Answer Addiction

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  • Mommy Doesn't Need Wine: The Stigma of Being a Sober Mother

    Mommy Doesn't Need Wine: The Stigma of Being a Sober Mother

    “I’ve always wanted to film the real ‘after party’ when the mom is passed out with her little kid in the background, or she gets into her car and drives drunk. It happens all the time.”

    When I made the decision to quit drinking, one morning in June 2017 when my relentless hangover was surpassed only by my anxiety and self-loathing, I didn’t think about how sobriety would affect my role as a parent beyond the obvious positives: less time nursing a glass of wine and more time to engage with my kids; a clearer morning mind during the pre-school madness; more patience, less irritability. More money.

    What I didn’t consider was my exclusion from the Mommy Needs Wine club. Although exclusion isn’t the right word – it was my choice to leave. I just hadn’t realized how significant a part of my life it was until I canceled my subscription.

    When I first became a mother in 2007, I quickly realized there was an unwritten rule, one that was never mentioned in the parenting manuals: being a mother is hard, and wine (or gin, or vodka, or whatever your particular poison is) makes it easier.

    At that point, I didn’t yet have a Facebook account, and Instagram wasn’t even a thing. Today’s pervasive social media culture gives the Mommy Needs Wine club even more power. It recruits mothers from their Facebook and Instagram feeds, via memes that declare: “The most expensive part of having kids is all the wine you have to drink” and “I can’t wait for the day when I can drink with my kids instead of because of them.” We’re encouraged to buy baby onesies emblazoned with “I’m the reason Mommy drinks” and prints saying “Motherhood. Powered by love. Fueled by coffee. Sustained by wine” (to put in a pretty frame and display on your wall, lest anyone should forget how crucial booze is to parenting).

    “The media makes a ton of money marketing alcohol to moms, playing on the difficulties of being a mom and offering alcohol as the only solution to stress,” said Rosemary O’Connor, certified life and addiction coach and author of The Sober Mom’s Guide to Recovery. “I’ve always wanted to film the real ‘after party’ when the mom is passed out with her little kid in the background, or she gets into her car and drives drunk. It happens all the time, yet it seems so harmless because wine is so much a part of our culture.”

    It’s so much a part of our culture that the Moms Who Need Wine Facebook page is liked by over 726,000 people; that the memes and baby onesies and wall prints are promoted by thousands of likes, shares and crying-with-laughter-face emojis; that even celebrity moms are in the club. Kelly Clarkson said in a January 2018 interview, “[Kids] are challenging. Wine is necessary.” And millions of mothers around the world raised a glass.

    The truth is, this alcohol-dependent culture—if you don’t drink you’re boring, judgmental, not to be trusted (Winston Churchill and his quote “Never trust a man who doesn’t drink” have a lot to answer for)—and the ensuing stigma around sobriety are far from harmless. Between 2006 and 2014, alcohol-related emergency room visits soared among women, according to a study published in January 2018 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy in May 2015 found that a significant number of mothers said drinking helped them “assert their identity” as something other than that expected of a woman in early midlife. Mothers with young children told researchers the “transformative effects” of “excessive drinking” let them to revert, for a short time, to their younger, more stress-free selves.

    When I started to share my sobriety with friends and family, I received varying reactions. Many people were supportive, some stopped inviting me to parties, and the vast majority were surprised. Not just surprised that I—always the first to suggest a glass of prosecco, always the last to leave a party—was the person who had publicly declared my commitment to sobriety, but surprised that I could even contemplate being a parent without booze. How was I going to get through a challenging day with my kids without the promise of a few glasses of wine to take the edge off? How was I going to reward myself for surviving another week of homework, messy bedrooms, mini rebellions and Xbox arguments if I wasn’t going to do it with wine?

    Back then, I had no answers to those questions. I was simply concentrating on getting through one sober day at a time. That was enough of a reward. What I needed was support and encouragement, not interrogation.

    And then there was the pity. It came in various forms, from the “Oh, you must be so bored?” on one of my first sober nights out, complete with sympathetic head tilt (for the record, I wasn’t bored until I was asked that question) to the barefaced “I feel sorry for you!” at my first sober wedding. The pity was worse than the perplexity and the cross-examination, because it came with a “but.” But this is your choice. But you’re not an alcoholic, are you? (Because alcoholics have to be homeless, jobless, friendless losers.) But you won’t die if you have a drink, will you? But you could just have one, right? People didn’t feel sorry for me the way you feel sorry for someone with a broken leg. Their faux-pity made me feel guilty. It made me question my decision, not because I didn’t think it was the right decision, but because it was a decision that excluded me from so much. I didn’t fit into the drinking culture the other parents in my social circle celebrated and depended on, so where the hell did I fit in?

    O’Connor had a similar experience when she stopped drinking. “People who I thought were my ‘best friends’ stopped calling and inviting me to parties,” she said. “When I was newly sober, the feelings of not being included was one of the most difficult realities to face. Being newly sober, going through a divorce, and having people abandoning me was so painful. I found out who my real friends were and they are still my friends today.”

    Now, with over a year of sobriety under my belt, I feel differently. I’m proud of my decision and the strength it’s taken to get to this point, to stay sober at parties and weddings and nights out when everyone else is getting drunk, and, sometimes, to stay home and miss those occasions because protecting my sobriety is more important than worrying about what anyone else thinks. I’ve also realized that in most cases, how people react to my sobriety has actually nothing to do with me, and everything to do with their own issues with alcohol.

    O’Connor agrees. “I realized that when I was drinking I never wanted to hang out with non-drinkers because it made me self-conscious about my own drinking,” she said.

    It’s difficult to talk about alcohol dependency with a group of friends who’re all knocking back wine while you’re working your way through the mocktail menu. But it’s a conversation that needs to be had. How many mothers are functioning alcoholics or have alcohol dependency issues, but don’t know this because our culture tells them—repeatedly—that drinking is the answer?

    I’m no prohibitionist. (I say that so often I should have it tattooed on a prominent body part.) But I do believe that we need to question the media messages we receive about alcohol. If not for ourselves, then for our kids.

    “Parents of young children need to be aware that when they place themselves on the slippery slope to alcohol use disorder by frequently exceeding recommended drinking limits, they place their young children on that slope, too,” warned George F. Koob, Ph.D., director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “We know that young children learn from watching what their parents do and not just from what they say. The children of parents who are heavy drinkers are more likely to become heavy drinkers themselves and develop an alcohol use disorder than the children of moderate drinkers or abstainers.”

    I see my kids benefiting from my sobriety—in countless little ways, every single day. A lengthy bedtime story because I’m not counting the minutes down to wine o’clock. A relaxed morning before school because I’m not hungover, sleep-deprived and snappy. A healthier model for how to administer self-care. A lesson on how to question cultural norms and why, sometimes, taking the road less traveled is the most rewarding journey of all.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My Life with Phil

    My Life with Phil

    If anyone could relate to loneliness, abandonment, depression, it was Phil. We got each other. 

    If my cat could talk, he’d say “You’re so fucking crazy.” Also, feed me, asshole. And not that gluten and grain-free slimy shit. Meow Mix from the corner bodega, where you’ll often spend seven dollars on an activated charcoal latte paired with a fifty cent Camel Light loosie, which I judge your embarrassing fat ass for. You’re actually insane. I’ll kill you.

    Phil, that’s his name, has tried to kill me before. He’s a very dramatic attention-seeker. Anxious, needy, moody. Damaged goods. I’ve got similar symptoms because, according to several psychiatrists, I’m bipolar II and, according to me, crazy. Phil’s been through a lot, and admittedly, I am partially to blame.

    Oh, and Phil is a pyromaniac. Though I can be and have been terrible, I’m pretty sure I’ve never deserved to die via apartment fire—puking under the bed would’ve been more reasonable— but Phil takes his feline frustrations to the extreme.

    The first time Phil turned the gas stove on, I thought, maybe his back paw had innocently hit the knob on his way up. But that was my brain on drugs. Despite being perpetually overweight, he’s not clumsy. He’s light on his feet; a decent ballerina in a past life. This was intentional. This happened more than once. This was really testing what my problematic as-a-result-of-anxiety-and-amphetamines pulse could handle.

    Redundant scenario: Phil would just LOVE greeting me when I entered my apartment at 7-ish AM by standing perfectly still over a flaming stove burner in taxidermy pose, staring right into my bewildered AKA tweaked-out eyes, and then maniacally meowing with the subtext: I’m seconds from plopping my fat ass on this flame if you don’t get your shit together. I dare you to abandon me for a day or two once more to get as high as Mount Everest and fuck everything at an open 24-hours bathhouse in Chelsea.

    Phil’s penchant for pyromania emerged circa 2013, when I was at my most mentally ill and near-ish-death-ness. But I was growing tired of perspiring out regret, poppers and lube, anyway. And Phil was just offering me tough, traumatic love! Okay, maybe he was just miserable living with mentally fucked, miserable me, and into the idea of both of us dying in a local news-making manner. Maybe Phil was doing us both a favor. End us.

