This is a blog post. It contains opinions and personal experiences.
Often in recovery, an addict is told that they will forever be powerless over drugs.
Twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous believe a core tenet of sobriety is to acknowledge that fact. It’s the first step in both programs; many say it’s also the most important.
The spiritual malady can be defeated. But one’s addictive nature never ceases to exist, the programs teach.
“Once an addict, always an addict,” newcomers are told.
Sounds catchy. Yet at what point does making addiction a part of one's identity hurt more than help?
Addiction is something I’ve struggled with for more than a decade. In the beginning, I wasn’t even aware — or, subconsciously, I didn’t want to acknowledge — that I had a problem with substances.
It wasn’t until I graduated college and began my career in journalism that, in the face of more serious consequences, the reality of addiction hit me.
I worked hard. I performed well. But at the end of the day, all I cared about was how and when I would get my next fix.
This is the cycle of addiction and, in its grasp, I thought I thrived.
Until I didn’t.
My self-destructive habits and suicidal tendencies became untenable; I eventually was reduced to just a corpse holding a press pass, a reporter’s notebook and a pen.
In recovery, they say that life no longer has to be so hellish. However, even after ridding one’s life of substances, they are still just one decision away from returning to that misery.
Once an addict, always an addict.
I was stuck in that cycle for years. I knew the chaos must end if I were to save my career and, most importantly, my life — although I didn’t always prioritize those things in the right order.
I didn’t want to get clean and sober, though. With some adjustments, I could find a way to use more manageably. There must be a way, I told myself.
That mindset, characterized by unrestrained hedonism and self-deception, didn’t get me far.
After more than a decade, I’ve finally reached the coveted juncture at which I realize and accept that I cannot drink or use drugs and still live my life, let alone function at all.
I’m a firm advocate of harm reduction, which doesn’t necessarily require complete abstinence, but the ramifications of using anything are too severe for me.
The minute I ingest a substance and dopamine floods my reward pathways, maintaining that flow of feel-good chemicals takes precedence over everything. My brain deceives itself, frantically signaling that more substances are needed for survival.
Even now, as I sit typing this stone-cold sober, it is difficult to reflect on my life or express myself without addiction bubbling under the surface.
It feels as though my identity comes with a perpetual disclaimer, detailing how drug and alcohol use have shaped who I now am.
However, through all of the 12-step platitudes I’ve been told in the past 12 or so years, I don’t believe an addict is all I am.
Identity crises are seemingly ubiquitous across the addiction spectrum. For many, drugs are all addicts have known for years. They lived and breathed substances and the pursuit of them.
Then, in recovery, many take on a persona defined by a lack of said substances. In both cases, the yearning to find an identity discounts everything that makes us human.
I’m an addict. I’m in recovery. But I’m also a writer, a son and a brother. Most importantly, like every other addict on this planet, I’m just another human — flawed but intrinsically complex.
Yes, drug use on many occasions overshadowed those qualities.
The list of my past transgressions is seemingly immeasurable, and the pain I’ve caused myself and others is indescribable. However, though a part of my story, how can an addict such as myself possibly grow if reduced to those things?
I’ve shared the room with talented, intelligent people in treatment centers and 12-step meetings. Some excelled in music or art; others could speak deeply about the complex philosophical views of figures such as Immanuel Kant.
They just so happened, however, to develop their skills and knowledge while injecting heroin or gulping down whiskey over the years.
People who struggle with addiction are also some of the most emotionally aware individuals I have ever met, despite often beginning drug use or relapsing because of emotional instability and an inability to cope with trauma.
They are human beings; they just have different vices than others.
That is not to say someone’s experience with addiction is not important. Addiction has shaped my worldview immensely, and those who have struggled with the disease view things through a unique lens.
Addiction is often fostered in an environment replete with all of society’s ills; many of those struggling with substance use are all too familiar with the effects of poverty, systemic racism and over-incarceration.
In a sense, it can quite easily radicalize an individual.
Maybe that explains the passion with which I approach writing about addiction and those impacted by it.
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