My thoughts on recovery

I've been having a bit of a think over the weekend, prompted by Syd. I've been dipping in and out of his blog for a little while, and was a bit puzzled by someone who is not an addict/alcoholic being so focussed on recovery. I'd actually misunderstood the groups he goes to, and the reason behind it; I was unaware there was an organisation dedicated solely to the families of addicts, I'd never come across it before.

He was kind enough to write a really clear and lucid response, and in doing so he has given me quite a lot of food for thought, and has forced me to re-examine my own attitude to sobriety and cleanliness. I also appreciated his open-mindedness in stating “whatever works for you, works for you.”

I have the same belief as that – if someone wants absolute sobriety, great. If someone wants to have a few beers or lines, then fine, no drama, if someone wants to spend their life in a gutter, needing hits every four hours, selling everything other than organs to fund it (mainly because nobody would want a hardcore junkie's liver or kidneys!), then again, I pity them, but fine.

I suppose I should give a history of me here; or perhaps I should call it a brief “share.” I got into weed in my teens, and sold it before I smoked it. I'm a trader by nature, and I like buying and selling. I went to University and survived my time there spending 6 nights a week in clubs, including my own night, and had the franchise to sell ecstasy 3 nights, and did it while being followed at other clubs. I had a big business turning over around ￡18k a week, lived like a king and then, being a fucking clown, got a coke habit and ran my business and self into the ground. I fled, legs intact and bills paid (just), and resumed a straight life.

I missed the buzz though; I went from being whippet thin, fit (ish), always on the go, with money, and always needing to be in four places at once (one day, I remember as being my best day, I turned over bout ￡6k and had my phone ring over 200 times. It was hectic beyond belief; I was on foot, and must have covered seventeen miles or more). From that, to working a dull 9-5, having time, but no real money, well, it was a major downer. Still, I muddled along, enjoyed it, but began drinking really heavily. I've always been a boozer, but I used to dance it off, and in my mid twenties I got fat. This depressed me (still does!). I was very proud of being slender, and of my six pack.

Eventually, I started doing coke again, and my habit just came back on strong. I maxed my cards, had heart palpitations and fits, and knew I had to stop, but couldn't bring myself to ask for help; it was a secret, and hidden, and I panicked. To try and feel better, I started taking crack. Smart, huh.

Basically, as I wasn't on heroin, I thought I was OK. I lost my wife and son, and house, and then over the next 5 months things went really downhill. I ended up living on a sofa, with no power or hot water, dodging psychopaths, robbing, defrauding and scamming, got onto heroin and essentially my life imploded. I dropped off from work, and at that point I really was in trouble and at rock bottom. 

I was pushed into rehab by work, who fronted the money (about ￡6k, which was then repaid), stayed there, and it worked well for me in that I cleaned up, and I got a time out from the life I was in. This time out was vital, and allowed me to refocus. I never wanted a life of sobriety, but I wanted a life in which I was clear headed, lived as a normal person and then enjoyed myself appropriately. Coke and Crack ruined me; they're drugs I simply can't afford to touch; I don't like the affect of them, but I find them compulsive. The high is ace, for 30 seconds, then the night is awful and sleep becomes a stranger.

I never had a problem with heroin. I still don't. I like a drink on a Friday, and I like also to have a hit in the evening to relax. It's a choice, not an absolute necessity; I enjoy it, I like it, I look forward to it, but on days where I have no money, or if it's not available then sure, I'm disappointed, but I manage. I occasionally suffer a bit, but generally I am ok. I am prescribed morphine which helps keeps withdrawal away.

This works for me. I'm pretty content, and my life is pretty full. For example, April this year has consisted of; 5 weeks of work, around 13 hours a day, including travelling, plus emails and calls in the evening and weekend (I'm committed!). At weekends, one weekend has been a weekend of housework, gardening, general busying about maintaining the cars and suchlike. The next weekend was tied up with family visits to elderly relatives, and taking my son around to meet everyone. The next, this weekend just gone, Friday night, my team were plying locally so I went to the game, a couple of beers after, then drive home (a few years back I'd have been on the lash and not able to drive), then both Sat and Sun were taken up with attending birthday parties for my son's classmates. Next week I'm taking the family on a weekend break, and the weekend after that we're away with my parents, then seeing friends.

