Anti-recovery, Anti-therapeutic and Darn mean.

I’ve written before on antiquated treatment centre rules. Now that we’re in the 21^st Century there seems to be a whole new set of rules coming to some centres. The worst is forcing people to quit smoking as a requirement for treatment. Yes, I know, there have been numerous studies that show that it’s easier to quit smoking when you’re quitting everything else but that doesn’t mean you should force someone to do it. And other studies have shown that smoking cigarettes can cause relapse but so can breaking up with someone or a death in the family – you can’t safe guard against everything. I wholeheartedly agree with encouraging someone to quit smoking, providing nicotine patches, Champix, etc. However, penalizing people who smoke seems counterproductive to me.

When I first got sober I was actively drinking alcohol and smoking crack cocaine. I was also a smoker. I’m not sure I would have been successful in treatment if I had been forced to quit tobacco as well. I did eventually quit but it was several years into sobriety. The difference between tobacco and alcohol/drugs is that most people aren’t going to sell all their belongings, steal and/or miss work/commitments because of cigarettes.

I have a buddy who was in treatment and doing well. The treatment centre had adopted a no smoking policy. After a successful time at this treatment centre he had earned an outing. During the outing my friend ended up having a couple cigarettes. Returning to treatment he admitted this to his counsellor (honesty is important in recovery) and the centre counted this as a relapse promptly kicking him out. He didn’t come back to the centre intoxicated. He did not drink alcohol, smoke crack or use opiates on his outing but he broke down and had a couple cigarettes. In my humble opinion kicking someone out of treatment for a “breach” like this only serves to hurt the person and possibly be a catalyst for a relapse into drugs and alcohol. What type of lesson is this? Nicotine is, if not the hardest, than one of the hardest addictions to beat. Penalizing a person for having a cigarette on an outing is anti-recovery, anti-therapeutic and darn mean.

Dave the Dude

 

 

Follow Portugal not the U.S.

Today on the news I heard people on the street being asked their opinions regarding a proposal, by someone in the Trudeau government, to decriminalize all substances. Not surprising many people thought it was the wrong move thinking it would increase and promote drug use. This is just not the case. Our current way with dealing with drug addiction is just not working. Treating a sick person as a criminal not only clogs up our courtrooms, costing millions of dollars; it also doesn’t help the sick person and costs our health care system millions as well.

Canada has to stop following the lead of our neighbours to the south and, rather, look to our European neighbour Portugal. Portugal has decriminalized all substances and the results have been remarkable. The number of addicts has decreased exponentially as well as the number of people dying from overdoses. Instead of wasting millions of dollars prosecuting people for using illegal substances Portugal spends the money on treating them. Canada needs to stop treating the disease of addiction in the justice system and treat it in the health care system (i.e. – treatment). Getting someone recovered from an addiction saves money in the long run for our health care system rather than the current band aid solution.

One misunderstanding I heard on the radio today was that people think decriminalization means drug dealers will not be punished. That is not the case. Portugal does not punish the addict but does prosecute the trafficker. Again I say, Canada needs to follow suit.

As a person in recovery there’s an Einstein quote that is often spoken: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity. Our current system is not working and we keep thinking it will. Recent stats have shown that the number of organ donors have gone way up in Vancouver saving many lives. This is a bittersweet statistic as the reason for this rise is that the majority of donors are people who have died due to an opiate overdose.

Opiate addicts, and all the other addicts, are hiding in the wings because we treat them like criminals rather than sick people. I’m not saying that we let addicts off with crimes they have committed as a result of their addiction as making amends for those crimes is part of the recovery process. What I’m saying is that we need to go after the traffickers not the people they are killing.

Dave the Dude

Stick to sharing your experience!!

I recently talked to a guy had lost faith in Alcoholics Anonymous. He shared with me that prior to AA he was drinking a minimum of 26 ounces of booze a day. After joining AA and working the Steps he had over two years of continuous sobriety. Quite an accomplishment!!! He told me his life was so much better because of sobriety and AA. I can totally relate because I drank a 26er of rye a day for a few years prior to sobering up in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Where is this gentleman today? He’s drinking and his quality of life has gone way downhill. So what happened? The gentleman suffers from several mental health issues and is under the care of a doctor who prescribes medication, including benzodiazepines. His “sponsor” told him that he wasn’t sober because of the medications and that all he needed was the 12 Steps. So he stopped going to AA.

I’m not a big fan of benzos; I abused them myself, and consider them highly addictive. However, unlike me, this guy did not abuse them. He followed them as per his doctor’s instructions. His sponsor (and I’ve run into many people like him) made him feel unwelcome in the rooms and so he left. His life is far much worse. I’m not blaming his sponsor for the guy’s relapse but one has to wonder if that guy would have stayed in AA, where he was doing well, if his sponsor wasn’t playing doctor and judge.

