#BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery on Amazon here: https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

[alldrinkingaside]

When "Hope Itself has become Degenerative,"​ Strive Anyway!

Addiction is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive and sometimes irreversible deterioration and partial or total loss of all matter of bodily functions and organs.

Some changes are unchangeable (I'm getting a little choked up here).

Imagine being the sibling, parent or child of someone deep into their addiction. Now imagine wondering if the addict doesn't stop now, they may be on the road to where certain changes to their brain will become permanent. It may be too late already, you think.

You know that the addict or alcoholic is still using because you see with your own eyes that they have been slowly dying. You are glad when they get arrested because you know that when they are behind bars, their disease has also been arrested. It's not living, but it's not dying either. You squeeze a little hope out of this jail cell interruption. This is wearing on you, has been wearing you down for years now. Your hopes are slowly eroding, hoping for the best, but beginning to expect the worst.

Each time, each relapse, each arrest, each drama more like the countless times before. Hope itself has become degenerative.

Unwillingly, you are swept up in your user's addiction too.

You, too, will now need help.

Whether you can feel it yet or not, you are becoming the victim of a victim of addiction. Twice removed from reality you may begin to wonder about those around you. Are they becoming a victim of a victim of a victim? Thrice removed?

Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters.

None will be untouched.

These waters have become dark and silent.

You have long felt that everything you do and/or don't do has somehow become part of the problem.

"You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."

You'll hear this in an Al-Anon meeting. The 3 C's. Cause, Control, Cure. "You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."

There are no 100% right or easy answers. Every situation is different. Every person is different.

It is easy to forget that Change is Possible.

"Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters. None will be untouched.

These waters have become dark and silent."

"Hope is still possible," I tell you.

You are reluctant. You've heard it all before, from the addict, from others in recovery, from deep within your own heart (I'm getting a little choked up here).

Change is Possible.

I've seen it before.

I warn you that I've seen people suffer permanent brain damage. Suicide. Complete and utter hopelessness. But I have seen change, too. The possibility of change. The reemergence of hope after the smallest hope seemed nothing less than foolish. 

I have seen too, that recovery may miraculously spread outward from the human pool, purifying the waters. All may begin to heal. These waters may become restorative and resilient.

"It is not the most intellectual or the strongest of species that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself."- Charles Darwin

These are the waters in which we find ourselves. These are the waters of addiction, and these also are the waters of recovery. Every flick of our fins may move us towards the Beauty of Recovery and away from the Complicit and Degenerative qualities of Addiction. 

Swim in the direction of Recovery and away from the progressive, downward pull of Addiction. There are 10,000 ways forward. 

Find your way forward because "nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."

Recovery is possible, doable, irreplaceable.

Strive.

Strive on.

It is the least, the most and sometimes the only thing that we can do.

Strive on!

*****

This Post is excerpted from my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

[alldrinkingaside]

When "Hope Itself has become Degenerative,"​ Strive Anyway!

Addiction is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive and sometimes irreversible deterioration and partial or total loss of all matter of bodily functions and organs.

Some changes are unchangeable (I'm getting a little choked up here).

Imagine being the sibling, parent or child of someone deep into their addiction. Now imagine wondering if the addict doesn't stop now, they may be on the road to where certain changes to their brain will become permanent. It may be too late already, you think.

You know that the addict or alcoholic is still using because you see with your own eyes that they have been slowly dying. You are glad when they get arrested because you know that when they are behind bars, their disease has also been arrested. It's not living, but it's not dying either. You squeeze a little hope out of this jail cell interruption. This is wearing on you, has been wearing you down for years now. Your hopes are slowly eroding, hoping for the best, but beginning to expect the worst.

Each time, each relapse, each arrest, each drama more like the countless times before. Hope itself has become degenerative.

Unwillingly, you are swept up in your user's addiction too.

You, too, will now need help.

Whether you can feel it yet or not, you are becoming the victim of a victim of addiction. Twice removed from reality you may begin to wonder about those around you. Are they becoming a victim of a victim of a victim? Thrice removed?

Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters.

None will be untouched.

These waters have become dark and silent.

You have long felt that everything you do and/or don't do has somehow become part of the problem.

"You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."

You'll hear this in an Al-Anon meeting. The 3 C's. Cause, Control, Cure. "You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."

