The pain and despair that comes with addiction is excruciating. Every day that you wake up you feel like hell and you know you are going to do the same thing that day. It's like there's a guy with a sledge hammer standing behind a door and even though you know he's there, you choose to open the door any way. The power of addiction is merciless, deceitful and doesn't care who you are. It just wants you to submit to it's every command - and you do.
Being through addiction, part of my recovery is trying to help others to recover and make it to the other side. As a recovering addict I have done the lying, cheating, stealing and manipulation that makes addiction possible. Being an alcoholic or addict is a 24 hour job. You are either trying to get high, getting high or suffering from the last high. The paradox of addiction is that it convinces you that you are not an addict. It also twists your mind into thinking that your family and the world are against you. It reassures you that giving in and getting high is your only path to peace.
There is a person very dear to me who I see slipping into the jaws of addiction. Knowing the signs and games an addict plays is both a blessing and a curse. It's like you know the fastball is coming and you still strike out. The person I am speaking of is a beautiful girl. She is bright and intelligent and only 18 years old. She has her future mapped out and is only a few months away from graduating high school. But now, in the final stretch, she has found a new future with a dead end in the form of chemical dependency.
When I used "checking out" of myself was required. I had no choice. For over 20 years I continuously opened the door and let the guy with the sledgehammer beat my brains in. I lost everything from my self respect to my family. Those losses just added fuel to the fire and more power to the addiction's constant reminder that it was my only friend. It wasn't until I truly thought I was losing my mind and going to die that I got help. Friends, family, strangers and God Almighty can't help an addict until they get tired of the guy with the sledgehammer beating them to death. I was thrown life preserver after life preserver and my denial let me drown for years.
It is so sad for me to look at her and see the patterns I am so familiar with. There have been threats, sob stories, broken promises and I'm sorries. The patterns are all the same. Only the faces and places change. I see the pain in her eyes and the self hate she has for herself. The self hate is the ultimate master of destruction and obsession for an addict. As life gets more chaotic, the greater the drive is to escape. It is hell on earth.
As a loved one you can make threats, try tough love, beg, spoil and play every game you can think of to get an addict to see reality just for that one second. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. Alcoholism and addiction are the only diseases that tell you you're not sick, that you can quit at anytime. An addict thinks they know all the answers and everyone else is full of shite! Prayers are important. Setting a good example is right thinking. Loving the addict who is suffering is vital.
The reality check is that all of the solutions, combinations of them, love, anger, compassion and punishment, may or may not work. It's a crap shoot. Some times you roll a 7. Sometimes you roll box cars. There is no perfect solution. All of us suffer from terminal uniqueness. You can do your best and keep the faith. That is all.
I am going to see this lovely girl tomorrow night. I can share with her my love, experience, strength and hope. I can pray for her. I can tell her the stories of living on the street or having cockroaches crawling all over my body. Maybe something will stick. Maybe it won't. We can control our actions but we have no control over the outcomes. When she walks out the door she will be left with my love and words of support and the knowledge that I will always be there for her. Once she hits the streets it's just her and her addiction. Until the scale tilts from misery to recovery I must accept I can only do so much.
When she walks out that door I will say "Sunny, I love you and I'm here for you."
Showing posts with label terminal uniqueness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terminal uniqueness. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Knock, Knock...Who's There?.......NOBODY!
The title of this chapter is a reference to what a lot of alcoholics and addicts face. This includes their loved ones and also those who don't have addiction issues in their family at all. As an addict the demons and conflicts that we fight center in our minds. One of the most common behaviors of addicts is isolation and emotional unavailability. It was certainly one of my most prevalent behaviors when using and maybe before I ever picked up.
Addiction convinces you that it is your one true ally. It is Stockholm Syndrome without another person being involved. My disease convinced me that it was my only friend and was the only one that understood me. ALL addicts think they are different, that their problems are the worst a human has ever experienced. In recovery we call it "terminal uniqueness." That is a mouthful and right on the money.
Addiction twists your mind into isolating from others so that their concerns, logic and emotional needs don't interfere with our using. Addiction demands our undivided attention and it is a 24 hour a day job. By keeping our attention on our need to retreat into oblivion, it maintains its grip on our use and feelings of "being different" from everyone else. It needs to keep us locked in self-loathing, remorse, isolation, regret and self-pity. We know it is trying to kill us and drive us to insanity, but we listen to it like an evil Pied Piper.
The isolation and emotional unavailability is brutal for the user, their loved ones and friends. The addiction makes us distance ourselves from all healthy thinking so that we think "the whole world is against us." This helps us justify and rationalize behavior that we know deep down is wrong. It also creates negative emotions and chides us into lashing out. Some of the addicts' standard "go to" lines are: "You don't love me!," "You don't understand!", "Don't you realize what I have been through?", "You're probably going to leave me anyway!", "I'm not hurting anyone but me!", "Why don't you just leave me? You know I'm a loser!", "I have it under control don't worry." "Why are you always nagging?", "If you weren't on my case all the time I wouldn't have to drink!" I have said every one of these things to Squeaky and many more than this. The list is endless.
This doesn't mean we are heartless or don't love you. It is more because a few drunks and runs are done as reactions to happy, healthy situations in our lives. Even the parties that started out happy ended in darkness. The addiction feeds on negativity and reduces the addict to a feeling of uselessness, unworthiness and brutally low self-esteem. On the outside most people would say I am cocky. It's true to a point, but I used my artificial confidence so that you couldn't see the trembling, meek, fear gripped child I was inside. All addicts are chameleons. Our addiction is our puppeteer.
