Answer Addiction

Tag: gratitude

  • The First Drink Was Russian Roulette: An Interview with Leigh Steinberg

    Life will knock us all back, but the question is can we stay in the present moment? Can we summon up the strength and energy to perform with excellence in those trying moments?

    If you’ve ever seen Tom Cruise as a driven sports agent in the award-winning film Jerry Maguire (1996), then you know more about super-agent Leigh Steinberg than you realize. Based on his life experiences, the film’s storyline ended before Leigh Steinberg experienced the worst travails of his life. During his career, Steinberg has represented over 300 professional athletes in football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and Olympic sports, including the number one overall pick in the NFL draft a record eight times.

    Despite his success, Steinberg met his match when it came to alcohol. In 2015, he described his challenging journey into sobriety in his memoir. Today, Steinberg reveals his inspirational journey in an interview with The Fix.

    The Fix: As a young man, your first client Steve Bartkowski became the No. 1 overall pick in the 1975 NFL draft, catapulting you into the upper echelons. When you look back on the sudden rise of those early days, do you ever feel like it all happened way too fast? Was it challenging to deal with the mighty rush of early success?

    Leigh Steinberg: I had had the wonderful experience of being student body president at Cal (University of California, Berkeley) in the tumultuous days of the Sixties. At that point, Berkeley was the vortex of student life. From demonstrations and rock music to alternative lifestyles, the school was at the center of the national story. Such an experience really prepared me for the national profile that came with the Bartkowski signing. I never confused newspaper clippings, awards, or external praise for the substance of being a good person and being grounded.

    From Warren Moon to Oscar De La Hoya, you desired your top clients to be preeminent roles models in their sports. Do you perceive yourself as a role model? How did the process of recovery illuminate this perception?

    We are all role models to someone. Younger people look up to you, older people will mentor you, and you will find people who will be the models for your future behavior. I had a father who raised us with two core values: The first was to treasure relationships, especially family, and the second was to do your best to make a meaningful difference in the world. It is part of your responsibility to help people who cannot help themselves. The whole nexus of my practice was trying to stimulate the best in young men.

    When it comes to making a meaningful experience in the world, I learned a lot from my struggles with alcoholism. Being in my twelfth year of recovery, I feel like I have been given the opportunity to help people who are struggling with the same challenges that I faced. It is a real positive that comes out of the experience. If you are reading this right now and you feel hopeless and overwhelmed by your experiences with substance abuse and addictions, I want you to know that there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. I have been where you are now, and it does get better.

    What did you learn from the success of your clients? What did you learn from their failures?

    For me, the critical key has always been how someone responds to adversity. If we take a quarterback who has thrown a couple of interceptions so the game is getting out of hand and the crowd is starting to boo, what happens next? Can that person summon up the internal focus to tune out extraneous distractions and elevate their level of play in critical situations? Life will knock us all back, but the question is can we stay in the present moment? Can we summon up the strength and energy to perform with excellence in those trying moments? What I saw them do in success is stay grounded and stay hungry. As opposed to bragging about a past achievement or becoming self-absorbed, they were able to stay in process and do the things that created their success in the first place.

    An old Irish saying goes, “A man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man.” How would you say this saying applies to your life experience?

    When it comes to alcohol, it snuck up slowly on me. I didn’t drink for most of my life and most of my career. However, when I started drinking, it suddenly stopped becoming a decision and a matter of volition of whether or not to drink. With what seems like little or no warning, it becomes a craving and compulsion. I did not realize until later in my life that I am allergic to alcohol. At this point, the first drink would be a disaster. Knowing the metamorphosis in my brain when I take the first drink gives me no other choice but to stay vigilant.

    You write in your book, “Consuming alcohol became a form of Russian roulette for me.” It’s truly a powerful image. Can you explain it further?

    The first drink was Russian Roulette. After I took the first drink, it wasn’t clear what would be the eventual outcome. It could be anything from a blackout where I did not remember what had happened to just falling asleep to something unexpected. It was unclear how an evening would end, and it wasn’t going to be positive (laughing). After taking the first drink, I was no longer in control of my own life. It wasn’t positive. Depending on how my body was metabolizing alcohol and how much I was drinking, it could lead to many self-destructive behaviors, including drunk driving, hurting other people’s feelings, and complete self-absorption. It could lead to a place where I was no longer aware of the choices I was making.

    Can you describe your “moment of clarity”? What realization led to the start of what is now your long-term recovery?

    It was a sense of proportionality. I was sitting in my father’s room at our family house after closing my office and home. I am at my parent’s house in West Los Angeles, and all I have is the next drink. At that moment of despair, there was an epiphany where I gained a sense of proportion. I realized I wasn’t a starving peasant in Sudan, I didn’t have the last name Steinberg in Nazi Germany, and I didn’t have cancer or anything fundamentally wrong with my body. Thus, what excuse did I have not to live up to my dad’s admonitions and be a good father? How could I not follow his guidance and try to be helpful to other people? It was a moment of clarity that I needed to overcome the denial that I had a problem. I realized I had to turn my life over to a process that would hopefully lead to a better tomorrow.

    You believe the success of rookie prospects in the NFL is helped by being drafted by the right teams where successful cultures of strategy and support allow them to grow into professional players. You use the experience of Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City as the ideal example. Do you think that a person’s success in recovery might be similar as well?

    The key to winning in sports is the quality of the organization: Enlightened and stable ownership, a front office that excels at drafting and roster composition, and the quality of a coach who knows how to communicate with his players. All of that is important. Likewise, when it comes to recovery, having the right sponsor, being in the right sober living house, and surrounding yourself with other people who are serious about their recoveries and working the 12 steps is critical. I know it has been critical for me. Going to the right meetings helps you find the people with long-term sobriety who can become your role models. Overall, the concept of being in a healthy environment leading to success is critical in both environments.

    Can you talk about the role of steroids in professional sports? As an agent who cared about his clients, you write that you gained insight into the danger of steroids early on. Do you think performance-enhancing drugs will always be a part of professional sports?

    I don’t think they have to be, and I hope they won’t be. Steroids themselves are a real health danger on both a physical and a mental level. People taking steroids experience such emotional extremes, going from ‘roid rage to breaking down in tears in an instant. Steroids play havoc with a person’s emotional stability.

    Today, there are many promising therapies and techniques for training the human body, like nutrition, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and stem cell therapies. There are so many breakthroughs about enhancing performance and stamina in a natural way. It really shouldn’t be necessary to use destructive substances to perform well. One of the major threats in professional sports has been opiates to deal with pain. In a football game, it’s like a traffic accident on every play. Since pain is ever-present, it’s essential to find alternatives to becoming dependent and ultimately addicted to opioids is critical.

    Any last words? Any message you want to leave us with today?

    I have found that the most important life skill is listening. If you can cut below the surface with another human being and listen carefully to their greatest anxieties and fears and their greatest hopes and dreams, you can help them. If you can put yourself in their shoes and connect with their hearts and minds, then it’s possible to navigate yourself through life with grace and integrity. Indeed, from the beginning, it was at the heart of my father’s message to me.

    Lastly, I believe one of the keys is to try to live in this moment without being lost in the past or fearful of the future. We don’t always have to answer the cell phone that’s ringing. You can put focus and energy into the present to derive maximum satisfaction and be a happy person.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Return to Sender: What an Unsent Postcard Taught Me About Addiction

    A timely message from my much younger, unsober self.

    Summer, 2020

    The Unsent Postcard

    I have a stack of unwritten postcards, collected from my travels, purchased with the intent of sending them to those back home. In recent months, I have taken to writing out these postcards to friends and family, both to cheer them with sunny images as they shelter in, and to support the United States Postal System.

    Not long ago, I came across a card featuring a hand-colored photograph of a windmill in East Hampton, New York. To my surprise, it was not blank. Tightly scrawled sentences, in rudimentary French, it was meant for a friend in Paris.

    No postage, never mailed.

    17 Septembre, 1991

    Chère Delphine,

    Salut! I am at the beach with my mother. My God! My poor back! I am ready for a big change in my life. We must talk. I’m going to write you a real letter soon.

    Ton Amie, Maria.

    Here I was, standing at the edge of big change, poised to plunge into some grand announcement, too large for the 4” x 6” space given. These words never crossed the Atlantic. Instead, I held them now, between my fingertips, twenty-nine years later.

    What are the chances of this? I thought. Of all these blank cards, only one has writing, and not just any writing, but words that speak to my alcoholic “bottom” — the physical, mental and spiritual low-point of my young life.

    My back hasn’t bothered me for years, thank heaven. I take it for granted. I walk with ease everywhere today. Until this moment, I’d forgotten just how bad things were with my lower lumbar at age twenty-four, that hell year when I couldn’t stand up straight without sciatica shackling my ankles, seizing my spine, and clamping down hard at the cervical vertebrae. This physical agony — an exclamation point to my mental and spiritual state — had literally brought me to my knees.

    I spent weeks in bed self-medicating on whiskey sours and muscle relaxants. Somehow I’d convinced the corner pharmacist to dispense refills beyond the legal limit.

    I‘m skeptical when people make meaning from random events. It feels self-indulgent to interpret every rainbow as a reference to my personal recovery. Yet finding this card, all these years later, didn’t feel like coincidence. It felt intentionally planted to remind me of why I’d sobered up.

    It also felt like something I had to share with others.

    September, 1991

    Watching waves

    In those mellow days following Labor Day, when the water is warmer than the salt air, I was with my mother in a rented bungalow at the tip of Long Island, now emptied of humans. I was twenty-five, unemployed, and reeling from a bad break-up.

