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“Punching Clocks with our fantasies. Influence call on me…inspire me. Are you the better part of me?.” – Vanaprasta

My face was numb from the excitement and adrenaline pumping through my veins. I felt as if I were floating off the ground and that everything in the Universe had just stopped. Stopped for you. To me there was nothing in that moment that mattered more then you as I held you in my arms for the first time. I had just watched you come into this world and I was never going to let you leave it. I made a commitment to you that I would do all I could to protect you, love you, and be a teacher to you. I was consumed by your spirit I had never felt so connected to someone in all my life. The feeling of unconditional love I had for you in that moment and every moment since was more then I could ever explain in words. As the tears rolled down my cheeks, I knew you were an anchor for me to continue in my recovery and I wanted to make you proud to be my son.

God has saved my life multiple times and has given me moments of rebirth in my spirit to many times to count. March 9^th, 2002 was one of those moments where He filled my spirit beyond the capacity to which I could contain. That was the day my first born, my son, came into my life. Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a dad; but knew I couldn’t be much of a dad while I was battling an addiction to alcohol and heroin. Thankfully by the time he came into my life I was 2 years clean and sober.

The anxiety and excitement of being a new father, newly in recovery was one I had no experience prior, to have prepared me for. I surely needed to live a recovered life before my son, but even more so now if I wanted to be the father, I felt he deserved. Little did I know that for an individual in recovery, or at least for me; even being 2 years sober would have my disease challenge me and bring up every possible insecurity and challenge every character flaw within me. Unresolved issues of my own childhood would come flooding back. The negative self-talking demons of my past would rear their ugly heads freshly ready with new ammunition to fight me on a battle ground I was new to and unfamiliar to as a parent. The disease of addiction is cunning like this and is never fully absent to the addicted even when they have abstained from a substance for years. It will always be looking, lurking in the background of our minds patiently waiting to exploit any unresolved shame, for shame is its life blood.

Traveling into parenthood newly sober was and still is one of the greatest blessings and promises I have received in recovery; but is one that will challenge all aspects of recovery. For me living by spiritual principles to help me maintain sobriety was key, but it was also key for me as a father to practice and allow me to be patient, loving and kind. As well as how it helped me manage my anger, that resulted from a place of shame and pain for me. If it wasn’t for the tools, I was taught in early recovery along with a deep connection with a higher power I fear the father my son would have struggled to know and connect with.

My parenting in recovery has been far from perfect but has been one of great learning for me and has helped me develop a vulnerability and connection with my children. Without the support of others in recovery, recovery tools and principles to apply and live by, along with a spiritual connection the mistakes I have made and continue to make, whether it be yelling to much or selfish self-absorbed isolation. Would have taken me back out in a whirlwind of self-pity. Having the proper supports and tools in recovery have helped me grow out of most of my own personnel shame and have given me the heightened awareness of being selfless for someone else.

Since the birth of my first son I have gone on and been blessed with two other children and my wife and I’s fourth, a little girl, is due in the next few months. My children have all been spiritual anchors for me. They have inspired me, in my darkest of moments, to continue fighting for them and for myself whenever life got hard. Recovery allowed me the opportunity to learn how to be a father and others in recovery taught me the tools I needed to navigate being a father. There is no question to me that the disease of addiction is a powerful force, and even when sober it will manifest itself and try to pull us back into its pit of hell. But it is also no question to me that recovery, the action part of it, produces a far more powerful result. I am grateful that God and recovery blessed my children with the father they deserved and not the father I was on the path to become. My children have provided me with the opportunity to not only spiritually grow and become a better man, but they provided me with the want and desire for me to want to be a better person. God has blessed me and exceeded all that it had promised me in those early days of recovery. I have been given far more then I deserve or that is necessary. Through out all the trials of parenting in recovery my children have taught me, inspired me, made me a better person and they themselves are and always will be the better part(s) of me.

“This isn’t happening.  I’m not here…In a little while I’ll be gone.  The moments already past.” – Radiohead