There are no 100% right or easy answers. Every situation is different. Every person is different.

It is easy to forget that Change is Possible.

"Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters. None will be untouched.

These waters have become dark and silent."

"Hope is still possible," I tell you.

You are reluctant. You've heard it all before, from the addict, from others in recovery, from deep within your own heart (I'm getting a little choked up here).

Change is Possible.

I've seen it before.

I warn you that I've seen people suffer permanent brain damage. Suicide. Complete and utter hopelessness. But I have seen change, too. The possibility of change. The reemergence of hope after the smallest hope seemed nothing less than foolish. 

I have seen too, that recovery may miraculously spread outward from the human pool, purifying the waters. All may begin to heal. These waters may become restorative and resilient.

"It is not the most intellectual or the strongest of species that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself."- Charles Darwin

These are the waters in which we find ourselves. These are the waters of addiction, and these also are the waters of recovery. Every flick of our fins may move us towards the Beauty of Recovery and away from the Complicit and Degenerative qualities of Addiction. 

Swim in the direction of Recovery and away from the progressive, downward pull of Addiction. There are 10,000 ways forward. 

Find your way forward because "nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."

Recovery is possible, doable, irreplaceable.

Strive.

Strive on.

It is the least, the most and sometimes the only thing that we can do.

Strive on!

*****

This Post is excerpted from my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

[alldrinkingaside]

ALCOHOL: THE DEADLIEST DRUG (Street Drugs Don't Even Come Close)

The quality of street drugs is NOT controlled. People die every day and hour from ingesting, snorting and shooting up different substances than what they presume they had just purchased.

Alcohol IS a controlled substance. In my home state, Pennsylvania, liquor is sold by the State and monitored by a Liquor Control Board. You are certain of the quality and purity of every substance you purchase.

So, alcohol is safer than street drugs, right?

Absolutely.

Except for me.

It's not safe for me.

Not safe.

Presumably never was. A long, hard lesson to be learned.

A 30-year look back on my drinking experience has proven to me beyond doubt that it is not safe for me to drink under any and all circumstances or conditions. Ever. No matter how many decades between sips. Alcoholism and its attendant consequences have always been progressive for me. My life has always gotten progressively worse each and every time I have picked up a drink.

No matter the purity and proof of the alcohol I might ingest, it's me who is out of control whenever I drink. I'm a blackout drinker who continues to drink well after my ability to form memories has evaporated. My brain's desire for all else dissipates.

Alcohol replaces what alcohol displaces.

Illusion, delusion and insanity ensue. The only gain is loss. And loss is all.

After years of sustained sobriety, all street drugs, alcohol and prescription drugs (except as prescribed by a doctor) are off my Wish List, Bucket List and a List of other Lists. With no illusion of control over addictive substances, my recovery continues to flourish in their absence.

Period.

Pretty Poison, Sweet Poison, My Alcohol is the Deadliest Drug of All.

Recovery is my Substance.

Period.

*****

This Post is excerpted from my Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

7,600+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4  

[alldrinkingaside]

"Addicted to the Culture of Addiction"​: 3 Great Examples

"I slowly came to appreciate that many people were addicted to the culture of addiction and the needs they got met there as they were to the drugs that were the centerpiece of that culture. It became clear that recovery was more than severing a person-drug relationship. It was often a process of disengaging a person from a culture that had met a broad spectrum of their needs and, in the process, transformed their character and identity." - William L. White, "Recovery Rising," p. 51

"I came to understand that you could not disengage people from a drug culture unless you could offer entrance into an alternative culture capable of meeting the same needs met in the drug culture. That insight was crucial to my thinking about cultures of recovery and their role in the long-term recovery process." - William L. White, "Recovery Rising," p. 57

[There are several concentric and overlapping circles in this post. The title just about describes it best. I am but an example, as are the others you will find below.]

1) When I first got clean and sober in 1996 and well before 8 years of recovery groups being a revolving door back into the nearest barroom, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting that left me shocked and amazed by a guy who claimed that he was addicted to selling drugs but did not use drugs himself.

Drug Dealers Anonymous.

There is no such group, but this guy was not exactly a square peg in a round hole, was he?