    I remember the lunch mom served on or about the day I’d written that postcard: linguine with shrimp and mussels, and flutes of rosé wine. Mom was a faithful clipper of the Wednesday food section of The New York Times. Maybe she’d sourced this seafood pasta recipe there, or maybe she’d been inspired by one of the influencers of Hamptons entertaining at the time: Martha Stewart or The Barefoot Contessa.

    However it came to be, it was a memorable meal presented with panache, from a bare-bones rental kitchen. And it was a meal where my mother enjoyed alcohol as she always did, in moderation. More often than not in my childhood home, there was an appropriate wine, served in stemware, to compliment every dish.

    My mother drank the way Jacques Pépin did on public television, and the way I always wanted to, but never could — with class. At the end of an episode of making something like, say, classic Beef Bourguignon, he would raise his glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in a toast: “Aah-pee Coo-keeeng!” and tilt it lightly to his lips.

    But that’s not the way I drank this glass of blush wine. I downed it.

    Plagued by sciatica, a still larger pain loomed; it had been moving in slowly for years, like a cold front, now dipping as an arctic depression over this lovely lunch.

    I remember craving more flutes of Zinfandel than that one bottle held, but I was checked at two because mom was watching. Two drinks were the limit if you were female, and raised right — and you cared about appearances — which we did. But I couldn’t comply.

    I found myself watching the waves from that deck all afternoon. I watched them crest and crash, one after the other, in rhythmic indifference to my pain. Then it hit me. It felt big. Big like the feeling I get reading an inspirational poem from an anthology with a daffodil or seagull on the cover. Though the feeling was big I, myself, suddenly felt small. And weirdly enough, I was okay with that.

    It was a relief. The waves kept rolling in, oblivious to my situation. It was freeing to see that my pain — sharp and ugly — couldn’t stand up to the beauty of light and dark scattering the water’s surface.

    Scared, self-involved me was no match for the folding waves. For hours I watched them flatten at the shore and return to the sea, gradually eroding the moat I’d dug around myself. Yes, my experience of this landscape could be captured in a bad sonnet in a book with a hokey cover — the kind you’d find in a hospital gift shop.

    It was neither subtle nor original, my “white light” oceanfront awakening, but it was genuine.

    The next day, a masseuse with strong hands and a soft voice got me to open up about my drinking on a massage table in Amagansett. A recovering alcoholic himself, Sean R. is much of the reason I made it to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when I returned to Brooklyn that next week.

    1991–2013

    A Bridge Back to a Good Life, Then Some Slippery Turns

    As the postcard predicted, big change followed. “A.A. is a bridge back to life.” That’s true. I did cross over to a full life with marriage, kids, and a semi-detached house. But it was a life further into Brooklyn, and further from my home group, the A.A. group where I had first gotten sober and stayed that way.

    Yes, I was still not drinking, but I can’t claim I was emotionally sober. Somewhere along the way I stopped going to meetings. Lost touch with my sponsor. Quit working with other recovering alcoholics. You know where this is going. Eventually, I drank.

    It started small: communion wine on Sundays, the occasional “non-alcoholic” beer, and the argument with my dentist. He wanted to give me local anesthesia for minor dental work, but I pushed for hit after hit of nitrous oxide on top of that. I wanted to numb my brain, not just my molar.

    “The idea that somehow, someday he(she/they) will control and enjoy his (her/their) drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.” — from Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 3, ‘More About Alcoholism’

    I went along like this for years, skating on the edge of my sobriety, doing figure-eights on April ice, until seven years ago I found myself sitting in the sun porch of my friend Samantha’s historic, center hall colonial home.

    Our kids were playing together somewhere on the periphery. I always found my way here, to this snug room off the parlor, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a loveseat. I’d marked it as my space, where I could step away, sink into the cushions and watch the cardinal at the feeder.

    On this day I was thinking about my marriage. It had been a good run, but after fourteen years, two sons and a poodle, it was over. During the past months, this reality had settled over me like snowfall hitting pavement at the freezing mark, melting first, before catching hold, white landing on grey, gradually building, til nothing remained of the sidewalk below. I was scared as hell now.

    Samantha stood over me with finger sandwiches and two flutes filled with golden bubbles on a silver tray. It had been so long since I’d been to a meeting, so long since I’d said out loud to a roomful of people: “I’m an alcoholic.” So long that I had a new circle of friends that never knew I had a problem and older friends who had forgotten that I didn’t drink.

    In that moment, I forgot I didn’t drink.

    Alcohol, catching sunlight, was presented to me on a slender stem, the way it had been twenty-two years earlier at the beach.

    Why not? If ever I deserved a mimosa, it’s now.

    I took a sip.

    Holy shit, what the hell am I doing?

    I ran to the powder room and poured the rest down a sink with a swan head faucet.

    “The alcoholic, at certain times, has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he (she/they) nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His (her/their) defense must come from a Higher Power.” — from Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 3, “More About Alcoholism”

    It had happened —I had drunk again. I never thought I would. It had been more than two decades since my last real drunk, and I had good reason never to drink again — actually two very good reasons, their names were Leo and Liam. Sure I could rationalize the Sunday morning communion wine and the occasional hit of laughing gas — after all, I was accountable to no one for my behavior now— but when I let that bubbly pass my teeth and slide down my throat, I recognized that for what it was —a slip.

    I remember the taste of it clearly — that citrus effervescence in my mouth — and I remember my conscious decision to swallow. Like countless alcoholics before me, I had now proven what the Big Book drives home in the conclusion of Chapter 3.

    I had had “no effective mental defense against the first drink.”

    September, 2013

    The Room Above the Fish Store

    Thankfully, at the same moment, I realized my problem when I took that sip of spiked o.j. , I also remembered the solution.

    Alcoholics Anonymous had worked for me, for as long as I had shown up for myself and others. What became obvious to me with this slip was that I’d do well to return to a community of recovering alcoholics if I wanted to get sober again, and stay that way. I needed to plug back into a sober support network.

    So on the heels of my slip in late September, 2013, I climbed a staircase to a room above a fish store filled with retired seniors and flies circling overhead. I’d stepped into an A.A. Big Book meeting, already in progress. They were reading one of the personal stories from the back of the book, round-robin style. Right away I could see myself in ‘The Housewife Who Drank at Home.’ When she described herself as a ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde’ PTA mom, I lost it. That was me. Someone passed me a box of Kleenex. I will never forget that kindness.

    September, 2020

    Today

    Willpower and the passage of time are no guarantees against the first drink. I was humbled by this realization when I slipped.

    I like my life today; some days I love it. I don’t live in unreasonable fear, but I accept this fact: on any ordinary day, my alcoholic mind could observe the oven clock turn five and think: A snifter of eighteen-year-old single malt whiskey, served neat, alongside a bowl of salted cashews, would be a fine idea!

    And today I understand, right down to the jelly marrow of my bones, that this is typical alcoholic wishful thinking.

    I also recognize — and appreciate — other approaches to solving problem drinking, or at least to blunting the devastating effects of alcohol and other addictive substances and habits. Some of these solutions have developed in my lifetime, and some have been there all along.

    I have a friend who threw herself back into her childhood faith in earnest, and another who found help in Buddhist-inspired Refuge Recovery. I am happy for these friends, and for everyone who finds lasting recovery, however and whenever. And for those who have chosen the A.A. path, I am especially gratified to welcome back those like me — humbled humans who have returned to the fellowship later in life.

    On the last day of this month, I’ll have seven years back in the rooms. Once again, Alcoholics Anonymous has been a bridge back to a good life. I’ve got a sunny apartment, two sturdy teens, and an Australian lizard. The ex and I have each other’s back in the co-parenting game. I’ve got a day job where I feel purposeful, and my writing at night, which lights a votive in my soul.

    I was lucky to find my way back to A.A. at forty-seven, and lucky to turn up this picture-postcard now — this four-by-six inch card stock talisman, a reminder of who I was at twenty-five, and who I am now, twenty-nine years later — sandwiched between sunbathers on the Jersey shore and Niagara Falls at night. To me this is no coincidence: this postcard, lost then miraculously recovered, does parallel my own recovery, lost for twenty-two years, then found again in a new group, above an Italian fishmonger.

    And so, my dear friend Delphine, here is the full story, the real letter I promised you, delivered now, almost thirty years later. You are not an alcoholic, but maybe some of this makes sense. I hope so. We must talk soon.
     

     

    This piece originally appeared on Medium on September 13, 2020.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • What Happened When I Spent Christmas Eve in a Basement with a Crazy Cat

    I didn’t exactly catch the holiday spirit, but I took a suggestion that kept me hanging on by my claws through the Next 12 Days of Christmas…

    It was Christmas Eve, 2013, and I was scooping poop from a litter box in my neighbors’ basement. Leticia and Dana had rescued a feral kitten whose new habitat extended from the hot water heater to the washer/dryer. Although it was icy outdoors and toasty within, this foster feline wasn’t buying into her rehabilitation. But I was. I was three months sober.

    Kitty was ambivalent towards humans. She darted about the boiler room, kicking up supermarket circulars that had been neatly layered for her comfort. As I shook Friskies into the bowl, she shouldered up to me, twitching her tail against my forearm, her throat vibrating under a flea collar. As I reached to pet her, she caught my wrist between her paws and bit down hard on the hand that fed her.

    I was tempted to punt the little ingrate into the sewer trap, but instead I dialed a sober friend. Darlyne listened as I droned on about what I was sure would be my worst holiday ever, the bluest Blue Christmas imaginable. After fourteen years of marriage, my husband and I had agreed to call it quits in September. Here we were now in December, Yuletide upon us, and that sparkling snow globe of a mental construct—the family Christmas—was shattering. There would be two trees this year instead of one, two piles of hastily-wrapped presents, and even two plates of sugar cookies, left for two Santas, because our younger son was only six, and very much still a believer.