    “Suicide kitty.” That’s what my ex-roommate, Messy Mark*, called him because of Phil’s impressive rabid flying squirrel-like antics. I inherited Phil from messy Mark. Pre-Phil, I hated cats and the only cat I tolerated was the dead one I had to dissect in Anatomy class in high school. But when the formaldehyde wore off and his thighs developed mold, my teacher discarded him and I received a D+ on my report card, which made my hating-on-cats restart. It was a short-lived although intimate relationship. I never even knew his name.

    Phil was already named Phil when Mark brought him home to our janky South Williamsburg apartment in the summer of 2009. Mark had been sober for like, a month, and he told me, with his enchanting albeit decaying-inside eyes, that a cat would keep him sober. I told him I hate cats, they scratch everything, and I knew I’d end up having to take care of the cat, so please God, no. Taking care of Mark was already my pro-bono job. I did my best! Well, the best that I, a party animal (spirit animal: a cat in perma-heat) who proudly has never blacked out, could at the time. (Note: We were in our early twenties and fresh out of college, living it up in a pre-Starbucks/Wholefoods Williamsburg and convincingly adopting the PBR-chugging, Patti Smith-worshipping hipster ways. You know, when kombucha was still a thing.)

    Mark, on the other hand, was the drink-to-blackout type. He was an all American twink-next-door type. Charming, cute, book smart. His book cover was colorful and playful, concealing the tattered pages and its painful Comic Sans font. He’d invite himself to my friends’ house parties, because he had no friends of his own, which should have been a WARNING: DON’T BE ROOMMATES sign, and I’d warn/beg my friends to not fall for this troubled trick, because he wouldn’t remember anything in the morning and then I’d have to clean up his mess, including the sometimes charcoal-latte-colored puke. But alas, Mark’s blue eyes and bubble butt was a fuckable force. He’d also sleep with guys I thought I was dating, but I’d forgive him. I was a battered tabby cat to his primped-and-polished persian. We, oops, hooked up a few times too. This wasn’t something I initiated… initially. I knew there’d be trouble post-orgasms. But when your never-not-wasted roomie wakes you up via aggressive seduction, well, I was too tired to object.

    Anyway, despite my cat concerns, I came home one day to find Phil crazily rolling around on the Ikea carpet in catnip. My fury segued into an “Aw, it’s fine” when Mark looked up at me with a genuine, heart-tugging smile. I was touched! Perhaps that purring Swamp Thing-y thing on the rug would cure Mark, because 12-step meetings sure as shit weren’t enough. And I’d be free and maybe even happy. Ha!

    I was a spineless, clueless enabler. I didn’t understand why Mark couldn’t hold his liquor like a normal early twenty-something millennial. And I didn’t want Mark to die, so I’d do whatever to help. I didn’t want him to ever punch me in the face again when I forced his inebriated ass to look into the mirror at his sadness. I didn’t want to have to drag him through glass after he collapsed into our Ikea cabinet post-bar, as Phil screeched and judged from atop of the fridge. I didn’t want to wake up to a sea of is-this-real-life texts like the time he was in Dunkin’ Donuts and had just pissed his pants after escaping from the ER—apparently he had passed out at the bar the night before and someone normal called 911. This someone also called Mark’s mom, which I realized because of a devastating voicemail, in which she wondered if her son was alive. Not fun. Heartbreaking.

    Phil was damaged goods himself, and, as expected, it’d be me, the professional plant killer, responsible for getting him back on track. He was an army brat, and had two unstable homes before being dropped off at a ASPCA in Virginia, where he lived in a cage for a year. Apparently no one wanted a middle-aged, jittery, ordinary tabby cat. I guess the bloody bald spots from Phil’s habit of biting out his fur and furiously scratching himself like a meth addict weren’t so appealing. (Meanwhile, Mark cruelly took Phil off of his anxiety meds because he’d rather save money for happy hour.) Phil’s coat of fur looked like my shredded, smelly Harley Davidson (reminder: I lived in Williamsburg) thrift t-shirts. He was so death-door-y thin, like me at the time (because, drugs), his meow was/still is so grating and loud. It’s nearly as demonic as the iPhone default alarm. And his moniker at the shelter was “alien kitty” because of his macadamia nut head paired with green, extraterrestrial eyes. Anyway, Mark and his manipulative victim ways convinced his Virginia-based friend—his only other friend—to drive Phil to Brooklyn; a non-refundable gift.

    While Mark did calm down and get sober for a bit post-cat adoption, he didn’t miraculously develop thoughtfulness or anything. He’d attend evening 12-step meetings after his 9-5 job and then go to sober people Chipotle hangouts. HE WAS SO HAPPY! And I’d never ever see him. I’d been replaced. And I think I was subconsciously jealous of his healing. As a freelance writer, I worked from home, so it was just me and Phil. I took care of him. Not like it’s difficult—food, litter, cuddles, oh my!—but this wasn’t my goddamn cat! Mark would lock his bedroom door at night, so I’d allow Phil’s manic ass to sleep with me and claw at my scalp.

    And so, I fell in love with Phil; Mark fell in love with a recovering meth addict. Two months later, Mark casually told me he was moving in with this boyfriend and that I had to find another roommate within two weeks. NBD. But I could keep Phil, because his boyfriend was allegedly allergic to cats. I don’t know why, but I started to ugly cry. (Well, my ex-therapist told me I was, yawn, in love with Mark and I’m scared of intimacy and abandonment etc etc fuck off etc.) It wasn’t until Mark finally “got better” and didn’t need me anymore that I acknowledged and confronted my own issues.

    Just kidding. I’d little-by-little distract the pain with sex, drugs and rock bottoms.

    Another roommate moved in for a year or two, but then we were bought out of the rent stabilized decrepit apartment for 40k. So, Phil and I moved to a shit but rent stabilized studio apartment on the other side of the Williamsburg bridge in Lower East Side—I signed the lease during what I now understand to have been a manic high, believing that I clearly needed to live alone; to take care of just myself, Phil and my plants. I was so psychotically positive! (I blame my psychiatrist for adding another mood stabilizer.) Living alone would inspire me to get a fantastic full time job, and then I’d be able to afford the studio on my own once the 40k ran out!

    Didn’t happen. What did happen was Phil putting up with my unraveling as a result of eternal loneliness with no future, except funerals, in sight. I’m very dark. Phil forgave me, probably, when I’d lock him in the bathroom during a Grindr quickie. He plopped on my chest when I was coming down; he dived off my chest when I convulsed and howled in fetal position because of anxiety/panic attacks. If anyone could relate to loneliness, abandonment, depression, it was Phil. We got each other. Phil’s still with me.

    I haven’t seen my ex-BFF since he left me, but he’ll text me like, every five months, informing me of things like how he now lives in a forest or that his boyfriend he ditched me for died of a drug overdose. Mostly, he brings up memories. “Remember that time when ___?” I never remember. I don’t want to remember. My responses are mostly an emoji or two. I’ve intentionally disconnected. His most recent text to me wasn’t a ‘sup. It was a handful of sexually explicit photos, featuring his dick. Ew. If he was ever my real friend, he would’ve remembered that I’m an ass guy. “Are you high?” was my response. He wrote no. I didn’t even care if he was lying, his top talent. I blocked him. I mourned him years ago. I’m all about protection these days. I’ve got some friends, a long-term boyfriend, and a drug-free, inconsistent zest for life.

    Today, I’m sometimes very happy. I’m sometimes going under those dark, depression waves. The bipolar isn’t going anywhere. Unless I’m traveling outside of America, I barely leave my house.

    And I still have major anxiety. So does Phil, but we’re in this thing together. We’re a lot better, we’ve grown up. He gets me out of bed and gives me a purpose. Feeding him his healthy grain and gluten-free food reminds me to take my meds. We take care of each other! We need each other!

    Meanwhile, this triggers my morbid mind. He’s 73 in cat years. Phil’s cremated remains will be in a jar on my Buddhist altar soon enough. It was ME who was supposed to be rotting in a coffin by now, not Phil! But at least it’s been years since I last truly worried about Phil killing me… killing us. (Just kidding—I remove the stove knobs when I’m not in the apartment because, anxiety.)

    Just a month ago, I was convinced Phil was dying. It’s a gnarly image that involved scattered around my apartment puddles of puke, heavy breathing, and him hiding from me in the litter box. I didn’t want to remember him like this: lethargic and not wanting anything to do with me for two full days. This wasn’t like him. He’s a cuddle monster in the mornings. And here I was, imagining a life without him. My first pet. Would I replace him? Could I? He’s the only one who, through it all, never left me. He’s tried, but only a handful of times. (He attempted to jump out of the window after sitting on a flame, but it wasn’t open wide enough for his fat ass.)

    He’s back to normal-ish for now. I’m trying to appreciate our time together. So many memories. I try to think of only the best memories, but sometimes I’ll look at Phil and I’ll remember Mark, but only for a moment, then I shut that shit down. I’ve let Mark go.