The reason I say this is to show that my life isn't some pitiful trek from dealer to squat to crackhouse, and to illustrate that not all users of heroin are crooks and thieves. 

During my spell in rehab, and when I left, I attended a lot of meetings; both AA and NA. I was kinda brainwashed into believing complete sobriety was the only way forward, but in my heart I didn't feel that. I felt “recovery” was just entering stasis, a frozen state in which I'd be denied the pleasure of a cold cider on a summer's day, or a beer at the game, or having to beat myself up if I had a pill at a club (which I haven't done as I never go out like that any more). I felt like I was being told I had a terminal disease; that I could prolong life, but with all the small pleasures removed. Drink and heroin hadn't ruined my life; crack, coke, depression and poor decision making ruined my life, and that's what needed to change.

When I expressed this at NA, and when I asked for a sponsor, and education, and guidance as to the steps, I found people were keen to pay lipservice, but not actually to help. I had a determination to be sober – if it's how to keep my life together, then great, but I found no real help in NA. 

I found the groups depressing, and miserable, and always focussed on the same few people, their problems, and their delight in being sober. I kept thinking, sure, you're sober, but your life is still shit. You live in a dump, you've no money, you're scruffy, you don't work, what has being sober brought you?

If you were from outside their immediate experience there was not a lot of understanding about, and I found the fellowship to be very superficial. I also didn't like the Higher Power thing, it was fuzzy, and I felt it took responsibility away from the addict. This may be what some people need, but I don't like it. I don't believe addiction is a lifelong illness. I don't believe we have no power over it. I do believe that it is something that is very hard to defeat, but it is mainly psychological. I know what a rattle is like, and it's awful, but when it's done, the psychological battle begins. I believe addiction makes us do things we wouldn't normally. It turns us into people we are not, and it's insidious. Thing is, it's us doing it. Every time we cook up, or chop a line, or roll a joint, or go into a bar, we have a choice. Whenever we see an open door, we can decide to break in, or walk past, or shut the door.

I left NA as I got no real help in trying to work the program, and I was only half convinced about it to begin with. I knew that I had to stay away from crack and coke (and I have, with very few exceptions), but I saw nothing wrong with enjoying myself with other things. When I explained this in group, it was sneered at, and people became almost evangelical, calling me a dry drunk, saying that even the thought was wrong, and so on and so forth. I fucked it off. I'm not being sneered at by a bunch of losers that see sobriety as the be all and end all. 

A day sober, great, well done but if you do nothing with that day, if you have no goals, no ambition, no desire to achieve anything, no desire to create something, nothing other than a desire to be clean, if you don't LIVE, well fuck you, I'm not taking your shit. I have goals; I like money, I like being busy, I like being the best at what I do, I'm a competitor, I want success, I want to lead, I want freedom to do what I like, when I like, I like to create things -  I write for my own pleasure (and having been out of practice for so long, it's hard work, and I'm not as good as I'd like to be. If and when I am, then a link will appear). I want to spend my life doing things, rather than spending it focussing on not doing things...

I found NA didn't work for me. Props to those it does work for, and I'm pleased for you, but I think I've found what works for me.

I have been reading Tori's blog recently. I feel for her, and her son, but his life reminds me of mine in that he is mixing with gangs, and people with no structure in their lives, who do nothing but crime, and drugs. The lifestyle is chaotic, with no structure, and I think that is more corrosive than drug use. I think that this life does lead to addiction, but as soon as the lifestyle stops, so does the addiction, in that form.

If life is manageable and structured, and interesting, then drug use can fit in round it, if you want it to. If life is chaos, with no structure or discipline, then you're in trouble. I know I'm always a hairs breadth from trouble. If I fuck up home, or work, then in an instant I'll be hustling. I have to maintain these things to have a nice life, and maintain my habit, so I do.

