Answer Addiction

Tag: AA

  • How AA Hijacked Addiction Science and Came to Dominate Treatment: An Interview with Joe Miller

    How AA Hijacked Addiction Science and Came to Dominate Treatment: An Interview with Joe Miller

    The scientists at Yale liked what AA did, but they did not by any stretch think that AA was a cure-all for alcoholism. Neither, by the way, did Bill Wilson.

    Back when he was struggling to control his drinking, Joe Miller failed on a nightly basis. He would get stumbling drunk every evening, and suffer through every day. His treatment providers all delivered the same message:

    “Go to Alcoholics Anonymous.”

    That was hardly surprising advice — AA has long dominated alcoholism treatment in the United States. But Miller, an English professor at Columbus State University in Georgia, eventually learned that numerous other options were available to him at the time, such as Naltrexone, SMART Recovery, and Moderation Management. Why hadn’t anybody mentioned them?

    That is the question that Miller sets out to answer in The Us of AA, a slender, provocative book that tells the story of how Alcoholics Anonymous grew into the gargantuan organization that we know today, even though some evidence suggests that other treatments may be more effective.

    Miller is not “anti-AA.” He believes that there is little to be lost — and perhaps much to be gained — by trying 12-step solutions. But he adds that alcoholism is more complex than the AA model suggests. Miller holds that problem drinkers should explore an array of potential strategies, not just one. Though he writes with powerful indignation, The US of AA is not a tendentious or overly polemical book; it is based on careful analysis of a huge and diverse range of sources.

    I had the pleasure of speaking to Joe by phone on May 11, 2019. This interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.

    Many people know a bit about how Bill Wilson helped start Alcoholics Anonymous, but you argue that Marty Mann may have played a more pivotal role in building AA. What do we need to know about her?

    Absolutely, I think she is largely responsible for our nationwide concept of alcoholism as a disease, and our idea that AA is the go-to cure for alcoholism. She ran one of the most brilliant PR campaigns of the 20th century. She helped build a huge network with local chapters across the country, which distributed information at the individual level and the community level, [then progressed] to lobbying in state houses, and eventually, the federal government.

    Alcoholics Anonymous has the 11th Tradition, which states, “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion.” But Mann started out being a spokesperson for AA in the New York area — she was an excellent public speaker — and during that process, she developed a vision for a national campaign that would bring about a new understanding of alcoholism.

    You say in the book Marty Mann, and others in AA, were adamant that alcoholism should be understood as a disease.

    Yes. From the beginning, that was part of AA’s cure mechanism. AA said that alcoholism is not a moral failing. Rather, it’s an indication that something is wrong with you physiologically or psychologically (or some combination of the two). It’s beyond your control. You need to believe this is a disease.

    One thing Marty Mann did was reach out to a scientist at Yale, named Bunky Jellinek, who was kind of an odd character. (There’s some mystery about whether he had even earned a college degree.) But, by all accounts, he was an extremely energetic person, really passionate about the problem of alcoholism, and he seized upon Mann’s idea. He says, “Okay, we can have this PR campaign and it will help shore up our scientific research. We’ll sell the public on alcoholism as a medical problem and not a moral failing, and this will help us.”

    To boil this whole story down, the scientists got the cart before the horse. They didn’t have the money to research their theory that alcoholism was a physiological disease, but they got behind that idea, so the money would come. Then, when the money came, they learned that alcoholism was far more complex than the model they were using. The scientists at Yale liked what AA did, but they did not by any stretch think that AA was a cure-all for alcoholism. Neither, by the way, did Bill Wilson.

    That was something I learned in your book. I was surprised by Bill Wilson’s intellectual humility.

    All throughout his career, he could see that AA was not working for everybody. He worried about AA beliefs hardening into dogma, and he said “Just because something works for us, that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.” Some of his later work was devoted to trying to find ways to get people other types of help.

    All along, the folks who were not beholden to AA’s story — i.e., the scientists who weren’t — had the sense that alcoholism is this really complex problem, which could be approached in numerous ways. At Yale, when Marty Mann was doing her campaign, researchers were developing treatment programs in Connecticut — some pilot programs. And AA was just one small part of them. It was very much like what science nowadays says is the way to go: You’ve got to use an array of different approaches to tackle alcoholism. It’s different for everybody.

    Today, many treatment programs are rooted in AA doctrine. And you say in the book that some forces in the treatment industry actively tried to suppress other approaches to helping people.

    It actually goes back to the 1960s. This psychiatrist in England, named D. L. Davies, found that a significant number of patients who went through alcoholic treatment programs later resumed drinking at levels he described as “normal.” He wrote a paper on his findings, and a number of big players in the AA movement disputed the study. One of them was Marvin Block, a doctor from Buffalo who had spearheaded the AMA’s (American Medical Association) campaign to recognize alcohol as an illness. Block said, “Well, the [people who learned to drink normally] must not be real alcoholics,” even though these men had been hospitalized for severe drinking problems.

    Another example is Mark and Linda Sobell. They did a study where they trained people in moderate drinking, and they found that a significantly higher number of them fared better [after practicing controlled drinking] than those in AA. Afterward, there was a fierce attack against them, which was publicized on 60 Minutes. It almost cost them their jobs, and it really set back any work in the area.

    My pet theory is that sobriety spreads in AA through “social contagion.” If a person who is discouraged about their drinking walks into an AA meeting, they’re likely to find a large group of people who have enjoyed substantial periods of sobriety, and who are willing to help them. I think people in AA are mimicking each other’s behaviors and attitudes – just like we do in other phases of life.

    I’ve had two quite long stretches of sobriety in AA, one when I was in college, in Boulder, Colorado, and another for about seven years in the 2000s, in Kansas City. In both cases, it was because I had strong social connections, and healthy routines. In Boulder, the meetings were almost a pretext for us to go out and socialize afterward. For the most part, I found the AA meetings in Kansas City to be insufferable. But there was a meditation house nearby, and after meditating, we’d go out for Mexican food afterwards. And that was enough to help me stay sober.

    But AA itself did not work for me. Especially after going through the steps, and really working them hard — and I really freaking worked them hard! — and hearing people say, “After you do that fourth, boy, it really changes your life.” And hearing them say that, over and over again. I just thought, “No. I do not believe this. It’s fine for you, but I just don’t believe in it.”

    In a recent New York Post article, you talked a bit about your drinking habits now. You practice moderation, but you say it takes some effort. Can you explain?

    It’s going well. I don’t take Naltrexone anymore, but that drug really helped disrupt my drinking patterns. I would take it and almost magically, I would drink about 50 percent less in a night.

    I combined that with that an app called CheckUp & Choices, which was developed by a psychologist, Reid Hester. That’s a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy app, where you do a very extensive questionnaire that gets you thinking about the situations in which you get triggered, and when you drink, and how much you drink. It helps you keep track of your frame of mind about drinking. Exercise is also a key part of my program. Having my spouse on board with this is also huge — evidence suggests this can make a difference, if you have spousal support.

    If you were to find out down the road that this approach does not work for you — if, heaven forbid, you fall back into full-blown alcoholism — are you confident you’ll be willing to revisit your approach?

    Yes. But I don’t see that happening. I see the opposite. I see, down the road, no drinking at all. That’s the direction we’re going. The direction is continually toward drinking less.

    I share many of your thoughts about AA. Sometimes I even have doubts about its strict emphasis on total abstinence and continuous sobriety. I heard a segment on NPR last week suggesting that AA’s chip system may even be counterproductive, because it can cause people who slip up in the program — or who drink very occasionally — to feel demoralized and ashamed. And as any treatment provider will tell you, those are precisely the feelings that may lead to even more drinking.

    That said, I think AA’s line about alcoholism being “cunning, baffling and powerful” is spot-on. People who struggle with addiction or alcoholism are prone to rationalization and self-deception. Everyone is a bit different, but it is obvious that some people should simply never drink under any circumstances whatsoever. If they do drink, the consequences can be devastating. This seems to me a difficult and tricky subject.

    I think the best answer to this is something one of the psychologists I interviewed said to me: if AA works for you, that’s the easiest and most effective solution. Similarly, with moderation, many people find in time that it’s much simpler to just stay away from that first drink than it is to try to control drinking.

    But if you look at large-scale statistics on drinking and recovery, most problem drinkers do not follow the traditional AA path of complete abstinence forever. Even those who are in AA for a while, working the steps and staying sober — statistics show that many will one day have another drink. What’s most dangerous in these cases, I think, is the belief that one drink will lead automatically to alcoholic behavior. That might be true for any given individual, but it’s not the truth for all, and studies have shown that believing it’s true tends to make it true.

    Purchase US of AA: How the Twelve Steps Hijacked the Science of Alcoholism on Amazon. For more about the book and its author, check out Joe Miller’s website.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Tales of a High-Bottom Alcoholic

    Tales of a High-Bottom Alcoholic

    Having a high bottom can be more dangerous because it can go undetected for life. You can end up just living a soulless life.

