Alcoholics & Addicts: A Potential End Result

“As animals on a treadmill, we have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground.  Most of us have entered the final stage with its commitment to health resorts, sanitariums, hospitals, and jails.  Sometimes there were screaming delirium and insanity.  Death was often near.”  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 107

The idea of jails, institutions and death may seem extreme and dramatic.  More often than not, one or more of these inevitably becomes our end result.  This information is based on empirical data and not theoretical commentary.

In our alcoholism and addiction, the unfortunate truth is we drive ourselves into the grave.  The situation we are in is dire.  If death doesn’t take us, we may try to expedite its arrival on our own volition.   Perhaps we are being swallowed by our desperation yet our reliance upon our narcotic balm, our alcohol-based salve, no longer eases our internal wounds.  When this happens, we may find ourselves taking actions which propel us toward death at an alarming rate.  Our souls may be crying for help yet our behavior is unceasing.  At the arrival of this juncture, we may beg for death to take us.

Maybe we start our journey into the world of sobriety due to, initially, a hospital stay or a jail term which causes us to be physically separated from imbibing our item(s) of no-choice.  Our travels toward the road which leads us to sobriety may begin by default, as said hospital or jail stay has initiated our physiological split from drugs and alcohol.  At this point, we are being given the chance to begin anew.  It is during this time when we may be released from our perpetual suffering, not by death for which we beg but by a chance at life, which we see as if we are watching the dawn spread over the eastern horizon.

Learning to be Present

As we find ourselves without our crutch of drugs and/or alcohol, we may have a tough time staying in our respective seats.  We hear the platitude, “One day at a time.” and suddenly even the mere idea of twenty-four hours seems interminable. Sitting still can be almost painfully agonizing as we begin our journey toward living in the world sober.

How do we stay in our literal and figurative seats?  When trying to exercise sitting still, there are times when no matter how much clock-watching we do, each minute feels like an eternity.  An option to being overwhelmed by the idea of an entire day, we can shorten that idea of “one day at a time” to “five minutes at a time.”

It is an undeniably challenging task.  The longer we can stay planted in the chair, in which we are sitting, the more likely we are to hear a message of depth and weight.  If one’s willing to consider it parallel to another situation, the analogy could be a small, thin branch waving wildly in the breeze versus a sturdy Redwood with roots for days.

This Los Angeles drug rehabilitation center can provide one with the exercise of learning how to stay put.  The counselors understand how difficult it can be and do their best to be compassionate about this difficult lesson.  This could be, at least initially, one of our biggest hurdles to cross.  If we continue to pursue this life of service and contribution, we may very well find ourselves being less antsy and then by default, perhaps without even realizing it, we find ourselves able to stay still.  It will take work, without question, and know that it’s possible.

The Alcoholic and Financial Insecurity

In the scope of our addiction and/or alcoholism, we may have moved like Tasmanian devils through other peoples’ lives.  It may not have only been other people we affected; perhaps we tore through our savings like a tornado through Kansas on a hot, muggy day.  Our financial stability is long since gone due to our actions & behaviors.  Maybe we burned through money with no thought of anything other than our next drink and/or drug.  We may have sold things which, under other circumstances, we would have never parted subsequently using whatever paltry sum we could hustle to try to feed & fill that hole within us.

Right now, our financial state may cause a near-heart-stopping fear.  How do we fix all of this?  Where do we start?  The terror may cause us to freeze in our financial tracks.  Even though we are no longer imbibing, we may still spend willy-nilly.  Fear not, with every step forward, we are given a new opportunity to make a different choice.

As we approach our new lives, it is important to remember the damage we did not occur overnight; nor will the repair happen within one day.  We must not beat ourselves up for these mistakes nor must we revel in our past financial transgressions.  It is time to learn a new way; a way built on action of pennies into piggy banks and not grandiose ideas of rolling around on feather beds stuffed with hundreds.

Within the walls of this Los Angeles drug rehabilitation center, the opportunity to take stock of the financial damage we may have created, without letting it eat us inside out, is facilitated by the understanding staff.   Though we may have incurred great debt, it is possible to return to a healthy financial life.  There are many who have lost thousands, if not more, and have been able to return to a place of, if not riches, a steady life with their finances in check.  It can be done.

Sobriety and Living in the Present

As we begin and proceed down the path of sobriety, there are times when we may be swayed by remorseful thoughts of what-could-have-been or if-only-I-hadn’t-done-that or why-didn’t-I-do-this or I-should-have-done-that.  We can get caught up in the idea of missed opportunities as we’re being separated from the item(s) that kept us from being present in the world while we awaken to our lives as they actually are.

This line of thinking keeps us far from being aware and in the moment.  We realize that if we immerse ourselves in reveling in our respective remorse, we are living in a past that never actually existed while, simultaneously, we project and fantasize about what would have happened in our future.  As we are so often reminded, neither the past nor the present is the now.