    I couldn’t save Mark. Neither could Phil. But we saved each other.

    If Phil could read this, he’d eject a hairball because of my cheesiness. He’d roll his alien kitty eyes. And if Phil could talk, he’d say “You’re welcome for saving your life, bitch.” And then go back to sleep.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Narrative Therapy, or What Angelina Jolie Tells Herself About Herself

    Narrative Therapy, or What Angelina Jolie Tells Herself About Herself

    Ask yourself: As a sober person, who am I? What is my new story? What will I tell myself and others about who I am and what my life is like sober?

    Human beings are fascinated by stories. Indeed, we are particularly enthralled with stories about the lives of other people. Biographies and autobiographies always hover near the top of the New York Times bestseller lists. Kids love bedtime stories as do adults these days: Popular smartphone apps like “Calm” tell bedtime stories that send their adult users into a soft, peaceful slumber. As a therapeutic approach, narrative therapy dives into the human instinct for storytelling to help people in need. Stories can be a profound vehicle for healing.

    Not everyone, however, uses storytelling in such a positive fashion. Taking advantage of our instinctive love for stories, entertainment magazines make millions by publishing articles about famous people like Angelina and Brad, whose seemingly fascinating lives offer distraction from our own. If you were awake when the news broke out about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce in September of 2016, you probably saw the headlines. Everybody saw the headlines.

    The tabloids and media alike snarled and ripped apart both Brad and Angelina, trying to create negative hype and drama. Negative stories sell a lot more than positive ones, so this particular narrative was salacious, with accusations by a vengeful wife against her husband that included out-of-control substance use and physicality towards his children, teetering on the edge of abuse.

    The stories provided classic schadenfreude — that guilty, yet pleasurable feeling you get when you hear about someone else’s pain. And we, as a collective whole, loved it. Even the rich and beautiful are not perfect, so us “average” people don’t have to feel so bad and so “less than” after all. The media capitalized on this phenomenon, and Angelina was portrayed as enraged and merciless, a bitter accuser of someone she once loved. But some people felt Angelina was going too far; an angry woman airing her husband’s dirty laundry felt like a betrayal.

    Yes, such a characterization could be true, and it could be a legitimate take on the story. But, from her viewpoint, could there be another? Could the negative portrayal of both Angelina and Brad be slanted by our society, namely the newspapers and magazines, for their own benefit? Was Brad really that unhinged and was Angelina really that vindictive?

    If Angelina and Brad chose to deal with their struggles through therapy, there would be a number of different approaches from which they could choose. Narrative therapy, a type of psychotherapy, is all about looking at the world from different viewpoints and perspectives. By looking at how narrative therapy could apply to this celebrity break-up, we can gain good insight into why this approach can be effective for adults in recovery.

    Let’s use Angelina as an example. If Angelina went to a narrative therapist, she might present a quite different perspective about her actions and the divorce than what the tabloids were touting. According to an analysis based on the theory of codependence, Angelina could be staying with her husband out of desperation, even if he were dangerous. I am not claiming that Brad Pitt was a danger to his children in actuality, but rather examining this overall narrative for argument’s sake. In this analysis of the situation, the fear of “being alone” can have a damaging influence on people’s lives.

    Rather than coming forward with this codependent explanation, Angelina most likely would present a radically different narrative. Instead, Angelina was standing up for those very people she holds most dear – her children. If the accusations were true, she could have told a story about herself as a guardian of her kids, strong and fiercely protective. Rather than being scared of being alone, her decisions were based on her natural instincts, akin to a mother bear protecting her cubs. Ultimately, their welfare was her number one priority.

    A narrative therapist could help Angelina see that being committed to her children was a powerful narrative to embrace. Her fervency could be seen as having its roots in protection. She bravely stood up to protect that which she loved. And she made a number of potentially difficult sacrifices for the welfare of her kids (namely, her marriage), but she also stood for her values and intuition as a mother.

    What’s more, maybe Angelina has gone against the societal definition of a so-called “happy family.” According to the People website, Angelina made a statement to Vogue in 2006 about being a single mother when she met Brad. “I think we were the last two people who were looking for a relationship. I certainly wasn’t. I was quite content to be a single mom,” she stated.

    This vantage point would support what is called in narrative therapy the “sparkling moment” when Angelina Jolie stood up to the problem. She made the choice to leave a situation that was potentially harmful to her kids, perhaps taking the chance of becoming a “single mother” again.

    The therapist taking a narrative approach would ask questions of Angelina to guide her as she developed hope in the aftermath of her divorce. The therapist would remind Angelina Jolie of her confidence in being a single mother as shown by the quote. The potential goal would be to help her deal with the inevitable effects of her divorce.

    Single motherhood often has a negative connotation in our society. We are told how hard it is to be a single mother, but could this be different for Angelina? Could it be a way of life that Angelina enjoys? She chose to adopt multiple children before getting together with Brad, actively taking the role of “single mother.” She broke society’s mold of the “ideal” mother: someone who is in a partnership while raising kids. Perhaps the narrative therapist would examine this with Angelina, helping to posit it as one of her strengths.

    A narrative therapist helps you uncover the other side of the story that often doesn’t get told, for one reason or another. The pressures of traditional roles and mainstream ideas in society often keep these other narratives buried. A significant part of narrative therapy is about telling your story about who you are and why your life counts.

    The therapist helps clients to understand the situations and events of their lives in a manner that helps to reveal how the clients want to be in the world. A goal is to create a tangible image of what they want their life to look like and finding the evidence to support this image, which may already be in place.

    Narrative therapy works particularly well within recovery scenarios. People who have struggled with addiction often have negative stories about who they are, often because of the shame associated with being an “alcoholic” or “addict.” Finding a different story is a way of seeing yourself apart from the “alcoholic” or “addict” label and developing a way to view yourself and your life that has nothing to do with the drug or alcohol problem. A narrative therapist believes that you, as a person, are separate from the drugs and alcohol, and he or she will always remain curious and respectful.

    Many people call themselves different things and have “stories” that depend on the labels they put on themselves. For example, a “hipster” is someone who may dress in a chic, alternative way that most people outside of big cities don’t encounter in daily life.

    What story do you tell yourself about yourself in recovery? Ask yourself: As a sober person, who am I? What is my new story? What will I tell myself and others about who I am and what my life is like sober?

    There are a myriad of questions that can offer access into new stories. For example, have you ever thought about what you want to be written on your gravestone? If you were at a party, what would your elevator pitch be about who you are and what you have done in your life? What would your theme song be and why? 

    The therapy work is about developing a storyline that runs counter (or opposite to), but also at the same time as, the story of addiction. It is separate from the storyline involving the problem of drugs, alcohol, and other addictions. Just as Angelina could feel shameful for being called a “bad” wife who did not stick by her husband, there is an alternative story in which she is a “good” mother protecting her children. The therapist helps clients view themselves and their lives apart from the shame of the addiction and the resulting resentment at being viewed negatively by society.

    The narrative therapy approach can be empowering: The client is always the expert, and the therapist is the guide who asks questions. The goal of this process is to help the client build the confidence and self-esteem to be the person that knows his or her life the best.

    To the narrative therapist, you are so much more than just an “addict” and the negative experiences that happen to you in the throes of addiction. Doing this work can help you uncover and discover the other parts of who you are; your hopes, dreams, and preferences for living in sobriety as the protagonist and main character in your own, entirely new storyline. Is there something that only you know about who you are and what your life is like that would help you evolve into sustainable sobriety with the right attention and care? Maybe developing this side of yourself could help you stay sober and live a healthy, satisfying life in long-term recovery.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Importance of Women’s Recovery Spaces

    The Importance of Women’s Recovery Spaces

    Women’s meetings gave me the space to talk about the unspeakable, allowing me to move closer to becoming free from the fear that has kept me shackled.[Content Note: Discussions of IPV]

    I started my sobriety journey in a foreign city where there was one English speaking 12-step meeting daily, and a relatively small number of attendees. During part of the year, there were few travelers coming through the city, which meant fewer attendees. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to be the only female in the room. I was struggling to accept the gendered language of the literature we read, and had difficulty relating to the stories of the men in that space. I appreciated their support and camaraderie, but I didn’t see myself often reflected in their experiences. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I needed was to connect with other women in sobriety.

    When a recovery meeting for women was suggested by a few ladies who had recently moved to the area, it was met with some resistance. The same happened when I later moved and suggested a women’s meeting in the new city where I was living. The resistance wasn’t a force in numbers, but there was a strength of conviction in the small number of people who had a problem with it. I’ve been told that a women’s-only meeting (that is also open to all non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans identifying folks) can’t possibly be considered part of a [insert 12-step group name here] program because Tradition Three states, “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop [drinking/using/overeating/etc].”

    When it comes to recovery from addiction, gender-aware spaces are important and there has been a long history of them within 12-step programs. Identity-focused groups have existed for decades, including men’s meetings. The first meeting for Black folks began in the 1940s in Washington DC. In 1971, the first gay and lesbian AA meeting began in the same city. While some binary-gender-specific meetings are open to trans folks, there are many that are not. The transgender community still struggles to find a place to recover safely, but there are some meetings in some large cities that are specifically for people who identify as trans.