    When I first got sober someone referred to me as having a “high bottom.” A friend, trying to be funny, yelled out, “that’s just because she has long legs!”

    I was then told that a high bottom meant I had not caused too much damage to myself or others while I was drinking, but I feel like that’s subjective. A “low bottom” does not really leave much open to interpretation: jail, interventions, hospital, losing your family, your job, your home. You have to decide: get sober or suffer terrible consequences, one of which might be death.

    A person experiencing a high bottom may not appear to be suffering outwardly, but inside life can be unbearable, unmanageable, or just not as good as it could be. My periodical heavy drinking was interfering with my quality of life and I had had enough. Surviving isn’t half as fun as thriving, not just financially but emotionally and physically.

    When I first got sober I was sort of mad I didn’t have a low bottom; I might have gotten sober sooner and I would know for sure I had a problem. I was also mad that my idea of fun had to change. I wore beer goggles to view my whole life. Anything was tolerable if there was a “reward” later—later that night, later that week, or later that month. If I could look forward to cutting loose at some point, the rest of life seemed more bearable.

    I co-wrote and co-starred in a film called The Foxy Merkins. It went to Sundance, sold out premieres, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. I drank on and off when I was writing, filming, and at all the premieres. In every situation, I felt like something was missing and I would drink more to get to the place of feeling complete…but it never came. Drinking had stopped being fun or gratifying because I wasn’t connected to myself. For me, that was a low bottom. I want and need to be fully connected to great moments in my life.

    Some of my friends/enablers still try to get me to drink and don’t see what the big deal is, while other friends say “if Jackie can quit drinking, anyone can do it.” It’s not black or white, and that gray area almost kept me drinking for life. I can always point to someone else who has a worse drinking problem. If you have cancer, you’re going to treat it no matter how minor it is. Your mind isn’t trying to tell you to look at how bad the other guy’s cancer is. No one’s saying “your cancer is nothing in comparison. Stop being a baby. You can moderate cancer. Forget about it.” That is what my brain did for years, and what my enablers told me: “That guy is falling down drunk. Have you ever fallen anywhere? NO. Then you are not an alcoholic.”

    When I first got sober I thought “why me?” Today I still wonder “why me,” but it’s more “why am I so lucky to get to live in the moment and to feel all of my feelings?” When I finally got to this place, I stopped being mad that I did not have a clear low bottom. It sounds ridiculous to me now but I had been really frustrated about it. I thought: “I am doing this program with all I got, I should be able to half-ass it because I have not caused as much wreckage as most people.” That is an example of my crazy alcoholic diseased thinking.

    Now I know everyone has a different bottom. Every day of my life, my head tells me I can drink and I have to remind it I don’t even want to drink. My mind wants to kill me: it only leaves me alive to have a vehicle to run around in. It is my job every day to remind myself that my life is so much more rewarding now. Cash and prizes are just extras, the real rewards are free and deeply fulfilling.

    Being honest and useful to the world is priceless. It’s easy to sleep at night when I am not lying to anyone, especially myself. Even if I’d never experienced any external repercussions from lying, it took a toll on me, because I knew. There is nothing like going to sleep at night with a clear conscience.

    When I heard that they might be putting high-bottom stories in the Big Book, I experienced a range of emotions. I was happy that other high bottoms will find stories they can relate to in the book. My ego, on the other hand, went nuts: WHAT?!! I would have killed to have heard high-bottom stories when I came in. I might have gotten sober sooner. Or maybe my dad might have been able to get sober. But for today, I am not waiting to blow off steam. I don’t feel that I deserve to drink because I have been wronged. That’s how I used to live. If something went “wrong” I had to have a drink.

    I never want to make blanket statements, these are my opinions and they change often. At no time do I want to claim that my opinions are set in stone. As my perception continues to grow, my opinions will change for the better.

    “Normal” drinkers are people who never or rarely suffer consequences from drinking. They rarely get drunk, nor do they ask themselves if they have a drinking problem. They never feel they must learn to moderate their use. High-bottom drinkers can hold down a job, they can have relationships, and no one gives them an intervention; but their souls deteriorate over time. They tell themselves they will learn to moderate. High-bottom drinkers are usually surrounded by other functioning alcoholics and enablers—people who do not want the person with alcoholism to get better because that means they will have to look at themselves, and they won’t look better in comparison anymore.

    Having a high bottom can be more dangerous because it can go undetected for life. You can end up just living a soulless life. Everything seems fine, but you never feel real gratification or get to know the real you or the greatness you are capable of.

    With a low bottom, people are forced to quit drinking: they have to or they will die. High bottoms aren’t necessarily facing death, but they have to quit to really live. At least I did. Things still don’t go perfectly, but how boring would that life be? I now do my best to welcome my life challenges. I now know how to deal with them head-on, and if I don’t I have a crew of new friends that can help me help myself. Now, fun is always being in the present moment, connected to all that is, and not trying to figure out the next drink.

    Life is not perfect, but at the same time, it kinda is.

    See Jackie in Wild Nights with Emily, now playing in selected theaters!

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • AA 2.0: Why the Evolution of Alcoholics Anonymous Needs to Happen Now

    AA 2.0: Why the Evolution of Alcoholics Anonymous Needs to Happen Now

    The founders purposely left the door open for science to come into the realm of recovery, and unlike modern AA, they did not discount its potential importance when it came to helping people.

    I am an alcoholic, or, as conventional wisdom goes, an alcoholic in recovery. I’ve had my share of rehabs, detoxes, and IOPs. I’ve dealt with numerous counselors, doctors, psychiatrists, and even a hypnotist. I have mastered “white-knuckling.” And I’d “given myself fully to the simple program” that is AA. Nothing worked. This is not to say I did not have my dry spells, as well as full-on productive years of zero consumption of anything that contained ethanol. Still, I relapsed, and went down a black spiraling abyss pretty confidently when my consumption quickly became prodigious in both amount and frequency of use.

    Sheer yet fully predictable insanity ensued. Binges went on for weeks and ER visits became routine. Doctors gave me a bleak prognosis, as coming out of the drinking spells had become nearly impossible. Maintenance drinkers had nothing on me — I drank to breathe, to sleep, to go to the bathroom. Beer and wine became juice, annoyingly un-intoxicating. Blended whisky — aka brown vodka — was the only thing that worked, before it didn’t. A rehab intake clocked me at .43 blood alcohol content, with the fatal spectrum usually starting around .35. I am not a large guy by any means; turns out it was the tolerance I’d developed that saved me from kicking the bucket from alcohol poisoning. I stayed drunk for two days just on what was in my bloodstream, and then the withdrawal hit like a train. Librium, Zofran, Librium. An in-house doctor woke me up; my pulse was barely there. But, as always, thankfully, in a week I started feeling better. 

    A Revolutionary Program… for 1939

    The role of AA in my recovery has been significant. The fellowship of men and women — a genius brainchild of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson, and wholeheartedly endorsed by Dr. Carl Jung himself, has helped countless families. It is incredible in its selflessness and honesty and yet, today’s AA is rigid, too antiquated, and legacy-driven. It’s normal, though, for an organization of this stature and with this much history. After all, back in 1939 this was an absolutely revolutionary, even visionary, break-through. But we’re not in 1939 or even 2009, and so AA must adapt or it will lose its edge. 

    Both Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson were complex, highly educated, empathetic, and caring individuals. Their realization of a prominent role of Higher Power in recovery did not come easy. Skeptics, cynics as they were, they had to overcome an internal struggle before making peace with the fact that human nature was helpless in the face of the monstrous foe of addiction. The resulting text, which we all now know as the Big Book, was the product of a multi-year intellectual effort, which was by no means easy or straightforward. For example, one little-known fact about the book is that initially it used the 2nd person throughout its chapters, as in “you recover, you need to, you have a problem.” The authors decided to change it to the 1st person (we), which brought a completely new tone to the script. From preachy and authoritative it became welcoming and tolerant.

    In addition, when it comes to finding ways to recover from alcoholism (specifically becoming a “normal drinker” as opposed to an alcoholic), the Book mentions that “science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.” In fact, multiple recovery groups and schools of thought have stepped in to fulfill this prediction. For instance, the Sinclair Method introduced its harm reduction model, based on the pre-emptive use of Naltrexone to reduce cravings and use. Like with everything else, if it works for you, great. It did not for me or any other alcoholic I know. 

    AA’s Founders Expected AA to Change

    The founders purposely left the door open for science to come into the realm of recovery, and unlike modern AA, they did not discount its potential importance when it came to helping people. Today’s AA, on the other hand, has forgotten that approach, adopting more of a “my way or the highway” when it comes to alternative recovery techniques.

