get into a sleep pattern that has you going to bed in the evening and awakening in the morning. Unless your shift work demands otherwise, of course.  Sounds a bit weird to have to say: “go to bed at night and wake up in the morning”, but if you think about it, nothing about life as an addict was normal, sleep being no exception.
3. Take advantage of your body’s ability to reward you with a natural high in the form of endorphins that’ll kick in once you start exercising. Your body is an amazing healing machine when you treat it right. Your body craves movement and exertion. When you start getting fit, your brain will recover more quickly, your senses will come alive, more oxygen will flow through your system, your stress level (and probably your blood pressure) will go down, anxiety levels will ease, and you’ll feel better about you.
4. Use the 24-hour plan. You can decide to not take a drink for the next 24 hours, and you can start any time if you feel a craving coming on. Now, some people in early recovery have already found a Higher Power so that they can ask the Power to lift that craving one moment at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time. Some gents whom I have sponsored would divide their days into morning, afternoon and evening. This type of strategy avoids the “going on the wagon” or a similar pledge that makes the prospect of staying clean and sober an impossibly high mountain to climb.
5. Again, use the phone. Get as many phone numbers as you can so that when the craving hits or your emotions take a dark turn, you have someone you can talk to unload your fears, talk you off the ledge or better yet, share a joy or a funny story. Anything to get your mind off the next “first” drink or hit.  That’s what a sponsor is for, but just as important, you have become part of a Fellowship that will nurture you and keep you connected. Isolation leads to “stinking thinking” which can lead you back to drinking and using. Fellowship is the antidote to isolation.

1. The right way to talk about addiction and/or alcoholism is in the context of: what it was like (how awful was it, really?), what happened (you got so desperate that you finally asked for help) and what it’s like now (you're in recovery and getting better, saner, healthier physically, mentally and for the first time, have gotten in touch with a power greater than your little self).
2. An unhelpful way to talk about addiction and/or alcoholism is to express how badly you might be craving a drink or a hit right now, how it would OK to “just have one”, how a relapse is not the end of the world, how you could always come back (the reality is that some never make it back), and to recall the “fun” times you had (that’s known as “euphoric recall)” omitting the consequences – burning money, getting arrested, sabotaging your relationships and your job, as examples of denial at work.
3. A helpful view is this: “I didn’t ask for this, but now that I have it, I am responsible for taking care of myself in the right way.” I’ll do the next right thing, one day at a time and I won’t listen to the voice that lies to me and says it’s OK to take a drink or abuse a substance.” That’s positive self-talk the recovering way.

It is well said and true that resentments are the #1 killer of addicts and alcoholics. If we lead a life of deceit, manipulation and the direct pursuit of pleasure to the exclusion of everything else, we will find ourselves resenting those who get in the way of our pursuits. None of these resentments are justified, yet we carry them around like a bag of rocks, weighing our spirit down. It is not until we work the 4th and 5th steps that we disclose our resentments and why they feel justified when they are, not. Most of the time, the people we resent are innocent of any crime. And even if in the rare event that they may have hurt us, there comes a time for us to forgive them, so that we can let go of the hurt.

In early recovery, it’s crucial not to take everything personally as we did when we were using and drinking. People will always be their imperfect selves, unto themselves, and that is perfectly ok. It’s not just about “me” anymore. We start to care about others, for we are no longer as self-centred as we were before we got clean and sober.