    I never doubted my decision to divorce, but I had misgivings when it came to the kids. I feared the emotional fall-out from all those times when mom’s temper met dad’s radioactive passive-aggression. I saw an acid cloud of neuroses raining down upon my sons from their parents’ split, a psychic soaker that would take them years of therapy before they’d start to dry out.

    I watched two lines of red dots on my forearms swell and connect where the beast had scratched me. Then I lost it. I broke down bawling on the basement floor. After a while, Darlyne interrupted me. “Viv I get it. I do. it’s a rough time. A really rough time. And it’s good you’re letting it all out. But we’ve been on the phone thirty minutes now and I’m gonna pee my pants.”

    “Ok,” I said as I blew my nose into the deli section.

    “But listen,” Darlyne said before signing off, “I want you to do something.”

    Change or Die

    I had no idea what she was going to say, but I already knew I didn’t want to do it. The default of my defiant alcoholic mind—then and now, drinking or sober— is “NO.” But recovery, I have learned, is about change. And change often means saying “YES” instead of “NO.” It means being willing to take suggestions—often awkward, tedious or unsexy actions that force me to sit with feelings and stretch my tolerance for discomfort.

    “It’s just going to be so weird for the kids to wake up Christmas morning and not see two parents!” I wailed, ignoring my friend’s bladder. I wasn’t done catastrophizing.

    “Just listen,” Darlyne was louder now. “I want you to do something, and I promise it will help.”

    At that moment, I had a choice: take in what my friend was telling me, or tune her out. Sobriety is about making choices, and I’ve made some doozies in my fifty-five years of frolicking between a few zip codes in New York City, with or without a Bacardi and Coke in hand. And the takeaways from all my choices—good and bad—have always been there too. Only now I’m actually able to take these takeaways. Free of mind and mood-altering substances, I’m present for each new experience, and I can see my part in it. Sometimes I repeat the same mistakes, but these successive ones occur less often, and feel less calamitous. It’s getting better. And that feels good.

    But I wasn’t feeling good that morning. I was cold and panicky.

    “What is it?” I choked.

    “Make a list of ten things you’re grateful for,” said Darlyne, “and save it in your phone. Then read it back to yourself, over and over again, for the next two weeks. Got it?”

    “I got it,” I sniffled.

    “You’ll feel better. Trust me.” Then she hung up.

    I was skeptical, and I didn’t feel better yet, but I did it. I squatted on that cellar floor, my tailbone pressed against the cold cement, and I took that sober woman’s suggestion. It was one of the better moves I’ve ever made.

    …

    Ten things I’m grateful for:

    1. My sobriety
    2. My sons
    3. My family (most of the time)
    4. My soon-to-be ex (He’s a good dad after all.)
    5. All my friends (from 4th grade to the present)

    What else?

    1. My first cup of coffee in the morning
    2. A good mattress
    3. Food in my stomach
    4. The sun rising over the rooftops

    I don’t remember the tenth. So I’ll just add something now, something that could have been on that first list.

    1. Pannetone

    Yes, the fluffy bread, loaded with raisins, that you only see in supermarkets at the holidays. To go with number 6. For me, the small things on my list have come to matter too. Even when the big ticket items are absent—like the job with benefits, or the boyfriend—the small, quiet things are always there, if I look for them. Like the neighbor with the beehive in his backyard, who feeds my Poohish habit with a steady supply of golden honey nine months of the year out of twelve.

    There! I read the list in my cupped palm. Then I reread it. Well, I wasn’t jolly yet, but I was functional. Mrs. Santa Clause dried her tears in an ad for holiday ham, then stood up and got on with the business of making magic for her kids that Christmas Eve. And she muttered that merry mantra over and over for the next twelve days and arrived at the new year, clean, sober, and—to her surprise—not absolutely miserable for every second of it.

    Flash forward to 2020, amicably-divorced and effectively co-parenting, I feel far-removed from that bleak midwinter morning spent bawling in a basement with a bipolar cat. I still have days where I forget that I’m wildly blessed, days where I watch my teen on the tennis court and forget the shattered ankle, the surgery, the cast, and the flawless recovery. I still have sour days where I see only another wet towel on the bathroom floor and pistachio shells on the pillow case.

    But on these days, thankfully, I remember what will slap me back into gratitude. I know that if I just jot ten things I’ve got going for me, it’ll make me feel better. I also know that when I neglect to count my blessings, I’m more likely to cry over every glass of spilt milk or busted garbage bag.

    When my twelve-year-old quips: “Quit trying to make your own disgusting chicken fingers and just take me to McDonald’s,” I don’t collapse in tears on the linoleum anymore; instead, I rattle off my list. My sobriety is always on top, and my sons still take the number two spot (except today, the younger slides down to number eight). My good health follows, then my elderly parents and my brother, who mows their lawn and drives them to doctors’ appointments. I acknowledge my good neighbors, my shrink, my deep pre-war apartment bathtub, fat dogs with short legs, and my self-respect.

    Then I turn to Liam and say: “Put on your hoodie, we’re going to McDonald’s.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 10 Reasons Why Sober Is Better

    10 Reasons Why Sober Is Better

    The way of living I have found in sobriety helps me live differently and more beneficially on a day to day basis. This has made for a good life. 

    I got sober at 29, ten years ago this month. Here are ten ways in which life is drastically different for me now:

    1. Every Morning, I Wake Up Clean and Safe

    This was not the case for so many years. I have awoken in people’s yards, in stranger’s homes, in cars, with black and blues and broken busted cheeks, with my things stolen or missing, in a jail cell, once in an FBI interrogation office, and countless times in a puddle of my own piss. 

    2. I’m Never Bored

    Seriously, it’s true. For me the notion of getting sober meant a boring life and this was at the top of my list for reasons not to change. But the truth is that I was really bored the last few years I was still using. Bored and exhausted at the same time. In recovery I have learned that my ideas are actually things that can materialize and not just stay mostly conversations on a barstool that might move into reality at a snail’s pace. Today there are not enough hours in the day. I am writing a book, I have a full-time career that’s perfect for me, I see friends daily, I make time for art, I take care of my cats and dog, I have a hundred goals I plan on seeing through. There is no time for withdrawal or hangovers today. I am anything but bored. I am actually alive now. 

    3. I Prefer This Way of Living

    I have some problems and I know what they are: I am impulsive and struggle to think things through, I love chaos and excitement, I live mostly in the past and the future, I am a people pleaser, I obsess about things and about people and I can be really hard on myself. These are all survival skills that helped me in the past somehow but hold me back from reaching my potential. I wish I could say they have changed but they seem to be my autopilot, deeply embedded behaviors. I never graduate my recovery program. The way of living I have found in sobriety helps me live differently and more beneficially on a day to day basis. This has made for a good life. 

    4. As Long As I Stay sober, I Will Never Have to Be Alone Ever Again

    I am surrounded by love and not alone. Before I got sober, I was instead surrounded by people who drank like me. Friends who didn’t drink like me were distant in contact and grew into their own lives understandably. I felt very alone. Not the case anymore. The bonds I have made over time with people in my program of recovery are strong and plentiful. These bonds are strong like those of a cult but I don’t have to give up my dreams, paychecks, and outside contacts. During the darkest times in my sobriety, these people are there. They check up on me as I do them. They want me around on the holidays, want to grieve my losses with me and celebrate my successes. It’s such a gift to know I will never have to feel alone again if I stay sober. And if I don’t stay sober, which of course is always a possibility, they will undoubtedly help me if I want to get sober again.

    5. I Am Well Aware That Alcohol and Drugs Will Not Make It Better

    Without them it turned out I was pretty sick. At two years sober I was controlled by relentless anxiety and fear. Now I understand my trauma reactions and why I was abusing substances the way I was. Without numbing out my thoughts raced all of the time, my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which I struggled with much of my life got so much worse and I started to try and obsessively “fix” people and situations for which in reality I had minimal control over. My body ached from being on high alert constantly. At ten years sober I am aware that when my outside world is stressed and overwhelmed, my warped stress response system goes into survival mode trying desperately to make sense of things by detective work, compulsive checking and seeking out ways to feel safe. Alcohol and drugs used to calm my system and was helpful until it started being more harmful than helpful. Now when I am caught up in my stress response system, I have learned how to ease it without abusing substances. and sometimes I just have to hang on, knowing it will pass. 

    6. I Realize I’m Intelligent and Very Capable

    Much of my life I was considered to have learning disabilities and was even voted “most clueless” in my high school yearbook, yes, I still remember that bull&8%#- class of 1999. Through all the testing over the years I received for learning problems no one ever asked about what life was like at home. Due to early childhood loss and trauma my amygdala was working on overdrive and controlled by fear as I was worried all the time that something bad was going to happen to one of my family members or to me. This makes concentrating in a classroom setting pretty impossible. Today I have graduated college with honors, hold a Master’s degree and subsequent license and I am an expert in my specific field. Go figure. 

    7. I Now Have Help from Hundreds of Higher Powers That Do Not Screw Me Over Like Using Did

    The whole concept of the Higher Power thing annoyed and angered me prior to sobriety. I wasn’t against there being some meaning to the universe, but I did not respect some of the older recovery literature and signage in 12 step meetings which I thought assumed the higher power was “God” and was male. Luckily, I found many recovery type meetings which welcomed a much expanded and evolved idea of what a Higher Power is. Today a few of the powers outside of myself that I rely on to stay sane, sober and grounded include but are not limited to; the making of calls to people in recovery, using guided meditations, laughing with friends, water; swimming or taking baths, daily meditative readings, using materials to make art or appreciating art someone else has made, exploration and belief in some spiritual theories, healthy eating, paying attention to synchronicities and to my breathing. You could say I am living a more spiritual life and, yes, I am okay with saying that now. 