    My respect and love for AA is beyond mere deference. I firmly believe that its overall purpose is remarkable. However, I also know that it could be more effective in reaching more people if it actively adopted — or at least discussed — modern-day scientific findings when it comes to addiction. Yes, rigorous honesty and humility are key, however, an inquisitive and questioning mind is not something that should be shunned; on the contrary, it should be celebrated. Ask Bill Wilson. 

    The Book should be akin to the concept of a “living, breathing” Constitution, which celebrates evidence-based evolvement of the original understanding of the Supreme Law of the Land (for example, ever-present discussions of the Fourth Amendment as applied to modern-age surveillance technology. Back when it was written, there was no phone or Internet surveillance, yet the maxim against unreasonable search and seizure is alive and well). Evolution of approaches, when it comes to addiction treatment, is a natural occurrence and fighting it is like trying to cross-breed humans and monkeys hoping we can get better, more advanced Homo sapiens, or even a new humanoid altogether.

    Let’s also take a look at the concept of singularity, as defined by famous futurist and (coincidence?) Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil. Essentially, he summarized it as an ever-developing concept of a progressively consequential role of technology in everyday life. One of the most striking illustrations of that concept is Kurzweil’s conclusion that today, an average child in Africa (or Russia, U.S., Cuba, China, etc.) with an off-the-shelf smartphone has more information at her fingertips than the president of the United States had 30 years ago. As any brilliant idea, singularity was successfully explained and encapsulated in simple terms by the above example.

    Science and Spirituality

    The same type of evolution awaits AA in particular, and the fight against addiction in general. Get with the program or get run over, as progress does not stop, and that is exactly what Bill Wilson understood so well in his pragmatic ingenuity. 

    From the reptilian middle brain and limbic system responsible for survival hijacking the thinking territory of the prefrontal cortex (in the AA lingo, home of the white-knuckling demon), to the brain’s neuroplasticity and ability to heal itself and learn new reward pathways after alcohol (or meth, heroin, porn, etc.) has done its scorched-earth number on its dopamine receptors, today’s science has explained it all. That is not to say that it has effectively pre-empted the field and left no room for miraculous recovery (doctors sometimes call it spontaneous remission) or any other spiritual component. To the contrary, following Dr. Carl Jung and his glorious pronouncement Spiritus Contra Spiritum, with which he famously concluded his 1961 letter to Bill Wilson discussing the viability of AA, science leaves ample room for spirituality when it comes to addiction. Now it’s time for AA to return the favor and welcome science in its rooms. 

    AA (or any other single-tier approach) cannot win this war on its own. And I am not even talking about the alleged (yet well-researched) 5-7 percent long-term success rate of AA (see Lance Dodes, MD, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry).

    What I am referring to instead is inclusiveness and intentional wariness of rigidity. Like Tolkien’s Balrog, addiction is a shape-shifter, a cunning, conniving, vindictive foe with an overpowering ability to maim and kill. Gandalf the Gray — arguably the strongest protagonist of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, simply could not dispatch the demon of all demons through his conventional, albeit awe-inspiring powers, and had to adjust and in a way shape-shift himself into Gandalf the White.

    So, who’s to say that what’s good for the U.S. Constitution, Kurzweil, and Gandalf is not good for Alcoholics Anonymous? More importantly, will AA even survive if it doesn’t embrace its own evolution?

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Scared Straight: How My Fear in Early Sobriety Evolved Into Lifesaving Discipline

    Scared Straight: How My Fear in Early Sobriety Evolved Into Lifesaving Discipline

    I was free from myself. And this freedom was a direct result of being completely mortified at having put myself in such a precarious, powerless position. It was the most honest fear I’d ever felt – and the healthiest.

    The date was October 12, 2011. It was my second morning of sobriety, the first that I’d woken up in my bed rather than jail. Two days earlier I’d sideswiped a cab, blind drunk, and kept going. Cops frown upon that.

    For some time, I’d been building toward a last straw scenario – a no-doubter dealbreaker to finally cost me my marriage and (yet another) job. The dead silence with which my spouse departed for work that day spoke volumes, and God knew how I’d keep my suburbs-based job without a license to drive there.

    As it turned out, I still have both – the wife and the job – today, seven-plus years into recovery. And what I’ve realized is that the unprecedented fear I felt that fall morning was key to sparking my long-term sobriety.

    Recently in this space, I wrote a piece about how, for all its faults, AA groupthink can help newcomers develop much-needed discipline, as it encourages a standardized structure recommended for recovery. Meeting, sponsor, stepwork, repeat.

    But for me and for many, there was also a second, more self-sufficient catalyst to recovery: fear. Fear that you’ve already done enough to be doomed; or if you haven’t, you can’t stop yourself from making it worse still; fear to do anything at all because you’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can’t trust yourself to do anything, at all. Fear not only of consequences, but of self.

    Sometimes it truly is darkest before the dawn. This seemingly debilitating state can, ironically, lead to lifesaving discipline of a sort we alcoholics and addicts had thought far beyond our grasp.

    Freedom in Fear

    Despite the divorce/firing 1-2 combo I felt certain was coming, that second sober morning I felt free – and not just because I was no longer behind bars.

    Rather, my freedom was twofold. First, what’s done had been done and I couldn’t undo it. So although I was scared shitless of how my marriage and career could both abruptly end, I was free from worrying about whether I’d do something to warrant those outcomes. Been there, drank that.

    More importantly, I was free from myself. And this freedom was a direct result of being completely mortified at having put myself in such a precarious, powerless position. It was the most honest fear I’d ever felt – and in hindsight, the healthiest.

    Starting that day I became deathly afraid of my erratic, addiction-driven actions. All the vows of abstinence inspired by a worsening set of consequences and hangovers had accomplished nothing. The 7am “never agains” had become the 4pm “once agains,” again and again.

    I simply couldn’t trust myself to make decisions, and I knew it. And considering its origin – the brain of a nervous wreck, two-day-sober insane person – my next thought was illogically logical:

    “Then stop making fucking decisions.”

    This, of course, was easier said than done, and in fact sounded suspiciously similar to many former miserably-failed declarations of self-restraint. This time around, the only fresh variable was the agoraphobic, fetal-position-caliber fear permeating my body, with an assist from a stupefying fog familiar to those of us who also suffer from depression.

    I was scared. I was stunned. And I had to be at work in 45 minutes. My uncle gave me a lift. In the car ride over, one thought reverberated in my head:

    “Just get to work, do your job, and come right home.” It was all I could handle that day. It was also the genesis of an invaluable recovery tool: keep it simple.

    From Fear to Powerlessness

    I got to work and back that day, and the next. I managed to walk myself to an AA meeting a half block from home. That weekend I shadowed my miraculously still-there wife like a toddler would his mommy.

    My daily deeds had dwindled to a precious few, and fell into one of two categories: everything I did was either obligatory (work, AA meeting) or subjugated, meaning it was accompanied and determined by someone else (my wife, an in-the-know family member). If that sounds pathetic… well, it is. But it worked.

    This decision-free existence, I’ve come to realize, was a real-world Step 1, whose dual recognitions of powerlessness over inebriating substances and life unmanageability are, I believe, near-universal to recovering alcoholics and addicts regardless their particular method of sobriety.

    What ensued was a lifestyle minimalism in which my days were rigidly pre-planned, and I still had enough of my secret ingredient – fear – to prevent any deviating from this preset course. A typical day looked something like this:

    Wake up, get dressed, coffee, breakfast. Board the first of three buses (New Jersey’s transit system leaves a lot to be desired) for work. Work. Eat lunch – bagged and brought, because the fewer times you walk out of your office, the smaller the chance you’ll walk into a bar.

    Work again. Three buses home. Gym or AA, time and rides permitting.

    During this time I was never on my own in private for more than five minutes if at all possible. Being (amazingly still) married was obviously a key factor here; as someone who spent early sobriety in a self-constructed cage, I still have no idea how anyone gets sober while single – that feat would have meant too much me time to accrue clean time.

    During this period it was crucial that I built a solid sober foundation. For me, that meant making meetings, getting a sponsor, and making an honest start on the 12 steps; I strongly encourage those in other recovery programs to dive into the prescribed action plan for newcomers.

    How to Build a Foundation in Recovery, Quickly

    The point – the universal goal – is building a foundation of recovery as expediently as possible. Because fear, like our once-vivid memories of alcoholism’s harms and humiliations, fades over time. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a race against the clock to develop reliable recovery tools before my stubborn self-will—in the form of the idiotic notion that I was prepared to once again make my own decisions—returned in brute force.

    Luckily, we only need to win early sobriety once. And in this perfect storm of circumstances, I was just scared enough and stiff enough for long enough to eke out a victory. By the time my fear began to waver and wane, I had a few months and a few steps under my belt. I was on my way.

    Inch by inch, the closed door of my life began to creak open. I started to take little excursions by myself, informing my wife precisely where I was going and when I’d return. I dared go out for lunch at work from time to time. I went to the trigger-laden New York City by myself for a doctor’s appointment. And finally I passed the biggest test of all: getting my driver’s license back and, with it, all the potentially disastrous decisions that come with the open road.