Hope had left me, I felt as if I was living on borrowed time that wasn’t even mine to have.  The worthlessness I felt, it consumed me in ways that left me empty; hollow.  It was a cold lonely New England night.  I had spent the evening snorting lines of coke and trying to drink myself into nothingness; but the hatred and shame I had for myself only seemed to grow that night, with the more coke and alcohol I consumed.  I found myself alone sitting at the wheel of my black and purple 1994 Ford pickup truck.  As I sat there contemplating how my life had become such a cyclical sideshow, a polluted cesspool of toxic emotions and pseudo temporary spiritual highs through chemicals.  My thoughts drifted to that dark place I tried so often to avoid throughout my life, they would return like a bad friend whom you never knew if you could trust, but somehow found yourself enthralled by their presence and attracted to their attention to only be left frightened and unsure of the relationship’s outcome.  They appeared to come at the most desperate and loneliest times in my life. This is where I would often find my thoughts revisiting my own death and my own participation of the act of taking my own life.  I found myself sliding deeper into the abyss of thought consumed by its siren call to complete the deed and erase myself from this life so I would not have to feel and so I no longer would be the burden to my family and friends I often was.  The battle was once again upon me as I drove my pickup carelessly through the streets of my hometown in the early hours of the morning.  The thought of taking my life scared me, as it always did, but the allure of my pain ending was hard to deny.  As I raced along through the back roads trying to sort this out, a battle I had been waging since I was a child.  With no care of putting myself as well as any innocent individual, seemingly wandering the night, at risk.  I realized I was heading to my parents’ home, a possible subconscious attempt to seek out the last and only thing that gave me a sense of comfort and stability; I can only assume.  The coke and alcohol could not ward off the deep shame I felt due to the pain and disappointment I had become to them.  It was time.  I needed to end my life right here and right now.  I remember a complete abandon of care for anything fall over me and I drove my truck head on at 55 mph through a fence and directly into a tree, totaling my vehicle to where I was unable to get out, but my face had broken through the steering wheel.  The impact broke my front teeth that had ripped through and completely tore off half of my bottom lip.  But there I was toothless, bloodied, face broken and alive, alive.  Sirens surrounded my car, people yelling to me from outside my vehicle.  The emptiness and shame remained and the only thought I had, was not how grateful I was to be alive, it was how I had failed yet again to take my life and that through it all death even rejected me.

I would go on to treatment several weeks later to a long-term program in California and begin the path towards my recovery, self-acceptance, and self-love.  But the road was not  easy, and it had not been without its own internal battles.  Even in recovery I was plagued by the dark thoughts of taking my life and once at 5 years sober sat at the end of my bed with a gun in my hand contemplating once again my own demise, but fortunately through nothing short of divine intervention was able to pull myself out of the deepest of the deep.

I have been fortunate in my own journey to have been in remission from this type of depression for well over a decade, but at times I do fear its subtle return and its crippling grip.  The CDC reports that the suicide rate in the United States has increased 24 percent between 1999 – 2014; it is the highest recorded rate in 28 years and continuing to climb.  The data is showing that increases in completed suicides has increased across age, gender, race and ethnicity.  So, what is happening why are we not alarmed by the number we are seeing?  Why did I not feel comfortable talking to people about my thoughts and feelings of hopelessness?  I had attempted suicide 3 times, but never had much of a conversation about this due to religious and cultural perception on the topic.  In more than half of all suicide deaths listed in 27 states; individuals had no known mental health condition on record when they ended their lives.  So, what was their story?  Were they like me and scared to come forward based upon shame and stigma?

We have finally begun to address substance use disorders in this country, we still have much to do, but we have begun a public dialog on the subject and you really have to be living in a cave to not know of someone who has been directly or indirectly effected by the opioid epidemic.  Rightfully, the opioid epidemic has gotten a lot of attention and social advocates and groups are popping up everywhere to address the matter.  My only question is that in 2016,  42,249 individuals died of opioid overdoses and we have declared this pretty much a national emergency to where the President and politicians are beginning to make policy and take action to address the matter.  Yet 45,000 individuals died of suicide in the same year, 2016, and we have seen no outcry to address what I believe is a national tragedy.  Where the stigma for those with addiction appear to be improving are we still holding a huge stigma around those with mental health especially the most vulnerable?  I mean my history is attached to both as a recovering heroin addict with a history of depression and suicide, so both are equally important to me.  Especially looking at the numbers trending upwards should be frightening to us with children.  As the second leading cause of death for those between the ages of 15-34 is suicide.  For every completed suicide in the United States there are 25 suicides attempted; over 123 suicides a day happen.  So why are we allowing so many live in such pain without opening up and beginning a dialog about this topic to help give those in such a dark place some hope in light through our friendship and stories.  As a man in recovery I have never had a problem discussing with people openly my past addiction to heroin and alcohol and my story of recovery, but I had for well over 15 years been very hesitant to share by story of mental health recovery and my history of past suicide attempts.

There is hope, connection is the key.  As when I look back at these times in my life I realize it was the disconnection and apathy to it all.  Being high on drugs and alcohol made it easier for me to disregard any feelings toward protective risk factors to help me out of the state I was in and being numb on chemicals made it at times easier to follow through with the attempt.  As I had mentioned before, I had even found myself 5 years in recovery pretty close to the edge, but at that time I had been consistently on a regiment of prescription drugs that at the end of the day left me apathetic to life and disconnected from anyone, making it much easier for me to follow through with any suicidal act I had been planning.  We know that the studies show more suicides happen while individuals are on prescriptions drugs.  I have been off any medications for over 14 years, and it has made all the difference for me in my life.  Anyone on medication looking to come off of them should always do this under the direction of their doctor.

I am hopeful that with the direction we have taken publicly to  overcoming the stigma to addiction that we in time will do the same with mental health, but do we need to wait for the numbers of suicides annually to continue to increase unnecessarily?  Until then we individuals in recovery from our own mental health need to be more transparent, more of an advocate for those still stuck in that deepest of the deep.  They need your story of hope and redemption, they need you so they to can recover, they need you today; as you and I may need them tomorrow.