    The first women in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)–the first and most common of the 12-step programs–didn’t have other women in recovery to guide them and would receive support and sponsorship from non-alcoholic women. The founders originally disagreed on whether or not to admit women into the fellowship, at all. The first women-only AA meeting began in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1947 there were more than a dozen women-only groups throughout country and that number has since grown exponentially, worldwide. In 1965 the first forum for women alcoholics was held as the National AA Women’s Conference. Every February since, the International AA Women’s Conference has held a conference “just for women in AA.”

    The gender we identify with and the gender we were assigned at birth both play major roles in how we are socialized growing up and how society treats us as adults. Our experiences and choices are, without a doubt, guided and influenced by these societal gender norms. Men and women (generally) benefit in different ways from participation in 12-step programs. According to a paper published in the journal Addiction which looked at AA specifically, women seem to benefit the most from “improved confidence in their ability to abstain during times when they were sad or depressed.” Men tend to benefit more from an increased “confidence in the ability to cope with high-risk drinking situations and [an increased] number of social contacts who supported recovery efforts.” In this study, men benefited from experiencing less depression and having fewer drinking buddies hanging around. Women needed the confidence to experience depression and still not drink.

    Women’s meetings can foster validation for feelings of sorrow, and women share their experiences on not drinking despite those feelings. Men, on the other hand, frequently cite the need to combat “self-pity” and credit tough love for their early success in sobriety. For women, it’s often about learning to abstain while in the dark feelings, not escaping from the dark feelings altogether.

    The majority of people entering into treatment for addiction are victims of trauma and they present trauma-related symptoms to a significant degree. It’s a vicious cycle: trauma increases the risk of developing a substance use disorder and substance use disorders increase the risk of experiencing trauma. Johanna O’Flaherty, a psychologist specializing in trauma, says that over the course of her career she’s seen people admitted for addiction treatment and “80 to 90 percent in the case of women, have experienced trauma.” Most of the trauma is related to physical and sexual abuse.

    The most common trauma in the world is sexual violence and intimate partner violence. Active substance use disorders are positively correlated with an increased risk of domestic violence. Alcohol does not cause domestic violence, but someone who is controlling and abusive is more likely to carry out violence when under the influence. The interconnections of violence, traumatic disorders, and addictions are profound.

    The truth is, most sexual violence is carried out by men. A 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that “90 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against women are men” and 93 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against men are also men and overall “men perpetrate 78 percent of reported assaults.” Asking women to talk about their sexual traumas in front of men is a violent act. Yet, trauma must be worked through or it will never heal. The only way to do that is to provide safe options for people to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable discussing.

    Google “women in AA” and the results are heavily saturated with critiques of the program. There are suggestions for alternatives and articles on predators in the rooms of AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous). It happens, 12 step groups are not utopias and the people in the rooms aren’t there because their lives have always been amazing and their choices ethical. It is possible to meet manipulative and abusive predators there. Strong connections between women can be a buffer and a safety net for other women who might become entangled in an unhealthy or abusive relationship in early recovery.

    As a paper written by Jolene Sanders in the Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery explains, “Women also feel more comfortable speaking about issues not directly related to their immediate concern of alcoholism. For example, women may talk about childhood abuse, sexual abuse or harassment, and other forms of assault. Similarly, women speak more candidly than men about their relationships with significant others and tend to focus on emotions more than men. Finally, women tend to discuss mental health issues, such as depression, more than men and focus more on building self-esteem, rather than deflating pride or ego, which are primary concerns for men in AA.”

    When the women’s 12-step meeting began in the city where I got sober, it was a game changer for me. I had been in a state of traumatic symptom overload. I was experiencing intrusive and vivid recollections of my traumas. I was being triggered all the time about the emotional, psychological, and physical abuse in my past. There are some things my body will not allow me to speak about in certain scenarios. It’s a physical reaction, neurological in origin, and uncontrollable. My body becomes hell bent on protecting me from past danger, literally preventing me from talking.

    If I attempt to speak when my body wants to protect me, I begin stuttering and tripping over each utterance. Unbeknownst to me, what I needed was the company of people who were not men. Women’s meetings gave me the space to talk about the unspeakable, allowing me to move closer to becoming free from the fear that has kept me shackled to the past.

    Women’s only spaces in recovery from trauma and addiction can help people to express things they may have been taught to not talk about in front of people outside of their gender. Or about events that they have gone through or acts they have carried out or things that have been done to them in relation to their gender identity. I’ve heard rumors suggesting that women’s meetings are not good because they’re just “man-bashing.” This is unequivocally false; just because something isn’t for you doesn’t mean it is against you.

    Victims of domestic violence often stay in their situations for financial reasons. To help with this issue, Credit Cards created a guide to help victims gain the financial independence needed to get away from their abusers safely and effectively.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dating While (Newly) Sober

    Dating While (Newly) Sober

    When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker.”

    I thought that when I got sober, I’d get into the best shape of my life, start going to the gym all the time, train for a triathlon, become super successful and meet the man of my dreams. Basically, my version of what advertising says is the perfect life. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of what some people say: the gift of sobriety IS sobriety. Boring. I mean, I was and I wasn’t; I mostly just wanted to stop being miserable. I did a 90 and 90, got a sponsor, joined a gym, took a class in my career of choice, slept a lot, and met a guy.

    When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker,” and “I can get sober and date at the same time.” Luckily for me, she didn’t say it was a rule, because there are no rules in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say: “no dating allowed in the first year.” It just talked about some people prefer a little more pepper in their sex life or whatever (page 69) and who are we to tell people what spices to proverbially cook with?

    So thank god for that because in my first 90 days, I met a guy. He was a friend of a friend and when we met, he told me that he was going through a big transition in his life.

    “What kind of a transition?” I asked, while thinking Oh my God! We have so much in common! We’re both going through transitions! As if a relationship could be built on that alone. Or even a marriage, because I thought that now that I had opened the book of sobriety, everything would change in the blink of an eye. It would be like I just woke up to a new life. That’s how it happens, right? I mean, don’t you kinda hear that all the time? The person’s life was shit and then they got sober and now they’re in this awesome marriage/job/house/car/babies and it all like happened in a year or maybe two? I’m smart and attractive. That shit should happen for me too! I can make that happen. I. CAN. MAKE. THAT. HAPPEN. Higher power who?

    So, when I asked the guy what kind of transition, he said poetically, “It’s like my house was taken away so now I have no house, but at least I can see the moon.” And I was like “Wow, coooooool. I totally love the moon.”

    For our first date, we went on a bike ride along the river, had lunch where I did not order a glass of wine (the first time that has ever happened) and ordered a coffee instead. I didn’t tell him that I was newly sober. I just told him I didn’t drink, and he said that was cool and he’s thought that maybe he should quite drinking too (uh oh); that he meditates and when he meditates, he feels super clear and drinking gets in the way of that (uh yeah). Then he walked me home and I remember feeling very sensitive and insecure. It was like I was eight years old again with a crush on a boy at school and I forgot how to walk my bike. Or talk. I felt awkward. Which is why, at 16, drinking and boys went hand in hand. Less feeling. More yay.

    When I got home, I realized there was no way I could date right now. I knew that if I was rejected or even felt rejected, it would probably cause me to drink. I didn’t have the emotional tools. I talked to my sponsor about it and then called him up and said, “I really like you, but I’m going through something right now where I need to take a year off of dating. I hope you understand.” And he said, “Wow. I should probably do that, too.” Turns out he was going through a divorce and was in no place to be in a relationship or be the man of my dreams/dysfunction right now.

    For the rest of the year, I concentrated on going to meetings, fellowship, making new AA friends, eating cookies and milk, binge watching Netflix at night, and it was the most awesome/horrible year of my life. I highly recommend it. I gained 10 or 20 pounds which was weird. Dudes can go through a rough time and get fat and grow a beard and still be considered likeable — but as a woman, it’s harder to hide behind a beard and 50 pounds and be cool. But a girl can dream.

    So, a year later, guess who I ran into? No-house-moon dude. And yay! I was like a year sober so totally awesome and fixed, right? It. Was. On. We went on a few dates, and I honestly can’t remember if we had sex. It was only seven years ago and I know we did sexy things but I cannot for the life of me remember. I don’t think we did, because we would have needed to have the talk and well, let’s just say that the time I chose to have the talk was not a good time to have it. Take it from me when I say DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE TALK WHEN HIS HEAD IS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. That should be in the Big Book. It’s a real buzz kill for one and all. And our relationship (if you can call it that) ended shortly thereafter which was okay because he was seriously still mourning the loss of his ten-year marriage.

