A Word About Sobriety

Anyone who has ever been addicted and then quit, only did it for themselves. Frequently you’ll hear someone say, I did it for my wife, or my mom, or my boyfriend. I think they’re being 100% honest when they say this, but unfortunately they are setting themselves up to fail.

It’s really critical for people to have some tipping point when they are able to recognize that they need to stop harming themselves and everyone else around them or they are going to wind up dead, in jail, or losing everything they care about. Too often it requires finding bottom; smacking their face into the floor and having some kind of awakening. It’s like slipping on black ice, getting the wind knocked out of you and taking that first sucking breath. As with all lightning quick falls, it’s a bit of an existential crisis. Before you even get up, you do a quick assessment, “Am I hurt?” “Am I in danger?” Then you get up and look around and say, “What just happened?” Often we explain things based on the most available information (Availability heuristic), gravitate to those things that are perceived as rare or fleeting (Scarcity), and seek the simplest solution (Occam’s razor).

That is why addicts will often label another as the reason for their turn around, their second chance, or whatever. But the problem with this type of reasoning is that it is an external cause, an anchor that they don’t control. It makes their sobriety, at least to me, way too fragile. Because if that person, the relationship, or any number of things goes sideways, it removes the reason for sobriety. It leaves them naked! There is no reason in that new world to stay sober.

Sometimes people trade up when their girlfriend dumps them, saying instead “I’m doing it for my family. They need me.” Which again, might be true, but here is my argument. If you never internalize your reasons for being clean and sober, you never have really committed, owned your problems, and determined above all else to improve your life. You’re not doing it for your kids; they will eventually move out. You’re not doing it for your mother; she was making it before you were born just fine and she would survive if you died. You have to be doing it for you because that is the person that you will wake up with for the rest of your life. You’re not going anywhere. So decide and own your choice.

Fifth Grade Zero

Once when I was about ten I was having a really hard time fitting in at school. I was still the new kid, after moving into the area two years earlier. I was the reject, the outcast; I was not cool enough. It was a hard time. Then just when I thought I was making headway and getting a little traction with the cool kids, I got kicked back into my place. Literally, I got kicked.

I don’t know why, but I had chosen to have a major crush on the coolest girl in the school (let’s call her Tiffany), and if I’m honest, she was mean! For two years I had nurtured my crush on Tiffany. On a scale of infatuation, this was epic. I was head over heals! Just imagine any sappy, made-for -TV special. Nerdy boy trapped in an impossible relationship triangle of… well, one.

What can I say? I was an optimist. Any little smile or word fed that raging desire in my little prepubescent heart. I think we got to be in the same reading group once, there were a few laps at a skating party, and I can remember trying to sit near her on the bus. For a poor, generic LA Gear Pumps wearing, eternal new kid, I could not have been more perfectly set up for failure. I was a zero. But it wasn’t just me. Everybody wanted to be in Tiffany’s group. She had grown up in that school, she was pretty, she wore the right clothes, and she even had friends in sixth grade. Her popularity was comprehensive. She had it all, and she knew it.

Around this same time I had managed to find a couple of friends, really, just two. I’ll call them Chris and Mark. Chris was a little guy, but Mark stood at six foot something and was the giant of the fifth grade, or really the whole school. He was even taller than most of the sixth graders. Unfortunately though, even with Mark’s mass, between the three of us we had only accumulated the influence of an average third grader. We were outcasts, but at least we had each other, right?

One day on the playground I saw Tiffany’s group across the field and decided to give the in-crowd a chance. As soon as I made the move Chris was out, but Mark came along. Which was fine with me, I was up for anything, so long as Tiffany was part of it. I don’t actually remember what happened, but as soon as we got close enough for Tiffany to recognize that her bubble of cool had been pierced by two nincompoops, she was instantly revolted and enraged. So like any self-respecting fifth-grade mean girl queen, she sent my friend over to get rid of me. I can imagine her saying something like, “Get him out of here Mark!”

Mark had a quick decision to make: Be cool for a day, and clobber me, or rejoin the socially damned. Not a hard choice for a kid with very little social capital or clout of his own. So of course he chased me down, which again, wasn’t hard given my diminutive pre-testosterone influenced form.

In the end it was all over very quickly, even though I saw it coming and had a bit of a head start. The long and short of it, a guy that I had confided in, hung out with, and even cheated in math with, gave me a massive, but awkward kick from behind, and then shoved me down for good measure. It was all very effective. I flew face first into that soggy, northwest playfield. I was soaked, muddy and humiliated.

I’m sure I wanted to cry. I didn’t, of course. If I had, I would have given up any remaining dignity and positive belief about my own burgeoning manhood and future social life.

So what do you do when you find yourself kicked out of the in crowd with a face full of turf? Beats me. But I can tell you what I did. I got up and I got out. I quit the crush, and I quit my “sometimes friend” Mark. I didn’t need to know more. I had learned my lesson. I now knew that, given the opportunity for personal glory, Mark would not be at my side. Instead he would be absent. He would take the carrot. He was my sometimes-friend.

What a defining moment in my life. At the time I had so little emotional intelligence, so little social intelligence, and not a lot of other options at that school. I’d been blackballed; the temporary illusion of popularity or even moving into the social middle class was not an option for me, but I did have a huge reservoir of “screw you,” moxie, or if you want another word, call it self-determination.

I’m pretty sure I never talked about this experience with anyone. Not my brothers, my parents, and not even Chris. I was too ashamed.

When I work with clients that have been through a hard time like a death, job loss, bad relationship, or just plain trauma, they often use their misfortune as the perfect evidence of their imperfection. They’re broken, no one understands, and they may even feel like they will have to suffer with the results for the rest of their lives. Well, you could make that choice, but you could just as easily make the choice to live a different story. I know I just said “easily,” and this might sound like I’m minimizing, but just go with it. You have to accept the shame, the hurt, and all the gross and dirty feelings that you might have about whatever happened to you. Because recovery is not about not feeling all of that stuff. This is not, “How to not get hurt,” or “How to never feel angry again.” Welcome to earth! You are not exempt from emotions, and you’re fighting a loosing battle if you try to avoid them. Our emotions are the best data we have. They are time sensitive; they are efficient. But most of the time we minimize and question them. We discount them saying that we shouldn’t be emotional. For me it’s never about eliminating emotion; rather it’s acknowledging, emphasizing, and developing emotional awareness and emotional intelligence. Because generally 9 times out of 10 they are pointing us in the right direction. So find a goal. What do you want to be? What do you want to feel? Head in that direction. Then challenge yourself to live in the present.