“There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface.  Consuming me, confusing…Crawling in my skin.  These wounds they will not heal.  Fear is how I fall.” – Linkin Park

What comes first. Is addiction a symptom, a byproduct of an underlying mental condition or is addiction something that is there and then creates underlying mental health issues. I think it varies and can be both. This is my experience and how I self-medicated for years my own mental health issues that far preceded my first drink or drug. Ever since I can remember, before I found recovery, I felt different. It didn’t matter if I would be around a group of friends or family that I had known all my life. I had this distinct feeling of disconnect from people. In part I believe it was the shame I carried with me from an early age. I would later be diagnosed in my late teens with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. A component of OCD is having intrusive thoughts that plague those who suffer with the diagnosis; and to create some relief to the anxiety, fear and paranoia that accompany these thoughts is for the individual to engage in some form of ritualistic behavior that in turn cause a disruption in the individual’s life. The onset of this can be in early adolescence, which was the case for me. I had always felt some anxiety throughout my childhood, but at the age of ten when the components of OCD began to rear its ugly head it magnified any initial feelings of anxiety which led me to come up with tools to distract me from my thoughts and get me through the next 24 hours. As a therapist I would later recognize that I was applying DBT skills to just get by, utilizing different forms of distress tolerance. I would often rewrite portions of encyclopedias on paper to distract myself or obsessively listen to music over and over writing down the lyrics of my favorite songs and memorizing every word. This was so if any intrusive thoughts came up for me during the day I would often just start singing a song I had memorized the night before. These were often daily skills I would apply to stay distracted from the intrusive thoughts that plagued me every hour of the day. For most with OCD intrusive thoughts can be so distressing and disturbing they often directly challenge the core values and morals of the individual. For a 10 year old boy I was absolutely a prisoner of my own mind and feared going to my mother or father as I was sure they would believe I was crazy and surely they would not want me. So I did the best I could to establish coping mechanisms and appear as normal as I could externally by doing well in school and playing sports; meanwhile as each year past I sunk deeper into what seemed like a dark abyss of the mind and spirit. I had never felt so alone and abandoned in spirit then at this time in my life. This created a significant amount of anxiety and dread about each day I awoke to. I’ve heard some people describe mental illness as if a black cloud were following them wherever they would go. I could have only wished for that analogy to be true in comparison for myself. I would have welcomed a dark cloud I could have at least quietly observed it from below and recognized I was separate from the cloud and that it was not who or what I was. However, for me it was as if a thin dark sludge covered every inch of my being it encased me and no matter what I did it was just there; suffocating me. Constantly reminding me of its presence. It didn’t just let me know it was there daily, but eventually it convinced me of the lie that it was me; and by the age of 12 I began to obsess about the idea of taking my own life. I wanted so badly for Gods approval and for Him to show me I was ok. So, I would constantly read the bible as a child. My mother bless her heart, thought I was being a good catholic boy when in actuality I was searching for redemption, because I thought I needed it. I was like, “Hey God look at me, see I can’t be evil. I’m reading your book, see.” It was around this time in my life 11 or 12 I began to develop a prayer ritual to dispute the intrusive thoughts in my mind. For I believed if I could not dispel them they would eventually overtake me and consume me, compelling me to become the very evil that plagued my mind. I would at time kneel in prayer in the early morning hours, not able to sleep from the crippling paranoia and anxiety I felt, night always seemed the worst. I began to take a rosary I had had since I was a young boy and begin to weave it between my fingers counting out loud the number of times it weaved in and out of my fingers hoping it would end on an even number in the middle of my hand so the crucifix could lay in the middle of my palm; if this did not happen I would unweave the rosary from my hand and start again. Once I would accomplish this I would continually pray out my penance and I would not stop until I either just passed out or I felt the paranoia subside and peace would come and allow me to sleep. Sleep became a struggle for me and often this ritual at night would take me into the early hours of the morning to which I would get incremental relief and sleep. Often going into school tired and irritable, to which I believe this may have contributed to my defiance in class at times. I felt as if I was a time bomb, I was a human pressure cooker and I felt as if I was running out of time on figuring out what I could do. The charade I often upheld with my family and friends was beginning to where me down and I was considering more and more the very real option of taking my life; until on a mild winter night I was introduced to alcohol with a group of friends. That moment was life altering for me on so many levels and to some degree created a lasting confusion in me for over a decade. You see, when I drank my first drink, I immediately began to feel the warmth and comfort I had been longing for my whole life, but it had always eluded me without alcohol. The more I drank I noticed the absence of fear and anxiety and my intrusive thoughts were easily dismissed and I was able to socialize and think about other things. I had found the answer, I had found not only a solution to my problem I had found something that took away my pain, restored a hope in me for a normal life. Due to that; I embarked on an intimately loyal relationship with alcohol that would later break every promise it had made to me that wintery night. Alcohol was efficient, effective and fun for about 3 years and by the time I was 18 it had run its course and everything it had taken from me, the pain, the fear, the suicidal thoughts, the intrusive thoughts, it gave back to me 100 fold leaving me confused, depressed, and full of fear. I supplemented with other drugs all the while trying to make alcohol work again to no avail. It wasn’t until I found heroin at 19 that I felt as if I recreated that first experience with alcohol but at a level 1,000x more intense. I had found Nirvana, heaven inside me or so I thought. It appeared to take away my pain and promise me far more then alcohol and I took the bait. I believed I could endure and sustain this relationship, but to my disappointment it crashed and burned in apocalyptic fashion a lot quicker then the time it took alcohol to destroy me. So here I was, I had been self-medicating and treating a mental illness for over a decade with one substance or another. For me I was lucky to find a solution to the drink and the drug dilemma but continued even in my recovery to battle with my mental illness to which was not entirely remedied effectively until about 5 years sober, that’s another blog for another time. Struggling in recovery with mental illness is a real thing. Often times one illness triggers the other and without proper tools individuals often find themselves in this vicious cycle of self-medicating to manage the symptoms of their mental illness. According to SAMSHA and a 2016 National Survey; In 2016, an estimated 9.8 million adults aged 18 or older reported they had thought seriously about trying to kill themselves. An estimated 8.2 million adults aged 18 or older (3.4 percent of all adults) had both a mental illness and a substance use disorder in the past year.   Yet 1 – 3 adults do not receive any care for either type of illness.

