Excellent article. Wish u the best on the hard road of recovery.
One thing though: the itch, the pull, the craving when denied from the conscious mind sinks down into the underworld-- the gutters of our lives. Indian spirituality and Yoga mark this place as below the feet-- 'Pataala' they call it, the Wild West of subconscious.
People have said that all of a sudden, after years of staying sober, they visit a bar, innocently, and in a moment of daze, bang! they're ambushed. They hit the bottle again.
Why? They thought they'd fully recovered. But the rats and roaches they so diligently cleaned form their living rooms ran away and hid in the backyard and gutters of their home.
In a moment of unconscious, they struck back.
Captain Haddock once said in Tintin in Tibet: 'Nothing like Total Abstinence!'
I see so much of this Mah Recovery obsession that I think it obscures the fact that you can recover. You can put alcohol behind and have it not be a factor in your life. You can reach the stage where you experience a life setback and that voice in your head that says “you need a drink to cope with this” knows to STFU because you aren’t fooled by it anymore. You can wake up the next morning and say “wow that setback wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared at first, and, even better, I didn’t make it worse by getting blackout drunk just because life gave me an excuse to.
“When I allow it to be, it has no control over me. I own my fear. So it does not own me.”
Thank you so much for the generous mention, Dee. Also for sharing a window into your recovery and sobriety. There's so much wrapped up in it all. And, as you said, it's not even about the booze—but, rather, so much more.
Beautifully said: “At the end of the day, I don’t really know what recovery is. All I know is what I’ve discovered. The mystery and the magic are in the finding out.”
The journey of recovery is different and nuanced for everyone. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth sharing what you’ve discovered. And I’m grateful for having read this reflection.
I've been stewing on the whole recovery thing since our series a few months ago, and I just published a bit of a polemic "Against Recovery" to add to the conversation:
If I’m honest my greater concern for you as a friend would be: why in the world are you stewing on this so much?
Your opinion about Recovery is interesting I’ll grant you that—as it comes from your own experience. But why be so focused on tearing down something that has worked for millions of people for so long?
To what end? A few people will likely agree with your take and many won’t—as you stated. But Recovery is—and your opinion of it doesn’t change that.
It’s almost as if you’re saying—I like fizzy drinks. I’ve seen the benefits of cola in my own life. Soda is actually good for your life in general. But I cannot abide that damn Pepsi.
You brought up the negative aspect of attachments and the relationship to things. This polemic is one of those.
I hope by writing about it—you can now let it go my brother. 🙏
OK so "stewing" probably better stated as "thinking about." Your reply makes me a bit hot under the collar, and it'd be easy to find it insulting if I had time for such things. To what end? Good god man, why are any of us here writing? To the end of expressing my own very valid experience, which also happens to be something other than what you believe. I'm not saying that I "can't abide" Recovery... just that, well, I'm against it, and I want people to know there are other ways to think about these things. And the fact that it has worked for millions of people means little me in the face of the far greater millions that it has *not* worked for. Cheers!
To my point. Why does thinking about Recovery—or my response to your essay—get you hot under the collar? We each share differing opinions on a subject. You wrote it and you specifically asked me to weigh in. Both the essay and my comments stand alone. Neither should piss you off. To be continued I’m sure—but offline ☺️
I’ve long been fascinated by and hungry for stories of recovery, even though I don’t appear to have an addiction. I learned
long ago that almost all of us have behaviours that qualify but aren’t generally seen as an issue. I certainly do. Your writing deepens my understanding and my compassion, so thank you.
Congratulations to you and Ann on your marriage - how wonderful! I’ll be following (for the first time) in your footsteps next year, all being well. ☺️ I wish you decades of happiness!
Blessings to you Jo. Thanks for reading. It’s my greatest hope that people can have a better understanding of addiction and shatter the stigma around it.