In a manner of speaking, he belonged in N.A. as much or more than I did. After all, I was predominantly addicted to alcohol, a legal drug, and spent my drinking career on a bar stool. The illegal drugs were delivered to me so I wouldn't have to rub elbows with the drug trade. I was better than that, or so I once thought.

2) Shortly after my last relapse in 2004 I had become friends and eventual A.A. Sponsor to a guy I'll call Mike who was in recovery from his addiction to crack cocaine. It took quite some time in our early friendship for him to finally admit to me something that at that time seemed highly unusual. He had a rap sheet a mile long for various crimes (which I'll omit here). It's so simple to imagine, isn't it, that a drug addiction could lead to a life of crime as the tolerance for a drug increases?

Join me in being so wrong.

Mike's addiction to crack cocaine was the direct result of his prolonged criminal activity and the partners in crime he met along the way. Mike had never used cocaine or even thought of trying it until the underground culture of crime he was involved in introduced him to cocaine.

Culture PRECEDED drug use.

Were he to remain clean and sober from his cocaine use, his attraction to crime culture would most definitely have to be addressed (or at least be replaced by the culture of recovery found within the walls of A.A., N.A., SMART Recovery or the like).

And then there's me.

3) I tended bar my first year sober and eventually relapsed. I was sucked into the culture of addiction to alcohol long before I swallowed that first deadly drink.

Yada. Yada. Yada. Fill in the blanks.

Like I've expanded on here briefly with these 3 examples (and explained so clearly by William L. White in this post's opening quote), Addiction is more than a drug. It is more than a drug that swallows you whole.

I was Addicted to the Culture of Addiction until I Found, Made and Lived a Culture of Recovery. I came to know that "Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more." 

*****

This Post is excerpted from my Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

7,600+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4  

[alldrinkingaside]

Hope Sustains Us When This One Life Fails... [Originally published 07/17/22 on social media.]

ADDICTION KILLS. 

Words fail.

Life goes on. 

The only constant is change and life goes on.

ANOTHER BRAIN-DEAD DEATH.

The friend of a friend of a friend of a friend has died a brain-dead death by addiction.

One does not lose track of the individuals lost, but one no longer counts the numbers of the dead. "After the first death. there is no other."*

The Dead here, the Addicted, now Dead, are all Children robbed of the Blossoming Recovery provides. Recovery had not fully taken root and the results are CRUSHING. We who survive are more than just a little broken. 

Mercy, Addiction, Mercy. 

Have Mercy Upon Us. 

The suffering of the now dead has ended. We carry our suffering forward as we heal and help and hope the next uncountable death may be prevented.

Despite this death (or because of it) life still seems somehow IMPERISHABLE.

THERE IS NO GREENER GREEN THAN HOPE. 

Hope sustains us. 

Red is Dead (the worst rhyme ever). 

Yellow Serves Us (as a sign to warn others and to remind ourselves).

Green, the Greenest Hope there is, Sustains Us.

Not the first death. Not the last. 

Green, Sustain Us.

Death. 

In Remembrance, We Carry the Imperishable Torch Forward.

[More deaths/More lives in recovery/More joy/sadness/more.]

*****

* From "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" by Dylan Thomas

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery 

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

[alldrinkingaside]

ADDICTION: "HOPE is a MASQUERADE Behind Which DENIAL Often SITS."

In Addiction, Hope is a Masquerade behind which Denial often sits.

When you're using and hoping, you're dreaming that things will get better, but face it: That's not how addiction and alcoholism work. Hope will not alter the progressive nature of addiction. Save your hope for your recovery, when you have ceased using and you wish to get on with a recovering lifestyle.

"It is hard to get enough of something that almost works." - Dr. Vincent Felitti

That quote became a Tweet which I immediately followed with "My drinking was broken and could not be unbroken."

Step back, behind the mask, the masquerade...

My 50,000-drink history and 8 years of on again/off again sobriety were filled to the brim with boundless hope. My hope had me believe that after a brief period of sobriety, I could again become the master of my drinking and not its slave.

Growing up, the adults around me described me as a model of optimism. My optimism seemed so ingrained that it was natural for me to carry that natural-born optimism fully into my drinking career. And that optimism prolonged my addictive descent even as my life became a living hell. You see, each bad outcome from drinking had me optimistically determine that the consequences would be different the next time. 