    8. With a Clearer, Open Mind, I Understand That for There to Be Joy, There Must Also Be Painful Experiences

    One cannot exist without the other. If there were only joy, it would be the status quo, and we could not appreciate it as joy, it would just be the way things are- the typical. For example, when you finally get to enjoy a piece of toast after getting over the flu, isn’t it just a great treat? I do not regret my past, or my pain. It has given me the life I have now, which is often a great treat. When I am in pain, I try to remember there is an opportunity for greater joy. Not always easy of course at the moment. But in time with reflection it’s clear that the universe has always led me to better things if I let it and trusted the process.

    9. I Know That Sometimes My Worst Fears Will Come True, and That’s Okay

    I do not need to use; throw away my sobriety to escape the pain. I wrote out a list of my fears when I was about a year sober. There were over 300. Many of them have come true; family and friends have died, I have been heartbroken, I have become ill at points, I have been judged and criticized. I have spent so much time in my living in fear. I have managed to not use to ease the bouts of fear, which is what I did for so long. I know using will only lead to more and more pain. I ease it now with a variety of other things such as cognitive behavioral techniques, meditation, talking to others in recovery, looking back on the times things were so hard I didn’t think I would make it through and I did make it through.

    10. I Love Myself No Matter What

    More and more all of the time. I was not able to show myself love for a very long time. I didn’t realize that until I was sober for a good while; really, for years. This has been a great gift of recovery. I am not always perfect at finding complete love for myself, but daily I can tune into it more easily. This self-love has dramatically changed my life and my ability to take risks, forgive myself, let go of shame and leave toxic situations. I have to see myself as my own daughter and protect her. This love is really what keeps me sober these days one day at a time.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • On Moderation and Other Fantasies

    On Moderation and Other Fantasies

    Even though I’ve quit drinking, I don’t pretend to understand moderation. I will never be someone who stops when they’re full. Not really.

    I remember when I first became suspicious of moderation. 

    I was reading Prevention magazine long before it made any sense to me: I had no wrinkles, I had no libido, I was not in menopause. I was 11.

    Prevention informed me that, in moderation, chocolate was actually good for me! I was advised that dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao, whatever that was) is the best. Just a square or two, the article warned.

    Wait… why on earth would I eat a “square or two” of chocolate? What is the point?  It struck me as nonsense. A square or two equates to a maximum of 60 seconds of pleasure. Why waste the guilt?

    At 11, I already knew that if I was going to feel guilty about food, it had better be in exchange for at least 20 minutes of pleasure. Maybe even a whole evening of it.

    Moderation did not come naturally to me. I can still remember the first time I made myself sick with eating. My small-town church held a dessert auction to raise money, and my table bought the turtle cake. I ate so much I thought I would puke. When I got home, I stuck a finger down my throat. I vaguely understood that forced puking was something bad, but I also felt really bad.

    I wasn’t bulimic; I just needed relief. I just wanted the nasty feeling to go away. Do other people eat like this, too? How much cake did my sister eat? Even at that early age, I was desperate to see the same behavior mirrored in others. Especially in my naturally thin, naturally moderate older sister.

    Three years later, flipping through Prevention, I again wondered if I was alone in this. Perhaps the world is chock-full of women who feel satisfied after two squares of chocolate. Maybe they’re really just in it for the antioxidants.

    Eight years later, “antioxidants” once again provided the green light. A daily glass of wine is actually good for you; just make sure it isn’t two or three! (Wink.) By this time, I was learning to use alcohol as a social lubricant, and that playful admonishment – anything in moderation – was just as mystifying as it had been at age 11; just as unattainable as it was at 8. 

    Because: A single rum and coke, mixed in cheap plasticware on my dorm room floor, would ease my nerves just enough to get me out the door. It certainly wouldn’t see me through a night of small talk with strangers, trying to be cool and relaxed, trying to be just the type of girl who floats between parties with a gaggle of friends. The type of girl who forgets about her exposed midriff, and whispers to her friends that she shaved down there “just in case.”

    By age 22, the jig was up. When it came to alcohol, I gave up the quest for moderation pretty early. Now, at three and a half years sober, I stare in wonder as my friends nurse a single drink over the course of an hour or two. I marvel when they order a coke instead of a beer – not because they can’t or shouldn’t drink, but because they just don’t want to. My friends often opt to join me in sober activities rather than hitting the bars. But isn’t that boring? Aren’t I boring? Wouldn’t you rather be drinking?

    After all: If I wasn’t an alcoholic, I’d drink every day.

    Even though I’ve quit drinking, I don’t pretend to understand moderation. I will never be someone who stops when they’re full. Not really. I might stop in public, dutifully cutting my burger in half on a first date — but I will not be falling asleep on an empty stomach. I want that sense of fullness, sedation. And sometimes it feels like food can get me there.

    This chronic need for fullness isn’t just expressed through food or alcohol, but also through work, relationships, appearance. It’s never quite enough. 

    Although I have worked a strong program of recovery, I still look with total bewilderment at people who embrace moderation. People who drink beer for the taste; dine at interesting restaurants just for the experience; go for months without sex because they haven’t found the “right person” to share it with (and can’t be bothered to settle for less). People whose daily exercise involves mindfully listening to their bodies. People whose nighttime routine involves mindfully acknowledging their thoughts.

    At the dessert auction, in the wake of the turtle cake, I needed to know that others struggled too. No, I wasn’t a sadist; I didn’t wish pain on others. I was just afraid of being alone. Even at eight years old, I needed to know that others sometimes eat, drink, sleep, scroll, and swipe themselves into oblivion. I needed to know I wasn’t alone.

    I wasn’t. And if you can relate to me, you aren’t either. We just feel empty sometimes.

    Take a second to conjure up a shiny moment. It’s important that in this moment you were not chemically altered. A moment when you thought, Wow. Maybe sober life isn’t so bad. Maybe sometimes, it’s even great. A moment in which you felt closer than ever to serenity, bliss, and pure, shameless embodiment.

    Have you got it yet? This is important.

    Last week, I stood at the top of Table Rock in Boise, Idaho, next to a Scottish stranger I’d met three days before. He and I had a brief, perfect, crystalline connection. We understood each other deeply. For a moment, my belly was fully of gratitude. For a moment, the sun was on my back, there was laughter in my eyes, and I did not feel empty.

    That’s my moment. And I didn’t have to scour my memory for it. That was just last week.

    Within 24 hours of flying home, the moment had evaporated. The connection was lost. I will never see the Scot again, and maybe I will never again look out over the City of Trees from Table Rock. The bliss was fleeting, but no more so than the emptiness that sometimes stands between me and sleep. For better or worse, nothing lasts.

    In moments when you feel the most empty, you may find it necessary to submerge yourself. So do that, if you must — but forgive yourself for it. Forgive yourself and never lose hope. Never forget your deep, sober, and startling capacity to feel full.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • On Gratitude

    On Gratitude

    Alcohol was the price we paid to pretend that we could feel wonder, when something broken inside of ourselves couldn’t grapple with the fullness of that reality with a clear head and a complete heart.

    Dawn is gratitude’s hour. At least for me that’s been true for the past four years. One of the clichés you’ll hear in recovery is that nobody ever wakes up wishing they’d somehow drunk more the night before. The platitudes of sobriety vary in their efficacy, but that one has always struck me as estimably wise, which is to say useful. It’s true: upon awakening, we never wish we’d gotten drunker the previous night, and if there is one imperative which I’ve learned at close to four years of sobriety, it’s to hang on till that morning sun notches its arrival. You might not always be able to make the days count, but you can at least count the days; and no matter how dark the night, no matter how many times the sweet oblivion promised by Sister Alcohol, the awareness that you made it to another clear-eyed morning is its own form of sanctification. 

    It’s a form of what the poet Raymond Carver, ten years into his sobriety, called “gravy” (others call it “grace”). Carver writes of the simple joy of being “Alive, sober, working, loving, and/being loved.” Rather than the mad scramble or the sinking pit of jittery anxiety, that’s my mornings now. 

    Equal Parts Shakiness and Shamefulness

    Before I got sober there were so many hundreds, thousands, of mornings when I’d startle awake as my hangover shocked my system into consciousness. That blind panic which an old drinking buddy (who knew the score) had christened “The Fear.” Mad fumbling towards a periodically broken flip-phone to see whom I’d bothered by text, the shuffling through of old receipts to fit together the narrative of a hazily remembered bar crawl, the moist, clammy feeling of heavy feet sticking to my hard-wood floor as I booted up my laptop to see what word salad I’d seen fit to post to Facebook or Twitter long after last call. A trail of Yuengling bottles lining a trail from my bed to the couch, where an antique ashtray designed in a faux Byzantine style was overflowing with cigarette butts. Equal parts shakiness and shamefulness. 

    That heavy, hungover feeling where the physical pain was such that the guilt surrounding the reality of how drunk you’d gotten (again) receded to a sort of personal background radiation, at least until you’d rehydrated and could focus on all of your iniquities before happy hour came, and you could do it all over again. What Caroline Knapp describes in her classic Drinking: A Love Story as the phenomenon whereby all that “you’re really aware of after a night like that is the hangover… You may feel a twinge of embarrassment, a pang of worry or despair, but most of the pain is physical in the morning, so you choose to focus on that.” At its worst, The Fear was a surprise visitor, a guest who came unexpectedly after you agreed to stop by for one or five at the bar after work, or who invited himself to Sunday boozy brunch and decided to stay until Monday morning. It’s a sickening feeling, that knowledge that you’d somehow done it again, even if the rest of what you knew was patchy.