I often think if teachers or even my own family were educated about mental illness if they would have been able to pickup on some signs or if schools put into place mental health education as well as preventive classes in schools teaching young adults how to manage stress, anxiety and depression in a healthier manner with healthier tools if my path would have been different. Luckily for me I was able to eventually get the help I needed and continued well into my recovery to work on the underlying causes and conditions that contributed to my addiction. I only hope myself as someone in recovery not only from alcohol and heroin addiction but also mental illness as well as a professional in the field of mental & behavioral health will continue to educate and break the stigma of both. The more we as people get comfortable getting uncomfortable talking about mental illness and addiction with our children, family and friends; then maybe just then we will begin to see a dramatic shift away from the toxic shame we all hold and then the healing of a society in crisis can begin.

“You were far away, and I didn’t ask you why.  What could I say? …How close am I to losing you tonight?” – The National

She wrapped me in a warm flannel blanket and placed in front of me a bowl of hot soup.  Rubbing my back to warm me up as I shook with cold trying to control the spoon she had placed in my hand.  I remember her sobbing but not allowing her emotions to consume her or distract her from her priority.  The priority that she had always made her priority since the day she gave birth to me.  To comfort me, her youngest son and to always make sure that I felt loved by her.  My mother has always been a strength to me throughout my life and was a beacon of hope during a very dark time in my life.  This moment in my addiction, I had been found intoxicated, shirtless and passed out headfirst in a snowbank.  I was found by a former classmate of mine from high school.  In a selfless act he lifted me out of the snow placed me in his car and drove me to where he knew my parents had lived.  Moments like these had become frequent for her and never did she turn me away no matter the vitriol that would often come from my mouth or when I would throw things at her telling her how much I hated her and how much I just wanted to die.  Her selfless acts for her son always won out and no doubt bought me extra time in moments on those days I felt as if no one loved me.  My mothers’ consistent action of love always seemed to be the light that kept me going.  As I sat at her kitchen table trying to work the spoon of soup to my mouth, I can remember the deep shame I felt about the pain I was causing her and wanted so much for her love to be enough to stop the insanity of my destruction; but it wasn’t, and it never would be.  I believe that’s why that memory stands out the most above all the other times, and believe me there were many.  For in that moment sitting in her dimly lit kitchen no words exchanged between us just the silent acknowledgement of our own tears; I believe we both knew her love nor anyone’s could ever save me from my addiction.

Recalling that incident is still an emotional one for me.  As I am no longer plagued by the shame or guilt of my addiction.  Once I took the action necessary to work on my internal condition and right those harms I caused; that guilt and shame was washed away.  I however can still recall the heaviness of the feelings of those moments and the love as well as the heartache that are forever etched in the memory of my emotions.  I am grateful for this for it allows me to reflect and not forget the truth of my experiences.

The most heartbreaking thing for those family members and loved ones close to someone effected by a addiction, is knowing there is nothing you can do to fix the disease in front of you.  If one were to think that the disease of addiction only effects the individual, they would be sorely mistaken.  Those family members and loved ones are affected deeply to the core of their very being.  Until they acknowledge their own powerlessness over fixing the addict/alcoholic then they are damned themselves to their own insanity of believing they can some how fix their loved one.