    Not surprisingly, none of this success was the result of any grand master plan hatched by a raw, frightened newcomer. This was far more fortune than forethought. Regardless, it’s the results that count – both for me and, I hope, for others just beginning their journey in recovery.

    If you’re reading this as a scared-witless newcomer, take the advice of someone whose experience was accidental but nonetheless useful: Make the decision to stop making decisions. There’s plenty of time to get your life back. Now’s the time to save it.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 5 Unexpected Things That Happened When I Surrendered

    5 Unexpected Things That Happened When I Surrendered

    Spiritual surrender is like letting out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. My next relapse no longer feels like it’s coming for me. I made it out. I’m alive!

    You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.
    -Pema Chodron

    New Year’s Day, West Hollywood. I had three days sober off a brief marijuana relapse and was headed to an AA marathon. After parking, I realized I was out of juul pods so I went on a search, rectangling around the block on my way to the meeting hall, hoping to find a store.

    When the first meeting ended, I panicked. Where did I park? I ran out, saw my car, took a picture, and ran back in. 

    Several hours later I discovered that the photo wasn’t of my car. I have a gray Prius in L.A., which is every third car. I scoured the neighborhood. A well-meaning valet tried to help and I yelled at him. Hours passed. It grew dark and cold, my phone now at 11%. I stopped to breathe. Big fear.

    Voices and the tinkling of glass tumbled onto the street from a bar. The thought of drinking or using hadn’t occurred to me. And why would it? A glass of wine or a joint wouldn’t help me find my car.

    Just at that moment, the heavens opened up and God reached down a golden hand through pearly gates and spoke.

    That didn’t happen. But what did was pretty fucking rad.

    I saw that every problem in life is exactly the same as losing your car.

    I walked past the valet again and apologized. I knew that I had parked headfirst rather than parallel, near Robertson Boulevard.

    He pointed. “You’ve got one more block like this.” I stood at an actual turning point.

    I had been looking for my car on the wrong side of the street.

    I found it 30 seconds later. That was the moment the course of my life changed forever.

    These are some things that happened for me, and may happen for you when you cross the street of spiritual surrender. 

    1. I’ve stopped trying to get over on my addiction.

    Am I allowed to drink kratom? Vape CBD? Take pills? A doctor will happily prescribe whatever I think I need. And aren’t magic mushrooms a spiritual experience? I spent years in fauxbriety. I spent an entire summer posted up in a Kava Kava bar while we all nodded out on kratom tea and talked about our favorite AA meetings. Note: I am not talking about anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, other psychiatric medication, non-narcotics in general, and supervised pain management after injury.

    For the problems I have encountered in my own life thus far, holistic alternatives work better than anything big pharma wants to sell me. I never win. Addiction always wins. I was constantly sending myself the message that I wasn’t enough or okay just the way I was; I needed a drug that I considered not really a drug to fix it. Actually? I don’t. 

    2. I feel relieved. Like amazingly fucking relieved.

    Spiritual surrender is like letting out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. The shoulders go down the back, the face softens, and the respiratory system begins the great energetic exhale. It sounds like the ocean. My next relapse no longer feels like it’s coming for me. I made it out. I’m alive! There is hope. I don’t live in fear of what I may do to myself anymore.

    3. I can let go of people and summon new ones.

    I lived in a perpetual state of war. I believed that you were my problem and I saw boundaries as a personal attack. I clung to people who had limited love and empathy to give. I would give you more of my time, money, and energy than I could afford and blame you for it. I would let things build and build and build until I got blackout drunk and told you OFF.

    I have been working on myself pretty hard since 2012, and haven’t done most of the things most of the time since 2016. But until I surrendered, I didn’t believe I could let go of people before the relationship blew up. I didn’t even know what I wanted; I would just sense what you wanted, then decide whether or not I would give it to you. We live in a sick society full of broken toddlers. Emotionally, I’m in elementary school now. I no longer need to punish myself with reflections of a past me. Every time I let someone go I make space for someone new. I can see that many people are simply lost in their own pain, and can’t see past themselves. I can have compassion, and empathy. From a distance. 

    4. I can be in a world of pain without bleeding on everyone.

    As I grow older, traumas and patterns emerge, deeply embedded toxins and conditioning that wants to be felt and released. This week has been intense and painful. I felt attacked by the universe. In the past, when things like this happened, I panicked and made desperation phone calls to anyone who would listen. “I have to call in the troops,” I would say.

    Today I am able to allow emotions to flow through me even if it feels wrong at first. I can put down the looping stories and let myself feel. I can make the connections from current triggers to past traumas, advocate for myself when necessary, get on stage and be funny even when my life feels like it’s been dropped on the floor. Before surrender, the only time I was accused of being professional was on Seeking Arrangements. And there are lessons in pain. There are always lessons for those who are brave enough to look.

    5. I believe in myself enough to do the things I believe in.

    I am practicing Ashtanga yoga again, something I’ve been talking about for years. I’ve given up meat and most dairy. I believe that pigs enjoy warm baths just like I do, maybe more because they aren’t thinking about how many people downloaded their podcast. Also please download my podcast: Comics Book Club’s: Drunk & High on Petfinder.com with Amber Tozer. I pray, I meditate, I have cut down caffeine and have a plan to get off nicotine. I completed my first pilot script, waking up at five a.m. to write and rewrite so I’d be finished in time for a fellowship deadline.

    I used to hate myself so much I could rarely let myself enjoy anything, most of all my very favorite things. Now I am ready to do what I came here to do, with enough wild stories to last the rest of this life and a different sort of story to write into the fabric of my future.

    I’ve got my head just enough out of my own butt to see the world beyond myself. There is so much out there! Awakening is very exciting, and it feels. Oh, does it feel.

    I wish the same for you: May you be happy, may you be free, may you be at peace, may you be loved. May you believe in yourself. May you find a way to be ready to do what you came here to do. We are all worthy of that.

    Please feel free to share your stories of self-love, surrender, spiritual awakening, personal redemption, and your trolling (if you need to) in the comments. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Are the 12 Steps Safe for Trauma Survivors?

    Are the 12 Steps Safe for Trauma Survivors?

    When the 4th and 5th steps are done without support for the symptoms of PTSD, they have the potential to retraumatize.

    Trauma is a current buzzword in the mental health world, and for good reason. Untreated trauma has measurable lasting physiological and psychological effects, which makes it a public health emergency of pandemic proportions. Trauma is an event or continuous circumstance that subjectively threatens a person’s life, bodily integrity, or sanity, and overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.

    PTSD and Substance Use Disorder

    Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition caused by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Symptoms include nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, intrusive thoughts about the trauma, hypervigilance, and avoidance of triggers which remind you of the event. Substance use disorders (SUD) are frequently co-morbid (co-occurring) with PTSD. Many people with PTSD self-medicate with mind-altering substances to alleviate symptoms but getting high or drunk only works for so long. Substance use disorders often evolve from using substances as a maladaptive coping tool.

    There are many physiological correlations between psychological trauma and SUD. For example, there are similarities in gray matter reduction for both the person with PTSD and the person with an alcohol use disorder. Although the neural mechanisms of addiction in PTSD patients are not fully understood, research has found that in the prefrontal cortex, dopamine receptors may be involved in both conditions. Memories related to fear and reward are both processed with the help of these specific receptors. It could be that the processing of traumatic memories affects the dopamine receptors, making them more sensitive to reward-triggering substances.

    Sometimes, people with a dual diagnosis of addiction and PTSD find their way to 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. These programs are widespread, free, and require no commitment, which makes them more accessible than other types of treatment. AA’s worldwide membership and lasting existence has caused the program to be of interest to researchers for decades. Previous research has found positive correlations between AA participation and abstinence. There is less research on how 12-step programs interact with trauma recovery.

    Studies on relapse factors have found that common predecessors to relapse in adults include anger, depression, and stress, among others. Recalling traumatic experiences, for someone with PTSD, can cause intense physiological and psychological reactions characterized by these same feelings: anxiety (stress), depression, anger, and frustration. It’s a combination that puts people with both trauma and addiction at a higher risk of relapsing.

    Guilt, Shame, and AA

    There are two sets of steps in 12-step programs that involve memory recall and direct involvement with others: Steps 4 and 5 and Steps 8 and 9.

    Step 4 says: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” That step is followed up by sharing that inventory in Step 5: “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

    Later, Step 8 says: “Made a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” To deal with that list, Step 9 directs people: “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

    The gist with these steps is that they look at both the resentment/anger the person feels towards others (which always involves taking responsibility for part or all of the event that caused the resentment and anger), and also the “harms” the person caused others. But there is no direct guidance on how to ensure a realistic and safe assessment of past events is made. The AA book presents this step as if someone with a substance use disorder has the tendency to blame others. People with PTSD are wracked with self-blame, and it is self-blame and shame which fuels many people’s addictions, but shame is not explicitly addressed in the steps.