It can be difficult to remain present, especially in early sobriety.  There are so many distractions, be it the person next to us talking or the radio on or the tv or even the blowing breeze.  The staff at this California rehab is well aware of what it looks like when we start to ride our horse of remorse into the wilderness of our fantasies.  They have the ability to not only recognize the moment when that starts to occur, they have the skills to refocus our wandering minds and reorient us to the present.

The present is a new and unfamiliar place in which we begin to reside.  It can be uncomfortable and it can be scary.  Conversely, it is a rich world we inhabit and until we can learn how to live within it and amongst others, aware and mindful of all that is around us, we may continue to hide.  Haven’t we, while using and drinking, hidden enough?

The Bottle is a Symptom

When we first start on our path to sobriety, we’re never sure of our footing.  What do we do with ourselves, with whom do we talk, how do we behave?  As we begin, we may hear things along the lines of “Keep comin’ back.” or “just keep showing up.”  We don’t really know or understand what our actual problem is, only that we don’t know how to act in the world when we’re separated from drugs and alcohol.

At the start, it’s easy to believe that our problem is the drugs or the alcohol however, that’s not the case.  The bottle is a symptom.  Our problem begins long before we take the first drink.  We start hearing the term “mental defective” and maybe that angers us.  Who is anyone to say we are, as we think we’re hearing, not right in the head?  Now, with that said, we have to take a step back and look at the truth of our situation.  We used alcohol and drugs because, in addition to liking the effect they produced, they eased our way in the world; at least we thought they did.   Why did we need an “easing” into the world?  Could it be that we didn’t think in the same way as others?  Could it be that we couldn’t see past the end of our own nose, to take into account what others needed?  Maybe it was that our skin and our souls didn’t feel quite like they fit one another and that trying to edge ourselves into the world while feeling so disconnected & separated from ourselves and others tore at us.  What does that say?  We may want to look at the idea that the problem of the alcoholic centers in his/her mind.
The further proof of that is when alcoholics have “gone back out”, meaning, after being sober for a period of time, they opted to try to drink again.  The thought process may have been along the lines that they could now drink like normal men and women.  Many times, when this happens, there is a strange mental blank spot, and an inability to truly recall the nightmare that ensued after we took the first drink.  The recollection of that incomprehensible degradation from which we suffered at our lowest point is suddenly absent from our consciousness as the glass, the bottle, the pipe, the pill, etc hits our lips.

All of this reinforces the idea that we have a skewed thought process.  Even when we know drinking and/or taking drugs doesn’t *help ease our way* any longer, we keep trying.  We are not in our right minds when we are drinking and we need to learn a new way of thinking, a better way of acting, and a more mindful way to be present and available in the world.  We must shift our actions so that our thoughts can shift and when our thoughts shift, our actions reflect that.  Our ideas keep us beholden to where we are.  Where do our ideas live?  They live in our minds.  If we aren’t thinking correctly how can that be dubbed anything less than being mentally defective?

Feelings: Reacting vs. Responding

Feelings, we all have them.  Many times we react to them and base our responses, actions, behaviors, thoughts, our demeanor and treatment of others, and ourselves, on how we feel at that moment.  As we know, feelings can change at the drop of a hat; merely a breeze blowing from a different direction can alter our emotions.

As we move forward we begin to learn that feelings are not facts.  This doesn’t mean that while feeling them those sentiments are not our truth in that moment.  It doesn’t mean that we are wrong or bad for feeling how we feel.  We are welcome to feel anyway we’d like.  It is how we interpret them and realize that what we may feel and perceive isn’t always what the truth is around us.  As we continue, we subsequently begin to learn that it’s how we react that makes all the difference in the world to the person or people to whom we are responding.

The key difference here is reacting versus responding.  We learn how to respond.  We are taught that in our response to others, be it people or situations, our path through life can ease significantly when we grasp and enact this idea.

The staff at this rehab in Los Angeles can guide you to the stepping stones on which to travel in order to reach this goal.  We all understand that after years of reacting, immediately adopting a new system of communicating isn’t going to happen overnight.  The task-at-hand isn’t a simple one, it is, however, crucial to our survival.

The Alcoholic and Control

“Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.  If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.  Everybody, including himself, would be pleased.  Life would be wonderful.” – The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 60-61

How many times have we believed that if a person would only act exactly the way we think they should, complete a task the way we think it needed to be done, and say everything just the right way, it would all turn out to be nothing short of perfect?  Haven’t we thought if a particular place would only accommodate us in the way we believed we deserved, thinking ourselves to be an unknown member of the Royal Family, our treatment would allow us to then be beneficent?  Hasn’t frustration wound us up when something didn’t go just our way, causing us to retaliate and behave with venomous attacks or passive aggressive, backhanding comments?  Don’t we speak through gritted teeth and forced smiles sure that everyone and everything, everywhere, would only do our bidding, as we so believe it is meant to be done, we could successfully function in the world?