As denial slowly crept in and took over, the inner parts of my essential self would continue to believe that I could and would eventually learn to control my drinking and conscientiously improve in my ability to reign in adverse consequences. Certainly, won't my experiences with alcohol improve with age?

Experience has taught me that for me and a world of others, addiction never gets better, no matter how much false hope one may try to pack into the equation. 

Hope sprung eternal in the early, middle and even some of my later years inside the walls of addiction. And when my world crashed in, HOPE was smashed and part and parcel of the debris of my descent. The deadliest outcome of my crash was, in fact, that the eternal optimism of my youth was shattered. My life felt not worth living without my precious alcohol.

How, then, does one reestablish a secure footing in reality after so many plummets? Where might a sober hope begin? Sustained sobriety renewed my broken hope, slowly transforming it into something other than an unrealistic pipedream. The hope of an addict deep in their addiction is unrealistic. They have become victim of the deception that somehow MORE will make it all better. False hope. False life, the life that's lived, little more than lies.

The naïve hopes of my childhood morphed into the unrealistic hopes of addiction protected behind the myriad fortresses of denial. In recovery, a realistic humility and a hope based on achievable outcomes had to be learned. Staying connected with the recovering communities was a must for me. Patience with the progress of recovery would replace living for the next drink.

Calling hope (or optimism or a string of other positive words) an eternal hell is now almost laughable to me. Eventually we become "Living proof that recovery works" and that recovery is Possible, Doable, Irreplaceable.

Hope, that "thing with feathers,"* flies free in sobriety, but crashes, crashes on the rocks, most surely, in addiction's depths. Proceed with a cautious optimism in recovery and face the music that is silence and delusion in addiction.

Proceed with caution and a Realistic Hope.

*****

*that "thing with feathers" is from an Emily Dickinson poem, "Hope is the Thing with Feathers."

*****

This Post is excerpted from my Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

7,600+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4  

[alldrinkingaside]

Pictured is the Frontispiece to Becoming Unbroken: Reflections on Addiction & Recovery BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal (Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c #alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books Both Books are Available in Print and Kindle Editions.

[alldrinkingaside]

"In RECOVERY, we are all RICHER than Before Addiction took its Toll."

The Rich Man and the Poor Man May Never Be Even. But let's take a moment to look at it through the lens of Addiction: The Rich Addicted Man and the Poor Addicted Man will eventually reach similar ends. The Common Ground that they share on Addiction Road is not at first known to them.

In Recovery, both the Rich Man and the Poor Man will find a Richer Life than they ever knew possible.

If that sounds like mere puffery to you, perhaps you've not been Clean and Sober long enough to discover it for yourself.

Row your Sober Boat on the River of Recovery for a bit longer. You will find the Wind at your Back and the Common Goals of you and your Fellows in Recovery with you.

Your Sober Boat will find Fellow Ship (horrendous pun absolutely intended).

We, in Recovery, are all Richer than Before Addiction took its Toll.

"For Richer, for Poorer, in Sickness and in Health," I've crossed some kind of line here, but won't give up the Ship! Silly me.

In Recovery, I will allow myself such silliness.

I am free.

We are Richer than Before.

All of us in Recovery are richer than before Addiction took its toll.

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism#addiction#recovery#books

I hope you enjoy BOTH of my BOOKS on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of Both are Available!)

[alldrinkingaside]

ALCOHOL: Quality Control

ALCOHOLIC: Quality Out-of-Control

The quality of street drugs is NOT controlled. People die each day and every hour from ingesting, snorting, smoking and shooting up different substances than what they presume they had just purchased.

Alcohol IS a controlled substance. In my home state, Pennsylvania, liquor is sold by the State and is monitored by a Liquor Control Board. You are certain of the quality and purity of every substance you purchase.

So, alcohol is safer than street drugs, right?

Absolutely.

Except for me.

It is not safe for me. Presumably it never was. A long, hard lesson to be learned. A 30-year look back on my drinking experience has proven to me beyond doubt that it is not safe for me to drink alcohol under any circumstances or conditions.

Ever - No matter how many decades between sips.

Alcoholism and its attendant consequences have been progressive for me. My life always has always gotten progressively worse each and every time I have picked up a drink (and my life progressively better in each period of sobriety).

No matter the purity and proof of the alcohol I might ingest, it's me who is out-of-control when I drink.