I’ve had a sponsee taking benzos, and while I shared my experience of abusing them and the highly addictive nature of the drug, I did not tell him he wasn’t sober and was lying to himself and the Fellowship. His life was much better than it had been prior to joining AA. I’m not a doctor and don’t offer medical advice. This type of thing really irks me. It’s like when an AA member tells a newcomer they are not welcome because they use outside issues when they drink. I’ve run into many people who were turned off the Fellowship by these types of nonsense statements. When it comes down to it I’m the one who decides if my sobriety is compatible to the type of spiritual life I am trying to lead. My sponsor is a guide not a judge.

Dave the Dude 

Reunion, remember when and informing people

I just had a reunion with two guys I roomed with for a year in 1992 when I attended university. It was a great reunion with lots of stories and Remember Whens. It was at university where I laid the foundation for my drinking/using career. Some of the stories we were telling I didn’t even remember doing. Like mouthing off to a skinhead in a pub and getting decked by him. I do remember we used to do some crazy stuff. Part of my addiction was that I always thought I had to do crazier and crazier things. At university my roomies hung me off a 40 story balcony and swung me around. There was the time where I purposely set my hand on fire, thinking it would go out quickly which it did not.

My friends know about my entry into recovery and involvement in the 12 Steps. They had some interesting questions which reminds of me of how little those not in recovery know about the disease of addiction. My one friend asked me if I could ever see myself having one beer and when I replied no asked me why. I explained that I couldn’t predict what would happen if I had that one beer. I said it would probably lead to me having another and another and another and eventually I’d be worse off than I was when I entered recovery in 2005.

As the Big Books states alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful. Part of that is the fact that while I’ve been sober for over 12 years if I were to take a drink it would be like I had been drinking for those 12 years. My disease would be that far advanced. Science is unable to explain this phenomenon. As Father Martin said, “only God knows why and he ain’t telling us”. I think that’s why many in the scientific community, some addictions counsellors and therapists as well, have such disdain for the 12 Step philosophy. You can’t quantify the effect of a spiritual awakening. All I know is that it worked for me.

Dave the Dude

Acceptance will come with education

Deaths due to opiate overdoses are on the rise in the GTA. As a result the race is on to find a solution. Unfortunately with addiction there is no easy solution. Toronto is building three safe injection sites to try to cut down on overdose deaths. Like most harm reduction interventions many people are criticizing this move saying that it’s enabling addicts and/or helping organized crime.

When I first entered into recovery, from my addictions, I was dead set against any type of harm reduction. I held firm with the belief that it was enabling the addict. From personal experience harm reduction didn’t work for me. Over a decade later after my experience working with addicts my mind has opened to some harm reduction. I’m still of the mind that methadone is terrible but am open to safe needle exchanges and injection sites. Harm reduction works in two ways. It cuts down on the harm the addict faces but it also cuts down on the harm the public faces. With safe needle exchange and injection sites less needles will be discarded along the sidewalks, playgrounds and beaches of our communities.

A lot of the public back lash against safe injection sites comes from a lack of education. I think Toronto would be wise to launch a public information campaign of what these safe sites look like. Even after working in the field for over 10 years I had no idea what one of these sites looked like until a colleague explained it to me. In my mind I had this image of a blocked off area with addicts wandering around stoned throwing needles on the ground. For those fans of New Jack City I imagined it much like the public housing crack areas featured in that movie. My colleague explained to me that it’s very sterile and much like a medical office. I think if the public were able to see this they might warm up to the idea of safe injection sites. Inform the public how there are counsellors and nurses on site to talk to addicts about addiction and promote recovery.

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. This is what the majority of nations, Canada included, have been doing for decades. We need new, best practices, approach. Safe injection sites are part of this new way to tackle addiction. We must look at it as public health matter not a criminal one. If we really wanted to make changes we would follow in the footsteps of Portugal which has decriminalized all drugs and cut its number of addicts in half as well as lowering the crime rate.

Dave the Dude

My Crazy

One of the reasons I started drinking, which later led to a ton of other types of self-medication, was to lower my anxiety. I’ve always had anxiety issues, even before I knew what anxiety was. One of the things that used to cause me great anxiety was whenever I heard people walking on the floor above me I would get fearful that the floor would collapse and crush me. When I was around 16 I noticed that if I had a few beers this fear would go away. Thus alcohol (AKA: self-medication) became the solution to lowering my anxiety. As years went by my anxiety over certain things would only increase. Here are a few examples of what I like to term “my crazy” (yes, I know that’s not politically correct but I’m talking about myself).

I had to stop chewing gum in my early 20s. For some reason I got it into my head that the repetitive chewing would set something off in my brain that would make it so that I couldn’t stop chewing ever. This would cause my anxiety levels to hit the roof.

When mowing my lawn I would go as quick as possible around large trees as I would begin to fear that a limb would fall off the tree, hit me and either crush or maim me. Hey, it actually happens several times a year. I would also go into a panic if a plane flew over me while I was outside because I thought that it might accidentally drop the blue stuff in the plane’s toilet – which would, of course, fall down and crush me.

