Addictionland - Addiction Recovery Blog

As a mother your main goal in life is to protect, love and cherish your child. Naturally, we want to give our children more than what we had. Every parent does what they believe is best for their child but sometimes life doesn't turn out the way you want it. Parents could spend forever planning out their child’s life to ensure it is filled with opportunity. Unfortunately it seems that sometimes all of your thoughts and ideas you had for your child disappear. That happened to my family when Steven turned 12. At first he would come home late and I could hear him vomit in the bathroom. He came home one evening when I had a tupperware party and vomited in front of everyone. Of course I made up excuses often blaming it on the flu! At the time I had the “not my child” mentality, what a fool I was! From then on my house was a disaster area.

How has Steven's drug habit affected our family? At first, I said he’ll outgrow it but that never happened. It just seemed to get worse as the years went by. We were a normal family. I worked part-time as a waitress and my husband worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. I was the type of mother that baked cookies and homemade pizza. I guess I wanted to be like those families that we saw on television. I tried to raise my family the exact opposite of how I was raised. When Steven began his drug habit at such a young age my world as I knew it began to collapse. My second husband Mel, adopted my two older boys Ken and Steven. I had Jamie my youngest son with Mel. He tried to be a good father to all of the boys but when it came to Steven neither of us were experienced in dealing with a drug addict. We both made a lot of mistakes. Mel and Steven would fight all the time. As I think back now I get anxiety attacks! Here was a beautiful 12-year-old boy with big blue eyes and blond hair, why did this happen to us!

They say addiction runs in families. I know my father was an alcoholic, he never went a day without a drink. Steven told me one day that he took after his Grandpa. I don't know anymore, all I know is that once Steven's drug use began our life was never the same. How has Stevens drug habit affected my family? The answer is it destroyed our family! There is no easy way out of an addiction, not for the addict or the for the family. The struggle a family goes through to help a loved one who is an addict is never ending. As parents we must educate ourselves in order to teach our children about the dangers of drug use before they begin to experiment for themselves.

ADDICTIONLAND QUESTION:  If you could say something to your younger self with the wisdom you have today, what would it be?

Time passes no matter what you do with it. Whatever thing you want to do that will take two years or ten years to accomplish, don’t give up the dream because you feel like there is no time to spare or you will miss out on living life.. Committing to goals that require years shouldn’t be looked upon as “giving up years” or sacrificing time. There is time. Three years, five years, or ten years in the scope of the big picture of a lifetime is not much time at all. 

Heartbreak, pain, suffering and existential despair - however poetic to a young heart - are not more real, intellectually satisfying, or valuable than joy, laughter, love, and happiness. 

Changing your mind, your position on things, even your philosophy of life is not a betrayal. It is personal evolution.  Change does not invalidate what came before it.

There is no audience. We are all stars of our own movie.  You matter deeply only to the people close to your heart. Treat them well. Value them. Let them know how you feel about them. No one knows how long any of us will be here.

ADDICTIONLAND QUESTION: Describe your solution to the problem of addiction (of any kind).

ANSWER: It’s not news that addiction is a disease that affects the body, mind, and spirit but what I’ve noticed is that the public dialogue about addiction is that it rarely addresses the main component addicts have to deal with – which is the voice of addiction. Like a science fiction movie, most addicts live with an internal dialogue. And it doesn’t vary much from addict to addict. When an addict is using drugs, it voices the obsessive thought process. The problem solving discourse centers solely on getting and using drugs: where to get them, when to get them, how to get them, how much money is needed, where the money will come from. It rehearses whatever stories are needed to cover up all the tracks from anyone who could get in the way of making it happen or for whom the truth isn’t possible. It is the voice that assures the addict that everything’s under control. It affirms that they can stop at any time. When someone has a genuine desire to get clean this voice becomes unrelenting. It creates so much distraction and anxiety it’s debilitating. It will reason that rather than quitting, a taper down is a better approach or that eliminating only the problem drug is the best solution. Essentially, all thoughts are aimed at justifying reasons for not stopping or not stopping quite yet. When someone gets clean, the voice continues to try all the old tricks that ever worked to wear the addict down until they give in to the obsession and relapse. It is only by accumulating weeks and months drug and alcohol free that the voice starts to weaken - but it never fully disappears. The benefit of having an ongoing program of recovery is to become comfortable in our own skin. The voice no longer controls our actions.