    So that’s my take on dating in the first year. I do know a couple people who hooked up in their first year of sobriety and 30 years later are still married. That might happen to you. I knew that wasn’t going to happen for me. It wasn’t until year two that I met the man of my dreams AKA qualifier who really brought me to my knees (not in a good way) and into Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous which is like the nicest thing a guy can do. Kidding. But not in a way because Girrrrrrrl, I needed some of that SLAA in my life. Since then, I’ve moved to a place that I am happy to call home, am “healthy” dating and more will be revealed. But the best thing is that I like myself – dare I say love myself? I love my friends, my career, and my life and I don’t expect a man or any person or thing to save me. Because I don’t need saving any more. Thank god. Thank HP. Thank program. And thank you.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How One Rural Community Is Fighting to Save Lives from Drug Overdose

    How One Rural Community Is Fighting to Save Lives from Drug Overdose

    “I don’t want another parent to pick out a casket. I don’t want another grandparent to have to look a grandchild in the eye and say ‘your momma is gone.’”

    The Driftwood Motel on Oak Island, North Carolina, has seen better days. All around it, pastel-colored vacation homes with kitschy names like After Dune Delight reel in tourists with promises of beachfront sunsets and shaded hammocks by the pier. Though the Driftwood Motel is also painted in cheerful pastels, the paint is flaking off in dry strips and littering the ground next to cigarette butts and busted beer bottles. Rhonda C. lives on the bottom floor of the Driftwood with her bed, couch and kitchen furniture crammed into a room with dark sheets that cover the windows. She is one of the motel’s many long-term residents – people drawn in by the $100 a week price tag who end up staying far longer than they had planned. A gray-haired, matronly woman, Rhonda looks after the other residents, especially the young ones who drift in and out in various stages of inebriation. She hadn’t been able to offer them much, until she met Margaret Bordeaux.

    Margaret is a petite, African American woman, quiet and unassuming until you get to know her fiery side. As an outreach worker for the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, Margaret runs a mobile harm reduction unit in Brunswick County, a sparsely populated rural community hugging North Carolina’s Southeast coast. Brunswick is also one of the counties hardest hit by drug-related deaths in the state. At least once a week Margaret drives its lonely roads, seeking out places like the Driftwood Motel that collect people who have lost every other home. Thanks to a grant from the Aetna Foundation to combat the opioid epidemic, Margaret has a van stocked with supplies to help reduce drug-related death and disease. She gives out naloxone (a medicine that reverses overdose from opioids such as heroin, fentanyl, and prescription painkillers), syringes, and other resources, and she teaches people how to prevent, recognize and respond to an overdose.

    “I make friends and develop relationships in Brunswick County,” says Margaret. “Many of the people I’ve met here thought that naloxone and clean syringes were magical things only available in [cities]. No one has been coming out here to offer these services until now.”

    Some people are wary when Margaret first pulls up because they have been treated poorly by health care workers and aren’t accustomed to a warm, non-judgmental person offering them free services. But after a few visits, Margaret wins them over.

    “My whole life I have rooted for the underdog and the underserved,” says Margaret. “I want to care for people that society doesn’t care for. People use superficial reasons to ignore each other and I want to remove those reasons and say, hey, there is a person here.”

    Kathy Williams is one of the people whose lives Margaret has touched. A middle-aged, Caucasian woman with a defiant personality, Kathy’s backstory is the stuff of nightmares. She raised two kids as a single mom, Josh and Kirby. As an adult, Josh married a wonderful woman and had two children. Kirby struggled with drug use, and whenever she hit a rough spot, Josh and his wife would take her in and help her get back on her feet. But in 2011, Josh’s car was t-boned by a school bus. He, his wife, and both their young children died in the crash. The loss hit Kirby hard. Her drug use escalated and five years later, she too died of a drug overdose.

    Kathy tells this story completely dry-eyed. It’s as though she has endured so much pain that nothing can faze her anymore. These days she is raising her 14-year-old grandson, Kirby’s child, and also caring for her own aging parents. She is also one of the founding members of B.A.C.K. O.F.F., an organization of Brunswick County families who are fed up with losing their loved ones to drugs. What started as a support group in March 2017 has morphed into an organization with a mission to educate people about the realities of drug use and to help save lives.

    “A mother is not supposed to bury her child,” says Kathy. “I don’t want another parent to pick out a casket. I don’t want another grandparent to have to look a grandchild in the eye and say ‘your momma is gone.’”

    B.A.C.K. O.F.F., which stands for Bringing Addiction Crisis Knowledge, Offering Families Focus, makes and distributes overdose prevention kits containing naloxone to families with a loved one who uses opioids. They also spread awareness about North Carolina’s 911 Good Samaritan law, which protects people from prosecution if they seek medical assistance for an overdose. B.A.C.K. O.F.F. members provide community, resources and support for families impacted by drugs and offer space for honest talk about drug use. No denial, no sugarcoating, no pithy slogans about just saying no. Real talk from real families caught in the same struggle. But not everyone is willing to speak up.

    Elsewhere in Brunswick County, Alex Murillo has been trying to convince Hispanic parents who have lost child to drug poisoning to get involved in B.A.C.K. O.F.F. It hasn’t been easy.

    “Many Hispanics here deny that drug use is happening in their families,” says Alex, who recently lost his 19-year-old nephew to overdose. “If a parent loses a child to overdose, they say they died in their sleep. No one wants to talk about it.”

    A tall, dimpled man with a perpetual smile, Alex’s cheerful demeanor hides a tragic history. Alex is originally from Mexico. When he was brutally raped at 12 years old, his parents threw him out of the house, claiming he deserved to be raped because he “acted gay.” At 15 years old, Alex married a girl, but the marriage made him so miserable that he decided to come to the United States where he hoped to be able to express himself more freely. At the border he was apprehended by a human trafficking cartel and forced into sex slavery.

    “They forced me to take drugs. They beat me and pimped me out,” he says. “I was so shocked. I didn’t think things like that happened in the U.S.”

    Alex eventually escaped. He tried to join a church community but was turned away after admitting he was gay. He attempted suicide, but his brother found him passed out from a bottle of sleeping pills and took him to the hospital. When Alex woke days later, his attitude on life had changed.

    “I was surprised to be alive,” he says. “But I realized that I was still here for a reason and I decided to dedicate my life to helping other people.”

    Today Alex owns a small Hispanic tienda in Brunswick County where he offers help to anyone who comes to his doorstep, whether they are seeking food, advice, or help paying rent. Every year he hosts a multicultural festival in his store parking lot, though other Brunswick County residents have threatened to shut it down because they are unhappy with the area’s growing diversity. He is also happily married to his husband, who works in the store and supports Alex’s outreach efforts. Alex hopes to become more involved in educating the Hispanic community about drugs.

    “We can’t just ignore this problem. The drugs are in our schools. They are everywhere,” says Alex. “We need to do more outreach to the Hispanic community to teach them how to talk about drugs with their kids. They can’t just tell kids not to do drugs. Kids see their friends doing it and they want to try too. We need to have honest conversations as a community.”

    Margaret, Kathy and Alex may be an unlikely team, but together they are working to bring resources and hope to a county that has suffered devastating loss. Little by little, their efforts are making a difference. Margaret has helped people enter drug treatment programs and reconnect with family members where ties had been severed. Alex is making headway on opening up conversations about drugs in the Hispanic community. B.A.C.K. O.F.F. provides Kathy with an outlet to teach families how to help their loved ones who use drugs.

    “I used to look at a person who uses drugs as an addict, but now I look at them as someone’s brother, son or family member,” says Kathy. “I feel that if we had had these tools like naloxone, overdose education, and a support group years ago, my daughter might still be alive today.”

    At a small Mexican diner where we meet for lunch, I ask Kathy what her message is to people in rural communities impacted by drugs. For a moment, she is quiet. Finally she says:

    “I want people to know they are not alone. You might think you are alone, but there are so many of us going through the same thing. We can hold each other up.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 5 Tips For Staying Sober In College

    5 Tips For Staying Sober In College

    At the end of the day, the college experience is about so much more than just alcohol.

    For most people, college is not associated with sobriety.

    Such was the case for me during the first two years I spent away from home. I drank often and partied hard, convincing myself that it was normal. I liked to be the one outdoing everyone else, thought there was some badge of honor I could earn by doing so. And honestly, I had a blast—until I didn’t. I didn’t realize this right away, but I drank differently than my peers. While they knew how and when to stop, I didn’t. I all too often crossed from having fun to being a sloppy, drunk mess, saying and doing things I regretted come morning light.

    It all came to a head at the end of my sophomore year, when I ended up hospitalized with a .34 blood alcohol content. My parents gave me an ultimatum: get sober, or I wasn’t allowed back home for the summer. I went along with getting sober, never planning for it to actually be something I stuck with. I wasn’t even 21 and was still in college. Who got sober in college? I didn’t know of anyone, and I didn’t intend to be that person.

    But as time passed and I refrained from drinking, I realized that I felt good, both physically and emotionally. I liked being in control of my actions, knowing what happened the night before. It felt freeing. So, I ran with the whole sobriety thing, staying sober my junior and senior year of college, and now, for the three years following college.

