Self Preservation In Sobriety -- Annual Birthday Blog

"It's a selfish program". I LOATHED these words when I was new. People in 12-step recovery uttered this phrase on  a regular basis and I cringed every time I heard it, carrying a resentment until I was 20 years sober. It was then I had a moment of clarity. They were talking about self-preservation.

I'm binging on Law & Order SVU. Again. Ellen Burstyn is playing Detective Elliot Stabler's mother, who has spent her life suffering from untreated bipolar disorder. In an emotional scene, he recalls wreckage as she babbles about wanting to be creative and free. She wonders why she hasn't seen him in years. He makes excuses. Now back to our program. Synchronicity never ceases to amaze me.

Early in sobriety, the best we can do is to hang on for dear life, not drinking (and/or using) a day at a time. I did as suggested: went to meetings, got a sponsor, worked the 12 steps...and then I had a spiritual awakening. The best way I can explain a spiritual awakening is this: a bunch of little spiritual "burning bush" experiences, followed by the moment when the chains fall off and you're free. "Genie, you're free!" said Aladdin. It was kind of like that. After a lifetime in the prison of addiction, I experienced a sensation of complete freedom and a lightness of spirit. I was no longer afraid of people. Before, I needed booze to face them. I could go on vacation. Before, I just ran away from my life, calling it "adventure". In a recovered state, I could go anywhere and be comfortable in my own skin.

Recovery has 2 speeds: slow and slower. For me, the spiritual awakening took almost 2 years. Once a person has their spiritual awakening, it changes them. For me, I could no longer be around people who were like I was before. From the get-go, I was told to stay away from active addiction. As time wore on, I learned to avoid individuals with raging, untreated mental disorders. For me, it's clear; out of respect of my own recovery, I have to make stern choices about who I can and cannot have in my life.

When I was new, I was told "stick with the winners." At the time, most of the people I met in recovery were over 50. I joined them, drinking bad coffee and smoking cigarettes on the patio of my local AA club. My life was over, or so I thought. It really wasn't. I started meeting young people in recovery who were enjoying their lives. They showed me how to laugh and have fun again. At first, I hung out with mostly people in recovery, then started making friends who were "normies". I'd like to say we're all still here, but that's now how it played out.

Early in sobriety, I'd meet people in 12-step meetings who were fucking around and not serious about recovery. I didn't want what they had and avoided them like the plague. 12-step recovery is also a cauldron of mental disorders. No mystery, many of us (myself included) self-medicated grave mental disease. At first, I tried just the 12 steps. The longer I was sober, the more my unmedicated disease spooled up. At 3 years of sobriety, I started taking psych meds again and this time they worked. In the past, I had mixed them with things like alcohol and cocaine and the results had been a disaster. It took trial and error, along with periodic re-adjustments but even the bad days were better than being a manic dingbat tornado.

As we stay sober longer, the road gets narrower. "We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us" is part of the 9th step promises. As a newcomer, this sounded wonderful but impossible. "Knowing" is both wonderful and a huge burden. Sometimes we know the what is right but applying it requires painful choices. In early recovery, anything (or anyone) I "gave up" had claw marks in it. As we progress in recovery, "and we have ceased fighting anything and anyone...(p. 84, AA Big Book).

At 21 years of sobriety, I avoid conflict and insanity "like the plague", because for me that's exactly what it is. It's sickness that will consume me from the inside out. When meeting new people, it's usually pretty easy to spot untreated alcoholism as well as untreated mental illness. I've also had to distance myself from loved ones who are in active addiction or have untreated mental disorders. I have a choice: avoid it or pay the price. As is life's nature, there are natural ups and downs. Being that I come from a lineage of addiction and chain-me-to-the-floor mental illness on both sides of my family, I have to be extra careful.

When I was in my disease, I ran roughshod over everyone in my path, a one-man insanity tornado. It wasn't until I got sober from active addiction and insanity to realize what a soul-sucking energy vampire I had been. I wasn't special, we are all that way when we are in our disease.

12-step recovery, total abstinence, working with others, a balanced life and one little blue pill a day (with negligible side-effects) allow me to lead a pretty normal life. I've had to make some hard choices in my sobriety. Whenever I've walked away from someone I loved, it's after they had inflicted considerable emotional damage (often without realizing it), which is a dubious luxury for someone like me.

My ultimate "it's a selfish program" moment of clarity happened at around 20 years of sobriety, looking at a pamphlet on a commercial flight -- put the mask on your baby before you put it on yourself. THAT'S what it means. I never said I was a quick learner. My sobriety cannot be contingent on the sobriety of another person. There may come a day when someone close in sobriety won't be there to support us. They might relapse and die or just live as the walking dead in active addiction. I stayed sober through funerals and relapses, which wasn't easy.

We're lucky we live in a society where the stigma of addiction and mental disorders are not what they once were. The mania tornado in itself is addictive, like being on cocaine. I wrote a previous blog dedicated to this subject. I don't hear a lot of discussion about being addicted to it and I know I was, using alcohol and other substances to try to even myself out. Although psychiatry is still (relatively) in the dark ages, us mental patients no longer have to suffer. Fortunately, 12-step recovery is free and if a person is able to follow direction and has the capacity to be honest, sobriety is also free, 1 day at a time. If someone like me can do it, just about anyone else can. Without sobriety, all bets for me are off. I have to make it #1 for without it, I have nothing else. Tis the season: well-meaning people will try to shove individuals together who are best off being in different zip codes.

Over the years, this type of disease has claimed many loved ones. I have attended many funerals. Some are alive, no longer treating their disease(s), living in relapse...and all I can do is pray for them and send healing. The moment I think I can "save" them, I need to go back to Al-Anon (12-step recovery for the loved ones of alcoholics/addicts).

The list of people I let in close is a short one. Despite this, I have never had to spend holidays alone. Many of us in recovery have assembled a family of loved ones from people who are not blood relatives, in this area I've been blessed. I am not only accountable to my own sobriety, but to them. I must keep myself healthy to treat them well and not bring sick people into our circle. Whenever I have violated this in the past, the results were harrowing, causing lasting damage to my loved ones and my emotional sobriety. Recovery is for people who want it, not people who need it. I can be a good living example but I cannot plot, scheme, manipulate or push anyone into getting sober. If I try, it's an Al-Anon slip.

The SVU episode ended with Detective Stabler's mother recalling history of her untreated mental disorder. "I lived the life I wanted to live and the consequences were disastrous." For me, a dance with active addiction and untreated mental illness is disaster.