1.) “You can’t think your way into sober living, but you can live your way into sober thinking”.
2.) “One is too many, and one thousand is never enough”.
3.) “Relapse starts long before the first drink”.
Nothing Changed After We Got Sober, Only What We Called “Drugs”
During my time in active addiction I was an IV drug user meaning that I used needles to inject meth, cocaine and heroin into my veins. The process itself (which I will not describe here for obvious reasons) was simple and by itself a very addictive process. Once you learned how to use the orange caps and load the syringe with the crystalline or black rocks, it was game time and you would be assured a trip to the moon that could last anywhere between a few seconds to a couple of minutes, depending upon which type of rock you used to get you where you were going.
One truth that we are taught in recovery is that “One Is Too Many And One Thousand Is Never Enough”, meaning that simple exposure to a mind altering substance even one time creates a hunger inside of us that demands more attention-more drugs. Likewise, “One Thousand” simply illustrates the pattern of insanity that is bound to continue after that first time, as we keep looking for a way to continue that feeling which is indeed fleeting and never seems to stick around long enough. We learn through the twelve steps that we must remain on guard, that “Our disease is doing pushups even while we’re in meetings”. This type of imagery is strong and intentionally provocative. It is a sharp reminder that at the slightest sign of complacency, there lies the risk of “going back out” and getting high again.
In America and more broadly in online spaces, we have something called “Hustle Culture” which glorifies hard work ethic, but tends to be portrayed as going to extremes in order to make money or reach a particular goal. It is a good-even admirable thing to some extent that hard work and consistency remains a prized and valued asset, but when taken too far it can become an obsession all its own. As I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts “Triangle Of Obsession: The Recovery Trap”, addicts in particular tend to lose sight of where they came from and slowly drift from their peers in the program. They attend less and less meetings and just like Dominick whom I recently wrote a blog about, we could find ourselves being visited by the reaper a few years before our time.
Obsession and addiction afflicts more than just the addict in the alleyway or the junkie serving years in prison for possession of an illegal substance, it also includes the non-addict spending hours meandering online, playing video games or watching youtube videos while binge eating junk food. Additionally, we have these neat little devices called “Vape Mods” or “Vape Pens” which deliver a nice hit of nicotine on a whim at the slightest sign of boredom or stress. Yet unlike preparing a syringe for injecting drugs, there’s seemingly no process to any of these behaviors. No time to think or pause, only time to do and indulge. Think about the million little habits that you do each day, including picking at your skin, biting your lips compulsively, smoking a cigarette, masturbating, looking at pornography, throwing a nicotine pouch into your lip or anything that requires little effort with some minimal reward. All of it big and small represents obsession on some level.
The Consequences Of Obsession
I don’t think that death is the scariest thing for an addict, but rather becoming a pathetic burnout who manages to survive the consequences of their own addiction year after year until all dignity and sense of self-respect is stripped away. Gradually over time in a long and drawn out process, their soul is begging to be released from their body and their brain serving not as a tool for thinking anymore, but a master for serving with short lived bursts of pleasure here or there and without anything lasting or meaningful to hold onto. Obsession was our problem from the very start, the idea that we had to depend on anything outside of ourselves had to go away or we would surely die or face potential years of endless misery.
This includes relationships which can be a touchy subject for many of us. While addicts certainly don’t hold any sort of monopoly on relationship issues or suffering, I think the pains associated with loving other people are a bit on the exaggerated side for us. Loads of harm done to the people we claimed we loved; the lying, betraying and stealing for personal gain. Becoming obsessed with people we lost and having to accept that some relationships may never be restored. After years of no hope, it would make sense then that we would look for something, anything to relieve the aching pain that had held us captive for so long.
The Recovery Paradox
A paradox is an idea or situation that seemingly contradicts itself leaving logical inconsistencies that complicate our ability to understand that situation or thing. I refer to twelve step programs as “a paradox” for a reason. Ironically when people feel that they have been saved by a program like Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, they tend to really lean into it full throttle, becoming meeting junkies, reciting common sayings like members of a cult and buying everything that is sold to them. In a strange way, they become obsessed with the program itself. Sometimes to the exclusion of all other things. This by no means is a universal truth but on a personal level I feel as though it is highly likely that nearly every person who does or ever did take the program seriously, at some point in their lives found themselves being unable to detach, think about, talk about or do anything else other than something recovery related.
About a year after I originally started going to meetings I happened to fall into that category myself. At work I would look for any opportunity to talk about how great it was to be clean, what it was like to do drugs and try to insert the topic into every conversation. No one ever seemed to get on my case about it but as I look back I honestly cringe. I arrogantly thought of myself as some kind of sober god whose job it was to “spread the word”. I think many people out there have met someone that is like this. Maybe they engaged with that person for awhile but eventually found themselves becoming frustrated with the inflated ego of the former addict, who clearly just wanted to go on and on about how great they were for no longer doing someting that they never should’ve been doing in the first place.
At some point these types either realize that they were never actually serious about being clean and just relapse again or they gain enough wisdom and brains to figure out how annoying it is and they just knock that shit off because they’ve finally matured. They want all of the social benefits of doing the right thing, without any of the actual work that goes along with it. They think their existence alone makes them exceptional and worthy of praise, ugh. Fortunately I am proud to say I’ve moved past that point, for the most part I see my addiction as basically fodder for an interesting blog here or there but I find the topic has been getting old as of late, which is why I’ve more recently begun talking about mental health in a general sense or just other topics that have nothing to do with drugs or mental health at all.
My last relapse involving anything harder than marijuana or booze was all of the way back in 2017 and so much time has gone by that my memories of what took place and in what order they happned are getting fuzzier with each progressive year that comes and goes by. It’s no longer a relevant part of my life other than the fact that I still go to meetings (not very often though). And here is another paradox; on one hand I admitted earlier that people who don’t stay “plugged into the program” eventually pass away and die like my friend Dominick, but on the other hand I just admitted that I don’t really go to meetings like I used to despite that knowledge.
I’m just full of contradictions aren’t I? Well, the trap of these programs is that they eventually become such a big part of your life that it’s hard to imagine living without them. You could in theory step away, but in doing so you’ll feel like you don’t really belong anywhere. Plus your friends in the program will distance themselves from you if they feel you’re not “working a program” which includes going to meetings. It’s all so tiresome and old to me. Twelve step programs haven’t saved my life, but they’ve definitely made it better. That’s the only reason besides loneliness why I continue to hold on anyway.