    Which is why that hour after I get up makes me feel positively beatified in my new life. In those (often shockingly early!) hours I make coffee that’s too strong and drink too many cups, I take my dog for her morning walk, I listen to The National or The Shins and think deep, contemplative thoughts (or so I pretend). I’m experiencing a type of peace. I’m happy. And most mornings, when I realize the contrast (often helped along by Facebook’s anniversary algorithm), I pause to reflect on a past life, one of painful awakenings and forgotten stumbling. They guarantee that when you quit drinking, you’ll be delivered the life which alcohol had always promised you, but lied about. For me, that guarantee of sobriety has been largely accurate. 

    The Pull of Euphoric Recall

    But sometimes there is that electric pull, a slowing down when walking by a tavern window, hungrily eyeing the bottles of brown liquid behind the bar; or breathing in a bit too deeply when somebody at a bus stop lights a cigarette. Such an attraction to that feeling, to dwell in those moments, is what the old timers call euphoric recall. Maybe a neuroscientist can explain why my brain’s different, the malfunctioning neurons or compulsion for endorphins, but whatever the reasons, the moment ethanol diffuses through my blood, I sit in amazement that not everybody wants to feel that way. 

    There’s a thrum to alcohol through your veins, a magic whereby at some point between the third and fourth cocktail the very world seems to glow from the inside. And you’ll pursue that glancing feeling until you have no feelings left at all. This is a disease: You’ll make drinking your vocation even though it’ll make you miserable; you’ll head off to hold court at the bar even though you rationally know that you’ve got a better than average chance of getting hit by a car as you drunkenly meander home.

    I’ve developed an armor to deal with those moments, and so far, it’s worked well. What polishes that armor, what oils its hinges, is gratitude. I know that that sounds at best abstract and at worst preachy, but gratitude is nothing less than the currency with which I purchase the rest of my life. Explicit in such personal negotiations must be the understanding that, without getting into those tired debates about faith and recovery, I’ve undergone a conversion of sorts. But just as every day I make the decision to not pick up the first drink (and every morning I feel gratitude for at least that fact), so every moment I must occasion that conversion anew. Philosopher Costica Bradatan writes in Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of Philosophers that the “convert is not a new person, but a renewed one… A convert is the impossible mixture of nostalgia and hope, past and future; in such a soul the fear of a relapse lives side by side with an intense passion for the newly found self.” 

    Reforming your life, living through that conversion, is one thing; being aware, thankful, and grateful for it is what’s necessary to not let it disappear, so that you find yourself sitting with your feet upon the brass rail after twelve pints again. So, what is gratitude then? If it’s just a “Thank You” sent to some higher power, it’s an anemic (though perhaps necessary) thing, for gratitude is not merely sentiment, feeling, or affirmation. Gratitude is an entire way of inhabiting reality; a philosophy, a metaphysic, a method. Specifically, a method of living within the fullness of a moment, an embrace of that shining, luminescent glory of existence that at its most complete undulates with a vibrating glow of wonder. In a word, gratitude is hard. I fear I’m not always the best at it, but of course I go on.

    Cheap Grace

    The problem, if you’re an alcoholic as I am, is that that particular state is very easy to acquire for the price of a shot or several. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian martyred by the Nazis, often castigated what he called “cheap grace,” and the phrase works well for the feeling you think you’re getting once your blood alcohol level rises. Euphoric Recall? I remember sitting in a pub, hitting that sweet spot between the first drink and intoxication, feeling every nick in the grain of the bar’s wood underneath my fingers, and marveling at the beauty of a beer swag neon sign hung up haphazardly near the liquor bottles. In my mind I was positively divine, for alcohol has always been an apt tool in “turning the volume down,” as the author William S. Burroughs used to put it. If you’re a dipsomaniac, that most metaphysical of afflictions, it’s pretty easy to buy benediction at the bar or liquor store. 

    When faux-grace is so cheap, it becomes preferable to doing the hard work of actually experiencing the wonder of existence, the joy in simply being. I’m not sure if alcoholism is all about using liquor to desperately plug a God-shaped hole in the human heart, and just feeling the vodka, scotch, or gin rush out into a splash on the other side, but based on how the damn thing makes you feel, I figure there must be some truth in Carl Jung’s contention that alcoholism is a material solution to a spiritual problem. So frightened are we of abandoning our vices, that we fear sobriety will only offer us mundanity, prosaicness, boredom. Eventually we become possessed by our afflictions, at which point they choose not to abandon us. What Tom Waits, crooning in that sandpaper cigarette voice of his, translated from the poet Rainer Marie Rilke: “If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too.” Worth mentioning that he’s been sober for 18 years now. 

    If gratitude is not just about feeling thankful (good enough in its own way), but is also a precise method of awareness, of presentness in the moment, it’s helpful to clarify what exactly we felt in those moments when we were enraptured with wine, liquor, and beer. Another one of those helpful clichés for me is, and I paraphrase: “When you’re drunk, you always think something amazing is going to happen in exactly 15 minutes from whatever time it happens to be, but of course that 15 minutes is never over.” That seems exactly correct to me; the illusion of intoxication is something where you never actually feel wonder, just the admittedly powerful sense that wonder is about to occur. The horrible irony of the substance itself is that the drunker you get, the less possible it becomes to be present or appreciative for any actual moments of glory. 

    A Clear Head and Complete Heart

    By contrast, in sobriety there’s no need to wait 15 minutes – wonder is available now. To feel the nicks of wood under fingertips, to acknowledge the cracked transcendence of a neon sign, to feel gratitude at every second of our fallen, flawed, limited, beautiful lives is an issue of simply “cleansing the doors of perception,” as William Blake wrote, so that “everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite.” The irony is that for its reputation, alcohol is a remarkable bad disinfectant for perception. The German philosopher Walter Benjamin, writing of the Kabbalah, said that for believers “every second of time was the strait gait through which the Messiah might enter.” Every second of time is a portal through which awareness, wonder, gratitude may enter. It’s important to remember that, because in forgetting we may return to the easy cheap grace. 

    Knapp explained it in a more elegant way: “There’s something about sober living and sober thinking, about facing long afternoons with the numbing distraction of anesthesia, that… shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances…. But from the simple accumulation of active experience.” But to have active experience, you have to be present, “When you drink, you can’t do that.” Existence can be overwhelming – simply being can be terrifying. Alcohol was the price we paid to pretend that we could feel wonder, when something broken inside of ourselves couldn’t grapple with the fullness of that reality with a clear head and a complete heart. We have deep grooves in our souls; fractures, fissures, cracks, and crevices. We are broken grails, but our shards can be held together with that cement which, for lack of a better term, we call gratitude.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Alone in Sobriety: How I Deal with Dark Thoughts, Cravings, and the Urge to Isolate

    Alone in Sobriety: How I Deal with Dark Thoughts, Cravings, and the Urge to Isolate

    In the beginning of my sobriety, I went to meetings as simply a way of getting out of the house and not being alone. However, a cherished bonus—and one I was not expecting—was the feeling of being loved.

    I’m supine on my couch, peering through my bay windows. The eucalyptus tree gently waves, the sun bouncing off the greyish green foliage. Oh my, never really noticed that before, the way the sun hits the trees… almost looks like diamonds are attached to the leaves. I sigh at the beauty of the agate blue lake against the backdrop of pink hills. In my celestial reverie, I think: Ah, this is the life. I need nothing but my view, my books, and of course my oxys and chardonnay. Life is, um, well, perfecto! I don’t need anybody! Life is dope! Ha, ha, pun intended! 

    But as we all know, the nefarious love affair with our substances has to end—unless we’re recreational users. You know, the type that can indulge, but ends up moving on to smarter and better things—like careers, marriage, and kids.

    But the addicted end up with no such future; and our fate comes at a staggering cost: numerous rehabs, jails, hospitals, and sometimes the ultimate price, death. So, if we want any chance at a decent life, we end up doing a program like AA or NA, or we join secular self-help groups such as SMART, or depend on MAT (medication-assisted treatment such as a methadone or Suboxone program). Others get well through individual therapy or exercise or church. And of course (not to leave anyone out), there is that rarefied set that quit on their own—no help needed.

    Sobriety or Self-Destruction

    But the point is: we get better or we blow up our lives.

    I chose rehab, a Suboxone program (six-month duration, thankfully done), and AA meetings to get well. And now, things . . .are better. 

    In the beginning my sobriety was no fun at all: when I looked through those same bay windows at the same beautiful view, a huge dose of anhedonia would hit me. Who cares if it’s beautiful? I’d think, seamlessly segueing into darker thoughts like: What a loser you are, or aren’t you a little old to still be blowing up your life?

    But gradually (I can’t stress this enough), I recovered and those ugly thoughts subsided. I still have them, but nowhere near as bad. 

    They told me in early sobriety to “stop isolating” and be around people. I found this exceedingly hard because while using, I’d convinced myself that I was an unrepentant misanthrope. Well, when I got sober I realized I didn’t really dislike anyone, I was more afraid of folks. So, again gradually (they call it “slobriety”), I’ve lost my fear of people and have learned to socialize more. Even though I’m a loner by nature, I know that humans are social animals. At the very least, I am going against biology when I’m alone all the time. 