I appreciate the personal parts of this... but, and, the rest of it brings up a lot of what infuriates me about "recovery" and addiction culture. Lots of "you" statements, generalizations, and some things that may be shared as gospel in the capital "R" community, but aren't anywhere near as inarguably factual as often stated. I don't disagree with your personal experience, or with many of the conclusions that you've arrived at, in the end, but I have some major problems with some of this language.
"The odds aren’t good" -- simply not true. Depending on which study you cite, 3 out of 4 people who experience addiction eventually recover, and, again, depending on which study you cite, anywhere from 40-90% of those who struggle with addiction don't get treatment, and many—like me—recover on their own. I'd love to hear more about where "The odds aren’t good" comes from.
"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." → to me, that's like saying that marriage is a success as long as you stay married "forever." You only succeed at abstinence based "R" recovery if...you remain abstinent your entire life. So, how can you tell if you've ever succeeded? Again, depending on which study you cite, most people in traditional recovery programs for, for example, alcohol, end up using alcohol, even if they don't report doing so.
The counterpoint that I would present from my own personal experience and that of many others that I know, and in positive terms is that quite frequently, I have seen people successfully and very radically change their relationship with alcohol without following any particular path or program.
I 100% agree that it's the underlying issues that are what's really important, but I STRONGLY disagree with the statement that "recovery doesn’t happen when you get first clean and sober." One contradicts the other. If the underlying issue (trauma, depression, abuse, capitalism ;) , etc...) is what's really important, then why is "Getting sober...simply...the cover charge" ?!?!?? This kind of line is exactly what kept me away from the whole idea of addressing my own alcohol use earlier on, because of how dogmatic and nonsensically contradictory this is.
For many people, myself included, it was important and possible to go DIRECTLY to the root causes and changes those. For me, making those changes is what then RESULTED in the clear feeling that emerged that "alcohol is obsolete," not the other way around. You say that "Getting clean and sober made me interested in, and curious of, dealing with the underlying issues that led me to seek solace in mind-altering substances." Great! But, it's just as important to recognize that, for many others, getting healthier—in my case, both mentally, through therapy, and physically, through fitness and sports, made me aware of, the fact that alcohol was interfering with my living in the state of wellness that I had already achieved in many other ways. And when I did choose to stop, it was easy. There was no struggle, no "cold turkey," no cravings, no "ceaseless vigilance," as another commenter put it, and no shame.
You write that "The data are clear. The evidence is overwhelming. It follows a predictable course." No. It does not follow a single, predictable course. If it had, I would surely have gone from the "Early stages" to the Middle and the Late stages over the course of 35+ years of drinking, and I surely would not have been able to recover before first getting "clean and sober."
I realize that you're speaking from your own experience, but there is a lot of language here—and this is so common in the addiction-Recovery community—that comes across as if it's "True" for everyone when it's simply not. Traditional "recovery" put forward this way works for some people, but it also doesn't work for many _more_ people than it does help, and it actively alienates a lot of people that might otherwise be helped by some aspect of it, by painting the picture that it's the only way.
I know you know that this is not a personal attack. It's my reaction, and me speaking from my own personal experience. It does bring up some anger for me. I've tried to keep the all caps to a minimum. Again, I know you know it's not personal -- I just think it's important that people hear another point of view. I probably should have focused my own "recovery" piece more tightly on this counter-argument after all...
A delight to meet you through this sharing. Of course, so much of your story overlaps with mine, as is so often the case. Miraculous, isn’t it? My home group is “a Vision For You“ and I am always taken with the image of trudging. I can’t think of any other place ive encountered the word. I love it so. Thank you!
Beautiful piece Dee. One of my favorites from you. Thanks for adding to this discussion in such a poignant way.
And I see you too. We can roll any time.
The image of you shaving without looking yourself in the eyes really hit home. Like there's shame and then there's that. To bastardize a quote from what you wrote: the world is a better place because you wrote this. I feel hope reading it. The hope that even within the pain of addiction we can bring more sensitivity, more honesty, more true human spirit back into the world. It's a hope that can be hard to admit in this modern age. But your story does that for me.
