Recovery
Recovery
I devote hours of my energy toward helping newcomers in different online platforms. This is my way of giving back. But it is also one of my protections against returning to the desolation of drug abuse. My personal path and story are actually not any more important or useful than anyone else’s. If you knew the humongous ego who was Paul Summers before I came to find a program of recovery that worked for me, you’d be surprised that I could ever be humble enough to type that last sentence. Growth. Growth is not just a word; it’s not some reward you earn for doing nothing. It’s not a concept you believe in and therefor you are granted. It’s a present that feels nothing like a gift. And it is reversible. On one of my social media accounts, it is clear in my bio that I am in recovery. Yet, I continue to get followers who are drug dealers. The most common are those peddling psychedelics and marijuana. Studies have shown that the latter has been proven to be addictive (and still illegal, federally). I found it appalling that dealers would friend or follow me. This made no sense, so I’ve dared to ask why. The responses I’m getting are defensive—the follower sounding dumbfounded that I am questioning their ‘good’ nature. Each one believes they have set up shop in order to ‘help’ alcoholics and addicts. How did they get this disinformation? Welcome to the era of what I call Recovery ‘Light.’ It’s not new. Hell, when I was steeped in active addiction, substituting one high for another was a path I believed would solve my slight issue–the addictive tendencies I denied. I tried many different times. I tried many different ways. I did not get clean until I … GOT CLEAN. My definition of Recovery ‘Light’ is when a person believes they don’t have a drug problem as long as they don’t do their DOC (drug of choice). This person has been convinced somehow that indulging in any mind-altering, addictive substance, as long as it won’t take them over and be a distracting obsession, is totally okay. Additionally, the idea is that as long as one isn’t creating wreckage and undermining self, it’s okay to use. These two assumptions are usually made without the clarity of being sober, nor with the help of a source outside themselves like the loved one, family member, or community most affected by their using. There are segments of the recovery community who are taking and being taken advantage of by this ideology. This does a great disservice to people in early recovery who have not yet committed to recovery. Those newcomers who are sensitive to being told the truth; those who dismiss concepts like abstinence and making amends as plots to bring guilt and shame-inducing patriarchal or religious disciplines; those who want to be in recovery and still get high—these are willing participants in Recovery ‘Light.’ I remember being in a meeting and hearing someone say, “I wish I could get loaded and keep my clean date.” Everyone in the room laughed. But it made me think … isn’t that the special secret wish we all have? Yes. Just like we wish we weren’t addicts and alcoholics. But we are if we say we are. I am. I don’t feel the least bit less-than by making this admission. It’s a testimonial I continue to make and feel safe doing so. What is dangerous is being suspicious that you might have a problem and being unwilling to admit that you are an addict or alcoholic. Personally, by admitting to having a disease, I gain the courage to work on beating the illness that all but destroyed a good twenty years of my life: the disease of addiction. I’ll never beat it, just like humans won’t ever entirely beat a virus out of existence. We can only work on building our personal strength a little bit at a time. A daily reprieve is a lot to be grateful for. The difference between those with the disease and those unlikely to have the disease is that those who can use casually and not obsess on their DOC to the point of hurting, stealing, undermining, and being enslaved by the compulsion to use more are not inflicted with the disease. Denial. Contained within this practice of Recovery ‘Light’ is a movement of non-addict/alcoholics pushing a ‘new’ concept called Harm Reduction. Just like Capitalism or Communism, Harm Reduction looks good on paper. Great keywords, too. Who wouldn’t want to be in a program whose ideology is reducing harm? Whose harm is getting reduced? My loose interpretation of this is that, by allowing a person addicted to drugs or alcohol some comfort as they withdraw from their drug of choice, the cycle of addiction will be broken. The notion is that, by eliminating the self-esteem breaking thoughts and feelings which come about when one is getting off of drugs, a person in recovery can heal faster and their transition off of chemical dependency will be smoother. That smooth metamorphosis, it is believed, aids the recovering person and increases the likelihood their recovery will be long term. I get in heated arguments over this. Partially because this is being pushed by the medical/medicinal community. I think that alone scares me enough to not give it a chance. If someone is making ongoing money off of people’s life changes and the possibilities they will become