I wrote the following paper very early in my recovery. I was starting to enjoy some true lucidity again after many, many years of living in a drug and alcohol induced stupor-haze-party-life-hell, and I was really excited by being excited- without the use of artificial enhancements like crack cocaine. I am going to split it into 2 posts, for simplicity...
A STUDY IN FEAR
We have all been told, time and again, both as children and later, in our adult lives, that we can overcome even our deepest, darkest fears. All that we have to do is face them.
Got a fear of dogs; live with it by spending your entire life avoiding all possible contact with them OR spend some time at a local kennel, or a local veterinarian’s office.
Suffer from a debilitating fear of the water; spend your entire existence avoiding any body of water deeper than a puddle, OR go to the local YMCA and learn to swim.
Wet yourself at the mere thought of being more than 10 ft. off of the ground; spend every waking moment planning your life to avoid heights of any kind OR take a three- hour ground course and then jump out of a perfectly sound aircraft from an altitude of 2000 ft.
Terrified of the evil that you are convinced lies in hungry wait just beyond your closet door; leave everything scattered around your room so that your closet always’ remains firmly closed OR sleep with your closet door wide open. Better yet, spend a night or two in your closet. Just be cautious to check what you are wearing when you finally come out.
Can’t bear the thought of owning the responsibility for your actions, or the lack thereof; stay as drunk or high as possible for as long as you can OR take some action to identify and overcome that fear, too.
As unrealistic as the above statement may at first appear, consider it through the mind of the alcoholic or the drug addict. You see, that is the mind that this entire premise is coming from. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I abused both drugs and alcohol for a full two-third’s of my life, and all of my adult life, until now. I had a few brief periods of sobriety in my life, a year here, six months there. Of course, even these were not done FOR MYSELF. I would only make the effort to achieve and maintain anything even remotely resembling sobriety for, or at the behest of, someone other than myself. Someone that I loved. I could do it for love. Funny that I couldn’t love myself enough, to do it for me. Yet, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there were other issues compounding the problem. I realize, now, ninety-five day’s into a new-found and sober way of life, that as a sober member of society, I AM ACCOUNTABLE for what I THINK, SAY, and DO. I am accountable to myself for all of the above actions, and to those I live amongst, and society as a whole, for what I say and do. I am not accountable for my thoughts to anyone outside of myself, unless I make the decision to take my thoughts to a next level, and make them actions. I am immediately, then, responsible for those actions.
It is the idea of accountability, and an incomprehensible fear of it, which enabled, and at times demanded, a life centered on, and in, drugs and alcohol. I was terrified of growing up and being accountable and responsible. It was so much easier, and safer, to my fragile and immature sense of self, to remain absolutely blotto or blasted, and therefore free of accountability. I mean, it is socially accepted, if not quite expected, to forgive the statements or actions of the individual who has ‘had a few too many’, since he or she ‘wasn’t quite themselves’ at the occasion of deferred responsibility.
But at what expense? We may chuckle at the amount of time that a person who is afraid of dogs will spend too ensure that the possibility of coming into contact with one is minimized. We may feel sorry for the person who has never experienced the serenity of a sunset on the lake due to an unmanageable fear of water. We find ourselves unable to imagine what it might be like to never see a morning mist hovering over a valley from the vantage point of a mountaintop, or even the view from the lookouts in Gatineau Park on a crisp, fall day. The person who is terrified of heights cannot imagine what it would be like to experience these, for it is beyond their ability to contemplate.
Try, then, for just a moment, to imagine what it must be like to be afraid to live your life. I say ‘for just a moment’, because if you have never had a problem with drugs or alcohol, you will not truly be able to imagine it. This is by far the most paralyzing and debilitating fear that I have ever known. The more so, due to the fact that the quick fix of drugs and alcohol, by their ability to gently rub the back of the addict while whispering ‘it will be ok’ in our ears, does not allow us even the slightest bit of recognition of the problem-the fear itself. The great majority of alcohol and substance abusers spend their lucid moments trying to come up with a way out of that lucidity, not examining the reasons for their using. So this crippling fear lives and grows, virtually unnoticed. It is important to understand that it does grow, and at a terrifying rate.
You see, human beings, by and large, keep themselves in check through a measure of shame. The more shameful the act, the less likely we are to perform it. Unless we suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction. These afflictions feed upon and thrive on shame. Every time that we use or get drunk, we feel ashamed. Frequently, this sense of shame is repressed and relegated to the subconscious, allowing our conscious addict to continue growing, almost unnoticed. Then, if we are fortunate enough to have a clear moment where some of these subconscious thoughts have a chance to rise to the surface, our addiction can kick in with renewed vigor and strength and convince us that we can deal with ‘that shit’ later. For now, lets just party.
What are we left with? Well, like the above examples, to overcome, we must face. This instance is somewhat more difficult, though. You see, to overcome our addiction, we have to face our fear. To overcome our fear, we have to face our addiction. We don’t have the luxury of spending a few hours with a medical doctor, learning about the damaging effects of drugs and alcohol, and all of a sudden being free of them. Likewise, a few sessions on the couch of our psychologist or psychiatrist may help us to understand the fears we have that keep us using, but it won’t likely do much to address the addiction itself. We, therefore, have to arm, and armour, ourselves. For me, at this point in my recovery, I must acknowledge the importance of the two main armaments in my newly adopted sobriety arsenal. This is what is working for me, not simply to save my life, but to actually enable me to live it. For some, the life affirming actions that I am taking are ‘not for them’, or ‘not part of their “program”’. Yet. It is my very biased opinion that, in order to survive and live a healthy and happy life, these two areas of study and learning must be explored and implemented in the daily live of the recovering addict – alcoholic.
Aaaah...the cliff hanger. What was he going to say....what are those 2 magical parts......what can I do next.....
Read on, fellow traveller. The next post is already up.
