Sincerity and Common Sense...

So let's say you just got out of a ten day detox and are back at home with your 6 year old kid. Life isn't so good - you have a cocaine habit and a shitty attitude and you get pissed off easily but you love the kid and want it to work out with the good guy husband even though he is a bit mamby pamby and your favorite response to "how do you like your coffee?' is "black, same as I like my men." but he puts up with your massive amounts of bullshit so you really mean it this time - no more coke, no more self indulgent out bursts - just stay clean and live sober. 

A week later -  who the fuck knows what happened, maybe you took a double dose of your meds and got confused  but you wake up and who knows what time it is but you need some food and there is an all night joint on the corner and hubby and the kid are asleep so you head out and order up some eggs but it turns out that the double dose of meds or whatever confused you and it it is not 1:00 AM it is like 5:00 AM and the kid woke up and the husband who works the night shift is not home so you rush back to your building and there are the sirens and the cops have your kid who had woken up and wandered in the building until a neighbor called the cops and they haul you into jail and now it is serious freak out time because the Judge doesn't care what your court appointed lawyer is saying about why you were not home and Judge probably figures you are a lying junkie anyway so boom, court order of protection - you cannot see or talk to your kid for at least 30 days and Child Protective Services is called. So fuck it, you get released from jail, go home grab a few items, some tools and jewelery and you sell like $2,000 worth of stuff for $200 of crack and you get high and the next day, strung out, you call the rehab and say - can I come back I really fucked up again.

And you go back to rehab and your roommate is nothing like the one you had last time - the accountant wife of a lawyer who was over doing the red wine at dinner but who you got along with like a sister - this new roommate is some sort of psycho who the other patients tell you is crazy. And when you wake up half your clothes are in her closet and the $31 in cash you had in your pocket is gone and you tell that bitch that if she does not give you your money back you are going to kill her. Now you are in rounds and being told that threatening violence is an automatic discharge but since they found $31 in the bitch roommate's pocket you can stay but your grounds privileges are revoked and you say- "What the fuck, she stole from me and I get punished? I was set up  - this is bullshit - if you make me eat lunch on the unit I am outta here."

And so here's the sincerity and common sense part of the story. There is this guy who volunteers on the unit. Bit of a nerd,  likes his coffee light, extra sweet. A nice guy, sort of bland but weirdly sincere and long on common sense no matter how crazy. And the common sense nerd  says "jeepers, in the scheme of things, isn't it like not really that big a deal that you have to eat on the unit instead of going to the cafeteria? I mean even if it is totally unfair and unjust, it somehow seems like not such a hardship, especially compared to some of the hardships you have endured and by the way, if you leave before you complete treatment you can pretty much forget about getting the order of protection revoked anytime soon. This self righteous thing you have going on, that is your disease, it is genius, it knows you did not do anything wrong, it knows the psycho bitch stole from you and it knows all you did was defend yourself.  so it gives you this irrefutable argument, it says you are right, it says fuck them, but that is because it knows you think being right matters, defending yourself matters, not being taken advantage of matters" ... but then the nerdy guy adds,  "wait a minute, does it matter? restricted to the unit vs. getting custody of your kid back, vs getting treatment, getting your $31 back vs. leaving here early and going out and using and getting busted again?" 

And she smiles (great smile, a million bucks right there)  and she says, "You are right, you know what, all I need is a cup of hot coffee and then I will be fine, I will have lunch on the unit". And nerd says, "Great I will get you a cup of coffee, how do you take it?"  and she says, "large and black, like my men."  You bring her coffee, she says thanks. Nerd says, "See you tomorrow".

Nerd goes home. Wonders if she will beat up the roommate tonight and get kicked out and not be there tomorrow when he comes back.

This I Know For A Fact...

I recently met a young woman who is 31 years old, a mother of 8 year old twin boys one of whom died four months ago due to an accident. Since the accident the woman has been taking ever increasing, excessive amounts of anti anxiety meds and drinking alcohol heavily. Got to the point of a psychotic depression, voices telling her about friends that are evil and God assuring her she did nothing wrong.  Amazingly sad and, as is the case with a despairingly high percentage of addicts and mentally ill, not likely to end easily or well. Sometimes there is justice, sometimes there is mercy, sometimes there is neither.  As an aside, I want to add that she has a noticeably dignified countenance, a kind of sparkle and smile that would be described in anyone else as attractive but under her circumstances seems regal.