I'm a blackout drinker who continues to drink well after my ability to form memories has evaporated. My brain's desire for all else dissipates. Alcohol replaces what alcohol displaces. Illusion, delusion and insanity ensue.

The only gain is loss.

And loss is all.

After years of sustained sobriety, all street drugs, alcohol and prescription drugs (except as prescribed by a doctor) are off my Wish List, Bucket List and a List of Other Lists.

With no illusion of control over addictive substances, my recovery continues to flourish in their absence.

ALCOHOL: Quality Control

ALCOHOLIC: Quality Out-of-Control

Case closed.

*****

This Post is excerpted from my Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

7,600+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4

[alldrinkingaside]

"W-H-O-A!!!" Means NOTHING to a Swedish Horse

Letting go is hard to do.

As a child, I saw a chicken get its head chopped off and its body slip out of my uncle's hand. That chicken ran headless, down a steep slope and into the swimming pool. Blood everywhere. My uncle's hand let go.

Letting go is hard to do.

A pool of liquor awaits me.

"'WHOA!' MEANS NOTHING TO A SWEDISH HORSE"

The Language of Addiction Goads You. "Go ahead. Have another drink. You've got plenty of time. You can sleep when you're dead. Go ahead."

All-consuming Alcohol consumed me.

Thirsty little fucker.

From the beginning of my 30-year drinking career to the end, my friends and co-workers intuitively knew that if it was suggested to me that I stop drinking, I would have laughed in their faces. The best worried advice anyone ever gave me was to cut down, to try to control my drinking.

I didn't know then that "by the time I had a reason to stop drinking, reason no longer had anything to do with it."

I was a Social Drinker. A very, Very, VERY Social Drinker.

"'WHOA!' MEANS NOTHING TO A SWEDISH HORSE.

I had no clue and could not stop.

Letting go of addiction is hard to do.

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism#addiction#recovery#books

I hope you enjoy BOTH of my BOOKS on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of Both are Available!)

[alldrinkingaside]

RECOVERY is Possible, Doable, Irreplaceable.

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is." - Erich Fromm

KNOWLEDGE, EFFORT & EXPERIENCE are Writ Large in Erich Fromm's take on Achieving Human Potential. Addiction slowed my Personal Growth, if not bringing it to a Full Stop. Essentially, after 30 years of Daily Drinking, I emerged as a 46-Year-Old Teenager Battered by Addiction. Not a pretty sight. That I survived and was able to give birth to a New & Sober Being took Time, Patience and Shared Courage.

Today, I have come to believe that RECOVERY is Possible, Doable and Irreplaceable.

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books

I hope you enjoy BOTH of my BOOKS on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of Both are Available!)

[alldrinkingaside]

ADDICTION: An Avalanche, "COMFORTING AS IT KILLS"​

Make yourself UNCOMFORTABLE. Not often the first choice, but some degree of discomfort is often necessary for significant change. Maybe have a drink first. Maybe have 50,000 drinks first.

Many years ago (circa 1966) a drink felt like a soothing, earned reward, a comfort. Years later, blacking out, passing out and coming to became an uncomfortable, unending daily fiasco [ADDICTION at its BEST].

For at least the first decade of my drinking career, calling myself an alcoholic, at least to the people sitting on the bar stools next to me, was not a problem. Bragging rights. "I don't know how I got home. I was so messed up." Expressions like these were commonplace. But by the second decade, I started losing coats, keys, apartments, jobs. Marked by peaks and valleys, the progression of alcoholism with all its subtle and in-your-face changes is not a straight downward descent. My third decade of drinking was littered with lapses in employment and housing. That new normal required that I drink at home, alone, when I had a home. By that time, I was not worried by alcoholism, I was worried about how I would get the next drink. Drinking accelerated, a time-bomb with one inevitable end. Blackouts would occur around the end of the sixth drink (sometimes not until, what, the 16th?) and I would continue to drink until I passed out, usually two or three hours later as the evidence upon coming to would show.

"The further alcohol took me away from myself, the less I understood that I was losing my foothold. From the outside, I am sure it looked like I was becoming more and more selfish, but increasingly, I was not feeding myself, I was feeding my disease. The more selfish I may have appeared, the more my disease had dissolved my 'self' away."