My family time and again would bail me out of situations and literally bail me out of jail.  Hoping that they would somehow be able to fix me and or prove to me that I was worth saving.  A lot of the time though their enablement of me financially or giving me a place to live while I was actively using only proved to be more dangerous for me then helpful.  Not allowing me to feel the natural consequences of my actions disallowed me to feel the desperation I needed to.  That would then eventually compel me to take the action I needed to, to save my life.  That’s the insanity of the disease for family members and loved ones, where the addict’s insanity lies in the belief that ‘this time will be different’ and that ‘this time I will be able to control my drug use.’  The insanity for a loved one dealing with an addict, shows up like ‘well if I help them this one last time’ or ‘If I bail them out of this financial or legal situation this one last time.’ Etcetera, etcetera.

It wasn’t until my mother and father made the hard decision to stop financially supporting me and not allowing me to live in their house while actively using that things started to become real for me.  I was forced to wake up to the nature of my disease and the reality of my life.  You see as long as they continued to try and soften the consequences of my addiction the more I believed it wasn’t as bad as it was.  A family member almost must stop doing everything they have intuitively done their whole life and let the individual go.  I think where people get confused is they believe when professionals tell them to stop enabling their loved one. They hear for some reason don’t love them anymore.  But this is not the case at all.  My mother and father both as difficult as some of those decisions were they never stopped emotionally supporting me and expressing their love for me.  I would often try to emotionally hold them hostage by telling them they didn’t love me if they wouldn’t give me something I wanted.  True love is when someone can make those decisions and hold a boundary when they know they will be perceived as cold hearted or mean.  When a parent or loved one can put aside their own fears of how they will be perceived then and only then will opportunities be allowed for the addict to see his or her true reality.  I often believe enabling an individual is really only a selfish pursuit to fill one’s own pride and ego and often times presented in martyr fashion as pseudo altruism.  I get it.  It’s not consciously an individual’s intent, but that is how the disease shows up for them.

The devastating affect addiction has on those close to an individual with substance use disorder can continue to show residual effects even after a loved one gets on the path of recovery.  My mother told me years after I had been sober for some time that even though I had been clean for a while, she would often get sick to her stomach and feel intense fear when the phone rang at night past 11 o’clock.  As that is usually when she would receive a call from the hospital or jail during my using days.  I had in fact created a trauma response in my mother that took her years to undo.

The best thing a family member can do for an addict and for themselves is to focus on their own mental health and wellbeing.  To attend their own 12 step support groups, seek out individual therapy and practice good self-care.

Fear of losing an individual is probably the one of the scariest feelings a human being can experience.  It may bring up our own fears of abandonment that may have its genesis somewhere back in our own childhood.  So, it’s a very rooted fear that may have been with us for a long time, maybe longer then any other fear we have.  So, it makes sense it can drive one to a very irrational place that pushes us to an anxious place of control and we hang on for dear life; believing if we hang on tight enough we will somehow force upon a situation a result that will give us peace.  But the truth is we only really experience real peace when we learn to surrender and let go.  It was in my families ability to stop fighting for me and letting go, that I was finally able to fight for myself and then eventually find myself in recovery.

Every fiber within me was screaming out for relief. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin and overwhelmed by my own thoughts. I felt as if I was going insane. I literally found myself in the room I had grown up in slouched on the floor against the wall and banging my head against it as if this act would distract me from my current state. I had this insane idea that if I could create more physical pain unrelated to my withdrawals   I would distract myself from my emotional anguish and the obsessive hunger to get high. The physical pain of it all was always the least of my worries, I had always had a high tolerance for pain, but the flip side of that is the slightest bit of mental or emotional discomfort and I would begin to break. Emotional pain had always been a poison to me and alcohol and drugs my antidote.

So, there I was in my parents’ home in the room I grew up in acutely aware of my condition and the consequences my addiction had delivered like an apocalypse into my life.   I knew something was not right with me, but was confused to what or how to make it stop.  The room seemed so much smaller then I had remembered, and I felt claustrophobic as if the memory of my childhood and the addict I became had merged and was now suffocating me. I needed some relief to this madness. I thought why did I agree with my parents that I would stop using and go to treatment again? I needed to use. There was no way I could live with out it.  They just didn’t understand my pain and if they did they would see I was justified in my using. But what was I thinking, I knew I couldn’t use. It had destroyed everything good about me. With no empathy and no remorse like a sociopathic killer it lay waste to everything in my life leaving a path of destruction and carnage. “STOP! STOP! I can’t take this anymore!” I wanted to stop! I had wanted to stop 3 years prior and was confused with how I continued to make a “choice” to go back to the insanity of using. I thought, I truly must be the evil I felt.   While my parents frantically called around to get me into a treatment center out of state, as I had burned through every program in the state I lived. I pulled myself up off my bedroom floor and went into my parent’s upstairs bathroom where I knew a bottle of Listerine sat patiently for me below the dual sink of my parents’ master bath. I noticed before I even began to drink from the half full bottle of the green elixir, that I could feel a comfort and calm wash over my body and my mind.