healthy, then they also potentially make money off you while you continue to be unhealthy. Studies are showing that, in the area of depression, many have been taken advantage of and over-medicated for decades. This is why and how I ended up in a twelve step program. I owed nobody anything. My success and/or failure was up to me. I came to realize I had the key to unlock the prison cell door I had locked myself into. I got out for free. There isn’t an easy way out, just as there was no easy way in. There is no quick fix. There is no participant trophy. You are either and addict/alcoholic or you are not. There’s no such thing as getting high on a drug you don’t care for when you are an addict. Any drug you can find is the drug you’ll abuse at some point. If you’re reading this and your experience so far is that you can’t stop drinking once you start, but then you try micro-dosing on mushrooms and you don’t want to drink anymore – well then, you’re probably not an alcoholic. But, if you start doing those mushrooms on weekends, then on Thursday through Sunday, then every day of the week, you are an addict/alcoholic. This current movement has come in many shapes and with many names over the past six decades. Social media is notorious for getting people convinced that the latest and greatest panacea is not another re-hashed snake oil from the Boomer Era. Eye candy distractions. Let’s look a little deeper. If you have a problem with meth, how can you stop? Meth addiction is weird. I was always able to stop for a few months, especially after a few weeks in a row of being up for more than three days at a time. I didn’t give a shit about losing a job or girlfriend or even the strain it put on my family. I didn’t feel much of anything while I was up. But when I came down, all those stinky feelings started oozing out of the pores in my brain. And when the body has had enough, you ride the discomfort out for a few days and start to feel human again. Then, you deal with the consequences and (usually) guilt of the neglecting of self. I probably vowed to stay off speed for three months about thirty times. I always came back to it. In the meantime, I was self-medicating. I was ‘reducing’ the harm in my head I had caused myself. I was using my best ideas to ease my worst thinking. The answer was inevitably to find a way to feel good. I’m no doctor. But a doctor or scientist will break it down to a brain cell level and tell you the biological reason we chase after that synapsis firing endorphin rush. Replacement therapy. If I can’t have my drug of choice, I’m going to have a melt-down. If I don’t have my drug of choice, I’m going to die. If I can’t have my drug of choice, people better get really afraid of what I might do. It’s no mistake that it is called our drug of choice. Nobody forces us to put it inside our bloodstream. We choose to. Therefore, we get to choose how we stop putting it in our body. We can titrate down. We can do replacement drugs like methadone or suboxone if you have an opiate addiction. For meth, it wouldn’t make sense to inject a person going through withdrawals with Ritalin. But if that became an actual practice, the idea would be the same. Make the coming down off of abused drugs comfortable and relaxing. This is a severe misunderstanding of addiction. The saying, “One is too many and a thousand never enough,” explains the disease. If I knew I could go to treatment (if I could afford it) and still get loaded, wouldn’t that, as a premise, undermine the very reason for going? Unless … Unless I didn’t really want to stop. But if I’m locked in a preferred state of mind for addicts … denial … and get some therapist or treatment center nurse with an Associate’s Degree telling me of an easy out, I’m going to go for the easy out. I’d gladly kick the can down the road. Because the nurse says it’s okay; that I’ll be okay if I’m on something while I get off something else. Good lord. That’s like saying, “I know I’m collecting better unemployment wages by staying home, but I really do want to work, but I don’t really have to, so I won’t.” That’s like saying, “I love and miss those little kids I lost custody of in the divorce so much, I’ll check in on them sometime in the next few weeks.” The most entertaining part of writing an essay like this is that it puts me at odds with educated martyrs of the medical profession. I ask you to take some time and look over their evidence, and the opposing evidence. Evaluate it all as best you can, but remember, you might just be an addict or an alcoholic. If you are, it means that you have a disease with is going to lie to you to keep you in a state of denial which will make you question anything which might potentially rob it from getting its next fix. If you try harm reduction and are still repeating the same behaviors which, in the first place, made you suspect you might have a problem – start questioning the validity of that medical practice. No one who wears a doctor’s office smock has ever resolved my obsession with drugs, including booze. After decades of overdosing, losing everything, destroying what I didn’t lose, hurting people physically and emotionally, moving a thousand miles away only to start using again within