For all that, thank you for writing it. Thank you for shepherding all of us through this discussion. And congratulations on your upcoming wedding.
One of your best, Dee. I love that image of sobriety as different stages of a hike, how you get the second wind and then, if you don't stop, an even better view higher up. Incidentally, part of my memoir is devoted to questioning the mountaintop trope -- why being "above" everything is our comparison for enlightenment, why being "in the thick of it" doesn't carry the same weight. But I hear you ending somewhere closer to the prairie mindset than the mountaintop one. Recovery might be more like a series of cyclical forays and homecomings than it is like a linear climb. The difference, as you've helped me understand, lies less in the change of scenery or a higher view than it does in subtler shifts of perception. The Minnesota writer Bill Holm said that a prairie person "looks at a square foot and sees a universe." I think the recovering person, by your definition, does the same with the self?
Thank you Josh! I appreciate your comments so much. The prairie mindset is an interesting intersection I’d never thought about. Now that I am, I agree with you. The mountaintop might be what we often seek but only for perspective?
Excellent article. Wish u the best on the hard road of recovery.
One thing though: the itch, the pull, the craving when denied from the conscious mind sinks down into the underworld-- the gutters of our lives. Indian spirituality and Yoga mark this place as below the feet-- 'Pataala' they call it, the Wild West of subconscious.
People have said that all of a sudden, after years of staying sober, they visit a bar, innocently, and in a moment of daze, bang! they're ambushed. They hit the bottle again.
Why? They thought they'd fully recovered. But the rats and roaches they so diligently cleaned form their living rooms ran away and hid in the backyard and gutters of their home.
In a moment of unconscious, they struck back.
Captain Haddock once said in Tintin in Tibet: 'Nothing like Total Abstinence!'
A call for ceaseless vigilance!
💪🏻💪🏻
I see so much of this Mah Recovery obsession that I think it obscures the fact that you can recover. You can put alcohol behind and have it not be a factor in your life. You can reach the stage where you experience a life setback and that voice in your head that says “you need a drink to cope with this” knows to STFU because you aren’t fooled by it anymore. You can wake up the next morning and say “wow that setback wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared at first, and, even better, I didn’t make it worse by getting blackout drunk just because life gave me an excuse to.
“When I allow it to be, it has no control over me. I own my fear. So it does not own me.”
Thanks for the comments. Sounds like you know it well.
Nice piece Dee. Written from the heart. Hope you have a great day tomorrow!
Cheers mate!
Wonderful.
Thank you my friend
Well said Dee. This helps me understand my friends better who are recovering. Congratulations on your wedding!
Thank you so much Bill!
Thank you for this.
Also: CONGRATULATIONS. Wishing you the happiest wedding day tomorrow!
Thank you so much for the generous mention, Dee. Also for sharing a window into your recovery and sobriety. There's so much wrapped up in it all. And, as you said, it's not even about the booze—but, rather, so much more.
Beautifully said: “At the end of the day, I don’t really know what recovery is. All I know is what I’ve discovered. The mystery and the magic are in the finding out.”
The journey of recovery is different and nuanced for everyone. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth sharing what you’ve discovered. And I’m grateful for having read this reflection.
Thank you Lyle. Part of the process is uncovering how little we do know. Wait...is that aging or recovery? Or both? I’m so confused. 😌
Both can be true, for sure!
I've been stewing on the whole recovery thing since our series a few months ago, and I just published a bit of a polemic "Against Recovery" to add to the conversation:
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/against-recovery
I'll be interested to hear how this lands with you!
If I’m honest my greater concern for you as a friend would be: why in the world are you stewing on this so much?
Your opinion about Recovery is interesting I’ll grant you that—as it comes from your own experience. But why be so focused on tearing down something that has worked for millions of people for so long?
