The Great Treatment Fallacy

Any good treatment centre will tell you that treatment is just a beginning it’s not a cure. Treatment is a safe place for an addict to remain sober and learn the tools he will need to continue a sober life once he returns to the outside world. Unfortunately, there is a fallacy that addicts and their family members have fallen prey to and that’s that therapy is needed right away. This couldn’t be further from the truth and often causes further suffering for the addict and her family. Ontario, Canada (most likely the whole country) has a terrible mental health system and not enough, publicly funded, treatment beds which has resulted in a plethora of private addiction treatment centres popping up and competing for those who can afford it. Due to the fact that addicts and their families are not properly educated about how treatment should work these private facilities boast one-on-one therapy sessions for clients in order to attract new customers and the customers buy into it.

Constant drug and alcohol abuse not only affects the body but it also affects the mind. The brain begins to get re-wired and the addict acts out in odd ways. I remember becoming very paranoid when using stimulants and depressed and anxious when I wasn’t using. Near the end of my drug and alcohol use I’d break down in tears on my way to work for no discernable reason. Many people looking at this behaviour would classify me as mentally ill but a good diagnosis could not be made until I had some stability in my sobriety.

People self-medicate in order not to feel pain.  When I say the word pain most people jump to the conclusion that I’m talking about physical pain but we all suffer emotional pain in our daily lives. The addict cannot handle this pain and turns to the most successful tool in getting rid of that pain- self-medication. Regrettably, the tool works so well at first the addict doesn’t pick up any other methods to deal with pain relying solely on drugs and alcohol which inevitably turn again him. This is the reason that therapy at the beginning of recovery causes more problems than good and the addict will most likely relapse.

A therapist deals with trauma, PTSD, body-image issues, etc. All of these things bring up strong and painful emotions. Therapy-based treatment centres try to deal with these strong emotions immediately without allowing an addict to practice using tools, other than self-medication, to deal with pain.

A therapist will see a client swearing and disrespecting both staff and other clients and ask the question, “What’s behind this behaviour?” A good counsellor will acknowledge that there may be some underlying issue but will put a stop to the anti-social behaviour first. When I first entered recovery I was full of distorted thinking which resulted in negative behaviours. Due to the re-wiring of my brain (that came as a result of my alcohol/drug use) my thinking would be distorted for months to come. At the behest of good counsellors and 12-Step sponsorship I began to change my behaviours first and as my brain returned to homeostasis my thinking followed. Not until an addict’s behaviours and thinking line up can therapy become effective. Many addicts have suffered physical, mental and sexual abuse. Many have seen things they can’t deal with on their own. It’s vital that this type of trauma be dealt with but trying to dig into right away in the first days, weeks even months of sobriety is fool-hardy. Stability in recovery comes from routine and cognitive-behavioural changes (and yes 12 Steps are CBT with a spiritual approach). With the tools used to maintain this stability the addict can safely deal with traumatic issues that will bring pain. Nature proves this to us. Denial is a natural part of addiction. The brain goes into denial mode as part of the flight/fight approach so as to not cause us pain. By learning from our own bodies (kind of sounds like mindfulness to me – and therapists LOVE that stuff) we learn not to bring up painful emotions during the most vulnerable time of recovery – at minimum the first nine months.

Until the public is better educated as to how addiction works and is treated they will continue to shell out thousands of dollars to therapy-based treatment centres and the relapse rates will continue to rise. Until governments realize that it’s cheaper to treat the disease than to jail the sufferers this won’t happen. It’s ironic that if an addict calls a publicly funded treatment centre she will not receive help for weeks or months to come but if the same addict robs someone, while she is waiting for her treatment appointment, she gets thousands of dollars’ worth of service immediately. One of the only countries that seem to have figured this out is Portugal where drugs are decriminalized and addiction treatment is readily available.

Dave the Dude

The Hardest Amends

The hardest amends I had to make in recovery was to my mother. She had passed away from non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Cancer a couple years prior to my finding the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Before I could even think about attempting an amends I had to properly mourn her death. When she passed away I was drinking daily and did not have a chance to process my emotions of grief. I just bottled them up, ignored them and like any good alcoholic/addict hoped they would go away on their own.

After dealing with my grief I took the advice of those that went before me. I was told to go to my mom’s grave and speak to her. The first time I went I felt extremely silly and left unsatisfied. It would take two more attempts until I felt the amends complete. As I stood by her grave I made my amends and told her the action I would take to make up for what I had put her through. I promised I would do my best to be there for my father and the rest of my family. Amends made, I felt at peace. Being Jewish it is traditional to leave a rock on top of the grave stone as a symbol that one has visited. I left the silver AA chip I picked up at my first 12 Step meeting.

I was able to complete the promise to my mother regarding my family, most notably my dad. I lived with him until he passed away. At one point I wanted to move out on my own but my partner told me that she would never forgive me if I did that. As I worked and practiced the Steps my relationship with my dad improved greatly. He became one of my best friends. My relationship with my dad was not the only thing that improved. I began to work again making a contribution to society. I had a job that required me to work form 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Every day I would say goodbye to my dad, go to a morning meeting then head off to my girlfriend’s house until I had to leave for work. This routine went on for months. One day my girlfriend had an early appointment to attend so I went home rather than going right to work. I walked into the house to hear my dad shouting for help. It turned out that he had just experienced a stroke and had collapsed in the bathroom. I was able to call 911 and get him to the hospital. If that day had been like any other day my dad would have sat there for hours, he may have even died. Coincidence or Godincidence? I’ll let you decide.