    Guilt is very commonly experienced by people with PTSD. Survivor guilt can be a bit of a misnomer; PTSD develops from situations that are subjectively experienced as traumatic, but these circumstances don’t have to involve death (although they certainly can and do for many people). Simply surviving can feel like something the person is not worthy of. They may feel guilt when they don’t stay in the pain and anxiety.

    Shame is also common in trauma survivors, especially in people who have been sexually assaulted. Trauma survivors must restore a positive sense of self to find healing. Judith Herman, the author of Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, explains that “the survivor needs the assistance of others in her struggle to overcome her shame and to arrive at a fair assessment of her conduct.” It becomes important, as the trauma reveals itself, to see it clearly for what it was so the person can integrate those experiences into their individual life stories.

    AA literature is very focused on decreasing ego and on disrupting the selfishness of the person with the addiction. This is not necessarily a helpful baseline for traumatized folks; it can be harshly critical. The feeling of being judged can deepen the rift between the survivor and others. Herman writes, “Realistic judgements diminish the feelings of humiliation and guilt. By contrast, either harsh criticism or ignorant, blind acceptance greatly compounds the survivor’s self-blame and isolation.”

    The primary text of Alcoholics Anonymous (the “Big Book”) suggests alcoholics review their past sexual life when creating a life inventory in Step 4. For the overall inventory, the book suggests that the reader completely disregard “the wrongs others had done” and to look only at “our own mistakes.” Even in situations where a person caused harm to the reader, the reader should “disregard the other person involved entirely” and find “where were we to blame?” These suggestions can be dangerous for survivors of intimate partner violence or child abuse who have been told that they were to blame for the abuse they suffered.

    The book further details what to ask yourself when making an inventory of your sexual conduct:

    “Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead?” It is worrisome that a sex inventory is taken to find out how “we acted selfishly” when one-third of women and one-sixth of men have been sexually assaulted or raped. An estimated half of women who experience a sexual assault will develop PTSD. One study found that 80 percent of women with SUD who seek inpatient treatment have been physically or sexually assaulted and nearly 70 percent of men have experienced either physical or sexual abuse.

    How the 12 Steps Can Harm People with PTSD

    Because remembering past traumas makes the brain’s reward center more receptive to the effects of drugs, Steps 4 and 5 need to approached with extreme caution for people who have experienced trauma. Ideally, these steps jumpstart healing; but when they are done without support for the symptoms of PTSD, they have the potential to retraumatize. As the person shares their trauma with someone else, hopefully the listener is compassionate and willing to point out where things were not the addict’s fault—at all. A child survivor of molestation had no agency in the assault, and it is unconscionable to tell that child, now grown, that they need to determine where they were at fault. It is not possible to “disregard the other person involved entirely” when an event only occurred because of the other person. Sometimes we need to recognize this fact and say to ourselves (or hear from someone else): “You had no part in this, you were a victim at that time.”

    In Steps 8 and 9 we are to list and resolve harms done to others. If step 4 and 5 didn’t properly address where our fault doesn’t lie, we may be inclined to list abuses and harm done to us as wrongs we did. It says not to make amends if it will cause harm to others, but we need an additional specification not to make amends if it will cause harm to ourselves. If you owe an abusive ex-partner money, are you supposed to pay them back if you’ve cut off all contact? These are issues that require careful consideration. Sharing both lists with a compassionate person has the potential to help survivors recover. Sharing both lists with someone who is too harsh in their suggestions and assessments has the potential to push those in recovery back into active addiction.

    The care of a loving, compassionate, and knowledgeable supporter, like a sponsor, can help sort out these dangerous triggers. Since such a large percentage of people in 12-step programs have experienced trauma, sponsors should be able to provide trauma-informed care; otherwise, going through the steps may end up retraumatizing their sponsees and leaving them vulnerable to relapse. Yet, there are no qualifications for sponsorship, and no way for someone new to the program to be aware of these potential pitfalls. There are so many variabilities to the 12 steps and how they are implemented. The way in which someone interprets the language of the steps can change how people understand themselves and their history. Trauma-focused recovery can be lost in the mix and deserves more explicit attention.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dear AA, We Need to Talk

    Dear AA, We Need to Talk

    You weren’t straight up so now we’re on the rocks.

    Dear Alcoholics Anonymous,

    I’m leaving you. I’ve had enough after 31 years and that’s not even counting the 2 before that. Oy, those were rocky. You sounded way too Christian with just a spritz of Buddhism thrown in for a twist. We’d be nothing but a sour mix because I’m a devout Jewish atheist.

    “Trust me,” you cooed. “Alcohol is cunning and baffling. I can help.” But when you strongly suggested I pray on my knees, I lost it.

    I screamed, “Jews don’t pray on their knees!”

    You weren’t alarmed but you asked that same old tired question. “How can you be an atheist and a Jew?”

    Before I could explain culture versus religion to you with my secular “bagel Jew” crack, you cooed at me:

    “That doesn’t matter. Anything can be a higher power—a chair or a doorknob. Just as long as you know you’re not it.”

    With an eyeroll, “A doorknob? What’re you, high? That makes no sense.”

    Unfazed, you kept trying to lure me in. “You’ll see the hoop you have to jump through is wider than you think.”

    But, oy vey, the goddamn god stuff left me feeling shaken so I split. Then when alcohol stopped working all together, I ran back. I dreamed about you warming me up like a stiff scotch used to. But instead of giving me euphoria, you said I needed to admit I was powerless over alcohol. If I surrendered this time, you said I could pour my sadness into you. I was lost and you were gentle, so when you told me to close my eyes, I did.

    You asked, “Can you think of anything that’s more powerful than you?”

    “Yes,” I said. “Rain. No matter how much I screamed at the sky, it wouldn’t stop raining.”

    Your face lit up. “You got it!”

    I beamed. “Oh! And the ocean, too,” I said. “Waves will keep crashing no matter what I do.”

    “Right. You’re powerless over alcohol and I can restore you to sanity.”

    Hands on hips, I yelled “I’m not insane!” But I was still shaken, not stirred.

    “You can use G.O.D. as in Group of Drunks,” you reminded me, then led me to a dark church basement where you said I’d feel welcome. But the pathetic coffee left me craving something stronger; I wanted to be under the influence till I was over the limit. Yet, still attracted to the liquor-free confidence there, I decided on the GOD acronym. Until the speaker cracked the Big Book open and read Step 11.

    You smarmy liar! And I was vulnerable, trying to quit getting lit. You gaslit me:

    “To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics
    who still cling to the A.A. group as their higher power….”

    Still desperate and confused, I kept going because people were nice to me. At a lunchtime meeting, the speaker talked about her fifth step. It sounded so much like confession I got excited and whirled my head around scanning the room for communion wine. Those early meetings taught me to pray—for a liquid lunch.

    You said it was a spiritual program so I had to accept the idea of a higher power. That nearly crushed me. You really didn’t understand that some people know there isn’t any god. I’d held out hope that you were going to unveil yourself as top shelf stuff but most of the time, you seemed like Mad Dog. Especially when you said stupid shit like, “Your best thinking got you here.”

    I wanted to be with you in the rooms, but most of the time I was dragging my ass around. But now I’m sick of feeling trapped. I hate your smoke and mirrors trickery. Your demand for rigorous honesty can cramp my style. When we almost broke up and I wanted to bolt, I cheated on you with meetings for atheists. The problem was there were so few of them and they were just as dogmatic.

    I can hear your disdain when you call me one of those “unfortunates” who can’t get the program because I’m constitutionally incapable of being honest. Now that’s grandiose. I’m sick of your self-righteous finger wagging at me, saying you’re not judgmental but then labeling me the belligerent one if I challenge anything you say. But come on, the idea of a looming spirit in place of intoxicating spirits is ridiculous.

    Okay, I admit I’m grateful that you always took me back. You’ve been patient and kind and most of all, you stuck by me. But damn it, I’m sick of being barked at for doing things that aren’t suggested. So I’m at a crossroads. The fear of leaving is a biggie. You and all of our friends will pull away from me if I leave you. The pressure to stay feels a lot like the bar pressure to do one more shot.

    If I went that route, at least I could take breaks from feeling everything so acutely while also stuffing down any critical words about you. Whenever I express frustration about how hypocritical you can be, I get looked at with pity: “Poor Dee. She’s taking her will back. Let’s pray for her. It only works if you work it.” 

    I wince at that crap. I refuse to wear a cone of shame if I save a seat, or gossip, or don’t feel like stacking the chairs some days. A lot of people think it’s healthy to fear slipping but I no longer want to fear anything. Peer pressure reminds me of junior high.

    Please quit telling me if I’m upset it’s because I’m obstinate, immature, and willful.

