We can’t outrun addiction. We can’t leave it behind like a bad meal, a poor movie, a lousy book, or a crowded restaurant. Addiction lives within our minds, bodies, and spirits. While that may be daunting, to you, Dear Reader, to read, in any fight, it’s critical you size up your opponent. It will compel your most concerted efforts if you recognize that a wholesale change of character is likely necessary to get you past the acute pang of withdrawal from addiction.
You can be detoxed, sure. That may arrest the danger of the abatement of your physical dependency, but what comes next? While you probably need to avoid some of the places you indulged your addiction and find companions with whom you have not used, finding new playgrounds and playmates will not likely cause the spiritual change you need to maintain your sobriety. Why not? Because the underlying causes and conditions of your addiction have yet to be addressed.
Your addiction to alcohol and/or drugs likely existed before you became dangerously physically dependent on them. At some point, your drug of choice was likely helping you in some way, at least in your diseased mind. Perhaps it helped you be more social. Perhaps it eased your anxiety. Perhaps it made you feel less self-conscious about your appearance. Perhaps it allowed you to escape from troublesome thoughts about your family, career, health, etc.
What we as addicts know is that the use of drugs and/or alcohol as a coping mechanism to address these perceived problems does not solve them. It only adds a veneer of additional difficulty in addressing them. For now, not only do you have family problems, you have an addiction that will not help you mend fences with your family. Now, not only is your job in jeopardy, you are unable to function without drugs and alcohol. The use of alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism is terribly short-sighted and ineffective. But, it can be easy. It can be accessible. It has been normalized.
Take alcohol, for instance. What do you see in the advertisements for beer, wine and liquor? You see healthy people. Sophisticated, sometimes. Debonair. They don’t have dependency. They’re drinking a cold one on a beach or as a reward for exercise. Wine is applauded for its mythical health benefits. Hard liquor is advertised to demonstrate relaxation and discerning taste. It’s all farcical. For us alcoholics, drinks do none of these things for us. We think we’re funnier, but we behave like fools. We think we are macho and we end up in fights. We think our faculties are either unaffected or enhanced by our intoxication and we drive drunk and hurt people or we commit acts of violence against our families.
What if these products were advertised in a way that showed us what we would end up like toward the end? If beer and whiskey ads had showed me a glimpse of my future self, I’d have less likely ever begun touching the stuff. Can you imagine, an ad that showed me passed out on the floor? An ad that showed the concern my wife was developing that I was lost forever. An ad that showed me voluntarily making orphans of my children?
Alcohol introduced so much dysfunction in my life that I lost the ability to even perceive it. Injured and on the way to the hospital? Yes. Acutely withdrawing and at the emergency room to get Ativan? Happened. Drunk driving and colliding with another vehicle? Regretfully, yes. Jailed? Yes. I had a criminal record and emergency room records that documented exactly what I was, but it was the world mis-perceiving me, right? Judge me by my intentions, not my actions, that’s what I wanted. The objective truth was that I was sick and that no amount of moving around, going on vacation, changing jobs, or any of that was going to do a lick of spit to heal me. I needed a total overhaul of my thinking, my motivation, my values, and my integrity. I needed honesty, accountability, and contrition. Sobriety gave me the ability to identify where I was falling short, apart from just my drinking. It was a wiping of the lens that I used to view myself. In sobriety, I saw myself clearly for the first time in a long time and I sure didn’t like much about what I saw. That’s when the real work of sobriety began for me. It was difficult at first, but it was rewarding along the way. There were milestones and times where I really felt myself getting better. I saw things I was doing that were different than I’d have behaved or reacted while I was active in my addiction. I allowed myself to be proud of my progress.
True recovery is not fast. It is not simple. It is not easy. What that is worthwhile is? Dear Reader, do the work of recovery and you will be astonished at the changes in yourself that you will see. I hope you do.
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