When I got into my mid-20s I started having huge panic attacks whenever I sat in the barber chair and he began to cut my hair. I’m still not sure what caused this but I would sit there and tense every muscle in my body until the haircut was done. Who knows what was going through the barber’s head during this time. Flickering fluorescent lights could also cause an attack to come on. One time I was in a store waiting in line for the cash. The flickering light triggered an attack , I dropped the stuff I wanted to purchase and fled the store.

When I was around 25 I was walking home from my favourite hometown pub. I had been a regular there since I was of legal drinking age. There was a shortcut through the woods, across a wooden bridge, that I would always take. As I was crossing the bridge these two guys emerged from the woods and the bigger of the two ran up to me. I asked him how it was going and he rose up his arm saying, “this is how it’s going”, and punched me in the head. I fell down and he proceeded to lay the boots to me. I possummed up until he was done. Afterwards I was in a daze and ended up running in the wrong direction (opposite to where I lived). Following that shit-kicking my anxiety rose extremely high.

I continued to deal with my anxiety, from all the things I have mentioned, by drinking and using other substances. Day by day the anxiety worsened until I was in constant state of panic and my hands would continuously shake. I eventually went to doctor who put me on an antidepressant which I’m still on.

The medication helped but I would still have panic attacks on a regular basis. The daily drinking and constant stimulant use didn’t help matters. I would eventually sober up, and even quit smoking, which greatly lessoned the amount of anxiety in my life. One of the biggest encounters that helped me deal with my anxiety was a conversation I had with a doctor. The company I worked for was offering to pay for smoking cessation products but I had to get approved by the doctor. We started talking about my anxiety and he asked me how I dealt with it. I explained that when I started having a panic attack I would say to myself, over and over, that the anxiety was I feeling was based on irrational fears and nothing was going to happen. The doctor told me that was the worst thing I could do. What I was inadvertently doing was focusing more and more on my irrational fears causing the anxiety to become worse. What I should be doing, he explained, was taking my mind off the thought causing the panic and proceed to doing deep breathing exercises. This helped immensely. Since then I’ve picked up other tips to help me through these trying periods. I learned to pay attention to my body and what it felt like leading up to a panic attack. I can now detect when the beginnings of anxiety occur and start to get rid of it before it turns into a full-blown panic attack. My life has improved greatly by this growth. I still have my challenges. Recently I was involved in a bad car crash where I was rear-ended by a vehicle as I was at a complete stop. I saw the car coming at me seconds before impact. This has caused some new challenges in my battle with anxiety as I commute to work every day. If I didn’t have to look in my rearview mirror it wouldn’t be so bad but that’s not going to happen.

As a result of my experience with anxiety, depression and addiction I have the unique opportunity to help others in similar positions. For that I am grateful.

Dave the Dude 

Happiness doesn't sell

I watch a lot of TV and films and there seem to be a lot more that have at least one character who is battling an addiction and/or in recovery. I often find myself cringing at the depiction of 12 Step meetings in the entertainment I watch.

Most recently I’ve been watching a TV show, from a few years ago, called The Killing. One of the main characters is in recovery and attends 12 Step meetings. When the show has a scene in a meeting it depicts everyone there as being miserable. The show Flaked is similar too. It has many of the people at the meeting looking sick, sad and sorry and when someone is sharing it’s always a recounting of the misery they caused and how sorry they are. Don’t get me wrong we have to make accept and make amends for our past but there’s so much more to recovery than that.

What attracted me at the very first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended was that the majority of people of at that meeting were laughing, smiling and sharing positive things as we went around the table. If everyone there had been miserable I’m pretty sure I would not have stuck around. The members at that meeting, and the thousands of meetings I’ve attended since, had something that I wanted – happiness, joyfulness and freedom. That’s what actually happens at 12 Step meetings.

Sure when a newcomer arrives they are in a sick, sad and sorry state – just as I was. That’s how we know that person is new and once we become aware of this that person becomes the most important person in that room. When I left my first meeting all the people who shared surrounded me in the parking lot, welcomed me and told me about other meetings to attend. One of the traditions of 12 Steps is attraction rather than promotion. We don’t go out and proselytize but rather act as examples of what the 12 Step program can do so that when someone is ready to give up the high cost of low living they know where to go.

In past blogs I’ve stated how much I like the television show Mom. It’s about a group of women in Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been criticized by people in the program who point out the show is not a good depiction of the program. I beg to differ. Even though they are not openly talking about the Steps they are, at least, depicting the people in the program as changing in a positive way. The meetings don’t portray a group of miserable people but, rather, happy people dealing with life on life’s terms. It doesn’t shy away from characters having bad moments but neither does it have those bad moments the main theme of the show. It even showed the life and death danger of addiction when one storyline had a character die of an overdose.

I’d rather see a watered down version with people being happy in their recovery than one with all members being miserable. Maybe someone struggling will see a show depicting alcoholics/addicts struggling, but happy, in their recovery and that person will decide to come to a meeting. As I’ve heard over and over – it doesn’t matter how you came to the program it just matters what you do once you arrive. But alas, I guess happiness isn’t good entertainment.

Dave the Dude