Our unavailability takes it's toll on all around us. It is one of my shortcomings when using and still can find it's way into my sobriety if I don't keep my eye on it. To you, the loved ones, it is not personal. It is not your fault we use. We may take one of your statements or actions as our justification to use. I can assure you that if those said actions weren't available, we would find other reasons to justify our insanity. We use because we are addicts. We are sick! We are not evil or weak! We are sick! We are not morally corrupt but our actions "under the influence" may cause us to do things inconceivable in a sober state of mind. However, addicts aren't looked upon the same way a cancer sufferer or diabetic. We are looked on as being weak, selfish, bad people. Not true!
When I drank or used I left my wife and family feeling guilty, responsible, vulnerable and fearful of the uncertainty of my actions when wasted. I then became the hostage taker, as everyone walked on egg shells, carefully choosing their words, as to not set me off. My disease consumed me and paralyzed everyone in my house. My kids were afraid to come to me and my wife had no best friend to share her feelings with. It was all me, all the time.
Things are different now. The more sober I get, the more emotionally available I have become. When the addict goes into recovery and begins to heal, everyone around him gets healthier too. It takes time and there are flashbacks to the "old me", even in sobriety. The addict will always be in me waiting patiently for a chance to get out. I have to replace healthy responses for what once was unhealthy reactions to life. If I dwell in dark thoughts, the desire to use will come back stronger than ever. Everyone in my house is healthier since I've gotten sober. Imagine that!
My children can come to me now in confidence not fear. My wife can rattle on about her day and I can take a genuine role as her husband and best friend. It takes a whole family to recover after active addiction is arrested. Remember it isn't you who made us what we are. The disease chose me and I have to address it like Diabetes. Prayer, recovery groups and positive thinking take me farther and farther from the tyrant that ruled me for so long. Keep the faith. Do what you have to do for yourself and your family. Not all addiction stories have happy endings. But life goes on. Remember every day is a gift.
Addiction convinces you that it is your one true ally. It is Stockholm Syndrome without another person being involved. My disease convinced me that it was my only friend and was the only one that understood me. ALL addicts think they are different, that their problems are the worst a human has ever experienced. In recovery we call it "terminal uniqueness." That is a mouthful and right on the money.
Addiction twists your mind into isolating from others so that their concerns, logic and emotional needs don't interfere with our using. Addiction demands our undivided attention and it is a 24 hour a day job. By keeping our attention on our need to retreat into oblivion, it maintains its grip on our use and feelings of "being different" from everyone else. It needs to keep us locked in self-loathing, remorse, isolation, regret and self-pity. We know it is trying to kill us and drive us to insanity, but we listen to it like an evil Pied Piper.
The isolation and emotional unavailability is brutal for the user, their loved ones and friends. The addiction makes us distance ourselves from all healthy thinking so that we think "the whole world is against us." This helps us justify and rationalize behavior that we know deep down is wrong. It also creates negative emotions and chides us into lashing out. Some of the addicts' standard "go to" lines are: "You don't love me!," "You don't understand!", "Don't you realize what I have been through?", "You're probably going to leave me anyway!", "I'm not hurting anyone but me!", "Why don't you just leave me? You know I'm a loser!", "I have it under control don't worry." "Why are you always nagging?", "If you weren't on my case all the time I wouldn't have to drink!" I have said every one of these things to Squeaky and many more than this. The list is endless.
This doesn't mean we are heartless or don't love you. It is more because a few drunks and runs are done as reactions to happy, healthy situations in our lives. Even the parties that started out happy ended in darkness. The addiction feeds on negativity and reduces the addict to a feeling of uselessness, unworthiness and brutally low self-esteem. On the outside most people would say I am cocky. It's true to a point, but I used my artificial confidence so that you couldn't see the trembling, meek, fear gripped child I was inside. All addicts are chameleons. Our addiction is our puppeteer.
Our unavailability takes it's toll on all around us. It is one of my shortcomings when using and still can find it's way into my sobriety if I don't keep my eye on it. To you, the loved ones, it is not personal. It is not your fault we use. We may take one of your statements or actions as our justification to use. I can assure you that if those said actions weren't available, we would find other reasons to justify our insanity. We use because we are addicts. We are sick! We are not evil or weak! We are sick! We are not morally corrupt but our actions "under the influence" may cause us to do things inconceivable in a sober state of mind. However, addicts aren't looked upon the same way a cancer sufferer or diabetic. We are looked on as being weak, selfish, bad people. Not true!
When I drank or used I left my wife and family feeling guilty, responsible, vulnerable and fearful of the uncertainty of my actions when wasted. I then became the hostage taker, as everyone walked on egg shells, carefully choosing their words, as to not set me off. My disease consumed me and paralyzed everyone in my house. My kids were afraid to come to me and my wife had no best friend to share her feelings with. It was all me, all the time.
Things are different now. The more sober I get, the more emotionally available I have become. When the addict goes into recovery and begins to heal, everyone around him gets healthier too. It takes time and there are flashbacks to the "old me", even in sobriety. The addict will always be in me waiting patiently for a chance to get out. I have to replace healthy responses for what once was unhealthy reactions to life. If I dwell in dark thoughts, the desire to use will come back stronger than ever. Everyone in my house is healthier since I've gotten sober. Imagine that!
My children can come to me now in confidence not fear. My wife can rattle on about her day and I can take a genuine role as her husband and best friend. It takes a whole family to recover after active addiction is arrested. Remember it isn't you who made us what we are. The disease chose me and I have to address it like Diabetes. Prayer, recovery groups and positive thinking take me farther and farther from the tyrant that ruled me for so long. Keep the faith. Do what you have to do for yourself and your family. Not all addiction stories have happy endings. But life goes on. Remember every day is a gift.
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