This all occurred when the housing bust of 2008 hit the world. For most people that was a terrible time but for me it worked out. My hours got cut by around 95 per cent so and a result I was able to see my dad in the hospital and later in the long-term care facility every day (but one), until his death about four or five months later.

As my dad’s casket was lowered into the ground at his funeral I glanced at the double gravestone he shared with mother. I saw something silver on it and realized that my silver chip was still there. It was a reminder that recovery had helped me through this emotional time and that I didn’t have to drink over my father’s death. I was once again shown that Alcoholics Anonymous would always be there for me if I chose to let it.

Dave the Dude

Service - Unity - Recovery

The triangle in Alcoholics Anonymous represents the three legacies of the program – Unity, Service, Recovery. It’s my firm belief that you need to practice all three of these to remain a healthy sober individual. Some people try to stay sober by just going to meetings. This is called Fellowship Sobriety and while it may work for some, for the hard core alcoholic/addict (Type Three) it just won’t do. Eventually it just becomes frothy, emotional appeal which the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us will simply not suffice. After saying all this I firmly believe that Fellowship (AKA: unity) is vitally important to remaining sober but only if it’s combined with the other two legacies. When I began my journey of recovery I was still fuzzy in the head, had emotions coming out of the wazoo and was still on shaky grounds on the Homefront. The majority of my bridges were burned. All of a sudden I met a group of people who not only welcomed me with open arms but told me to come back. No one had told me to come back in a very long time. This genuine love allowed me the bit of hope I needed to begin the Recovery part of my journey.

When I talk about the Recovery part I am referring to the 12 Steps, the meat and potatoes of sobriety. The 12 Steps teach me how to live in reality and not escape through my addiction. The 12^th Step is helping other alcoholics/addicts by passing on the message (i.e. – taking the newcomer through the 12 Steps). I have found that the best way to do this is by sitting down, one-on-one and going through the Big Book, sharing my own experience in working the Steps.

Service can encompass many other things. Before I completed all the steps I was doing service work. I had the unique opportunity to help run an open speaker service meeting, twice a week, for six months. I would show up to the church every Tuesday and Thursday, set up the chairs, put on the coffee and put out the ashtrays. I got to choose the speakers and those who would participate in the meeting (i.e. – chairperson; readers). Since I was going to approximately 14 meetings a week finding a speaker was never hard. Later I was able to join a committee to help run an annual one day round-up. I held various service positions on that committee. These service opportunities presented themselves to me through others I met in the Fellowship. Imagine that!

Dave the Dude 

The Great Escape

One of the reasons I self-medicated was to get away from myself. Way before my first drink I found ways to escape myself. I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I got along with the majority of people but couldn’t get along with myself.

From early childhood the first way I was able to escape reality was through television. A child of the 70s I would engross myself with reruns on the tube. From All in the Family to Mary Tyler Moore I would get lost in the story being told on television. I once heard a person in recovery say television is a great drug because if we don’t like something (i.e. – something doesn’t make you feel good; causes stress) we can just change the channel. By changing the channel to something I like I get immediate gratification. Are you a channel flipper? Maybe your problem is that you’re never satisfied. Or maybe you just have ADHD  ;-) But I digress. I would even take on the persona of some of the characters I liked best (sometimes I still do) acting like them and often quoting them in everyday situations.

When I got to be a tween I found an even better way to lose myself. I caught the acting bug and joined a little theatre youth group. Now, I could become a totally different person. I was a pretty good actor which would serve me well when my addiction progressed as I perfected the art of lying. I even considered pursuing an acting career but fear held me back. Fear would hold me back from a number of things throughout my lifetime. I would blame others for this fear resulting in a “me against the world” attitude which would not serve me well. Page 62 of The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous said it best, “Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt”. Acting also helped me fine tune the different masks I would wear to fit in. I had a different mask for parents (acting the way I perceived they wanted me to act), a mask for friends and a mask for teachers, etc. As my addiction grew and I began to hang out with different crowds I had a different mask for each of those as well.

After living a life of escape for so long I was already an alcoholic by the time I purposely took that first drink. As Bill Wilson put it, after taking my first drink, “I had arrived”. Alcohol was the solution to my feelings of inadequacy. I was finally comfortable in my own skin and could take on the world. Alcohol took me out my intellect and drugged my emotions and that was the person the rest of the world came to know. As my disease progressed my “isms” did too so that by the time I entered recovery I was so far removed from that person I was uncomfortable being that I didn’t know who I was. My masks no long worked and I had to get rid of them. I had to look into myself and make the changes necessary to like, and later love, myself.

Just under five years into my recovery my father passed away. Thanks to sobriety I was able to forge a new loving relationship with him and he had become one of my best friends. I didn’t self-medicate to deal with this loss which I will be forever grateful of. Following the death of my dad I would go to work then come home and just start watching TV and reading books. My girlfriend kept pointing out that I wasn’t acting like myself but I denied this. After several months I had, for lack of a better description, a moment of clarity. I realized my girlfriend was right and I was once again using TV to escape. This time I was using it as an escape from my depression. I had never been depressed sober and had gone into denial about it. I was once again reminded that I don’t have a drugging or drinking disease but a thinking disease and must be ever vigilant against it.

Dave the Dude