This story would play out repeatedly  in my life. Where I would be assuredly done with my using, enrolling my parents for help over and over again; only to drain every ounce of hope in their being time and time again. No one was more confused then I was, the shame in believing something with my character was flawed and weak; only perpetuated my drinking and drug use. I would hear family members or acquaintances I worked with make statements like, “Why don’t you just stop” or “I used to have a problem like you when I was younger, but I just made a decision to put it down.”   What I  know today that I did not know then, was that those people were nothing like me, nor did they understand the disease of addiction.

Culturally we still look at addiction as choice, a moral failing or weakness in one’s own character. We have made some progress, but it is truly amazing the ignorance the public still has around addiction. Which in turn affects how those suffering from the early onset of addiction keep it hidden to avoid the shame that accompanies substance use disorders. Hell, the American Medical Association recognized Alcoholism as a disease in 1956. Let that sink in for a second, and I’ll repeat it. The American Medical Association recognized Alcoholism as a disease in 1956. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) defines it as such, “addiction is a primary, chronic, disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.” Yet here we are in 2018 still debating the topic, but such is the pride and Ego of a culture that believes it is the most intellectual and evolved in all of history, but I digress.

No individual signs up to become an addict or alcoholic. I didn’t aspire to hurt the people closest to me, to be consumed in thought and action with getting high, to be robbed of anything else I had once found pleasurable, and to ultimately resign to a constant state of despair and misery; plagued with suicidal thoughts almost daily. Who chooses that!

The disease of addiction hijacks the brain and the pathways of communication between the limbic and executive (parent) part of the brain. The limbic system is where the reward center of the brain is located, it is also responsible for our own emotional regulation, arousal and our memories. Hmmm, sounds like if addiction could have chosen a place to live, it couldn’t have found a more perfect place to sustain its own existence, then that of the limbic system. You see the brain operates on a reward system for our own survival. The brain produces dopamine in order to signal to the brain that an action is pleasurable so that we continue to do it. Depending on the amount of dopamine produced is how the brain prioritizes which act is most important to our own survival hierarchy. All this happening in the limbic system, so eating food produces dopamine, having sex produces dopamine so on and so forth. We need food for our own survival and we need to reproduce as a species, so we do not become extinct. The limbic system and the executive part of the brain, which I call the rational parent brain, working seamlessly together is a beautiful thing. When I get hungry and I have no money on me because I left my wallet at home and the primitive self tells me to go steal food at a local grocery store across the street from my work or to steal my co-workers lunch, the executive part of my brain keeps me in check and rationally offers up thoughts to control my actions. Like “Stealing is not the answer.  People go to jail for stealing,  you can wait to eat when you get home” etc. So, the executive part of the brain is in charge and keeps those primitive impulses in check. So, lets go back to the explanation of dopamine as a reward chemical for a minute. The brain at anyone time only wants to handle about 300 units of dopamine, don’t ask me what a unit of dopamine is measured in I have no idea. So, food, sex, being around friends, exercising etc. will produce dopamine that keeps us right in that 300 ball park.   Now lets add in addictive chemicals to the brain and I’ll show you how it entirely hijacks the whole system. Alcohol and opiates produce about 500-700 units of dopamine, methamphetamine produces about 1,200 units of dopamine. Insane, right?   So hopefully you’ve been able to follow up to this point. Remember how the brain prioritizes what is the most important thing for our survival based upon the amount of dopamine an act produces. Well as you can see addictive chemicals produce a greater amount of dopamine then the brain was ever meant to handle, and it tricks the brain into thinking those chemicals are essential to the addict’s own survival. Over time, introducing these chemicals into your body more frequently, a rewiring of the communication between the limbic system and the executive function occurs. No longer is the executive part of the brain in charge, the now primitive limbic system is in charge. The very emotional and arousal-based part of the brain is now calling the shots. The addicts executive part of the brain is still offering up thoughts like why do you keep doing this, you’re going to lose your family, you’re going to be arrested again, but it is no match for the limbic system who ultimately believes it is pushing you to get high because it believes that is what you need to survive, when in reality it is pushing you to your death. There in lies that battle the addict is faced with every day. Knowing logically what they are doing is not in their best interest, however the executive part of the brain is in an unwinnable war with a part of the brain that believes if you don’t use you will die. I don’t know about you other addicts out there, but when I was unable to get high the anxiety I felt was very much like feeling my life was in jeopardy. That’s why I would practically compromise everything about myself and go to any lengths to get high, as if my life depended upon it. I would even at times contemplate engaging in high risk situations or put my life in jeopardy to get high (refer to my blog last week). As that’s exactly what my brain was telling me, “If you don’t use you will die anyway.” Nothing felt more real to me in my using then that threatening thought. So, I existed in a terrified state daily, unsure of why I continued to “choose” this way of living for myself. A great video to watch for a more in-depth explanation of the choice argument, and explanation of the disease model of addiction is ‘Pleasure Unwoven’, by Dr. Kevin McCauley. I encourage anyone directly or indirectly dealing with addiction to watch this video.

