18 Years
I had my last drink on October 22, 2007. I’ve been clean and sober since October 23, 2007.I haven’t had a drink or an unprescribed drug since then.
I write one of these every year it seems. It’s perhaps a bit rote now, but I like to remind myself that, though I live life one day at a time, those days add up and, while life doesn’t necessarily get easier, staying sober does. Living life on life’s terms gets easier as long as I continue to do the positive things I do, even if the terms are sometimes unpleasant.
As I think I point out every year, there’s no reason to congratulate me. My sobriety is reward enough. I post this for the benefit of others who might be struggling with addiction* to let them know that there is a solution.
Besides, I didn’t get sober alone and I can’t stay sober alone. My solution lies in my connection with the recovery fellowship. Every week I see dozens, if not hundreds, of people who all share a common plight and a common solution. Over the years, I’m sure I’ve met thousands of such people. We support each other through sharing our “experience, strength and hope” as the literature goes, by recounting in various ways what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now.
What it was like was thirty years of mostly uninterrupted excessive drinking and a need to get out of my “self”, thirty years of consequences that I swept under the carpet, except for the guilt, shame and remorse that followed me around. What happened is that I “hit bottom”. I found myself in a multi-pronged physical, emotional and spiritual crisis that made it impossible to go on drinking, yet not being able to stop. I kept trying, and then I’d self-sabotage, putting alcohol ahead of everything.
There came a period when I really went off the rails. As it turns out, I have been suffering from bipolar disorder (manic depression) and, although I identified as a depressive, that was probably just the result of drinking compulsively all the time. The more lethal part of the equation, that I didn’t understand until this absolute crisis was the mania, and although I don’t blame my alcoholism on that concurrent disorder, it certainly didn’t help. The mania gave me bouts of grandiosity, recklessness, racing thoughts, jumpiness, and irritability, and all of that went through the roof in 2006, along with periods of depressive, self-loathing, everything loathing, morbidity. I drank more but became less and less able to “control” it, less able to control my actions. I was always in denial, about my drinking, the consequences of my drinking, and anything else unpleasant in my life. I was always full of fear, with horrible feelings of inferiority and resentment. I was in hell and I was full of shit.
Coaching, private addiction counselling, emergency wards, an SSRI prescription (not good for anyone with mania it turns out), three detoxes, an outpatient “daytox program”, a stint at Homewood (rehab) in Guelph were all stepping stones to recovery. The most important moment, however, was when my daytox counsellor convinced me that I should start attending 12 step recovery meetings. I started attending different meetings and, though I continued to relapse for the next months, I was also persistent about getting well. In the 12 step groups I saw that I wasn’t alone, that other people were afflicted with what seems to be a form of insanity. Most importantly, I saw that despite this curse, there was a solution that started with acceptance of my powerlessness over alcohol and drugs, and then seeking help from other addicts who had a similar acceptance of their powerlessness.
The help I receive consists of listening to other addicts at meetings and outside meetings, sharing my own story, reading literature (etc) by recovering alcoholics, and from my sponsor and other people in the program who share their experiences with me. By being a regular member of the 12 step fellowship, I am given the opportunity to do service by helping the group and the larger fellowship thrive, and by working directly with newcomers and other addicts. We share about our seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, but also about the solution we find in the fellowship, by doing service, and the 12 step program itself, which is really a commonsensical design for living: from acceptance, open-mindedness and honesty, to clearing away the wreckage of the past, and finding serenity by living one day at a time.
People who know me know that I am an atheist. I don’t believe that there is a single “unmoved mover,” a supernatural power pulling all the strings. And yet, turning things over to a “god as you understand him” is a fundamental tenet of the 12 steps. How do I reconcile this seeming contradiction? I do this by taking the slogan “You are no longer alone” to mean that I can’t solve all of the universe’s problems, and I can’t even solve my problems without help. My recovery is completely contingent on humbling myself to many powers and forces greater than myself. My 12 step recovery network itself is the most obvious example. I obviously wasn’t able to get sober on my own resources. I suppose there is a spirit of humility that binds everyone in 12 step programs, whether they are deeply religious, agnostic or atheist.
My family, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbourhood, are all powers greater than myself. Music and the other arts are higher powers for me. The cosmos and the laws of physics are powers greater than myself, as are chemistry, biology, and the entire natural environment, not to mention our scientific and philosophical understanding of these phenomena. I need to humble myself to all of those powers, even if I don’t ultimately believe there’s anything that resembles a god who’s in charge.
I survived for years by bowing before destructive powers - alcohol, drugs, denial, resentment, self-centered fears - but they don’t work for me anymore. Today, I accept that I am an alcoholic and that I can’t take a drink or use drugs without potentially catastrophic consequences. It’s not a struggle to do that anymore. I am so grateful that the volume of the noise in my head has been lowered to a dull roar, that the world may be chaotic but I can find enough inner peace to navigate the mayhem.
Complacency is the one demon that threatens me today. With 18 years of sobriety, it would be easy to feel safe and sound. I don’t want to drink or use drugs after all. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it reminds people that, when we get to this level of sobriety, that “It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” The self-saboteur is still lodged deep in my brain. There is still a part of me that could snap, get the “fuck its” as I like to say. Being in a community of people in recovery, we do get to see our share of this but, rather than being discouraging, it’s a reminder to stay the course.
*To the chagrin of some people, I’m sure, I use the terms alcoholic and addict, alcoholism and addiction interchangeably. Though there are many drugs that I’ve never used, I’m pretty sure I would not be able to do so “safely”. I have never used heroin, but I’m pretty sure it would “agree with me.” At the same time, I’ve gotten to know many drug addicts who thought they didn’t have a problem with alcohol, even though their stories often involve having a few beers and then suddenly finding themselves calling a crack dealer. Alcoholics who swear they don’t have a problem with drugs often share about dealing with the effect of their drinking by using cocaine, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, and opioids, or being on the “marijuana maintenance plan.” Everyone’s on their own journey but, for me “‘I can’t say I’m powerless over alcohol, but solid alcohol is okay…I’ve had to give up all mood- and mind-affecting chemicals in order to stay sober and comfortable’.” (“Acceptance Was the Answer,” in Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 411).