Here is an observation: There are lots of reasons people use drugs but all those reasons can be put into two categories -  to increase pleasure or to avoid pain. And pain and pleasure can be sub divided into three categories: physical, emotional and spiritual.

Substances can enhance pleasure and diminish pain and the vast majority of humans use chemicals (like alcohol) in moderation and are able to control their use and for them moderate ingestion helps them relax, take the edge off,  make them a little looser socially, feel more creative and connected, lessen pain etc.  - all with no negative consequences. But there are a percentage of humans who, for whatever reason, cannot control their use. (By the way, while pleasure is a common reason to use chemicals it seems to me that most addicts use chemicals primarily to lessen pain (whether because addicts'  pain is greater than most people can bear (as is the case of the woman I mentioned above who lost her son, or because addicts are more sensitive to or have some sort of diminished capacity to tolerate pain, I do not know). Those people become hooked and after a while use not to get high but just not to feel sick.  Their  lives are taken over by a compulsion that will, unless stopped, eventually kill them and before they die will make them and everyone who loves them suffer horribly.  They can be helped. (I know this for a fact). And if they get sober I believe they (and those who love them) often appreciate their sobriety and are grateful for the everyday in ways that are, not for nothing, described as miraculous (I know this for a fact as well).  

Steve's Last Lecture...

First one caveat, if I offend anyone, I apologize. I mean no offense but I have to say some truths and, cliche as it is, sometimes the truth does hurt. 

So here is the first truth, a lot of you, maybe all of you, have a lot of really good reasons to drink and drug and you also have a lot of really good excuses not to get sober. All really good reasons and good, compelling excuses, maybe even good explanations for why you use BUT, good as those reasons are none of them are valid. They are all just reasons to get high and to keep getting high.  So if you want one take away from this lecture remember two words - no excuses. Say it to yourself often and when you least believe it. No excuses. 

What you came to rehab to learn and what we spend days and sometimes weeks doing with you here and then you can spend months or years more when you leave is not about how to find the courage to beat your addiction. Courage you all already have, way beyond anything non-addicted civilians can ever understand – because you have the kind of  courage and fuck you-ness it takes to be an addict.  But as brave as each of you are, your disease will kill you and before you die it will make you suffer and along the way you will hurt everyone who ever loved you.

There is this thing that is standing in your way. And I am not alone in knowing this, every counselor, case worker, doctor, nurse and mental health worker here sees it –  right now your disease, even as you sit here, is standing behind you clamping two giant hands on your shoulders whispering to your neck “it does not matter what he says, you only listen to me”.

And that whisper is too often louder than what we tell you in rehab – that is why we do not tell you as simply, directly and as pared to the bone as what I am telling you now. Instead we  run about 7 groups a day and give you assignments and spend a lot of time trying to give you important tools to help you stay sober when you leave here.  Kind of trying to get around your disease because we don’t usually get through if we just go straight up the middle. Those tools are important, you need them and with repetition and practice those tools will work for some of you. But some of you will sit around and chain smoke cigarettes (or think about chain smoking cigarettes)  and drive yourselves crazy trying to figure out why you use drugs, or you will focus on your complaints, cravings, resentments and terrors and you will spend a lot of time here thinking about how you both want to get sober and at the same time don't and about how you love the very thing that is killing you.

If you are honest, you already know that you can no longer live a life with drugs and, at the same time, you cannot imagine a life without drugs.  

But none of that matters nearly as much as simply not putting chemicals into your body.

And please do not think I am giving you moral advice or that I am telling you what to do or that I even expect that you can do it because it is not easy to do. It is hard, it takes real effort and some days you will not be able to do it. That is part of the process. But there will come a day when, as cold or as disappointed as you may be, even hungry, or when you drop the grocery bag on the sidewalk, or the coffee spills on your sweater at 7:00 AM on your way to look for yet another job that you probably will not get or you want to hit someone, that -  if you do not pick up and put a chemical in your body -you will be gripped by a cherishing so deep for the fact that you are a grateful recovering addict that it will leave you speechless.