To what end? A few people will likely agree with your take and many won’t—as you stated. But Recovery is—and your opinion of it doesn’t change that.
It’s almost as if you’re saying—I like fizzy drinks. I’ve seen the benefits of cola in my own life. Soda is actually good for your life in general. But I cannot abide that damn Pepsi.
You brought up the negative aspect of attachments and the relationship to things. This polemic is one of those.
I hope by writing about it—you can now let it go my brother. 🙏
OK so "stewing" probably better stated as "thinking about." Your reply makes me a bit hot under the collar, and it'd be easy to find it insulting if I had time for such things. To what end? Good god man, why are any of us here writing? To the end of expressing my own very valid experience, which also happens to be something other than what you believe. I'm not saying that I "can't abide" Recovery... just that, well, I'm against it, and I want people to know there are other ways to think about these things. And the fact that it has worked for millions of people means little me in the face of the far greater millions that it has *not* worked for. Cheers!
To my point. Why does thinking about Recovery—or my response to your essay—get you hot under the collar? We each share differing opinions on a subject. You wrote it and you specifically asked me to weigh in. Both the essay and my comments stand alone. Neither should piss you off. To be continued I’m sure—but offline ☺️
I’ve long been fascinated by and hungry for stories of recovery, even though I don’t appear to have an addiction. I learned
long ago that almost all of us have behaviours that qualify but aren’t generally seen as an issue. I certainly do. Your writing deepens my understanding and my compassion, so thank you.
Congratulations to you and Ann on your marriage - how wonderful! I’ll be following (for the first time) in your footsteps next year, all being well. ☺️ I wish you decades of happiness!
Blessings to you Jo. Thanks for reading. It’s my greatest hope that people can have a better understanding of addiction and shatter the stigma around it.
Dee—my friend and colleague
I appreciate the personal parts of this... but, and, the rest of it brings up a lot of what infuriates me about "recovery" and addiction culture. Lots of "you" statements, generalizations, and some things that may be shared as gospel in the capital "R" community, but aren't anywhere near as inarguably factual as often stated. I don't disagree with your personal experience, or with many of the conclusions that you've arrived at, in the end, but I have some major problems with some of this language.
"The odds aren’t good" -- simply not true. Depending on which study you cite, 3 out of 4 people who experience addiction eventually recover, and, again, depending on which study you cite, anywhere from 40-90% of those who struggle with addiction don't get treatment, and many—like me—recover on their own. I'd love to hear more about where "The odds aren’t good" comes from.
"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." → to me, that's like saying that marriage is a success as long as you stay married "forever." You only succeed at abstinence based "R" recovery if...you remain abstinent your entire life. So, how can you tell if you've ever succeeded? Again, depending on which study you cite, most people in traditional recovery programs for, for example, alcohol, end up using alcohol, even if they don't report doing so.
The counterpoint that I would present from my own personal experience and that of many others that I know, and in positive terms is that quite frequently, I have seen people successfully and very radically change their relationship with alcohol without following any particular path or program.
I 100% agree that it's the underlying issues that are what's really important, but I STRONGLY disagree with the statement that "recovery doesn’t happen when you get first clean and sober." One contradicts the other. If the underlying issue (trauma, depression, abuse, capitalism ;) , etc...) is what's really important, then why is "Getting sober...simply...the cover charge" ?!?!?? This kind of line is exactly what kept me away from the whole idea of addressing my own alcohol use earlier on, because of how dogmatic and nonsensically contradictory this is.