    Learning to Love 12-Step Meetings

    Meetings can be one way to escape isolation without having to be super cheerful or interesting. In the beginning of my precarious sobriety, I went to meetings as simply a way of getting out of the house. However, a cherished bonus—and one I was not expecting—was the feeling of being loved. During my many failed sobriety attempts years ago I scoffed at the “let us love you until you can love yourself” platitude—only because where I came from, love was almost always conditional. Image was everything and being a woman of propriety was paramount (never mind what happens behind closed doors!). 

    But finally I was so desperate to get well that I took love wherever it was freely given. And I was pleased to discover there is nothing wrong with getting unconditional love from random people—because eventually those random people became my friends.

    There are times when being alone is inescapable, and this is when my thoughts can get downright dark. But at least now I have tools to deal with them. I can do some cognitive therapy and challenge my thoughts: “Oh, come on! You are getting better!” Or: “Oh come on! You’re trying, give yourself a break.” If that doesn’t work, I get on my knees and pray.

    “God, please direct my thinking! Give me the strength to manage my life!” Even though I’m not sure I believe in God, I do it as a gesture of humility. And sometimes a calmness, a sense of focus, a clarification of the next “indicated step” presents itself, and I say a prayer of gratitude to the Universe for getting me out of my head and into action. 

    If the silence gets too deafening, I’ll call someone. To “get out of self,” I generally reach out to someone who may be having a harder go at it than me. Or sometimes I just do something goofy like turn on some old school rap like Too Short’s Shake that Monkey and just jam out like an oblivious white girl. My twerking leaves a lot to be desired, my butt is just too flat. But it’s remarkably good exercise.

    Fear, Rumination, and Acceptance

    Sometimes, I’ll force myself to sit with these dark thoughts: acknowledge my insecurities, my chaotic and destructive past, my fear of never measuring up. This last trajectory can be dangerous because it can immediately put me in an even darker mood that lasts for days where I end up ruminating in obsessive, sad, or angry loops that keep playing like a film projector that won’t shut off. 

    But I do believe that recognizing these dark corners of my psyche and accepting them, then coming up with a plan to negate any further damage by changing my actions to more positive and kinder ones is probably the best way to go. Because sometimes keeping busy in order to avoid thinking is like the old expression: brushing it under the rug. The dirt piles up in my mind, making me toxic.

    When I’m alone and the cravings for drink and pills get fucking intense, I’ll walk around the block like a demented person, or even worse: I’ll go to the smoke shop and buy one cigarette at a time. 

    When I have no social engagements and there are no meetings, self-pity can overwhelm me, my thoughts of loneliness so deep I’ll find myself obsessively checking my phone to see if anyone has texted. This is probably the hardest “alone” time there is, when you realize you’re alone because you have no one to be with. And I want to scream: “I know I fucked up! I know I acted the fool high! But I’m sober now and a totally different person!” Usually there is no answer from the heavens and I have to sigh myself into a grudging acceptance. 

    Remembering “This Too Shall Pass”

    Sometimes the only consolation for being sober is my stubborn refusal to get high no matter how lonely and sad I feel, and the knowledge that this too shall pass. And it always does. That day will surely come again where I’ll be outside, gazing at a gorgeous old Victorian home in the historic part of San Diego, or walking in the woods, or snuggled up with my hubby watching some improbably good show on Netflix, and I’ll say to myself: “I am, right now, presently, 100% good with the Universe.” A warm contentment will engulf me—much subtler than the synthetic euphoria of oxy. But it doesn’t matter because here’s the thing: I earned it, and that alone makes it a far more powerful and beautiful experience than drugs ever gave me.

     

    How do you handle the dark times in sobriety? Let us know in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • One Simple Decision: Gratitude and Sorrow

    One Simple Decision: Gratitude and Sorrow

    My sobriety cost too much; I have always believed this and now, after 15 consecutive years, I am sure that I always will believe this.

    It’s eight o’clock in the morning and I am sitting at the desk in my office. I’m not at work officially yet, won’t be for another hour or so. Then the race will start. Kara had asked me if I wanted to go to a meeting this morning, to pick up my 15 year coin. I didn’t.

    She said, “The day can look however you want. I have a babysitter, so if you want to go out after work and celebrate, then we can do that…or nothing.”

    I said that I thought that this year I just wanted it to be a day, just to be a day like any other day. Sometimes I really want the celebration, but this year, this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to come in here and sit and think and spend some time alone. So, I woke up early, my daughter’s warm, tiny body next to me through the night sleeping heavily after a late evening of trick-or-treating excitement, costumes, candy, and other children running wildly through the streets. Kara, still exhausted, is next to her, a new puppy sleeping soundly at her shoulder. There is a cat at her feet curled up contentedly as all cats sleep. Last night we went to bed laughing about this — the animals, our child, about the busy place that our bed has become. I pointed out that nine years ago this would have been an absolute dream come true.

    Kara said, “Nine years ago this couldn’t have even been imagined!” and we laughed together at our own amazement.

    Today is the 15th anniversary of my sobriety. It is a date that is perpetually entwined with gratitude and sorrow. This is a date that I will always celebrate and mourn. My sobriety cost too much; I have always believed this and now, after 15 consecutive years, I am sure that I always will believe this.

    Sobriety always comes at a cost. I’ve been around enough 12-step rooms and other sober support communities to know this.

    It is veritably impossible to hear a person’s recovery story without being very often stunned and amazed by the levels of grief and despair that their recovery has cost. The cost of my own sobriety was lives. I still shake my head 15 years later even as I write those words. It just doesn’t seem possible still. I can just never make it better. Not ever.

    I am Sysiphus, eternally condemned to pushing a boulder to the top of this mountain.

    But it is also great, which is an odd dissonance. It’s a perpetual mourning, but also an absolute celebration, and discovery, and adventure.

    I work with people daily in very early recovery. They sit in my office and cry and are angry and are desperate and scared. They sit across from me and I see myself. It would be impossible not to. The words they use, the language they use, is a close memory hermetically sealed forever in my mind. I listen to them and I hear myself. I feel sad for them, and grateful that for me that the chaos has ended. It has finally ended. I remember how it felt to have the heavy fog of eternal delusion lift and what it felt like to start to see for what felt like the first time ever. And I am so grateful for the utter simplicity of today’s problems.

    But again, I question the cost.

    One simple decision.

    One very simple, very wrong, decision.

    And some poor soul never gets to see their child again, their parent again, someone they love ever again, and there is no way to ever make that better. That can never be made better again.

    After taking Story trick-or-treating last night, she climbs excitedly into her car seat and asks for her bounty, her new treasures, her bucket of goods scored on a lively Hallows Eve. Kara tells her that she doesn’t want Story to eat all of that candy and make herself sick. Story insists that she won’t. We relent and let her have her reserve. On the way home we are absolutely charged. What a great night! We tell Story what a good kid she was and how much we appreciated her saying “thank-you” to all of the people that gave her candy. And because I never want her to forget it, I remind her of all of the great things we did leading up to this night. I ask her to join in with me, and we laugh about corn mazes and hot apple cider. We talk about apple picking and candy corn. We revel in her having been read the entire first Harry Potter book not once, but twice! We remember carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds.

    Occasionally, Story asks if she can turn the light on in the van so that she can carefully pick her next treat. Kara says she can do it as long as she does it quickly, and I can hear the crinkling of tiny brown wrappers behind me and I am filled to the brim with love and joy and just Life!

    And then I wonder…

    Was this what it was like for them?

    Fifteen years later this is what I have to offer not just my own victims, but the world. This is what I owe:

    My boundless gratitude.

    My eternal apologies.

    My diligence and determination.

    My thankfulness.

    My joy.

    My promise.

    My sobriety.

    Thank you to everyone, friends, and families, my victims, just everyone, who has made this incredibly magical, and far too meaningful journey possible. Thank you all. And please don’t drink and drive. Please. Just don’t.

    Peace.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 4 Important Reasons to "Keep Coming Back" to AA, Even When We Don't Need To

    4 Important Reasons to "Keep Coming Back" to AA, Even When We Don't Need To

    Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence at a 12-step meeting can be for another person’s recovery.

    More than I care to admit, my usual 12-step meeting times will pop up on my calendar and I’ll think to myself, “Can I get away with skipping this one?”

    A lot of folks in the rooms will tell you that you shouldn’t skip meetings because relapse happens when we get lax in recovery. You get out of recovery what you invest into it, and the practice of consistently showing up makes your program stronger.

    I don’t disagree with that. But even so, when I’m having a good day, going to a meeting sounds like a drag — and one meeting, I figure, is not going to make or break my sobriety.

    Besides, I’ve earned a break, haven’t I?

    There are four simple words that snap me back into reality, though: It’s not about you.

    Put another way, we show up to these meetings because we’re building a community of support. But when we feel the temptation to not show up, it’s easy to forget the bigger picture.

    So why go to that meeting, even when your recovery doesn’t depend on it? It’s pretty simple: recovery is about so much more than not picking up a drink. The next time you’re thinking about missing out on a meeting, consider these four reasons why showing up still matters.

    1. Someone might need your presence or your story.

    You might be the one familiar face in the room that reminds someone that they’re in the right place. Something that you share might be exactly what someone else needs to hear. You never know what your presence is bringing to the table — and how valuable it might be to someone else.

    When I finally went back to AA after two years of relapses and denial, I can’t express just how comforting it was to see people I could remember. They were still there (and amazingly, still sober) and genuinely happy to see me again.

    Their presence was a reminder that AA wasn’t just a gathering place for sad drunks — it was a community. It was a place where warmth, compassion, and laughter could always be found. At times, it was really the only place where I could laugh.

