4/20 (National Boredom Day)

Since yesterday was 4/20 which is National Marijuana Day, a (in my opinion) misguided and naive celebration of escape disguised as some sort of libertarian statement about choice, I thought I would use the occasion to suggest that 4/20 be renamed National Boredom Day. I am not going to get into a discussion of controlled use of pot, or alcohol or other drugs or whether pot is a gateway drug that can lead to addiction. But I am going to think about hard core addiction...

Addicts who relapse frequently sometimes seem superficially better than the last relapse but their motivation for trying to get clean again is often more for a break from the mess of their lives rather than to lose the habit. Rarely does a relapsing addict have a sober network and the answer is a common one: "same friends but they support me" which I take to mean "same old drinking and drugging crowd who I need a break from every once in a while and then when I feel like getting high again welcome me back with open arms". In contrast are those in recovery who have lost the old friends and connected with new sober friends. They may still have  a reservation to use in the future but they have the tools to avoid picking up again.

So this got me thinking. How about:  "Banish the Boredom - I love getting high so why am I trying to get clean and what in the world am I going to devote my life to instead?"  Addicts like getting high, addiction and the life is their entire world, their primary relationship is with their drink or drug - they love Mr. or Mrs. Smirnoff (or whatever their drug is) more than anyone. (Addicts, like any parent, love their kids and they (just like non-addict parents say and sincerely believe) that they would take a bullet for their kids but the active addict parent, sadly, is the bullet. But the parent in recovery gives their child the incredible gift of real pride). So to just take the drugs and the life style away without some other sense of purpose or meaning is not likely to work. On the other hand, each day clean brings gratitude and a sense of accomplishment and a discovery that (and this may be a spiritual idea) being ordinary is extraordinary. (Not sure about any of that but it seems right). 

I think, at least initially, recovery often begins by filling the newly created void with a commitment to sobriety, a new -  selfish -  full time job (maintaining sobriety)  - the hub of the bicycle wheel, the center of a sober network. (I use the word selfish intentionally because it is one of the skills addicts bring to the table. Getting high is about as selfish an activity as there is. Also about as self destructive. So channelling that selfishness towards putting sobriety first even if that means not doing what family, friends, job, etc. want or expect (rebelliousness is another common trait so not doing what is expected can also come in handy if channelled) seems like a positive redirection of inherent abilities. 

I am often struck by how bored addicts seem in between highs. Here they are fighting for their lives and yet they seem like they could care less, just get through the down time until they can get high again. I think that goes to a big issue - life is boring  - especially to selfish, stimulation craving, self centered humans who are in physical and/or emotional pain (i.e., most people - which is, in part, why I think drugs and drinking are so prevalent). Maybe Nancy Reagan was not entirely wrong when she said "Just Say No" but that seems like a result not a solution. Maybe it's more about "Banish the Boredom". 

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.

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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).