    I won’t lie, maintaining a social life while being sober in college wasn’t easy. In fact, at times it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. But it is possible. Along the way I discovered a number of tricks that helped remind me why I was sober and made it easier to stay that way. Here are a few:

    1. Be honest with the people close to you. Sobriety isn’t easy. But it’s even harder when you try to do it alone. It’s understandable that telling people about your decision to stop drinking is scary. It’s not something very many people choose to be open about, especially in college. But if you can, pick two or three people you are close to and tell them the truth. Tell them why you decided to get sober and why it’s important to you to maintain that sobriety. If they ask how they can help, tell them. Express what you need, what makes you feel supported. They wouldn’t ask if they didn’t genuinely care and want to do what is best for you. Give people the chance to surprise you with their support, because they often will.
    1. Make self-care a priority. It’s easy to let self-care fall to the side in college. You get so busy with classes, with friends, with study groups, with sports, that you forget to take time for yourself. This is always important, but even more so when you are sober. In sobriety, you need to know when and how to take time for yourself. This means different things for different people. For one person, it may be a bubble bath and reading a book for fun. For another, it could be working out, or journaling, or attending 12-step meetings. Whatever the case, make sure you identify what it is you need and make it a priority in your schedule.
    1. Remind yourself you won’t be hungover come morning. For some reason, this was always a powerful tool for me. Just knowing how physically awful hangovers felt and how unproductive they made me for the entire next day was usually enough to quell any desire for a drink. When I first got sober, someone told me hangovers are actually a form of withdrawals from alcohol, which is why mine had been getting progressively worse. Reminding myself that the morning would be clear and I would be able to be productive and reach my full potential always brought me back to reality when I found myself wishing I could drink with my college friends.
    1. Connect with sober peers. Though it’s somewhat unlikely you will find these people in college, it’s not impossible. But if you don’t, there are other options. Because I went to a semi-small college, there were no other people my age who had gotten sober. But by going to some 12-step meetings and joining online communities, I was able to connect with people who shared my experiences and who were in situations similar to mine. Having that connection with others in recovery is vital in moments when you need support and understanding, or even need someone to tell you it just isn’t worth it to pick up a drink.
    1. Remember that the main reason for college is to receive an education—an expensive one, at that. This may sound odd, but for some reason it really helped me when I was wishing I could have a “normal” college experience and drink with my friends. I found it helpful to remind myself that first and foremost I was at college to get an education so I could pursue the career I wanted to pursue. College is not a cheap investment by any means. If I had continued to drink at the rate I had been, I likely would have wasted a good amount of money and not received the quality education I had hoped to attain at the college I chose. But today, I can say I got the most out of my education (the last two years of it at least) because I was fully present and invested.

    At the end of the day, the college experience is about so much more than just alcohol. Sure, at times this may be hard to remember. There will be days when it may seem like everyone around you is drinking or talking about drinking. It’s easy to feel left out, like you’re missing out on a college rite of passage. But that’s not true. These are the days it’s important to remind yourself why you set out to live a sober life and why it’s important for you to continue to do so.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Deeper Cleaning: How I Came to Accept My Mother’s Hoarding Disorder

    Deeper Cleaning: How I Came to Accept My Mother’s Hoarding Disorder

    About 50% of all hoarders have blocked access to their fridge, bathtub, toilet and sinks. 78% have houses littered with what could be deemed garbage. My chances of finding a spot to sleep were next to nil.

    For the second time in my life I was saying goodbye to my mother and moving to California, and this could have been a very sentimental moment if it we hadn’t found it so damn funny. With all of my worldly possessions packed up into two great Jenga towers of luggage, Mom and I were doing our best to control the fits of laughter while maneuvering these teetering carts of death toward the terminal. It was the irony that had finally gotten to us. There we were—wrestling with this stuff that could at any second escape our control and come toppling down on top of us—when for the past two months we had been living through a very similar scenario; but one that had been nowhere near as funny.

    And one where my mother’s life had been quite seriously at risk.

    My mom suffers from a clinical hoarding disorder. According to a recent survey by the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), about 5% of our entire planet’s population struggles with this condition typically characterized by the cluttering of a home with personal possessions to an often debilitating degree. A type of anxiety disorder, hoarding is still working its way into the medical books, but thanks to a steady stream of reality TV shows featuring the worst case scenarios of the condition, social awareness of hoarding has reached an all-time high.

    These were the shows that I YouTubed as I tried to better gauge the house that I had walked in on during a surprise visit to Mom’s. Compared to the episodes I watched, my mother and her hoard weren’t ready for primetime just yet—though at the rate she was going, next season was quickly becoming a strong possibility.

    Mom had turned her two bedroom, single level ranch style house of around 1,400 square feet into a storage unit, filling it up with everything from groceries on clearance to thrift store finds too good to let go. As toys, crafts, books, tools, plants, snacks, clothes, shoes, bags and boxes slowly rose to the ceiling, my mother’s home began to look like the bottom of an hourglass, only the sand was her stuff—and once filled up there’d be no easy reset.

    Once her cover was blown, so to speak, she felt the time had come to not only admit she had a serious problem but to finally accept some help dealing with it. And as fate would have it, Mom’s epiphany just happened to coincide with a major shift in my own life. After 15 years of working through my own addiction (drugs and alcohol) I was moving back to California, clean and sober. But, since there was a two-month gap between the lapse of my lease and the end of my teaching year, I just happened to need a place to live.

    So we came up with a plan.

    I would spend those final two months living at Mom’s house, helping her get the clutter under control. At the same time, we would go scouting for some professional help, agreeing that therapy to address the hoarding was in Mom’s best interest. We had a plan: by the time I left Connecticut, Mom would have regained a sturdy foothold on the road to recovery and I could move away, assured that I had done my part in helping.

    And it worked, too. Until it didn’t.

    In that previously mentioned survey by NAMI, about 50% of all hoarders have blocked access to their fridge, bathtub, toilet and sinks. 78% have houses littered with what could be deemed garbage. My chances of finding a spot to sleep were next to nil, though the toilet wasn’t too tough to get to. A garage sale seemed like the perfect solution for opening up some much needed space. Plus, instead of just throwing things out (and to be fair, a lot of Mom’s stuff did have some value) this would give my mother and me an opportunity to really start working together as a team, as opposed to simply strangling one another—which started to have its own appeal once we realized what we were up against.

    Hoarding is a disease based very much on feelings. Boston University Dean and Professor Gail Steketee LCSW, MSW, PhD, who has been studying the condition since the mid-1990’s concluded that “Hoarding may induce feelings of safety and security and may reinforce identity.”

    In other words, Mom’s things helped her feel safe.

    Her stuff was in many ways who she was.

    So emotions began to run high as we debated on what in the house could be sold. At first we were able to work for just a few hours before Mom had to quit, visibly shaken, promising better endurance for the next attempt. Sometimes a span of days would pass where no progress was made at all. Because my mother had the final say on every item’s fate, during these times of indecision there was little more for me to do than just sort through the piles. This part of the process was most challenging for me.

    Finding myself truly face to face with my mother’s disorder, I often spiraled into great bouts of anger and deep depression. Getting lost in the work for hours, I would start dissecting a section of the hoard, piece by frustrating piece, trying to make sense of it. It was during these times that I began to realize my mother was in the grips of a very serious and complex mental illness.

    Hoarding has been listed as a symptom of OCD for years. As defined by the Mayo Clinic, people who have obsessive compulsive disorder experience unwanted thoughts that incline them to perform an action repetitively—usually outside of their control—in hopes of alleviating stress, when in actuality the behavior is only compounding the discomfort.

    Did this explain the bags upon bags of clearance items and price-reduced canned goods? The gathered pile of expired and stale holiday candy? The drawers of zip ties, rubber bands and Tupperware lids. That infuriating metropolis of 7 Eleven cups always collapsing off the microwave. The balls of yarn, rolls of fabric, reams of paper, baskets of shoes. Bed sheets, power cords, energy drinks, sun catchers. Nesting shelves, cleaning fluids, shampoos and conditioners. Paper plates, napkins, condiments—bags of them. If I was disturbed while sorting them, I had to imagine what it must’ve felt like to always need more of them.

    But what I really needed was to seek out that professional help Mom had agreed to from the beginning. In addition to the increasingly alarming nature of the collected stuff, according to a report by Compulsive-Hoarding.com, “A hoarder’s problem will not be solved by someone else throwing away or organizing their possessions.”

    Another invaluable online resource, HoardingCleanup.Com, offered an impressive roster of psychiatrists and psychologists dealing specifically with the disorder. Fortunately, we found a local doctor with whom Mom felt comfortable with right off the bat.

    Then, suddenly, positive results were coming in from every front.

    Once the garage sales got started, they quickly gained momentum and we were setting up the driveway with Mom’s wares every Friday through Sunday. So by the time my departure date rolled around we had become old pros—and one hell of a team. There was nothing at the airport but sincere gratitude and a shared sense of accomplishment. We had done it! We’d beaten the monkey off of Mom’s back, shoved it in a box and sold it in front of the house for a dollar.