    Uh oh. But what if you’re right? If I leave, would I regress? I never want to be the sorry sot I was before we met. Those stakes are too high. I was afraid to give up alcohol and drugs because I “knew” I needed them. Then you proved me wrong. If I storm out, does that make me a brat who won’t take my medicine?

    You’ve always been a good listener and who else would love me in spite of my god rants? Maybe I am at the right party now. Though I long for the schnockered nights, I ain’t in my twenties anymore. I don’t even know if I could still stay up till four in the morning, much less hit the after-hours until the Tequila Sunrises. Yearning for wild nights of yore could be euphoric recall — rosy as a maraschino on top.

    Maybe staying together is fine after all. We’ve talked so many times about my expectations and you’re right—it’s stupid to blame you for being imperfect. I mean, look at me.

    G.O.D. can stand for good orderly direction, with Buddhism’s tangy flavor: a god within. Now that I’m thinking things through, I suppose a frothy soy milkshake could satiate me more than White Russians ever could. And, seriously, who wants a shit-faced higher power within anyway? No marriage is 100 percent bliss; perhaps I just caught a 31-year itch. My mind easily wanders back to booty calls with sexy bar pickups. Libidos on fire. At weak moments I ache to go back there. Then I snap out of it.

    Truth is, I love Netflix nights chillin’ with decaf chai latte from Starbucks. You’ve been there for me time after time. So, let’s hold up the paper cup. Cheers, AA. I’m not going anywhere.

    What’ll it be tonight? Barfly or Leaving Las Vegas?”

     

     

    How have you handled boredom and frustration in recovery? Or did you decide to leave your 12-step program? Tell us in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Radical Sobriety: Getting (and Staying) Clean and Sober as Subversive Activity

    Radical Sobriety: Getting (and Staying) Clean and Sober as Subversive Activity

    Alcoholism has medical, economic, and social implications, none of which actually serve any kind of bohemian or utopian yearning, but deceive the sufferer into believing that they do.

    Sometime in the autumn of 1798, a middle-aged chief of the Seneca tribe led a hunting party from their home near the Finger Lakes of upstate New York through the verdant woods of western Pennsylvania, bringing a cache of venison and buckskin to a small settlement at the forks of the Ohio River called Pittsburgh, where they traded their goods for a barrel of whiskey. Historian of religion Peter Manseau writes in his One Nation, Under Gods: A New History that afterwards the “hunters had lashed their canoes together into a single barge and managed to make their way upriver as the liquor continued to flow,” as they made their way home to the Iroquois settlement of Jenuchshadego. Manseau records from primary sources that the returning party terrified the villagers, that they would “yell and sing like demented people,” and that “they are beastlike.”

    The Code of Handsome Lake: An Early Recovery Movement

    The Sachem Cornplanter, Handsome Lake’s half-brother, had seen the Seneca decimated by alcoholism, and so he banned liquor within the confederation. Handsome Lake fell into the withdrawal symptoms of delirium tremens, though as Manseau writes “it was believed that he was [also] suffering from a spiritual malady.” Expecting death to take him, Cornplanter let Quaker missionaries tend to his dying brother, until one day “some strong power” took command of Handsome Lake, and he awoke seemingly cured of his affliction. The chief told his people that while convalescing, he had a mystical vision of three angels who imparted to him the creed of a new faith that was to be known as the Code of Handsome Lake, or the Longhouse Religion. Central to Handsome Lake’s prophecy was a belief that liquor was a narcotic whose specific purpose was the anesthetizing of humans, of reducing them to bestial impulse so as to make them easier to control. For Handsome Lake, both drinking and sobriety had profound political implications, with Manseau explaining that the chief’s temperance “became the conduit for the promise of a broader redemption.”

    There is no narrative of sobriety which I do not find inspiring; there is no story of recovery which is not useful to me. As different as Handsome Lake and I may be, there is an important experience which we share. Because though he is an 18th century Indian chief there is some combination of brain chemistry which makes us similarly powerless before barrels of proffered whiskey. We’re both conversant with his older contemporary the English lexicographer Dr. Johnson’s observation that “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” But there is something important and distinct in Handsome Lake’s example which I think is worth reflecting on: his faith wasn’t just one of personal redemption, but also of an understanding that there are radical implications in recovery, that abstinence can be subversive, that sobriety can be counter-cultural.

    Trying to Make It as a Drunk Bohemian

    Easy to think when we’re actively using that there’s a cracked romance in being an alcoholic: all those drained shots and pint glasses, living our best imitation of the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire’s commandment that “You have to be always drunk.” I probably never needed much justification to getting blackout drunk – I liked it. But sometimes rationalization was a helpful salve when I woke up the dozenth time in a month shaking, hungover, going through my text messages to see whom I offended. The disease’s conclusions may be universal, and our symptoms are largely the same. But there’s always some variation. Mine was of the pseudo-bohemian, aspiring Romantic kind; dog-eared pages of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac initiating me into a society of the ecstatic, of those who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles.” More fun to think of myself as among “the ones who are mad to live” rather than as the one who pissed his pants.

    To clarify, I don’t blame any of those writers, some of whom I still enjoy, for my affliction. I even still have a beloved copy of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Hell. No, what I mean to suggest is that whatever the reasons why I drank, through it all I had some sort of warped sense that the damage I was doing to mind, body, and spirit served some supremely radical role, that I was a renegade against the strictures of regulated, uptight, square society. Part of me still feels that buzzed euphoric recall of dangerous nostalgia. And I didn’t quit because I rejected that gin-flavored narrative so much as that I realized in a moment of clarity that seems to have miraculously stuck (so far) that if I didn’t put down the bottle, absolutely nothing good would come of it. But what I’ve also realized, as I approach the midpoint of my third year of sobriety, is that there is something just as subversive in rejecting alcohol as in embracing it.

    The Radical Potential of Narrative to Treat Addiction

    In his excellent book Drunks: The Story of Alcoholism and the Birth of Recovery, Christopher M. Finan credits Handsome Lake with founding the first real fellowship that could be said to treat the disease with the radical potential of narrative. Handsome Lake is the first in a line of visionaries, from the six reformed drunkards who founded the 19th century Washingtonian Movement to Bill W. and Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous, who crafted what was fundamentally a counter-cultural ideology which rejected alcoholism, but also the servility which came with it. Finan writes that for the Seneca of Handsome Lake’s era, the “euphoria of intoxication brought temporary relief from the pain of dispossession and death.” Same as it ever was, because addiction’s particular form of mental slavery pretends to treat both profane concerns, such as making us ignorant of our own dispossession, as well as more transcendent fears, like how we can almost believe that we’re immortal for the price of a pint or 20. We prayed for art when we were drunk, but as Lewis Lapham writes, “Alcohol’s job is to replace creation with an illusion that is barren.”

    What these fellowships have always promised isn’t denunciatory scolding, but rather a rejection of a narcotic which helps to keep people in physical and spiritual bondage. Alcoholism has medical, economic, and social implications, none of which actually serve any kind of bohemian or utopian yearning, but deceive the sufferer into believing that they do. Meanwhile, the addict’s world constricts into a smaller and smaller circumference. Odd to consider that temperance as a reform movement was often grouped alongside abolitionism and suffragism, since we so often see it as fundamentally anti-freedom. And prohibitionist and neo-prohibitionist arguments have been social and moral disasters, maybe especially for the individual suffering with addiction. But the grouping of temperance (as distinct from Prohibition) with those radical political movements is not strange, for the personal rejection of intoxication has a certain radicalism to it as well, a turning away from an exploitive thing-of-this-world. That is before we consider how addiction has been used to target marginalized communities, how it can be a function of poverty and class, and how the criminal justice system and the media treat different sufferers in different ways. As Finan writes, the struggle to get sober, and the ways in which alcoholics have been able to help other alcoholics get and stay that way, deserves to be understood as one of the “great liberation movements” of American history.

    The Myth of the Bar Stool Revolutionary

    When I sat on a bar stool feeling the electric thrum, or when I passed out on my apartment floor, or on a city street, I may have imagined that there was something subversive about my antisocial behavior, but in sobriety I’ve developed a more jaundiced view of how my own particular predispositions were exploited in a way that was anything but counter-cultural. I had my radical political poses, my underlined copies of bohemian poets and political theorists, and I could talk a big game about being “anti-capitalist,” but I had no compunction about shoveling out thousands of dollars over the years to pad the bank accounts of liquor and beer companies, apparently seeing no irony in paying for the very poison that was killing me. Once I recall formulating a bar-stool argument that the local tavern was one of the last democratic institutions in the United States, and I think there is still some merit to that, but I’ve found far-more radical potential in how groups like the Longhouse Religion, the Washingtonians, and AA are organized.