    Many of us arrive at our first meetings unsure of what we’ll find and afraid to speak up. And often times it was hearing “our story” — seeing ourselves and our struggles in someone else’s share — that gave us the strength to keep coming back and truly commit to our recovery.

    Despite numerous therapists, social workers, and loved ones urging me to get help, the only thing that pulled me from my deep state of denial was listening to other alcoholics. As one old-timer explained to me, “This fellowship is the only mirror in which I can see myself clearly.”

    To this day, I can remember those people’s stories, even if they never noticed me hiding in the back of the room. They may have spoken casually without any thought of reaching anyone, but their words had an unforgettable impact on me.

    Tonight, someone might show up to the rooms, not sure if they belong or if they want to stay. Your smile, your energy, or your words could be the anchor that grounds them. Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence can be for another person’s recovery.

    2. 12-step meetings can only thrive if everyone commits to showing up.

    Think about it: if we only showed up when we were feeling terrible, what would meetings look like, exactly? They’d be pretty dismal places. There’d be experiences to share — but where would the strength and hope come from?

    On chip nights, when I saw members getting their chips for five, ten, even twenty years, I used to wonder why they bothered to show up. “Do they really think they’re going to slip up at this point?” It’s true, they might, but when I listened to the responsibility statement, I realized that it wasn’t just for them. They showed up for the fellowship, and for the alcoholic who still suffers. Their presence was an act of gratitude.

    Members who show up consistently, even and especially when they don’t “need” to, are the heart and soul of 12-step meetings. The program only truly works when people are willing to build a lasting community together.

    AA isn’t just the couch you crash on when you’re down on your luck; these rooms represent a safe haven that should always be there, and will be — as long as we keep coming back.

    3. Sobriety is an ongoing practice — not a destination.

    I’ve often joked that alcoholism is a form of amnesia, but there’s some truth to that, too. Without a consistent practice — in which we repeatedly confront, accept, and reflect on our condition, while building up the coping skills needed to manage our lives — it’s all too easy to return to our old ways.

    I don’t know about you, but my old ways weren’t exactly charming.

    I could be resentful, self-centered, and impulsive. Like many alcoholics, I’ve fooled myself into thinking I had more power over situations than I actually did. I’ve been the bull in the china shop, barreling my way through life. I much prefer the acceptance, grace, and warmth that I work hard to embody today.

    Left to my own devices, though? I fall out of the routine that helps me sustain my recovery and keeps me accountable. The resentments start to pile up. My stubbornness comes to the surface. My sense of gratitude diminishes.

    Sobriety is not a point at which you arrive. Personal growth is a direction we move in — not a finish line we cross. Think of a fellowship, then, as your compass, helping to direct that growth.

    Sobriety is a practice, and when we regularly attend meetings, we flex the muscles needed to strengthen and maintain our coping skills. The more we flex those muscles, the more intuitive those skills become. And as the Ninth Step Promises state, we “intuitively know how to deal with situations that used to baffle us.”

    Developing that intuition means reinforcing it, and meetings are a consistent and reliable way of doing this, with a community that supports you unconditionally through that process.

    4. Joy is an incredible contribution.

    I’m an optimist and an extrovert by nature. When I first started attending meetings, I very seriously wondered if my personality would be “too much” for a space like AA. Was I too happy? Would my upbeat nature be grating in such an emotionally-vulnerable space?

    But each time I shared my experiences, there was a chorus of gratitude that followed — the energy that I brought to the rooms was appreciated and seen. That’s when I finally understood something: authentic joy is an amazing gift to bring to my community.

    So when I’m especially happy on any given day? I make an extra effort to show up to meetings. I let my smile signal to others that there is joy in sobriety. I let my laugh remind newcomers that there are better days ahead.

    And I let my excitement and enthusiasm lift up those around me, especially those who might be wondering if there is a place for them in AA. When I show up authentically, it allows others to do the same. It makes those rooms a more welcoming place.

    I may not feel motivated on a given day to show up to a meeting. But when I can’t show up for myself, I do it for my community.

    And inevitably, when I do, my joy only seems to multiply. It seems that — at least in 12-step programs — what you give to others always comes back to you in spades.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My "Beautiful Boy": David Sheff on Bringing His Family’s Story to the Big Screen

    My "Beautiful Boy": David Sheff on Bringing His Family’s Story to the Big Screen

    While watching the film, I would look over at Nic sitting next to me and get so emotional. I would start to cry and I feel like I’m about to start crying right now because I came so close to losing him.

    In “The David Sheff Solution,” The Fix interviewed the National Book Award-winning author of Beautiful Boy about his struggles as the father of a child with a substance use disorder. Now David Sheff’s story is about to be vaulted to the next level of national prominence. On Friday, Amazon Studios released the feature film Beautiful Boy, starring Steve Carrell as David Sheff and Timothée Chalamet as Nic Sheff.

    As opposed to being intimidated by this move into the public eye, David Sheff is excited. Since helping his son Nic find the path of long-term recovery, Sheff has dedicated his time and energy to raising awareness and continuing his efforts to reduce –and ultimately remove—the stigma surrounding addiction. Without stigma, Sheff knows from firsthand experience, prevention efforts will improve and treatment will become more accessible. Indeed, Sheff’s ultimate goal in allowing his story to be brought to the big screen is to bring greater compassion and understanding for this disease. Given our similar focus at The Fix, we are thrilled to again speak with David Sheff.

    The Fix: Beautiful Boy is a rare combination of both your most deeply personal work as a human being and your most successful book as an author. Was it hard to decide to expose such a story to the world, particularly in a visual format that lacks the distance of the written word? Was it difficult to let go and give director/writer Felix Van Groeningen the space to tell your story?

    The direct answer is yes. It was hard. Even from the beginning, exposing our family to potential criticism in a public forum was worrying. It has been worrying from the very beginning when I first decided to write about what was happening to my family for The New York Times Magazine. I remember asking a friend of mine to read the manuscript after I first wrote it. She was an editor, and I respected her opinions. I must admit today that her response surprised me. She told me, “You can’t publish this. There is all this stigma against addiction, and your family will be judged harshly.” As you can tell, she really counseled against moving forward.

    At that point, I already had made the commitment. I had talked with everyone involved, including Nic, and we decided to move forward. When it came out, there were no negative consequences at all. In fact, it was the opposite. I heard over and over again from people who had been impacted by addiction. It was all about sharing stories, and people seemed relieved to be able to share. They had kept their experiences quiet because these were their deep, dark secrets. They also had felt that they would be judged. It was so positive that the article and then the book led to the creation of such an open dialogue in a variety of ways from in-person to on the phone to online messages in emails plus on Facebook and Twitter.

    It’s important to note that every word in that book I scrutinized. I wanted to make sure that I said what I wanted to say while also protecting everyone involved. It ends up being really complicated. I felt everybody had suffered enough, and I didn’t want to increase anyone’s suffering. As a writer, I tried to be as meticulous as I knew how to be. The idea of allowing someone else to tell our story was scary in a different way: I knew I would not have that kind of control.

    Before it happened, the idea of doing a movie had never really occurred to me. To begin with, the writing started as a way to get through the night. The writing was a way of expurgating this deep, dark turmoil that I was experiencing. When we were approached about doing a movie, the first guy turned out to be the right guy. We were approached by Jeremy Kleiner, one of the principals at Plan B Entertainment, and he was sincerely moved by both of our books. He cared deeply about this issue because he had been through it with friends while also being deeply affected by the Dad’s perspective and the family story. He felt it made it different from the vast majority of addiction memoirs. The key point he made was that addiction was not portrayed in either of our books in a simplistic or clichéd way. He made the commitment to make a movie that would show the complexity of addiction, the fact that there are no easy answers.

    Although Jeremy was just starting out at this time, we believed in him and in Dede Gardner, his partner at Plan B, along with Brad Pitt, who is the CEO and started the company. It seemed obvious to make the decision to make the movie with them. Since then, they have won Academy-Awards for making 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight, but this was before they experienced such incredible success. When they brought on Felix Van Groeningen, the director of the movie, I was even more convinced. He’s a genius, and I was incredibly impressed and moved by his past films. Like the producers, he was connected and committed to the material. I knew we were in good hands, and I knew they would tell our story in all of its complexity.

    Steve Carrell is an American comic icon. In movies like The Office and The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, he has made us laugh (although he showed dramatic chops in Foxcatcher). What do you think of his portrayal of you in this film?

    There is no doubt that he’s a comic genius, but he’s so much more as well. Steve is an astounding actor, and I knew that long before this movie. Indeed, Nic and I remember so clearly the experience of seeing him in Little Miss Sunshine together. He was heartbreaking in that movie in such a beautiful way, and it was a moving experience for us to see that film together when it first came out in the theaters.

    When I met Steve, he was so sincere, warm, and committed to telling the story right. The other thing I realized was that he connected to the story as a father. It was not the drug experiences that drew him to the story, but the opportunity as a father to play a father desperately trying to help a child. He understood the deep desire as a parent to do anything we can to protect our kids. He expressed how badly he wanted to play that role because of the emotional component of the story.

    I must admit, however, that when I saw the movie, I still couldn’t imagine anyone playing me. It just seemed too weird. It really is disconcerting when you think about it, and, as a writer, I tend to think about things. When I finally saw the movie from beginning to end, I feel like he nailed it. He captured how hard it is and how hard it was for me to go through this period in my life. He captured what it’s like to be a parent of an addicted child, somebody you love more than anything and all you want to do is save them, but you keep running into obstacles like the denial and the horror of addiction. He captured that difficulty of helping someone who is angry and rebellious and lashing out at you as you try to save their life. I lived through that anguish, and that anguish is in every nuance of his performance and his expression and in his acting. I really was blown away and felt that he got it. Before I saw him do it, I honestly doubted whether anyone could do what he has accomplished in this film. You see his optimism and his crushing defeat, then you see him become optimistic again and then his desperation as his son keeps relapsing. The up and down and up and down is so powerful, but even more powerful is the through-line of his love for his son.