    No, fifty cents!

    Seventy-five!

    Okay, seventy-five, sold!

    Over the following months, as I worked on getting my own home together, I would check in with Mom to see how things were coming along. She continued with the garage sales until the weather no longer agreed. The therapy continued unabated. Her psychiatrist was big on baby steps, discouraging Mom from taking on too much at once. Instead, the piles were shrinking through consistency and perseverance, my mother showing him photos from week to week. Also, my father was visiting the house regularly so he was able to give me a report every now and again. 

    According to an article in Psychology Today, “willful ignorance” occurs when a person knows the truth, or at least fears it, but chooses to ignore it altogether. Turning a blind eye was an especially easy behavior for me to indulge in from 3,000 miles away, so I was flabbergasted when one night my father called and told me that Mom’s house had reverted to its previous state of congested disarray and that her hoarding was back with a vengeance.

    What an awful moment of deja vu. Were we really right back to where we had started, just like that?

    Though my 12-step meetings and sponsor helped calmed me down with some much needed perspective, for the first time in recovery I found myself resenting the solution that was being offered—which was, as always, acceptance. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” blah blah blah.

    No.

    I refused to accept it. I would not sit idly by while my mother sat on the one spot she had left on her sofa, watching a TV she had to crane her neck around piles of junk to see—the same piles that were slowly but surely burying her alive. Somebody had to take charge of this mess. Who was responsible? I blamed her, her doctor, my father, myself. I blamed thrift stores, dollar stores, America, God.

    What went wrong? How could Mom go back to hoarding after such encouraging progress? This had been the strongest attempt at complete recovery from her disorder so far.

    There was a night I called Mom up ranting and raving, horrendously demanding to know exactly what was the problem—and her timid response to me, plain and simple was:

    “It’s hard.”

    That was a mouthful. And it’s actually the one thing all the research and professionals in the field agree on. Recovery from hoarding is incredibly difficult. The statistics tell us it’s downright unlikely. A study conducted by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on patients with various forms of OCD, including hoarding, found that after five years only 9.5% of hoarders achieved and maintained full recovery from their condition.

    But then this begs the bigger issue—and it’s where my eyes opened.

    When we’re looking at recovery from hoarding, are we also looking at recovery from OCD? This experience showed me that my mother isn’t just struggling against shopping and filling her house up with stuff—but she’s battling an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Unlike my substance abuse where complete abstinence from drugs and alcohol is the solution (though of course there’s lots more to it), my mother is dealing with a behavioral disorder. And when it comes to long lasting recovery, therapy continues to be the key.

    Compulsive-Hoarding.com told me that if a hoarder’s space is just cleaned out, “The clinical compulsive hoarder will simply re-hoard even faster and fill up their home again, often within a few months.” However, that NAMI survey showed that as much as 70% of hoarders responded positively to cognitive therapy.

    So Mom is on the right track.

    It’s just that the odds are not in her favor.

    But so far she’s beaten a lot of those odds, hasn’t she? My mother’s already admitted to having a problem when NAMI reports that only about 15% of all hoarders do so. And she’s in therapy where her recovery has the highest likelihood of success. How many attempts will it take before Mom finds long term recovery? Nobody knows.

    All I know is that recovery from hoarding seems to be an inside job and that’s the stuff that really needs to be worked through. Once I accepted that about my mother and her hoarding condition I knew the best thing to do was leave that work to her.

    Find info about hoarding here:

    https://namimass.org/hoarding-and-ocd-stats-characteristics-causes-treatment-and-resources

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Do AA's Promises Come True?

    Do AA's Promises Come True?

    After completing the 12 steps, a long-time member of AA shares his experience of the 9th step promises.

    Russell Brand recently released his own creative interpretation of AA’s Twelve Steps. As a recovering alcoholic myself (since 12/30/1983), I admire how he captures the essence of the program, while still more or less respecting its tradition of anonymity. I’ve decided to respond to Brand’s piece by writing a bit about the Twelve Promises—which are less known outside of AA than the Twelve Steps or Twelve Traditions. We call these the Ninth Step Promises, because they’re linked with the Ninth Step on page 83 of the Big Book. They’re the pot of gold awaiting us—trite as that might seem—and we read them aloud at the ends of meetings. On the eve of 34 years of continuous sobriety, I’m in a good position to comment on these Promises . . . Do they actually come true?

    1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.

    I sobered up in my home town of Columbia, Missouri. I followed suggestions, and spent much of my first year on working with a sponsor. I was poorer then than I’d ever been, living in a halfway house, but it was a happy time. Working on the Eighth and Ninth Steps, I acknowledged the harm I’d done to others, and prepared to make amends. The first one I owed was to Jerry, my former employer, co-owner of a traditional pool hall that still serves the finest cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten. I’d worked there for two years, during my heaviest drinking. Because of my increasingly disheveled behavior, Jerry had let me go, and we hadn’t spoken since. I still owed him a considerable debt, mostly for booze and food. After writing down all of this, to the best of my recollection, I called Jerry for an appointment. One afternoon, in early 1984, we sat down together over coffee in the back of Booche’s. I took a deep breath, then began to lay my cards on the table. I explained what I thought I owed, apologized for my dishonesty, and asked how I could make restitution. There was a long silence. Something within him—caution or suspicion—visibly melted at my offer. Then he shook his head.

    “I don’t want your money,” he said.

    “I know,” I said. “But I’d like to pay my debt.”

    Jerry left for a moment, and went and spoke quietly with a co-owner in the front. After a minute, he returned and said firmly: “Just your business. We just want your business, Mike.”

    I nodded. Jerry had made his decision. We looked each other straight in the eye and shook on it. And I still eat at Booche’s when I’m back in Missouri, and have through all these years. Jerry and I are still friends to this day. And each amend since then has only brought relief and freedom.

    1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

    Early recovery is a little like those movies in which an angel or alien falls to earth, then falls in love with it. Sensations are intense, especially the strange, new feeling of belonging in the rooms. As a result of “our common bond,” AA is like Switzerland: it’s the one place where the differences between people don’t pertain. Some use the word “God”; some don’t. Meetings veer from tears to sidesplitting laughter. There’s a characteristic zaniness (not unlike Russell Brand’s), along with immediate connection. AA is virtually everywhere, and I usually take in a meeting whenever I’m away. As soon as I am settled in my seat, the self’s deceptions drift away like dandelion floaties—along with whatever weight I carried with me into the room.

    1. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

    Many of us call ourselves “grateful alcoholics”—which might not be an easy concept to grasp unless you are one. We’re grateful for life itself, for sobriety’s staggering, unexpected gifts, and for every step of the path that has led us here. Shutting the door on the past is not what we’re about. For one thing, it’s our experience, strength, and hope—rather than wisdom or knowledge—that makes us valuable to newcomers.

    1. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.

    AA is a plan for creating integration out of disintegration. Serenity is simply a by-product. I didn’t know this when I came in, and frankly, I couldn’t have cared less. I just wanted the pain to stop. But once I was actually sober—and trying to face the character issues I’d chronically masked with alcohol—I craved it. I said the Serenity Prayer to myself 50 times a day. Sometimes I still do. The Fourth Promise doesn’t claim we will have peace; only that we will know it.

    1. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

    Straight out of treatment in Missouri, I lucked into finding a solid, hard-core sponsor. I did most of my step work sitting in Gene’s Chevy pickup, and everything went as well as could be hoped. But when I got to my Fourth Step inventories, I couldn’t figure out why he seemed so unimpressed with my writing. I was a creative writing major, after all!

    But an AA sponsor is not a writing professor, and a sponsor is also nothing like the judges and shrinks and counselors I’d been bullshitting for years. Gene scanned my first inventory with a leathery grimace, then abruptly turned and spat a long stream of tobacco juice through the open window.

    At first, it cut me to the quick how easily he saw through me. That night I thought: fine. I’ll show you, and I’ll show AA! I wrote out my darkest secrets (except for one, which I’d carry for 30 years), in rough list form. A couple of days later, at our regular meeting, I showed him my list. By then, my anger had given way to anxiety, and I expected the worst. I sat in silence and tried not to watch as he was reading.

    Gene showed no emotion. Not one flicker. After a minute, he rolled down the window, spat, and then drawled: “that it?” Then he just smiled through his ravaged face. Suddenly, I saw that neither of us was better nor worse than the other. In all the years since then, whenever I serve as a sponsor, Gene is my template.

    1. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
    2. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
    3. Self-seeking will slip away.

    Here are some suggestions: 90 meetings in 90 days; find a sponsor; join a home group; get a service position; read and meditate and pray; work the steps; and help others. Here are some results: we stay sober; character defects lose their hold; self-centeredness no longer defines us; we don’t feel useless anymore, because we aren’t; and the Promises come true.