a month, losing jobs, and ultimately losing my daughter, I was ready to admit I had a problem and that no pill, powder, or liquid was going to solve it. I found the twelve steps (or they found me). I found a Higher Power I call God (or He led me) The program I work does not cosign any check I might be wanting to cash from the bank of bullshit. Today I’m accountable to the truth. But as an addict, that truth is often hidden from me. I can more easily see when someone is denying themselves their own truth, but I have a hard time seeing mine when I look for it. That is why the program is so useful, especially interaction with the others in it. The lies in our head are exposed. The program is simple, but not easy. It certainly isn’t as easy getting loaded on wine because you have a problem with heroin. I wrote this essay to share my experience that I’ve tried every combination and substitute that was available. Just because there are new drugs since I chose to stop fifteen years ago, doesn’t mean the truth isn’t still self-evident. The truth and promise of the program works because I work it. This means I get to take an active part in being okay, if not better than ever, but at the very least better than I was before. I had to work for it. Not one day of the over 6,000 days were given to me. Not one. I chose to see (finally) that my experience with harm was that I harmed myself, then anyone close. The only way that harm got reduced was when I chose to stop getting loaded.
Fourteen days? A hundred? In person or on social media, any time someone mentions how many days clean they have, ask them this question. Then tell them the answer. The answer is always nothing. Nothing is better than X amount of days sober. Even if it’s one day, the answer is nothing. We don’t accumulate days by keeping our eye on out of reach goals. This question of what’s better is almost as ancient as twelve step programs. Prior to the notion of recovery programs, an alcoholic’s attempt to curb their addiction must’ve been a very solitary affair. What, if any, support group was around for whom the sober person could turn to? Compared to today’s uglier side of social media, the shaming must’ve been horrendous. Add to that the shunning. Many must’ve seen obsessive using as the only place to find solace. Many likely turned to isolation, desolation, and suicide. History shows us how we are safe when we are pack animals. When we veer away from the pack, we take on the encumbrance of life-threatening challenges. A person wanting go get clean and sober today has the pack to turn to. For an addict/alcoholic, however, belonging to a particular pack can either make us better or make us worse. One pack wants to nurture us back to healthy sobriety by sharing the insights into what has worked for them through the trial and error experiences collectively learned from the pack as a whole. One pack wants to show us how to turn only to God and the Bible, asking that we trust in the strength which comes through faith. One pack wants to elevate or enlighten our cognitive process through pharmaceutical medication and behavioral therapy. One recently evolving pack asks that we abstain ourselves from our favorite substance to abuse while giving ourself permission to indulge in others. Each pack is prone to point out weaknesses of the others, yet some self-govern and are better at self-discipline in these matters. As in the difference between world religions, each pack has merit conceptually. It often boils down to the membership or flock or congregation. All have fallible humans. The practitioners have more to do with the imperfection than the programs themselves. We have the responsibility of choosing wisely then learning from our choices. We who seek recovery don’t have to live like lepers today. We can feel free to shout from the hilltop what we have accomplished; that we have earned another day free of the substance(s) we have been abusing to the point that we could no longer deny how we had allowed it to undermine and sabotage our life. For today, and today only, we are done. And because we don’t know whether or not we will make it through tomorrow until tomorrow is over, we can speak confidently out about our achievement with humility. Thus the answer. Nothing is better than a day ending victorious over our alcoholism. It may just be the end of one day to others, but to us it is a victory over unhealthy thoughts which lead to unhealthy behaviors which lead to being in an unhealthy predicament. This is a truth serum that has no anti-dote. There is no such thing as getting it half right. You either identify as an alcoholic, or you don’t. You either understand to the best of your ability that you are an addict, or you are not. Whether you have one day or 5,693 days. Each and every day sober/clean is an actualization of an intention to be healthier manifested. For us, that intention doesn’t usually begin internally. For most of us, it is external. An outcome reached through losing. Losing a loved one, a job, property, integrity, status, or health. Both impactful and repetitive losing can translate into a lifesaving course of action if we allow it to. Try it. Give yourself permission to be good to you.