To an outsider, this description of the inner life of an addict probably comes across like a horror possession film or a case of multiple personality yet addicts understand without question. They understand what is meant by “It’s the voice in your head that says, “What voice”. It’s the voice that says, “This is bullshit. There’s no voice in your head. You aren’t an addict.”

When I work with clients, I help them recognize their own patterns of thinking and how the voice of the disease talks to them so they are able to not let it gain the power to lead them away from recovery choices and toward relapse. It can be as subtle as thinking, “No one understands how tired I am. I have nothing against going to meetings but what is healthier for me tonight is to stay home. I’ll go tomorrow instead.” For someone who has been in recovery for a while, this is a sound proposition but for someone who has just returned home from rehab, this is exactly how relapse begins in almost all cases.

It’s important to be able to recognize the voice of the disease and the various ways it sneaks into your thinking so that you can take positive actions to weaken it. Staying connected to a support group who is also in recovery is key because they will point out that what we are saying, doing, or when our plans will cause harm or are a set-up to using again. One example is a friend with a history of relapse who finally got clean after a ten year run. As he was coming upon his year anniversary, he made plans to go to a small town in Turkey to have what was estimated at 6 months worth of dental surgeries in a three-week period. The logic behind this decision was that it was much cheaper. Mind you, this friend had money to go to any dentist in New York City. To an outsider in recovery, this proposition was insane. Thousands of miles from a support group with access to painkillers is a recipe for disaster. Everyone could see this except him. From his point of view, this trip was completely logical. In the end, because of his track record with relapse and his willingness to trust the opinions of others, he canceled the trip. He has managed to complete most of the work in increments this past year and has taken nothing stronger than Motrin.

How to have inner peace – peace from that voice that always wants to lead you in directions that cause drama, self harm, create turmoil in relationships, that says you don’t need to sleep, that is always looking for ways to bring up feelings of self loathing? I believe clean time weakens it along with 12-step meetings and a program of recovery. It’s also important to eat healthy food, exercise, have playful leisure time, to laugh, get fresh air, meditation, to get quality sleep, and to seek professional help if there is past trauma.  A balanced life is the best defense against relapse.

Question: Briefly tell us your personal experience with addiction and how it negatively impacted your life and the life of those around you.
 
Answer: When drugs were fun, they were really fun. I know this is not a very PC thing for someone who works in recovery to say but it would be dishonest to say otherwise. I know now that my childhood experiences and my genetic predisposition had everything to do with my becoming an addict but my subjective experience was that my life had been the typical 1972 suburban adolescent experience then drugs came along and made it Technicolor. For years I had a great time getting high. I met a lot of interesting people, had adventures, and experienced excitement I would have never had otherwise and I believe my life is richer because of it.
 
There were consequences from the start but the thrill of getting high was worth any price. For example, the very first time I bought a nickel of hash, my parents found out about it. I denied it venomously. I didn’t to worry or hurt them. Besides, I knew beyond a doubt that I was not going to stop. From that point forward, my main concern was to be crafty enough to never get caught again. I succeeded with this mission until I showed up at their door sixteen years later asking for help. Compared to getting loaded school, which had never been a challenge for me, lost my interest completely. At fifteen, I sat before the entire Board of Education for Toronto and convinced them to permit  an honor student to quit high school. To this day I cannot believe that I sold them on this crazy idea but when I had my sights on something I was unstoppable. I did manage to get accepted into the University of Toronto five years later without a high school diploma. 
 