    1. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
    2. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

    One of Gene’s favorite sayings was: “sober up a horse thief, and what have you got? A sober horse thief!” Then he’d guffaw. I loved him for that, even though I didn’t really get his humor at the time . . . But it does seem impossible at first for an alcoholic to change enough, through such simple and wholesome means, to make much of a difference in our lives. What practicing alcoholics need—not only to survive but to flourish—is a complete and profound psychic transformation. Lucky for us, that’s exactly what the Twelve Steps are designed to do for us, and not only once but every day, as long as we live in the solution.

    1. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
    2. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

    We typically finish upbeat, but I’m ending with two tragic losses. The first was that of Tom McAfee, my undergraduate poetry professor at the University of Missouri. Tom was a brilliant, charismatic writer—and late-stage alcoholic—who died in 1982, at the age of 54. I’d been Tom’s bartender and best friend at the old downtown hotel where he lived much of his life, and also later at Booche’s. Tom was always shaky and frail, but overnight, his health tanked. It took weeks before a couple of us were able to move him to the hospital, and then it was revealed that he had lung cancer. I looked after Tom as best I could through this whole period. But his terror and delirium at the end—as he lay dying of cancer while going through alcoholic seizures—was more than I could bear. One afternoon on a three-day bender, I stumbled into the hotel bar. Someone remarked to me that Tom had died. When had I last seen him? I couldn’t quite remember. That’s when my drinking began in earnest. I’d failed my friend when he needed me most. I couldn’t forgive myself.

    The second loss was that of Jackie, my first wife. (Although we didn’t formally marry for many years.) In 1988, Jackie and I were both midway through our PhD’s at the University of Utah, when she discovered the lump. We both took leave, and went back to Missouri for surgeries, reconstruction, and many rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We kept our hopes up, and after a year the cancer seemed to be in remission. I went back to resume my studies at Utah. Jackie, slightly ahead of me, was back at it, and managed to land a great job at the University of Texas. She was happily teaching there the following year when the cancer came back. I took leave again, and moved to Austin. Shortly afterward, I proposed—and a few days later, we got married at the courthouse. It was exquisite. And through the next year and a half, I never left her side. Jackie endured treatments first in Austin, and then back home in Missouri, where our strategy shifted from cure to comfort. Paradoxically, in the weeks leading to her final struggle in 1991, there were many hours of intense joy. Spontaneous, childish, connected-at-the-hip gleefulness . . . Often, the exact same thought appeared simultaneously in both minds. It was the deepest intimacy I’ve ever known.

    Jackie’s last words were: “I love you.”

    As devastating as it was to see such a beautiful soul taken before she’d hit her stride, her death was triumphant, too. Even through her worst days, death never got the best of her.

    I went back to Utah, finished my PhD in 1993, and started my professional life—steady then, resolved.

    Just after the founding of AA in 1939, many sober alcoholics were sent into battle in WW2. As related in the Big Book, this was AA’s “first major test.” Would they stay sober far from their meetings? Against all expectations, they did. They had fewer lapses “than A.A.’s safe at home did . . . Whether in Alaska or on the Salerno beachhead, their dependence upon a Higher Power worked.” I had a related revelation after Jackie died. I realized that I could go through anything sober. That now I was spiritually fit enough to show up for “life on life’s terms.”

    Along with the Promises, there’s a playful call-and-response that we include. It seems to be a rhetorical question: “Are these extravagant promises?”

    And the entire group answers: “We think not!”

    And on that note, the reading concludes: “They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”

    There’s usually then a closing prayer. And after that, we fold our chairs, and return to the lives that AA has given us.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dope Sick: Breaking Down Opioid Withdrawal

    Dope Sick: Breaking Down Opioid Withdrawal

    The strength it takes for a broken down, tormented person, feeling sick and hopeless every single day, to say, “No more” to their source of relief is something many people cannot even fathom.

    Dope sickness (from opioid withdrawal) or even just the fear of dope sickness can trigger a desperation and panic unlike any other. This fear, in large part, drives the addiction that has led to the opioid epidemic, which claimed 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016 and is now classified as a public health emergency. Or some say it’s the high that keeps opioid users chasing the dragon all the way to hospitals, jails, and institutions. Much like an abusive relationship that long overstays its welcome—often by years and even decades—it starts with love and butterflies but then transforms into a much darker animal, tethering a person in place not with love but with the fear of what happens when you leave it behind.

    How does someone know when their dose is wearing off and they need another fix? They’ll start to feel hot and cold at the same time, getting goose bumps and perspiring simultaneously; their eyes begin to water and they yawn repeatedly; they feel intense cravings coupled with severe anxiety, and their stomach starts to turn. These early onset symptoms of withdrawal work like an internal alarm in the brain, signaling to the nervous system that it desperately needs what is missing. These symptoms typically occur 6-12 hours after the last dose, and their intensity varies based on how often and how much of the drug the person is using. Opioid (painkillers such as oxycodone, vicodin, and codeine, as well as heroin) addiction is a progressive disease in which tolerance builds, so the required dose grows larger, and the withdrawal worsens. The deeper you are in the hole, the farther out you must climb.

    Once someone begins to experience the first stage symptoms of withdrawal, panic sets in. There is an overwhelming sense of impending doom because, as most seasoned junkies know, the only thing worse than the first stage of opioid withdrawal is the second. Muscle aches, pains, and spasms can cause a person to kick their legs and flop around like a fish out of water. Just as a fish longs for water to breathe again, the person in opioid withdrawal longs for a hit to end their agonizing race toward what feels like death. Vomiting, diarrhea, and severe stomach cramps keep them crawling to the bathroom, if they even make it, if they even have access. These physical symptoms are paired with deep depression, anxiety, and the torture of knowing that the hell could simply cease if they get their fix. And this typically goes on all 24 hours of each day that it lasts—typically just over a week—because insomnia prevents any relief that sleep would bring.

    It is the fear of that torment, which words can’t really do justice, that shackles people to a substance which indefinitely curses them with relief and pain. It is also that fear that compels them to lie, cheat, and steal. People who have become addicted to opioids wake up one day, deeper into their addiction then they’d ever anticipated, and look in the mirror only to see a stranger. They look at childhood photos of themselves and feel overcome with sadness, asking themselves, What happened? Their mothers do the same thing, looking at their baby’s photos and asking themselves where they went wrong. It’s difficult to separate the person from the addiction: although one entity does seem to overtake the other, that can be reversed and they are, in fact, two distinct realities.

    In most cases, a rotten egg is not born into this world destined to be a thief, robbing to feed their addiction. What once was a promising honor student, the girl next door, the boy working behind the deli counter, or the kid who loved fishing has now slowly, pushing the limits a bit farther each time, transformed into that thief overcome with fighting the terror of withdrawal. It’s as if they’ve sold their soul to the devil, stealing for it, lying to loved ones, to anyone, cheating people just to survive, just to feel well. When someone with an addiction hits rock bottom, and they hate themselves at this point, they think they’ve had enough and they want their soul back. But they can’t just stop. There’s a debt to pay.

    The strength it takes for a broken down, tormented person, feeling sick and hopeless every single day, desperate enough to do things they’d never imagine themselves capable of doing, to say, “No more,” is something many people cannot even fathom; it is standing up to the fear of the agony of withdrawal, of feeling like you’d gladly crawl out of your own skin if you could. For many people, it’s also facing the fear of life unaltered, buffer-less, possibly for the first time.

    There are different methods of withdrawing from opioids. Doctors sometimes offer benzodiazepines or clonidine, a blood pressure lowering drug, to temper the misery. There’s the good old fashion “cold turkey” which comes from the cold flashes and goosebumps you experience, or “kicking dope” which comes from kicking your legs around in weird spasms for over a week. And of course, we can’t have this discussion without mentioning the two big whoppers, Suboxone and methadone. These are known as medication assisted treatment (MAT), and they work wonders for many people. But one day you might want to get off of them, and that’s another opioid detox.

    Something worth mentioning about MAT is that if you take it long enough, you have the chance to rebuild a “normal” life. You can go to school, kickstart your career, do all the things that being a full-fledged junkie makes impossible. Stay on as long as you need; I even heard about one guy who got himself through law school on Suboxone. So there are upsides, incredible advantages really, but at the end of the day, after you’ve obtained your PhD, you still have to pay that debt.

    I once heard someone say, close your eyes and picture an addict. Whatever picture came into your mind, that’s the stigma of addiction. But there’s not just one static image, because addiction comes in layers. There’s the first layer, how it originated. Maybe a doctor prescribed Norcos for an ankle sprain and neglected to mention what you might be signing up for. According to drugfree.org, almost 80% of people who shoot up heroin started with the misuse of prescription medication. The next layer is when the drug takes over, and your identity—who you are—is now overwhelmed by the addiction, hiding your actual self somewhere beneath. And finally, hopefully, there’s the detox—the week or two of pure hell as the drug leaves your system and you start learning how to function without it.

    But when you do, finally, make it to the other side, however worn and broken down you may feel, it feels like the first day of the rest of your life. It’s a terrifying feeling, but you come out triumphant, and victorious.

    View the original article at thefix.com