    Not much is actually anarchistic about active addiction other than the chaos that characterizes your life, but the non-hierarchical, egalitarian, horizontal organization of 12-step fellowships makes them one of the few successful, genuinely counter-cultural movements in American life. Author Michael Tolkin describes AA as having a “cunning structure; no due, no tithes, no president, protected from permanent officer and the development of cults by a rotating leadership for each separate group, no other requirement for membership than the declaration of fellowship in a shared condition.” What they offer is something in genuine opposition to the gods of this world, the market system that will profit off suffering while promising you paradise, what Tolkin describes as “spiritual slavery to the internal compulsion engine.”

    To turn down a drink, that which is pushed through advertisement and neighbor alike, that edifying, enjoyable, relaxing nectar, is to reject the status quo in a way which courts its own type of infamy. The only drug you’ll kick where you’re viewed afterwards as being a bit suspicious. “Can’t you have just one?” As with Handsome Lake’s realization that liquor wasn’t just physically killing him, but holding him in a sort of bondage, so recovery has radical implications that go far beyond health and self-care.

    Recovery as a Liberation Movement

    The fundamental brilliance of such fellowships is the sharing of a common affliction and the communal support of those who’ve been where you have. This is the same brilliance of all great faiths. Where the endless addictions of capitalism build you up only to tear you down (for profit of course), the process of recovery is one where you must first be torn down to be built up. Religion at its best is a process of ego diminishment, an understanding that you are one of many, and that ultimately you are something infinitely more precious than a mere consumer — you are a human. When Finan talks about recovery as a liberation movement, he means the way in which there isn’t just a physical freedom promised in sobriety, but a mental, emotional, and spiritual one as well. No longer chained to the endless cycle of believing that one more drink will promise something immaculate in “just fifteen more minutes” which never comes.

    Apart from the political, I think that the most radical potential of recovery is something a bit more personal, something that is an issue of transcendence itself. It’s all well and good to claim that addiction is a good metaphor for those things which oppress us in life, but addiction is also literally addiction. Followers of mystical paths have always advocated behaviors which others specifically can’t, won’t, or don’t do, from celibacy to fasting. Sobriety is in its own way such a radical, unexpected, unconventional behavior, as author Peter Bebergal has written: “Sobriety is its own kind of altered state of consciousness.” In Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood, Bebergal writes about how in early recovery “A cup of coffee in the basement of a church… tastes like the nectar of the gods. A roast beef sandwich is like… something from Eden,” and the most profoundly true of observations: “Sleeping for the first time sober and waking up clean is a mystery of boundless grace.”

    “Mystery” and “grace” are religious terms, and indeed 12-step recovery often gets libeled as a type of religious mysticism. I would only take offense to that were I against religious mysticisms. But Bebergal is right, the first time you go to bed sober and wake up clean does feel like a mystery, because it’s so antithetical to who you have been, and it does feel like grace because for once you have a sort of freedom you’ve never known before. It’s a staking out of agency, of personal sovereignty, and it’s a declaration of independence. “Freedom” is simply another word for grace, and there is never anything more powerful, radical, or subversive than freedom. Bebergal writes that “Removing the pall of daily addiction is like flash powder going off in your face,” as it was for Bill W., as it was for Handsome Lake, as it was for me, and as it possibly can be for you.

    In addiction there is that pursuit of freedom, the lie that one more drink will get you closer to the comfort and safety of a home you’ve never known. The radicalism of sobriety is that it actually gets you there.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Am I Still in AA If I'm Not Going to Meetings?

    Am I Still in AA If I'm Not Going to Meetings?

    After years in recovery, certain aspects of the program may no longer be useful while others are. That doesn’t mean you have to completely shut the door.

    Hi, I’m Helaina, my sobriety date is November 12th, 2011, and right now, I’m in the grey when it comes to “the program.”

    Here’s what that means.

    A lot is being written lately about leaving 12-step programs. The alternative, of course, being staying in 12-step programs. For some people, the decision likely is clear. Maybe you’ve realized you do need more meetings, sponsorship, step-work, and fellowship for your own betterment. Great! Do it. Or you definitely need to leave everything you associate with AA behind, because it really is just not for you, and it’s not helpful. Great! Do it.

    If you have some solid recovery time, you may be somewhere in the middle, in a place where certain aspects of the program are likely no longer useful or necessary, while others are. If you’re not giving the program the same all-or-nothing you always have before, you may be feeling pressure to stay and change your behavior, get back to your former state of enthusiasm and action. Others may be giving you subtle or not-so-subtle suggestions to leave, especially if you can’t fake it til you make it anymore and you’re clearly over it.

    Finding the Grey Area in 12-Step Programs

    The groupthink can be intimidating, but you may not even have to make the decision to stay or go.

    Ironically, we spend a lot of time un-learning that kind of black and white thinking in recovery, opting instead to find peace of mind by living in the grey.

    In the grey, we can recognize that what we need and what works for us within the 12-step models can change, and that’s normal. As humans, we’re in a constant state of evolution, which is why we don’t spend our entire lives in Kindergarten (hopefully).

    For me, part of becoming a sober woman in recovery has been learning to trust that I know what’s right for me, and what works for me, while blocking out the opinions of everyone else; namely, the scare tactics, the fear of judgment, and the people who think they know what’s best for everyone. That isn’t easy.

    For a while, I kept going to meetings because I was afraid that I’d disappoint someone, maybe a sponsor, if I didn’t. I went because I didn’t want people to think I was a “bad AA.” Or I worried that people would think that I must have relapsed if I stopped going. There is a confusing contradiction in the program about how one size doesn’t fit all and everything is just a suggestion, but also that you’re headed for a miserable death if you reduce or stop going to meetings. So meetings weren’t really a useful part of my toolkit anymore, but I still carried them around until they almost became a burden instead of a cushion. But without the meetings—or with only occasional meetings—am I still in AA?

    Over time, as they say, we find a bridge back to life, and thinking in black and white is the very thing that can freeze you up while trying to walk across your bridge. So, I walk across my bridge “in the grey.”

    In the grey, you don’t have to pressure yourself to make a decision or overthink whether you’re “really” doing well. If you feel like you’re doing well, you’re probably doing well. It’s not a trap. If you haven’t spoken to your sponsor in a few months, or if you don’t have one, or if you don’t go to meetings…have you “left” AA? More grey matter coming up: you don’t have to decide to cut off everything and everyone, or do all or nothing when it comes to the program.

    Healing and Trusting Myself

    I’ve done a ton of hard work—including 12-step work —that has changed my life and allowed me to remedy what drove me to drink in the first place. I have this great life because of those early years of incredibly hard work, diligence, taking all of those suggestions as seriously as possible and doing step work over and over again, and therapy, and all the good things we do to create meaningful change in our lives.

    I finally trust that I know what’s best for myself, and I know that I always get to change my mind. It’s taken me almost half a decade to feel comfortable knowing that I don’t need to drag myself to meetings just to be a “good AA.” I don’t need the same level of therapy for PTSD with the same frequency as I did ten years ago. What I need to stay sober, physically and emotionally, has also changed over time.

    Deep down, I think that if we’re honest with ourselves at any stage in our recovery, we all know what we need to do in order to not drink—and furthermore, to be good people, kind people, honest people, considerate, thoughtful, loyal.

    Whatever your values are, identify what you need to do to keep them close and act accordingly.

    Going to a certain number of meetings, making coffee, talking to a sponsor every day is not necessarily the answer for everyone, even if it is the answer for many. I respect that the same way I hope people will respect the rest of us walking our own path with the tools we need.

    As the book says, what we learn becomes a natural working part of the mind, and so what we did during our first three years may not be what we need to do after six years, and we can trust our own thinking again. When I feel that maybe my thinking is murky here and there, I usually know to reach out to bounce those thoughts off someone else.

    But the idea of knowing yourself well enough to change your program-related behavior is not preached nearly as often warnings against it.

    Sweeping Generalizations as Scare Tactics in AA

    “I thought, ‘I got this’ and then I relapsed.”

    Or “I stopped going to meetings, and I relapsed.”

    Of course, there’s also the F word: “I forgot that I was an alcoholic and couldn’t drink normally. “

    It is important to honor people’s experiences, but it becomes dangerous when we assume that all alcoholics everywhere need to do the same thing or they risk the same fate. Using that kind of sweeping generalization as a scare tactic can be enough to cause someone to want to reject the program altogether and leave or keep doing something that just isn’t right for them anymore and stay against their better judgement.

    Relapse is not part of my story (common belief is that if I don’t say “yet” I’m also doing something dangerous, so I’m sticking that word in the grey area of these parenthesis), but I’d be willing to bet that folks who have relapsed didn’t “forget” anything. They probably didn’t forget that their drinking had serious consequences the way that one forgets to turn the light off in the kitchen or take out the trash before leaving for vacation.

    They likely made conscious choices to engage in some unhealthy behaviors again, despite knowing what they knew about themselves; what they forgot was to put into practice all the things they’d learned in the program along the way.

    For me, forgetting my inner struggles would be like forgetting that I’m a woman, or that I’m a human, or that I need to eat and sleep. I’m well aware. I’m also not walking around saying, “Darn, I’m an alcoholic!” or “I am a womannnn!” every day.