In middle-school, teachers would take me aside to warn me about the bad company I was keeping and tip me off when they would be busting the cigarette smokers. At twenty, when I was pulled over, the cop took me aside to warn me about the criminal past of the boyfriend in the passenger seat. Meanwhile a syringe and an ounce of coke were hidden in my motorcycle jacket pocket. I came across like a normal, rational, healthy person. In the 80s, mainstream society was too caught up in cocaine, the non-addictive drug of the beautiful people, to suspect someone like me. I was like Marilyn Munster. I was the heroin addict next door.
 
My drug use became complicated as soon as I tried to control it. This became the endless cycle of disappointing myself.  I was smart but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get my using back under control. I hid this fact from everyone but the long-term damage of addiction started there.  Every time I told myself “This is the last one” I let myself down. After years of this negative dialogue, the internal damage went far beyond the external ravages of addiction. While I suffered from homesickness by being in a different country from my family, the real suffering was in my own heart for the damage I was doing. I hated myself for failing to control my using.
 
It never occurred to me to give up drugs. I simply wanted it to go back to the way it had once been – when it was fun and in Technicolor.  Once addiction had full possession of me, I chose it over all my relationships. For years my parents would believe my stories for all my fuckups - why I had forgotten my flight after they had driven hours in traffic to pick me up in Buffalo. Meanwhile, my brother had a shadow figure for a sister who continued living far away throughout his childhood. I didn’t understand when my husband said he felt alone in our marriage. I couldn’t see how my actions hurt others and I refused to believe it would be any different if I were not on drugs.
 
When my marriage ended, I gave up trying to keep it together. I drove to California in hope of a miracle to put my life back together. It came in the form of complete destitution. I began stripping and living in cars and abandoned buildings, completely disconnected from everyone who loved me. On one trip to county hospital, where they feared they would have to amputate my arm, I realized after a year in LA I had no one to call. I was completely alone. I spent my 28th birthday in a jail in Hawthorne only to be released to find out the club I danced at had fired me and the girls who were going to let me move in changed their mind. Crying in the parking lot of a strip club with a garbage bag full of costumes my only option left was to go to a world convention for a twelve-step fellowship. Three months and a lot of suffering later, I finally gave up trying to control my using and went to rehab.

I’m Tom, a grateful recovering addict.   I have identified myself in this way in meetings and conventions for over 40 years. My intention is to put a new interpretation on the insidious disease of addiction. We all know the nightmares that accompany addiction. I invite you to move beyond the traditional ways addiction is looked upon, revealing the seemingly hopeless disease of addiction as an enlightening dilemma. I hope to introduce you to the revolutionary belief that for some individuals a life fraught with sickening addiction can quite possibly become a misunderstood gift and a blessing in disguise.

Currently there are countless studies and books written on the field of addiction and the vast and growing research on what is now termed “addictionology”. Though it is a fascinating area of contemporary and compassion-based health care, it is also encompassed within the realm of clinical rehabilitation centers, some of which are rife with discouraging statistics and sterile data. I speak from my heart and own experience.  I was once a hopeless addict whose life has been interrupted by a Higher Power.  My life was transformed by surrendering to the principles of The Twelve Steps, which has led to a life that is devoted to the practice of meditation and service to others.

Addiction touches everyone. When an individual, his or her family member, or a close friend struggles with the malady, it eventually affects the lives of every member of society. In every country around the world, people have found a way out of their addiction. On a daily basis there are millions of people attending twelve-step meetings in almost every country on this planet. Be assured you are not alone.