    How did you and Nic decide to move forward with the movie project? Did you both feel from the beginning that your book and his book should be turned into a combined film? How did you decide to combine the Beautiful Boy story with Nic’s Tweak, or was this choice made by the filmmakers?

    The choice was completely made by the filmmakers. It was inconceivable at first that they would be able to pull off two such different takes on the same story in a single film. However, I had heard how valuable it was for other parents to read Nic’s book and develop a new perspective on what their addicted son or daughter was going through. At the same time, it was really valuable for a lot of kids to read Beautiful Boy to get a sense of what their parents were going through, both from the perspective of the how much they suffered and the depth of their love. Many kids don’t realize how much a parent’s love is a constant in the process of trying to help their child recover.

    Still, each story had been told in book form with over three-hundred pages dedicated to each story. The idea that somebody could pull it all together in a two-hour movie was hard for me to imagine. It was not at all our choice, and it felt like they were jumping into the deep end of a stormy ocean without a life vest. Also, there was no precedent for it. I can’t think of a movie that was ever based on two different memories; one from the parent’s perspective and the other from the child’s perspective. I wasn’t sure that it could be done.

    However, you really got the emotional journey through the parent and the kid. I knew it was going to be challenging, but, once they made the decision, they never looked back. Over the two years that it took to make the movie, they kept to the course, and I feel they did it masterfully. It was a hard choice to make in the beginning, and it definitely was the decision of the filmmakers.

    As an aside, Nic did amazing in his interview. I was so impressed by the depth of his compassion and the veracity of his gratitude.

    He’s an extraordinary example of recovery in practice. All the time, I hear from people who are so discouraged because they’ve been through years of watching a child’s descent into addiction. I hear it about other family members and friends as well. They just don’t feel like recovery is possible.

    We are so lucky that Nic made it. Any parent is lucky that has a child who makes it. Nic’s drug use was so extreme, and the combination of drugs that he was doing was truly dangerous. He put himself into so many life-threatening situations during those dark days. There were so many times when it could have ended up differently. Tragically—and I feel so deeply for them because I could have been there— so many parents now experience the unforgiving horror of that outcome where they lose a child. Given Nick’s recovery now, we were very lucky.

    My experience seeing Nic go through this process has been incredible. People that go through recovery and come out the other end don’t just survive. Because of all the hard work that needs to be done, because of all the suffering, because of all the self-examination required to get sober and then stay sober, they become some of the most extraordinary people that you’ll ever meet. In fact, John, you are a case in point, and that journey from addiction to recovery, as you know from your own experience, can be inspiring to other people that you meet along the way. People that come out the other side can have the most rewarding and fulfilling lives afterward.

    I hear from so many families that are close to losing hope or have lost hope. Their relationships have been shattered, and they can’t imagine them ever being put back together. My experience with Nic has shown that families that do explode; [families that] feel—amidst the ruins—that it’s almost inconceivable that they will survive it—they do survive it, and they can survive. Recovery is still a possibility. If they do the hard work and give it time, they can be closer than ever. I believe we can say that about our family.

    Nic and David Shef
    Image Credit: Reed Hutchinson for UCLA Friends of Semel

    If this movie could accomplish one goal, what would you want that goal to be? What do you believe can be achieved?

    I feel the biggest impediment moving forward to end addiction, to face this disease in all its difficulty, to prevent people from becoming addicted and to treat people that do become addicted, is the ongoing stigma. Too many people keep their problem hidden because they are judged. People don’t go get treatment because they are hiding the reality of their addiction. When people start to get treatment, if they have the normal challenges of the usual ups and downs, if they relapse, they are judged very harshly. Being judged in such a way is the last thing needed by somebody who is addicted. They already feel terrible about themselves. They are caught in a cycle that’s like a vise, and they don’t want to be doing the terrible things that they do to themselves and to their families.

    I hope the movie can show people that addiction is not about choice. It’s not about a young person going out and doing these things just because they want to have fun and party and get high. It might be about that a little in the beginning, but it quickly shifts. Essentially, it is about pain and suffering and a desperate attempt to find some sense of peace within themselves. Addicted people talk about this hole inside them that they are trying to fill. The hole can be anything from an undiagnosed psychiatric problem like depression or anxiety to untreated childhood abuse and trauma. Whatever it is, I have come to see that it is about a pain that the person is trying to self-medicate.

    If this film can help with anything, I hope it opens the door to greater compassion and understanding for this disease. Without the burden of the stigma, we can move forward and actually help the people that need our help. We need to help people by overcoming stigma by focusing on effective prevention and treatment. People who are addicted are not weak. They are ill, and they deserve our compassion.

    At the Colorado Health Symposium in August, you start your keynote address after watching the film’s trailer by saying, “I’ve only seen that once, and it’s hard to watch.” What parts exactly were so hard to watch? Was it a combination of Nic’s descent into addiction and your inability to stop it? Did you have any PTSD-like reactions to the film, or was it a cathartic experience that freed you from the lingering demons of the past?

    Wow! That’s a good question. I guess the answer is both. It brought it all back, and it’s not like I had forgotten. However, when we get past traumatic experiences in our lives, we do put them in a place that we can live with. I feel like I had done that to some degree, and it made watching the film challenging. The experience of seeing it again opened up the whole thing again, meaning it opened up the old wounds. I just remembered how hard it was and how hard it was to watch Nic suffer. I felt again how hard it was for all of us to survive as a family.

    At the same time, it was amazingly cathartic to process what we had been through as a family. It was another version of writing the book, which had been really cathartic as well. It also was an affirmation of the hard work Nic has done to get sober and to stay sober. It was a reminder of how lucky we are to have come out the other side. While watching the film, I would look over at Nic sitting next to me and get so emotional. I would start to cry and I feel like I’m about to start crying right now because I came so close to losing him. It was a reminder of how close I came to losing him.

    In another sense, it was cathartic because I felt like it mirrored the experience of so many other people. It was a reminder of how many of us are in this together. When Beautiful Boy first came out in 2008, I thought it couldn’t get worse in terms of the number of people that were dying from addiction. The number then was about 36,000, and that doesn’t include people dying from alcohol-related causes. Of course, we know that in 2017, it was 72,000 dying from addiction-related causes alone, twice the original number. Things have gotten so much worse, and that’s why I feel that this movie is coming out at just the right time. So many people are suffering, and I hope this movie can help bring us all together and make us feel that we are not alone.

    You talk about how hard the disease of addiction is on families. Should families see this film together? Should parents take their teenagers? If they do, how should they prepare both themselves and their kids for the film and what should they do afterwards?

    Wow! That’s another good question. I guess what I would say is that every family is different. A reality that many of us would prefer not to face is that every kid is going to encounter drugs as they are growing up. It’s a prevalent reality in the world. Many parents ask me if it’s too early to start talking about drugs with their child if they are a freshman in high school. The clear answer is no. It’s not too early to start talking about drugs to your young, young child. Drugs are pervasive in our culture, and kids are curious by nature. They are confused, and it’s our responsibility to provide them with quality information to help lift that confusion. It’s our responsibility to shed light.

    Still, every family and every parent has to determine what’s appropriate for their own child. When it comes to seeing this film, that decision needs to be made for each family. In general, if your child is mature enough to see explicit and disturbing scenes of drug use, then I think this film could provide an amazing way to start that conversation in a family. What does it mean to use drugs? Why do people use drugs? What are the potential consequences to using drugs? These are crucial questions. Before watching the film, there should be a conversation that provides some education. In other words, a conversation that opens the door to a conversation. The best part of such a conversation is if parents can get their kids to talk.

    It reminds me of this recent work I’ve been doing with Jarvis Masters, a California inmate at San Quentin on death row. I’ve spent a lot of time in the prison, and I recently sat in with a group of inmates in the program as they talked about their experiences and their lives. They are trying to face the consequences of their actions by doing restorative justice. When I was leaving, I happened to be going to talk to a group of teenagers that night. I asked these men: “I’m going to talk to these kids tonight. Is there anything I should tell them? Is there anything anyone would have said to you that would have helped you growing up so you could have made better decisions later on? Maybe you would not have fallen into addiction and fallen into crime?”

    A lot of the men had really interesting things to say. At the end, there was this one guy who has been super quiet the whole time. He said something under his breath, and I couldn’t hear him. I asked him to say what he had said again. He looked up at me and said, “When you talk to these kids tonight, don’t say anything. Just listen to them.”

    I thought that was incredibly powerful, and that’s the message I would give to parents. Try to engage your kids in conversation and really figure out who they are and what’s going on in their lives. Then, it’s super important to continue the conversation after the movie. Keep talking and, more importantly, keep listening.

    Finally, people in early recovery should be careful when deciding whether or not to see this film. Given the explicit drug use and the unvarnished reality of addiction presented in the film, it may not be the best choice so they should talk it through with their counselors, therapists, sponsors or whomever they are working with to maintain their recovery. The research tells us that such scenes of drug use can be triggering, and that’s the last thing we want to do with this movie. Part of the reason the movie is so powerful is because the filmmakers committed to telling the truth, and that truth is that drug use is not glamorous in the slightest, but rather horrifying to watch.

    View the original article at thefix.com