Recovery Thoughts
by Katie
Many individuals who have struggled with addiction often say they are “in recovery.” What does that even mean? The obvious answer is that they stopped doing whatever they were addicted to. Easy right? If you are addicted to alcohol, stop using it. Boom – recovered! But if it were that simple, the addiction issue would not be the hot-button topic it is. Unfortunately, humans are not simple. Nothing about addiction is simple. And yet it is. Say what? The basics are, well, simple. Stop using or doing something that is messing up the life you want to live. Simple. Complications come in when you consider the actual live human with all the red strings connecting them to what got them to the point of addiction. And their addicted brain. And their medical situation. And their family or social setting. All these factors complicate what should be simple.
I’ll use me as an example. You would not say I had it all together if you saw who I was 3 ½ years ago. No, in fact, if you had seen me running home barefoot from the hospital after disconnecting all my IV tubes myself – you would not have said I had ANYTHING together. Yet that was the day I did get it together. Eventually. But why? Why that day and not the hundreds before when I swore, I would stop drinking? Short answer – I don’t know. Honestly – something just clicked. Not on the barefoot jog home – no that was not it. It came shortly after a failed (thankfully) suicide attempt that the absurdity of it all finally FINALLY sunk in. This – ALL of this was dumb. And I knew I could change it. More importantly – most significantly – I wanted to. But then why doesn’t everyone struggling with addiction do the same? Again, the short answer is, I don’t know. And the sad thing is that even the experts don’t know. I am only an expert in my experience, and while I can trace those red strings back to the causes and understand the connections, they only make sense to my story. Every single person with an addiction has a different tangle of strings. Sometimes, it’s that one knot that, once untangled, analyzed, and understood, SUDDENLY everything makes sense, and the addiction subsides, and that person RECOVERS. Sometimes. Usually, there are hundreds of knots tangled so tight that honestly you just want to take a giant pair of scissors and cut the whole fucking bunch and be done. I wanted to be done. Thankfully, I decided I had had enough of not being who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be done with life – just done with fucking it up. Fortunately, my family was still willing to be there for me. Looking back, it feels like that was a different person doing ALL of those incredibly stupid things. But it was me – and I own it.
Why can’t it be simple? Because we are not simple creatures. And as unpopular as it sounds, not everyone wants to stop. I didn’t stop until I wanted to. I KNEW I should. I wanted things to be different. But for some reason, I wasn’t ready to do it. Until I was. And that is what makes addiction so complicated. I also have the unpopular opinion that addicts can change by themselves. In all honesty – I believe that the addict is the ONLY person who can truly make change happen. YES, other people can help – should help even, but this is a one-person show in the end. Groups, programs, and sponsors can offer advice and information, but the addict must want to change and then do it. No one can do it for you. That tangle of threads can only be unwound by the person it’s attached to for the connections to be broken. I’m not talking about quitting cold turkey if it will kill you. I needed to medically detox (that’s where I was before my barefoot jog home), or I would have died. I’m talking about deciding to work on the issues, traumas, behaviors, or whatever got you to where you stand right now, choosing to use a substance to not deal with life. That is the solitary work of an addict. Therapy can direct you to the right mental places and give you insight, but the work is in your brain, and only you can do it. The fantastic part is that it is possible. Millions of addicts are now former addicts. I don’t struggle with anything except parallel parking, but that’s never going away, and I can live with that.
Nothing about addiction is straightforward, but it is simple. And it can be overcome. I did the work necessary to untangle the knots and continue working on keeping them straight every day. I am proud of myself for doing the work, but I am not proud that I hurt so many people I love. That is undoubtedly one of the most complex parts of addiction – it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. But a fascinating thing is that as complicated as we humans are, we are also resilient. Change is possible if you want it. Personally, I knit those dangling strings into a hat and now wear them proudly.
Disclaimer: Guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Sad Times or Sad Times LLC.