Not worrying in my addiction was really a form of defeatism, giving up, giving in, passing out. In recovery, not worrying is a positive thing, actions backed by responsibility, the consideration of consequences. Addiction is a state of perpetual victimhood. I only appeared to volunteer. "Alcoholic? No problem!" I would proclaim up to death's door. 

ADDICTION: An Avalanche, "COMFORTING AS IT KILLS"

*****

This Post is excerpted from my Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available.

7,600+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4  

[alldrinkingaside]

My Relapse Prevention Plan

I had become a chronic relapser, eight years on and off the wagon. Oh, how my brain seemed to want what I knew I could no longer allow it to have. Alcohol had become more than toxic to me. It was killing me. Just as snake venom is used in the production of antitoxins, alcohol seemed to me that it could salve the wounds that it created. Oh, so wrong, the deceptions that addiction created and seemed to want to perpetuate. 

Experience had shown me, the Relapse King, that so much as a single drink could set off a chain reaction that would have me passing out at the Underwood Hotel (a euphemism for people living under the Boardwalk). I had become a blackout drinker who continued to drink and drug after the ability to remember how much had evaporated. Quite simply, blackout drinking had become my lifestyle. One drink, a trickle, would soon become a tidal wave. My drink and drug history has proven that to me again and again beyond a doubt. 

As heard many times at A.A. Meetings, if one is run over by a train, it is not the caboose that kills you, it's the first car on the train that does the job. The suggestion here is that if you don't have the first drink, you can't have the second, the third or the one that eventually might kill. 

By extension, it's the first drink that could kill me. 

Let me note here that I am not an Abstinence Only kind of guy. Drink as much or little as you'd care to. I don't prescribe behavior for others. I abstain. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Drink and drug all you want, but I wouldn't advise it, 

The beginning of my recovery story is captured in the pictured quote: "Every Recovery Meeting is an Intervention between Me and the First Drink."

A child can drown in a few teaspoons of water. I am that child. Alcohol is that liquid. Even if I'm wrong in that assumption, absence of alcohol has led me to an Abundant Life. Taking so much as a single drink has become an impossibility for me.

Recovery is my new (18 years new!) lifestyle.

"Who could ask for anything more?"

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery 

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c 

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #booksI hope you enjoy both of my books on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of both are Available!)

[alldrinkingaside]

Addiction is godless, headless, insane.

Surely, Addiction is progressive in nature. The substances used may start out harmlessly enough, a Fun and Frivolous Escape from the Daily Grind. But slowly, insidiously, the chokehold begins. Reality begins to be filtered out and only Addiction remains. Self-assured, predictable outcomes morph into catastrophic consequences and total loss of control.

This is no way to live.

All of the above, in black and white, is a reiteration of the pictured quote but using slightly different words.

I, for one, must reaffirm my Recovery Daily. My 50,000 drinks over a thirty-year period were a similar repetition, but more a sort of the dying on the vine that is Addiction. In Recovery, I vow to find 50,000 ways to state that "Recovery is Possible, Doable and Irreplaceable."

Life is short and sweet.

Addition is godless, headless, insane.

You know the rest [see picture].

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism#addiction#recovery#books

I hope you enjoy BOTH of my BOOKS on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of Both are Available!)

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[alldrinkingaside]