So, to the question, ‘Is Addiction a disease and does it matter?’ I would say that we know medically, yes, it is a disease and recognized and classified as such. The argument should end there. To the part, ‘does it matter?’ I would say yes and no. It matters for the individual struggling with addiction to be explained this by a medical professional. To allow the aspect of shame to be removed from the equation. Addiction at its core is a very shamed based disease and anything to perpetuate that and not alleviate shame is harmful to the individual. Where it doesn’t matter is whether those not suffering from the disease of addiction acknowledge it as such. Ignorance will always be present as long as man exists. So, the key is to not allow another’s view to define you or determine your outcomes. Part of being in recovery is to not only be free of the crippling grip substances has had over one’s life, but to also no longer live as a victim to circumstance or to other opinions and views. Where addiction can be a horrible disease that has claimed a lot of lives and destroyed a lot of families and relationships, rest assured there is a solution to this disease. No longer do we have to be a victim to it, no longer do we have to live a double life mired in shame. Where I used to believe being an alcoholic and an addict at 23 was the worst thing to happen to me in my life. I have now grown to see that it was the best thing to ever happen to me. As it forced me to find a solution to fix the problem of the drink and the drug, but in turn it became the solution to everything in my life and connected me to a massive power without end.

“Counselor, give me some advice. Tell me how hard will I fall if I live a double life…Doctor, can you help me ‘cause I don’t feel right? Better make it fast before I change my mind.” – Cage the Elephant

“Happiness, more or less.  It’s just a change in me, something in my liberty…. But I’m a Lucky man.” – The Verve

By the grace of God, I was relieved from the bondage of self and was introduced to a solution to my addiction to alcohol and heroin at the age of 23. It was the single hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. It didn’t come easy and it required work on my part. Still to this day my recovery requires daily action and an acute awareness of myself that others not plagued with addiction ever need to worry about. It is because of that though, and my constant vigilance of the self which has made me better in so many areas of my life, that otherwise I would have neglected. My life today doesn’t even remotely resemble the life I lived almost two decades ago. I escaped the clutches of death to many times to recall directly or indirectly from living a life saturated in alcohol and drug use. I was lucky to get out, but not everyone is.

Sadly, 2017 saw a record number of overdose deaths, 72,000. Some states in New England initially hit hard by the opiate epidemic have begun to see a decline in overdose deaths. However other parts of the country continue to see a steady rise of drug overdose deaths. The response by local and state officials in New England; as well as grass roots movements led by the citizens of those states have no doubt played a huge part in the decline of overdose deaths in that region. Communities outside of New England would do well to follow suit and take notice to the efforts being made by individuals and organizations in those states.

Heroin’s insidious grasp over the last 3 years of my using was a living hell I wanted desperately to be free of. I had already been existing with a dependence to alcohol (which by the way claims an estimated 88,000 lives a year and is the third leading cause of death in the United States. It kills more people annually then opiates but does not garner the same attention.), along with an obsession for hallucinogens and crack cocaine binges. Where alcohol and other drugs gradually broke me down over time; like a consistent shot gun blast to my soul. Heroin however, tore through me like an atom bomb leaving no remnants of a soul intact. When I look back at those three years, I spent more time in treatment then I did outside of treatment. This was due to the sheer fact I could not live and maintain a normal life while getting high. I just didn’t know how to manage emotionally or physically with or without substances in my life.