    To an extent, there is actually a level of “forgetting” that feels great. I rarely think about drinking or smoking weed. I don’t think every day about how I can’t drink. I just don’t drink anymore.

    I know that if I become complacent, I may not get to keep it all, so it’s up to me to do what I need to do in order not to get to that place. Doing something to keep up the new life we’ve created is a great idea, but for me that something isn’t to keep me from forgetting that I’m an alcoholic, but rather to keep me from forgetting what I’ve learned, how far I’ve come, and what I did to get to where I am now.

    Social support in some form is such a crucial part of any kind of recovery, but you can decide what that looks like. I’ve made amazing friends in sobriety and as sober women, we understand each other and connect on a deep level that creates a special bond and provides a unique support system. And when you have just one alcoholic talking to another, as they say, you have a meeting.

    Self-Empowerment in Recovery

    We have to give ourselves permission to feel confident that after a certain period of time, having put in the years of work, we can start to know what’s best for ourselves. That breathing room is nice. Enjoy it.

    I also know that in a year, or in five years, something in me might change again, and it may feel right to go to meetings again. I’m not digging my heels in. I’ll be grateful they’re there, because despite all of the personalities and the disappointments and frustrations that we don’t like finding “in the rooms,” it’s still a beautiful place that is home to a program that works for a lot of people. It’s something we can always count on.

    Luckily, the world of wellness has opened up. Principles and concepts that were once exclusive to 12-step are now everywhere, in books, on podcasts, on Instagram and elsewhere. Reminders to keep our side of the street clean, take things one day at a time, think about our personal boundaries, speak (and text, and email) kindly and honestly, pause before acting, meditate, forgive, practice self-care, volunteer, focus on putting good into the world and not just taking from it, are everywhere.

    We learn that to keep it, we have to give it away and for me, that’s still true. Ironically, I spent years raising my hand to offer myself as a sponsor in meetings, I gave out my number, I spoke to newcomers, and I even served as “sponsorship chair.” Yet, I never had a sponsee. Instead, I’ve carried the message through personal interactions and to people who message me after reading something I wrote. I tried carrying the message and helping other alcoholics “the traditional” way for years, and didn’t get the chance to do it that way, so I figured out the ways in which I can.

    If you don’t know where you stand around that line in the sand that separates “leaving” or “staying” then lay your blanket down, sprawl out across it, and forget about the line altogether.

    How has your 12-step participation changed over time? Do you believe people can reduce their involvement and still be okay? Sound off in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Nice to Meet You, Will You Marry Me: Life as a Newcomer in Sobriety

    Nice to Meet You, Will You Marry Me: Life as a Newcomer in Sobriety

    Relationships make us feel good. And if we haven’t done the work to grow in the areas of emotional sobriety, we will quickly find that being in a relationship has become our new fix.

    One of the trickiest things to do in recovery is practicing mindfulness and awareness after putting the dope down and learning how to stay sober. Emotional sobriety is paramount when it comes to remaining sober. I believe that if I can grow in the areas of low self-esteem, codependency, anger management, and intimate relationships, then the act of not self-medicating becomes extremely easy.

    Those four areas are very important to address and work on while getting sober.

    I use because I am obsessed with the desired effect. When I put the drug in me I feel better. So when I’m not feeling good about my image or who I am as a person, I want to medicate. When I’m acting out in a codependent way, I want to medicate. When I’m struggling with anger, I want to medicate. I don’t feel good; I want to feel good. Drugs help me feel great.

    If it weren’t for all the consequences that come along with using, I’d be high right now.

    Love Is the Drug

    Let’s talk about the fourth area: relationships.

    A wise man once told me that relationships would be the hardest thing I’ll ever do in recovery. Those words never rang truer in my life than the day I finally got into one. It takes work, it takes patience, it takes a whole lot of faith and trust. It takes looking inward and being mindful of many things: who I am as a person, my morals, my ability to listen and show empathy, and making sure I’m living honestly with integrity. It takes courage and many other things that only come by living a holistic recovery lifestyle. When I do these things, my relationship is very rewarding for myself and for my partner. Even through conflict, we come out stronger.

    So factoring in all that, imagine being someone with low self-esteem; somebody that struggles with codependency and is quick to anger. Now imagine getting into a relationship when you haven’t grown in those three areas. On top of all that you’re still figuring out how to simply stay sober. What a beautiful recipe for disaster. It would be a miracle if you didn’t use in the end.

    If I haven’t grown in those three areas, it’s safe to say that I still don’t feel good about myself. And if I don’t feel good about myself, my knee-jerk reaction is to find something to make me feel better. And if the lifestyle of a person in active addiction is codependent in nature, imagine how potentially deadly it would be to engage in an intimate relationship.

    I mean, let’s be honest. Relationships make us feel good. We feel wanted, we feel important, depending on the situation we feel attractive, the endorphins are flowing, the dopamine is at an all-time high, not to mention the sex is probably amazing! Relationships make us feel good. And if we haven’t done the work to grow in the areas of emotional sobriety, we will quickly find that being in a relationship has become our new fix.

    It’s intoxicating and obsessive. The desired effect is immediate. Almost sounds like using drugs. Now the term “drunk in love” isn’t such a stretch, is it?

    And that’s why it’s recommended to stay out of a relationship your first year in sobriety. It’s not because sex is bad or being in love is wrong. It’s because relationships make you feel good too soon, too often. I need to give myself an opportunity to recover in all areas of my life before I can think about anyone else.

    Essentially, I have replaced the drug with a person, most likely another person in recovery because those bonds are deep. And now there are two lives at stake. It’s dangerous.

    I’m not trying to scare anyone away from pursuing a relationship, I’m simply saying to be mindful and aware. Assess where you’re at in your personal recovery before you start messing with someone else. Especially if they are in recovery as well.

    That reminds me of a story.

    Falling in Love at a 12-Step Meeting

    I remember one of my first 12-step meetings. I was at an all-time low. I had just gotten out of jail, I looked like shit, my car had gotten repossessed, I was jobless, on probation, and coming off of painkillers, my real true love. When I got to the meeting there was a woman standing by the door greeting everyone. She made eye contact with me, smiled, gave me a hug and told me her name. She opened the door and pointed towards the coffee. I’d finally found her! The one I had been waiting for my whole life! I was in love!

    I sat through that whole meeting obsessing over her. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. When it was her turn to share, I thought I heard the voice of an angel. I imagined what it would be like to date her. I imagined the highs and the lows of being in a relationship with her. I thought about our wedding and how many kids we would have. I thought about the breakup and the make-up sex. I thought about her cheating on me and imagined what it would be like to win her heart back. I saw us growing old and dying together. The perfect couple, in love until the very end. I pictured all that in 60 minutes. The entire time I was at that meeting, that’s all I thought about.

    I didn’t hear about recovery that evening. I didn’t hear a solution to my drug problem. I just sat there and crazily obsessed over this woman. She was the one. Perfect for me.

    I never saw her again after that. I couldn’t even tell you her name.

    My first few months in early sobriety, that’s kinda how it went. I would show up at a meeting, meet a woman, live an entire life with her in my head for 60 minutes, and go home. I did that dozens of times with dozens of women. I know none of their names and they have no idea who the hell I am.

    It was a miracle I never engaged or acted on the thoughts going through my sick unrecovered head. I can’t imagine the damage I would’ve caused in those meetings.

    I’m blessed to have had sponsors who told me to leave the women alone; to give them a chance to recover too.

    They told me two dead batteries can’t start a car.

    I’m grateful for the men in my life who instilled good values in me during early sobriety. I haven’t lived a perfect life in recovery but I have been super mindful and aware of the fact that I don’t want to hurt anyone.

    If I’m still creating chaos and causing as much damage in recovery that I used to cause while in active addiction, what’s the fucking point in staying sober? I might as well use if I’m going to be a sober scumbag.

    How I Got Healthy Enough for an Intimate Relationship

    Today I focus on myself, who I am as a person. I work on my self-esteem every day. Some days are better than others. I combat codependency whenever it rears its ugly head. I address the areas in my life where I may struggle with anger and find ways to work through them. I’m a better man for it.

    And because of that, I have the ability to practice being in a healthy relationship. Because I’ve gained so many tools while on this recovery journey and I’ve found all are indispensable, interchangeable, and useful within my intimate relationship.

    It’s been a long time since I’ve walked into a meeting and asked a woman to marry me in my head.

    My hope for you if you’ve read up to this point, is that you find a place in your life where you have fallen in love with yourself; knowing all the good and all the bad that makes up who you are. I think when we can become our own best friend without all the false pride is when we finally become an awesome partner for someone else. I hope that happens for you (if that’s what you’re looking for).

    If nobody told you today that they love you, fuck it, there’s always tomorrow.

    View the original article at thefix.com