The idea that the disease of addiction can only be treated by a spiritual transformation has been the motivating idea from the beginning. In the early 1930s, a hopeless alcoholic sought help from Carl Jung, a well known psychiatrist. The patient had resigned himself to the tormented reality that he suffered from the chronic inability to stop drinking. In those days, such people often ended up in jail or a mental institution and many lost everything that had ever been dear to them, including family, friends and careers, and ultimately life itself. Addiction was viewed as a lapse in morality and had not yet been recognized as a medical disease.
This man came to Dr. Jung and asked for help. The psychiatrist frankly told him that although he was unable to help him, he had—on a few rare occasions—seen someone in the grips of alcoholism go through a profound personality change brought on by an intense spiritual experience. This visit to Dr. Jung set the foundation for other drunks to stay sober by helping each other and in turn practicing the spiritually-driven Twelve Steps of recovery. The steps were designed to achieve the ongoing spiritual experiences that brought on the deep personality changes in our lives. One could argue that the steps were “given” to addicts by a higher spiritual realm, and Jung was as much a conduit as a cornerstone for the recovery movement. In his later years, Jung would be asked if he believed in God. Without hesitation Jung answered, “I know there is a God.” Yet the experience of working and living the steps can be as varied as those seeking recovery, and belief in a theistic god or God Itself is not a requirement. Spiritual principles work for the agnostic as well as atheist. The process simply asks us to believe in something, some Higher Power that we will be willing to let guide us on this journey of healing.

I would not dismiss anyone’s pain caused by the disease of addiction.  If you are a family member or a close friend, let the experience be a calling card for your own spiritual practice. The programs of Alanon and Naranon can be your refuge, a sanctuary where you find understanding.  You may suddenly realize you’re not alone in this pain. This can be the beginning of a great adventure within, bringing into your awareness that addiction is just one of many countless challenges we are called upon to face in life.
Kahil Gibran put it so eloquently in his book, “The Prophet”.  “Your Children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
Gibran was speaking the language of Alanon and Naranon long before their inception.  We must learn to detach and to love unconditionally. Once we start practicing spiritual principles we learn we can’t manipulate life to fit the conditions we believe will ensure our happiness. Instead we tend to each moment without judgment or criticism; acceptance of what is becomes our offering.

The Twelve Step programs have been proclaimed as one of the most powerful spiritual movements of the Twentieth Century.  These programs provide support and guidance to offer hope where all hope was lost.  May loving kindness fill your hearts.

When I first got clean and sober, I needed practical tips for refraining from the use of drugs and alcohol to get through emotional times.  I found that all of my emotions, including depression, anger and excitement, had the potential to trigger me to drink or drug. When I sponsor other women, I share practical suggestions for getting to the other side of a craving, without picking up.

They include:

1. Get to a 12-step support meeting

2. Call another person in recovery and ask for help or ask how the other person is doing

Everybody deals with anxiety and depression, however some people have a difficult time in managing it. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their most persistent fears and every day anxieties.

When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, the first thing you can do is to divide the task into a series of smaller steps. Completing these smaller tasks one at a time will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success.

Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem.  A person could get some fresh air, listen to some music, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things.

The formula for freedom from addiction is the same whether you have one day clean/sober or twenty years.  The single most important ingredient for anyone to recover is the desire to receive help for the addiction. My life changed dramatically after I wrote an honest letter about my addiction and my despair and prayed that someone or something would show me how to live.

Within months, I experienced a drug and alcohol overdose and was guided to my first twelve step meeting.  Because my desire to get help was true (and not based on someone else pushing me to seek help), the 12 step program was able to work for me.  I was open to suggestions, willing to go to any lengths to put down the drug for 24 hours a at time, and honest about my powerlessness over drugs.

I found a sponsor, attended recovery meetings for a donation of $1 per meeting, read the literature, and shared my thoughts/feelings with people who understood me.  In the morning, I set an intention to stay sober and followed it up with positive actions like reaching out to others by phone when I felt scared, making sober friends and avoiding people, places or things that triggered my addiction.

Twelve years later, I look back and ask myself what has changed. I still get up in the morning with the intention to stay sober for the day.  I still speak to recovery minded friends and acquaintances when I am disturbed.  I still attend 12-step meetings, speak honestly about what is on my mind and limit my time around people, places or things that make me feel unsafe.