Of course this is not likely to happen from your having listened to me today. That is why you will keep attending more groups, and do all that is expected of you here. And that is what you should do. But I also want you to know that it is not impossible that when you are discharged you can walk out of here knowing that you have another option.

Staying clean requires daily attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, in myriad petty, little, boring, unsexy ways. It means going to a program of some kind, be it out patient or a l2-Step program. You have to work your program every day, get a home group, get a sponsor or a therapist  and tell him or her the truth, pray for help whether you believe in God or not, get phone numbers of sober people and call them, make sober friends and develop a sober network and lose the old friends.   That is how you will get sober and stay sober.

What you need to know is that your life is not only important, it is sacred. You are on fire with the same force that lights the stars. Not that I have any idea what actually lights the stars but it does not matter because there is only one true thing that matters here and now – and that is that if the day you leave here you do not use chemicals, the next day will look better. It will not be paradise, it will be hard, it will be scary but the fact is that if you do not use drugs or alcohol, tomorrow will look very different than today.

I know that this may just sound like some sort of total bullshit and you can think of it that way if you want. But as far as I can tell it is the truth. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death or whether God exists or not. This is about life BEFORE death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, it is about not  ending up in jail or in an institution.  It is about  the simple truth of what is so real and essential and so hidden in plain sight for you to see that you have to keep reminding yourself of it over and over one day at a time.

My name is Steve and I am a Rehab volunteer. Thank you for letting me share.

Addiction and Learning...

Our brains are wired to learn stuff - to speak a foreign language, play music, or do arithmetic. We can learn what makes us feel good about ourselves and how to prioritize. A big part of addiction is the learning of it. Drugs and alcohol teach the brain certain pathways to pain relief, euphoria, numbness, lessening feelings of grief, loss and guilt, anxiety control, mood stabilization and relief from depression and other psychiatric disorders. At first drugs work, until they don't work anymore, and it can be years and lots of damage before an alcoholic realizes that he/she needs a divorce from Mr./Ms. Smirnoff. (footnote 1)

So how do you get a divorce from the only thing you have ever really known, this thing your brain has learned to crave as strongly as it craves food, sex, air and sleep?  Craving is a mystery - the diet business thrives on low rates of weight loss success - not for lack of desire to lose weight. Wanting to get clean and staying clean are two different things but if an addict does not pick up his/her drink or drug he/she will not get high. So until the neurological brain chemistry mystery of craving is solved the practical question is not what stops craving but what stops relapse. (footnote 2)

 

There are a lot of approaches to relapse prevention - psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, hospital or clinic rehabs, outpatient treatment, etc. but the approach that has the most consistent and highest success rate is "working the program" of Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous, i.e., go to AA/NA meetings, get a home group, get phone numbers, use them, make a coffee commitment, get a sponsor, work the steps, lose the old friends, develop a sober network, avoid "people, places and things". Early recovery is a full time job. (AA does not work for everyone - I am just reporting what experience has shown to have the highest success rate - by a wide margin).

            

If you want to be a lawyer you need to learn what lawyers do. If you want to be a teacher you have to learn what teachers do. If you want to learn sobriety you need to learn what the sober do (and I do not mean just the sober in recovery, I mean what regular non-addicted civilians do - what the poet Marie Howe calls, "What the living do"). 

The 12 steps of AA are what the living do. Some people think the 12 steps can be divided into 3 categories; 1) accept that substances are making a mess of your life, 2) fix your mess, 3) going forward, do the right thing. Some think that is pretty much what non-addicted civilians do - if they make a mess they clean it up and they move on. It can be tough sledding. Life on life's terms is rarely euphoric and often boring, sad, hard and way too frequently brushed by tragedy.  But the living somehow know, deep down, (footnote 3) that while pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice.

Sobriety does not guaranty the absence of pain and suffering but it does provide a chance.

****************

Footnotes:

FN 1: That you come to want what sobriety gives you more than you want what Mr./Ms. Smirnoff gives you.

FN 2: You probably have to learn how to stop using before you can learn why you used in the first place. Rarely is the order reversed.

FN 3:  You need a deep reason to stay sober because white knuckling it only works for so long.  By "deep" I mean a reason of the heart (whatever that means).