"THE PUNISHMENT FOR ADDICTION IS TIME SERVED."​

Most alcoholics and addicts in recovery likely understand what I mean by "the punishment for addiction is time served." The distraction of knowing each day that you would have to seek out and satisfy your level of addiction is a form of punishment in and of itself. For me, by the second decade, it became never less than six scotch on the rocks to start each day's painful pursuit. And from there, anywhere from three to six or more drinks later, my blackouts would take over until my money ran out or my body gave out. I suffered untold agonizing consequences for behaviors not even remembered. "The punishment for addiction is time served," is beyond the perpetual desire for MORE though. Because you are focused on the next drink or drug, you are robbed of being fully in the present moment. This is perhaps best illustrated by what happened when I stopped smoking. Here is that 'aha' moment: "The autumn leaves turn over themselves on the sidewalk before me. And then I hear something. Far away I hear a literal bird singing. And then it hits me. This is what turning over my fears and my addictions has finally given me. My hearing. My unfocused hearing. After three years sober I turned over another addiction, my addiction to cigarettes, and here's what I noticed: not that I would live longer, but that I could live more fully in the present.... And in that state of merely being, I could hear then what I could not hear before..." "The punishment for addiction is time served," then, too, implies, now sober, that I am free of the obsession to drink, free to be fully present. To live in real time. Oh, how sweet the sounds in recovery are, without the bar, without that punishment that addiction is, without the punishment of time lost. It took me three years of continuous sobriety until I was capable of giving up smoking cigarettes, another addiction, one, perhaps, no worse than the other. The subtle rewards of Recovery may seem little, almost inconsequential at times, but a life changed is life-changing. And that is redundant, profound and absurd enough to end this post with this: "People don't like change, but they like to have changed." - Will Bowen Every struggle has been worth results such as these. Every day sober serves me. You see, I, too, am recovery's servant. No more "The Punishment for Addiction is Time Served." Recovery serves me well, as it seems to serve all well, a joyous journey whose every breath is a just reward. Just. Breathe. ***** This Post is excerpted from my NEW, Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery (Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT You may also wish to explore my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal (Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c Print and Kindle Versions of Both Books are Available. 7,500+ Recovery Tweets: https://twitter.com/JimAnders4

[alldrinkingaside]

SIMPLE Truths May Require COMPLEX Behavioral Changes

"If I simply remain clean & sober, everything will turn out fine" may sound good on the surface and "Nothing changes if nothing changes" may sound redundant and bordering on meaningless, but like in The Wizard of Oz, the curtain must be lifted to see what is behind, underneath and within such statements.

Addiction to alcohol and other substances is irreducibly complex.

I can clearly remember asking and sort of begging at the same time "Can't I just stop drinking and drugging?" My A.A. Sponsors answer was a simple "No, you must replace all your hours and days in addiction with days and hours in recovery." Presumably if I simply stopped drinking and drugging and replaced it with nothing, I would be sucked up into a Black Void never to be heard from or seen again.

It might be that same place where missing socks go.

There are no "One Size Fits All" solutions. What works today may not work tomorrow. I have no secret agenda or snake oil to sell here. I have my experience and the experience and outcomes I have seen in others striving to stay sober and live in recovery. Quite simply, I would have to change in the innumerable ways that pertain to me. It takes, time, patience and shared courage.

"Simple, but not easy."

I am coming up on 19 years of continuous recovery next Summer and I live in a Sober House. (How that came to be is a long story I'll save for another day.) Some of the men who live here betray their wishes to appear that they are in total control and that recovery is a gentle breeze that is easy to handle. How some wish to appear that they are on Easy Street may make their struggles to remain clean and sober more difficult. "Boys will be boys" is an easy response to separate myself from their struggles. I find myself staying at a comfortable distance. Sometimes emotional barriers should be dismantled carefully. I don't want to appear to be coming off as a know-it-all.

Life (theirs and mine) is a Work-in-Progress.

HERE'S THE THING: Despite my 18+ years of recovery, I, too, am an arm's reach away from a drink or drug. The majority of men staying at my Sober House are in the very early stages of recovery. They have (unbeknownst to some of them) reminded me how fragile recovery can be, especially in the early days, months, and even years of recovery. THEY ARE HELPING ME TO SOLIDIFY MY RECOVERY.

Leaving the particulars aside, these new living quarters have been a Refresher Course in Recovery beyond attending in-person Recovery Group Meetings could make possible alone.

PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING: "Everything Old is New Again" has been rightly attributed to a multiplicity of sources because Churchill, Mark Twain and a variety of Oriental Wise Men obviously came to the same conclusion. "Everything Old is New Again" might be slightly altered by me saying "REFRESH YOUR RECOVERY" or your recovery will not remain fresh. It will become stale, hard and brittle.

Recovery will endure by changing with life's circumstances as they present themselves to us.

This Sober House may turn out to be the best thing that ever has happened to me. I read in these guys' eyes the same (or similar) struggles I experienced in my early recovery.

One person helping another.

Turns out, we humans are social animals and "nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more." It takes, time, patience and shared courage. "Simple, but not easy."

Enjoy.

*****

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery

(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism#addiction#recovery#books

I hope you enjoy BOTH of my BOOKS on ADDICTION & RECOVERY! (Print & Kindle Versions of Both are Available!)