Time and time again we try to arrange and manipulate situations to some script we have secreted away from the rest of humanity.  We try to feed lines to others, believing them to be at our bidding and perform our play as it is written in our heads.  We try to create scenarios where we become the victor, the hero, the savior, the good guy, the white knight, et al.  While attempting these superhuman feats to dominate the world around us, believing that the only option is the option that serves us the best, we fall flat and sink further with every move.  Our self-serving, controlling attempts cause others strife and consternation and that’s on a good day.

One of the key lessons that can be learned while in a California drug rehabilitation center is the understanding that we cannot control people, places, and/or things.  It is a lesson that we encounter and relearn over and over again, in a multitude of ways.  There are times when it can be difficult to hold to this concept.  More often than not, we find that it is imperative for us to actively place this tenet in our new-found life so that we may, in fact, be available and of service to others, not as we believe they should be, but as they actually are.

Life and Struggles in Sobriety

When we are new in sobriety, there are times we believe that everything henceforth will be nothing but smooth sailing.  Now that the bottle’s been put down, life will move forward and all will be well, with no other struggle as great again.

This is simply untrue.  Life is just that, life.  Before the drug met our veins or the bottle met our lips, life posed challenges.  Challenges do not cease in sobriety.  We learn, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly that we are and will be still challenged, often in ways with which we aren’t quite as familiar.  Our both favorite & hated numbing agent is gone, leaving us bare to the world, and that includes being subjected to its struggles and embracing its joys.

Part of what working a program of Recovery includes is learning how to live with and survive in the struggles that occur in life.  We are given the opportunity to be brought to a place where calamity can meet serenity.  Where we can survive the pain and embrace the joy and be toppled over by neither.

One of the many gifts of sobriety is being able to feel, truly feel and live in those feelings without being devoured by them.  We are given the opportunity to not walk as zombies through life but to have experiences which enrich our lives and allow us to bring those experiences to the people around us, showing them that they too, as time moves on, will be able to share exactly as you have.  Our gift is being able to be, have feelings and pass on our legacy of sobriety.  It’s not always easy; it is, however, always worth it.

The Alcoholic and Fear

Many times, as we dig further into our Recovery, we realize that fear has been driving us.  Fear of losing people, places, things and/or fear of never getting those things initially or fear of actually having them.  Whatever it is or has been, many times it’s been fear holding the reins, driving us on.

How can we combat this inner terror, the terror of being seen as vulnerable, aching human beings?  Where do we find a new way in which to approach the world and the people in it?

First, we have to find from where this fear stems.  More often than not, it is so deep-seated, ingrained so thoroughly that only through fearlessly looking at where we have been, and what has upset us so, can we find a way through it.  Many of us have used fear as the propeller by which we pilot our planes.  It moves us further toward justifying our taking a drink or a drug, even though we are long since well aware of the catastrophic damage from the crash and burn of that jetliner missing the runway entirely.

The path through fear can seem scary in and of itself.  The 4th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, where we make “a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” may loom over us, casting a dark shadow upon even initially embarking on a passage way to sobriety.  Let us not have fear prior to investigation.  It is a task that is simply a fact-finding mission designed to free us of our resentments, our fears and the way in which these have dictated our existence up until now.  The completion of this task can let us meet the world with backs straight, eyes forward and hands extended.

Emotional Changes in Early Sobriety

There are times in the beginning of our sobriety when we feel most alone.  We no longer have the crutch of drugs and alcohol on which to lean however we are also without a feeling of support and understanding from anywhere, anything or anyone else.  This can lead to a sense of being lost, as if we are wandering in the desert with no oasis in sight, nary a mirage to even trick us into moving forward.  These feelings are actually far more common than not.

The idea that there is any kind of life waiting for us past the hell that we’ve been in seems difficult to conceptualize.  In the depths of our desperation, we are unable to think that there might be half a chance to live a life of even remote satisfaction, much less a life that is filled with being happy, joyous and free.  These words are as foreign to us as ancient Aramaic was to archeologists.  They are utterly and completely incomprehensible.

Now is the time to trust those around us to see the truth of what can be instead of what we think it should be or actually is.  We haven’t had much luck in following our own thinking at this point so we must put our faith in others to guide us while we remain temporarily blindfolded thinking we are actually never to have sight again.  We need those who can show us what is true and what is not.  While pursuing Recovery in a Los Angeles rehab, the counselors have an intimate knowledge as well as personal experience of what it’s like to move from this inconceivably, vastly empty place toward a life of purpose, satisfaction and that even the opportunity to revel in our destiny of joy only awaits us.  We have begun to arrive.