For many people, myself included, it was important and possible to go DIRECTLY to the root causes and changes those. For me, making those changes is what then RESULTED in the clear feeling that emerged that "alcohol is obsolete," not the other way around. You say that "Getting clean and sober made me interested in, and curious of, dealing with the underlying issues that led me to seek solace in mind-altering substances." Great! But, it's just as important to recognize that, for many others, getting healthier—in my case, both mentally, through therapy, and physically, through fitness and sports, made me aware of, the fact that alcohol was interfering with my living in the state of wellness that I had already achieved in many other ways. And when I did choose to stop, it was easy. There was no struggle, no "cold turkey," no cravings, no "ceaseless vigilance," as another commenter put it, and no shame.
You write that "The data are clear. The evidence is overwhelming. It follows a predictable course." No. It does not follow a single, predictable course. If it had, I would surely have gone from the "Early stages" to the Middle and the Late stages over the course of 35+ years of drinking, and I surely would not have been able to recover before first getting "clean and sober."
I realize that you're speaking from your own experience, but there is a lot of language here—and this is so common in the addiction-Recovery community—that comes across as if it's "True" for everyone when it's simply not. Traditional "recovery" put forward this way works for some people, but it also doesn't work for many _more_ people than it does help, and it actively alienates a lot of people that might otherwise be helped by some aspect of it, by painting the picture that it's the only way.
I know you know that this is not a personal attack. It's my reaction, and me speaking from my own personal experience. It does bring up some anger for me. I've tried to keep the all caps to a minimum. Again, I know you know it's not personal -- I just think it's important that people hear another point of view. I probably should have focused my own "recovery" piece more tightly on this counter-argument after all...
For one starting point on alternatives to orthodox AA-style sobriety / addiction / recovery, I would point people to resources that I've discussed here → https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/sex-is-better-sober
Thank you for your share Bowen. ✌️
This moved me tremendously. Thank you, Dee.
And congratulations on the nuptials. It’s never too late to find everlasting love. 💕
So much here that landed for me but this - THIS: Getting sober is simply paying the cover charge. Oooof - what a line!
A delight to meet you through this sharing. Of course, so much of your story overlaps with mine, as is so often the case. Miraculous, isn’t it? My home group is “a Vision For You“ and I am always taken with the image of trudging. I can’t think of any other place ive encountered the word. I love it so. Thank you!
Thank you David. I appreciate you your words. Yes there are many things I heard in early AA and said “Fuck that!” They’re all true. Keep coming back 😉
Beautiful piece Dee. One of my favorites from you. Thanks for adding to this discussion in such a poignant way.
And I see you too. We can roll any time.
The image of you shaving without looking yourself in the eyes really hit home. Like there's shame and then there's that. To bastardize a quote from what you wrote: the world is a better place because you wrote this. I feel hope reading it. The hope that even within the pain of addiction we can bring more sensitivity, more honesty, more true human spirit back into the world. It's a hope that can be hard to admit in this modern age. But your story does that for me.
For all that, thank you for writing it. Thank you for shepherding all of us through this discussion. And congratulations on your upcoming wedding.
Thank you so much Latham. As I’ve said to you--if I was a younger man--I’d enjoy a session in the mats. Now? I’d break in two. 🫣
Your words mean a lot. We teach what we need to continue to learn 🤷🏻♂️
One of your best, Dee. I love that image of sobriety as different stages of a hike, how you get the second wind and then, if you don't stop, an even better view higher up. Incidentally, part of my memoir is devoted to questioning the mountaintop trope -- why being "above" everything is our comparison for enlightenment, why being "in the thick of it" doesn't carry the same weight. But I hear you ending somewhere closer to the prairie mindset than the mountaintop one. Recovery might be more like a series of cyclical forays and homecomings than it is like a linear climb. The difference, as you've helped me understand, lies less in the change of scenery or a higher view than it does in subtler shifts of perception. The Minnesota writer Bill Holm said that a prairie person "looks at a square foot and sees a universe." I think the recovering person, by your definition, does the same with the self?
Thank you Josh! I appreciate your comments so much. The prairie mindset is an interesting intersection I’d never thought about. Now that I am, I agree with you. The mountaintop might be what we often seek but only for perspective?