I can remember vividly the last days of my last run. One night in particular. I was living in Southern California and after 14 months clean and sober I had found myself spiritually empty once again. As I had stopped living in recovery, only to become a man living abstinent from  substances.  I eventually relapsed.   Battling thoughts of worthlessness and overwhelmed by a deep disappointment in myself I sought escape from my thoughts and feelings via drugs and alcohol once again.  It was an old familiar solution of misery I was once comfortable implementing as an option.  This time however I seemed to obtain no real satisfaction from the temporary relief it provided. This night for some reason I abandoned my red and white 1972 super beetle and attempted to walk through the not so great parts of  the city of Costa Mesa; where I knew I could score a bag of dope or so I thought. I was a half  bottle deep into a fifth of Bacardi 151 and like a good alcoholic I had purchased an extra bottle to store in my backpack for later. Feeling pretty intoxicated from the alcohol and no longer able to keep at bay the obsession chewing through my mind to obtain some heroin, I was off and on a mission. That night would be the eye-opening clarity I needed to be convinced of my own powerlessness and my own need to maintain a spiritual solution to my malady for the rest of my life.  There I was following around a guy I literally found hiding behind a tree dodging in and out from behind a row of apartment buildings. He resembled a really emaciated version of Kevin Bacon and that’s how I referred to him through out the night while I attempted to enroll him into finding me some heroin. “Hey Bacon are you going to help me find some dope?” , “Kevin Bacon dude, where the hell are we going?”  In hind sight I was insane to think this character was going to assist me in my agenda, when he was obviously pre-occupied with running from someone or something that I had no idea even existed or not, but he didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense when trying to explain it to me. Needless to say, he did not assist me and we parted ways. I would go on through the night to have my last $300 stolen from me except for $50 I would find later that night in a secret zipper compartment on my backpack. Thank god for secret zipper compartments, I thought. The night ensued, and I stumbled alone through the city into the lonely hours of the morning and still no heroin. All I had was the emotional anesthetic of the Bacardi 151 to ease my restless mind and fill the void of where my spirit once lived. The Bacardi was proving to be to little and not enough to fulfill my need and I was feeling panicked. The night would progress on and I would later confuse a vehicle that approached me to be a potential drug dealer, and as I approached the vehicle with hopes of scoring a bag of dope I was very much disappointed.  To my surprise the driver had other motives and I was propositioned by the male driver to have sex. An exchange of words began as I would decline his proposition and stated I was only looking for heroin. As he looked me over he told me that if I got into his car he would drive me around and help me find what I was looking for. I ached to fulfill my want for heroin and quiet the obsessive thoughts that fueled my motivations that night. For a moment I contemplated getting into the car, even with the conflicted thought that I may not be alive the next day if I get into this car; but my desire to get high seemed to out weigh the need to keep myself safe.  This is how addiction functions; it over powers our executive functioning that in normal circumstances allows us to weigh risk and make rational  decisions.  That’s the power of addiction.  That became very clear to me in that moment. For I knew what this man was probably capable of, he must have outweighed me easily by 100 pounds, and I was still contemplating taking the risk to go with him to find dope and get high. Which wasn’t even a known guarantee.  As I attempted to open the back door of the SUV he gestured to me to go around the vehicle and to sit up front with him. It was in this moment that I was graced with clarity and made the decision to not get in the vehicle and I changed my mind declining his offer.  He pleaded with me to get in the car with him, and as I was about to walk away from the vehicle he grabbed my arm and reached down and began to grope me.  Shocked I found myself unable to move for what seemed like an eternity.  Confused to why I didn’t respond with some form of violence, for I was no stranger to fighting I thought.  What was wrong with me why did I just stand there afraid and helpless?   I finally was able to regain some sense of myself and was able to pull myself away running across the parking lot. I had ran so fast I hadn’t noticed I had lost a shoe in the process, until I stopped running after who knows how far and how long. But once I stopped running I was left to acknowledge my shame of what had just happened, my shame of my addiction, and my shame of my existence. Luckily for me, I thought, I had another bottle of Bacardi 151 to make it all go away even if it was just temporarily. I must have drank myself into a blackout, which was pretty common for me.  I had  awoken in a bush outside a local Del Taco with no memory of the last several hours, no shoes, no shirt, bruised and bloody. I had blacked out and had no recollection of  how I ended up half naked in a bush outside a fast food joint. That one is still a mystery to me. Something profound though happened to me in that bush outside a local fast food chain in the hours just before dawn, as absurd as that statement reads it is true.  Where most go to find a quick bite of Mexican food, I guess I found God at Del Taco.  I recommitted myself to God. I recommitted to myself, because deep down I wanted a better life. I was awoken to the fact that I needed to consistently seek out help from others and from God if I didn’t want this life anymore. It took me a couple more days to put down the alcohol under the watch of my brother and his wife who had come up from San Diego, where they were stationed in the Navy, to find me in Orange County.

On April 12, 1999 I had my last drink and recommitted myself to a program of action and building connections with God and others. I haven’t used or drank since that day and my life has been all the better for it. I truly am a lucky man. If anyone was predicting the outcome of my life up to that point based upon how I was living life it would be an easy guess to say death or prison would be the most likely outcome.  That just isn’t the case today. I can’t explain why I am one of the lucky ones, why some get it and some don’t, why some are willing in a moment and others are not, why some are teachable at certain times and others are shut off to hearing a new way of living life.  I do know that recovery is achievable for all; sadly some of us just run out of time and chances.  Probably better then trying to explain why people don’t recover; I can better explain what I did and the action I took to get well after years of failing at staying sober, do to my own pride and self-absorbed approach to life.   For me though it was in those failures, that eventually I found God and then through years of truly living recovery and taking action to better myself I began to heal and love myself and others again.

Recovery is available to all who seek it out, failed attempts may be part of one’s journey like it was mine, but it doesn’t have to be. The biggest thing we can do for ourselves is to be kind and loving to ourselves, be persistent, be a warrior of the self and trust in others that have traveled those roads, be teachable, be humble and most importantly build connections with them, and trust in God.

For I have noticed in my time in recovery a pretty remarkable thing. The power of addiction is one of the most powerful things I have seen operate in an individual’s life.  Until I got sober I would have said it was the most powerful thing in the world.  But there is something more powerful.  It is what we need more of in families, communities, and the world. It is the power of authentic connection between something outside of our self, a connection with other people and with a God of our understanding. The desire to serve one to the other.  For when that power is respected and maintained in a healthy positive manner, it can empower us to achieve anything.

“And how many corners do I have to turn? How many times do I have to learn. All the love I have is in my mind… I’m a lucky man” – The Verve