If you are open to the idea that alcoholism/addiction is a disease, a mental illness, then it will be easier for you to understand this article. If you are inclined to believe all substance abuse is a moral deficiency or weakness of character, then this article may help you see addiction from a less often shared perspective. I’m Paul. I am an addict/alcoholic in recovery. This is how I identify. Doing so has led the way for me in coming to accept the malady to which I am one hundred percent certain I am afflicted. Everything I’ve learned from A.A. & N.A. literature (having a Higher Power, sponsorship, meetings, step work, etc.) has helped me become a better human being. It’s helped me much more than decades of self-help books, counseling, therapy, and a lifetime of self-diagnosis. If there is an avenue or program which works better, I am open to trying it. With that as my humble clarity statement, I am filled with the need to address what isn’t being said. The elephant in the room. There is no statistical data compiled to prove or disprove its existence. I am talking about living a life of recovery outside of working a program. I’m neither boasting nor making a shameful admission when I tell you that I have not been to a meeting, done step work, spoken with my sponsor, or read the literature in months. This isn’t a new place for me. I’ve been in this place a few times before and did not relapse. I’m no longer, as we like to say, “hanging out in the middle,” with the winners. I’m not working the program. I’m not calling my sponsor for guidance or reassurance. Nor am I feeling the need to ‘tell on myself’ for not putting in the work. I’ve done all that. Again and again. And not relapsed. Does this mean there’s the possibility I’m not an addict? FUCK NO! So, what does it mean? Allow me to explain by stating up front what I’m up to here. I’m back to being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m sick of using the program as a means of acquiring forgiveness from the fellowship, thus forgiving myself. I’m sick of gauging my wellness through the approval of others. I’m tired of the same ‘lecture’ from my sponsor and being penalized with having to compile lists or step work. If certain core behaviors haven’t changed in 13 years, something about the method isn’t correct. To be clear, I’m not blaming the program, however, I suspect I’m taking advantage of, or worse yet, using it. You see, I’m as resourceful as any addict out there. I know who I am and I know I have a disease. Why wouldn’t my disease figure out how to manipulate the steps, the fellowship, and my sponsor? It doesn’t know any other way. Deep down, it has figured out how to distort my perception. To make my case, I’m going to point out perhaps my worst shortcoming: Rage. When I am upset, I lash out. I don’t pause, nor stop to consider where you are coming from. Having fight or flight tunnel vision, I see you as the enemy and I seek to keep you from being my equal. I can’t let you be at my level. God forbid you get one up on me. I lose control of everything. I become sharp, defensive, angry, threatening, demeaning, indifferent, and, impersonal. I take it all out on you in a split second. Then once I smell blood, I start to feel bad, which leads next to blaming, shaming, and guilt-tripping. Last, I’ll act like it wasn’t that bad—the way I acted/reacted—and I want to be close again. The program has taught me to apologize and strive with great effort to take measures not to repeat. But there’s more than one way to feed a bird. This shortcoming of mine has come up every time I’ve worked the steps. I’ve done therapy over it. And for years I used to snuff it and minimize it. But once it flairs, it is too late. I become powerless over my own rage. Autopilot super-bully. My shortcoming is behind most amends I’ve made over the years. I’ve even gone months and months without acting on it. Somehow, it has always found its way to the front of my emotional expression. Then off it goes. The program taught me how to identify it. Therapy taught me how to confront it. Nothing has taught me how to avoid it. My argument is that if I can never escape it, and it has the highest chance of causing the greatest harm of all my defects, then shouldn’t avoiding it be a favorable, healthier option? Run this by as many defects as you can think of. The answer should be yes. But I absolutely have to clarify what I mean by ‘escape.’ Not only do I mean that I must avoid getting myself into situation in which I will act on my character defects. Not only do I mean that I must learn behaviors in which I will address the antagonistic situations where I’m most likely to feel the need to act on my defects. I also mean that I need to understand the part of me who subconsciously arranges my own demise. Now, behind nearly every one of those situations which I’ve identified as triggering my character defect, is my other character defect: people pleasing. When I let myself be more concerned with looking good in a person’s eyes whom I’d like to win or earn favor, I doom myself. And it goes deeper still. If there’s such a thing as a character defect trifecta, mine would be sensitivity. It is natural for me to be hyper-aware of people. But what if that is everyone around me? Seriously, toward anyone I come in contact with I either take inventory of, take offense to, or take a liking to. All of which, in return, take my thoughts hostage. How do I deal with the necessity of giving myself safe space? In the program I was taught that true growth is uncomfortable. Noted. Year after year I forced myself to go back into the damning fire. I kept coming back feeling the same – defeated, less than, accused of being too delicate – then blowing up. Sometimes I think the only thing as strong as my addicts’ desire to destroy me is my will’s determined self-preservation. The only thing stronger than both is God. Then Covid-19 forced us into isolation. This created an out for me that I thought about long and hard and eventually took advantage of. Personal relationships and social problems were amplified many times over in 2020. The fast track I was on my entire life got hit with a yellow flag. I could no longer do whatever the fuck I wanted at my pace. I realized I had been blessed with an extremely long leash. But every dog has his day, even if it has learned to be a good dog (most of the time). I found myself more isolated than I was comfortable with. I was alone, but not because I wanted to be. As a typical addict who feels like the center of everyone’s universe, I saw the imploding world as an amplified version of my sickest character shortcomings. No matter what direction I focused my attention, conflict arose. What I saw was not attractive. What I saw needed to be changed, from within. I went to all my trusty rely-on’s: Prayer, sponsorship, sharing at meetings, service work. I still came face to face with my own ugly. This anxious state of mind led me back to the beginning. “God’s got this.” In survival mode, it is hard to do or be anything other than surviving. What I also saw, though, was that the country had turned ugly like my insides. I remembered how hard it was to stop getting high every day. All my tools could only help me so much. I had to help myself. I had to embrace the unknown and live as if I’m going to be okay once I learn how to do something I don’t know how to do. I don’t have to rage. I don’t have to undermine. I don’t have to react. I’ve been choosing to, and I’ve been too accepting of the consequences. The program has been my scapegoat here. I’ve chosen to blame the program for not getting better. Now I know it’s not the program, either. It’s me. Fourteen years ago I decided I had had enough of being physically, mentally, and spiritually bankrupt, so I chose to stop using dope. The program showed me how. I did the work. More than that, I committed to it. Now I’m done losing control of my anger and emotion. I’m tired of fearing the moment I become powerless. I’ve chosen to allow it. I’ve chosen to let it out of its confining walls; to exert and expel it … BUT … not for three to five days. If, after five days -- after owning my part in the building up, after examining thoroughly the other parties part, after seeking to ‘feel’ every side, after putting myself in the other parties shoes and examining from their side what I think they think my side is, after letting steam off the emotion, after imagining all possible outcomes and consequences – if after all that I still have a determined will to rage, then by golly, I guess I’ll have to just rage. But I haven’t. I’ve been able to get angry but not ‘at’ anyone. I’ve allowed myself to speak harsh and direct if it is warranted, but it hasn’t been. So I speak plain and expressively. And I’ve been feeling empowered. All of this is so new, I’m not sure how to take it. Does this mean my head ceases to lie to me? FUCK NO! It means I have to be very careful. Very careful. You see, I believe in all the things the program taught me. I believe my disease is doing push-ups. It always has. I have no reason to think it isn’t. I’ve experienced firsthand the anti-dote: Service, fellowship, transparency, humility, God-centeredness. Much like religion, the program is made up of people. People are the strength and weakness. We are all human and we all need connection. Some take advantage of this need. Some let them. How do you stand up to those acting in their worst behaviors without losing your place in the fellowship? Nobody knows. No one has come to a meeting after one or five years of being gone and said, “Hey. I figured out that being here all the time isn’t necessary. Especially if you are the type of highly sensitive person like myself who tends to want to give your energy away and feed the needs of others before yourself. You don’t have to be here and put on the look good or look bad or look at me or look away. You can stay clean without the programming.” In 13 years of meetings, I haven’t heard anyone say it. Not once. Paul Summers Jr.