My typical day – wake up at 4am. Swear a bit, put the alarm on snooze, oversleep, curse, stumble downstairs, wash, iron shirt, dress, find keys, grab lunch, drink water, neck painkillers, go to work, get half way, have morning hit, pick up colleague, get to work. In the office until about 4.30pm, then back to my hometown, have hit, home for dinner. 7.00pm I put my son to bed, have another hit, then do my jobs reound the house, feed the rabbits, have half an hour or so with my wife, then bathe, and bed with a book by about 9pm. 

Perfectly normal, perfectly sensible, perfectly manageable.

I'd be interested to hear what you think.

NA - Praying or preying?

I was in a residential rehab at the end of 2008, trying to clean myself up from a nasty crack habit and also get myself out of the way of gear. I'd hit rock bottom, was on the verge of being jobless, I was actually homeless and I was completely out of control.

The rehab itself was pretty good in a lot of ways, but the thing I want to address is NA, and it's success or lack thereof. I know it's a good organisation, and that it does a great deal of good for a lot of people, but I've never really taken to it. During the rehab, we had twice daily group therapy sessions in which we could argue and explore the reason's for our using and how we could break the cycle. These were augmented by single counselling sessions, and by weekly NA and AA meetings.

I felt like a bit of a fraud when I went to rehab. I didn't consider that I needed to go (my office gave me an ultimatum), I considered myself out of place and I sure as hell didn't want to quit drugs. However, I was certain that my life couldn't carry on as was. The group sessions were valuable; there were a few tense moments, but I found them broadly helpful - the details of all this can wait for another time, but the point that I'm really trying to make is that, as a result of seeing a bit of success (and enjoying) group sessions and shares, I was keen to go to NA and AA meetings. These were special meetings that included external clean addicts coming to the centre, sharing, and trying to offer encouragement.

These meetings were where I was introduced to the concept of a Higher Power, and immediately I felt uncomfortable. I was also shown that recovery seemed to be a frozen state, with no end in sight. The idea of addiction as illness is one that I wasn't comfortable with, either.  My initial feelings were that NA required you to push the responsibility for your actions onto an illness, ascribe your success in overcoming addiction to a benevolent Higher Power and then spend the rest of your life frozen in recovery, aware at all times the cancer could return; also you need to take your metaphorical meds regularly at NA. I felt like a man with a hell of an illness being told I'd have to be on meds for life, and would only ever be a step from disaster.

I just don't buy the whole thing.

My drug using is my responsibilty, and my fault. Whatever problems I have had, I chose to use drugs. Sure, my crack addiction cost me everything pretty much,  and my actions were very much out of character, random and irrational, but it was my fault. I could've signed myself into a hospital, moved, done something, if I'd have cared enough about myself to want to. Addiction isn't an excuse for anything; I kind of buy that it's an illness, but not that it excuses our actions. I also like the idea of making amends as part of the cure, but I do not believe you need to attend NA for life, or even be an addict for life.

Despite this, I persevered. I "kept coming back" but gradually became more and more estranged from the group. It was dominated by the same old faces every week. It didn't feel a safe place to share or be anonymous or to avoid judgement - it felt hugely cliquey. It wasn't just me that felt this, but several other friends who are similar in age and lifestyle. It felt phoney, judgemental and patronising. The Big Book was patronising, new age babble; the steps were unclear, the structure was poor, the sponsors didn't take things clearly or elaborate how the steps worked. I felt those that were clean seemed smug about it, and worst of all, I think that spending a lot of time hearing the same old stories from the same old people who see a successful day as being one in which they didn't have a hit/boot/pipe, whatever, is not inspiring. It's  sad. A successful day to me involves work, success, being busy, seeing my family and friends and enjoying myself. Staying in thinking about gear, but not doing it, seems a fucking waste.

I left the group.

Maybe my negativity says more about me being paranoid, tetchy, resentful, than it does about NA, but I don't think so. I think it's a way for addicts to deflect responsibility, although NA preaches otherwise, and I think it ain't for me. If I want to be preached to, I'll go to Church.

*group hug*