A Decade of Reflections on My Recovery from Alcoholism

Overcoming & Accepting Losses to Reframe the Narrative of Your Life

If I am being truthful with myself, which is one of the first things you learn to do in recovery, I am honestly not sure of the exact date that I consumed my last drink. From what I can recall, I made the consious committment with a promise to my ailing father late in the winter of 2014, approximately one week before learning that he would be placed on Hospice care. I approximate this date as February 20th, 2014. However, I  technically relpased in July 2014, just four months following the death of my father on March 5, 2014. While tecnically this validated the presumption of literally everyone around me that the death of my dad would in fact have this impact on me. I can legitimately say that in all honestly it actually had the opposite impact on my life in the most profound manner imaginable.The truth is that I hadn't realized that the jello-shot that I ingested that summer night had alcohol in it. Thus I had remained true to my conviction and acted in accordance with the higher power that my father now representes, which to me is the very essence of my sobriety. As far as I am concerned, today, February 20th, 2024, makes 10 years of sobriety for me. And it is this past decade worth of evolution and metamorphis that has completely reshaped the lens throuugh which I view life. And consequently the narrative with which I identify. But that change did not happen abruptly. It was the most arduous and excruciating of journeys imaginable to arrive at the most wonderful and gratifying destination that is self-actualzation.

My Love of Weather isn't the Only Reason that the Middle Name of all of My Children Represent Seasons. This Hangs in My Office as a Reminder of the Perserverence & Resilinece it Takes to Carry on Afrer Reaching "Rock Bottom"

Rule #1: In order to accept losses one needs to be truthful

Addiction is synonymous with loss. Loss of health. Loss of job. Loss of relationships. Loss of both the trust of others and trust in one self. What all of this culminates in is the loss of integrity, personal conviction and self-esteem. In some cases even the loss of life. It is impossible to value others when you do not value yourself. This descent into moral/spiritual and physical decay is insidious because it entails a decreased level of consciousness, as sort of a protective defense mechanism of the psyche that makes it easier to accept as the personal degradation continues. This is reflected by the ease with which we make decsions that are not in accordance with our conscious, which results in internal conflict and strife that contributes to the obliteration of our sense of self. Thus making it easier to continue making poor decisions. Treating others with respect is virtually impossible when we do not value ourselves and through our actions have forged pathways in the brain that predispose us to making impulsive decisions with a decreased level of consciousness.

In order to put this into proper context, cessation of the substance is the "easy" part; then the real work of dealing with all of this psychological carnage can begin. And given that there is a radius of impact at play, there is also a great amount of damage inflicted to loved ones, as well. This makes earning back the trust of others a long and deliberate process, but not at all impossible in most cases. Once the drinking/drug use stops, a funny thing happens in that you escape that distorted and diseased sense of reality that developed as a protective measure to justify and perpetuate the substance use. It becomes possible to view life obvectively, and while it very well may not be very asthetically pleasing in the immediate aftermath of addicton, you can begin to garner an accurate assessment of what needs to be done and in so doing redevelop trust in yourself. Over time you become accustomed to doing whatever it is that you feel is right again, which is often congruent with treating others in a respectful manner.

Acceptance of reality in early recovery is tremendously difficult because it requires a truthful personal inventory of the state of one's life. This entailed my acceptance of the fact that I was 32 years old, single and still living with my mother, which in and of itself is fine. However, in my case, it also meant that I needed to, for the first time in my life, accept the reality that I had failed to avail myself of a multitude of opporunities and relatively plentiful resources out of fear. Fear of failure and fear or judegement. Fear of my father's mortality. Fear of the day-to-day grind of being a functioning adult. These are all normal empotions that instead of becoming more adept at managing with the passage of time, one develop a proclivity for short term relief via substance use, which begins to breed dependency that infects our bodies, and spreads throughout our sense of self and psycyhe like cancer. And as the disease progresses, not only is our ability to assess life in decline, but so is our ability manage it all while the issues that necessitate management continue to mount. The reality is that you can chose to drive blind folded, but the vehcile of life can not be stopped. In hindsight, the choice of whether to drive with the benefit of sight is your's to make. Ten years ago today, on February 20th 2014, for the first time many years, I chose to remove the blind fold and actually have a fighting chance at navigating life. It was time to face the reality that my father's opportunity to see me make something of myself had come and gone and all I had to show for it was a second OUI conviction. And I only had myself to blame. I have a lifetime to live with that. It was time to face just how far I had fallen behind my peers. It was time to face the fact that my crude attempt at freezing time by blacking-out muiltiple times per week did nothing of the sort, and only left me further behind and less equipped to deal with its passage. 

The cruelest irony of all was that these were all fears that actually fostered my dependency on alcohol, and as insidious and cunning as alcoholism is, it only ensured that they came about rather than me from them.

.

Rule #2: Its not what has happened that defines you. Its what is happening and what is going to happen.

My Late Father Actually Typed This Out In A desperate Plea to End My Rumination Over the Past And Allow Me to Focus on My Future. The Rest is History and Ten Years Later It Remains Framed in My Office

Today there is a certain duality to my recovery in that I am able to compartamentalize the past in order remain mindful of it without being consumed by it. This allows me to also be present in the moment in order to focus on the current and future welfare of myself and my family. But this was not always the case. My late father spent the better part of the last year of his life pleading with me and desperately trying to will me out of the spiraling abyss of rumination that had consumed my life. There he lay dying and all he could concern himself with was me and whether or not I would be okay and ever begin laughing again like I used to. There I was so mired in self-aborption and pity that I never did take the time the make that one weekend excursion to Cooperstown to see the MLB Hall of Fame that he always wanted. Sure, I ended up asking while he was bed-ridden in Hospice care even though I knew it was too late. We mutually settled on a postponement until after a recovery that we both knew would never come.

• A) One of the primary reasons I drank was to escape the reality of his mortality.
• B) The reason I was so ill-prepard to face his mortality was that I drank. 
• C) The primary reason that I no longer drink is my ultimate ability to accept his mortality.

 If there were every a crude schematic for "dummies" as to the progression of the recovery from alcoholism, this is it. Trigger-consequence for mal adaptive response-insight and acceptance. 

Following the passing of my father, gradually the preoccupation with missed opportunity, failure to accrue potential perceived wealth and failed relationships began to subside and I was able to realize the opportunity that laid before me. For the first time in my life, I had to incur consequences without having them removed. I had a job I hated, I lost my driver's license for over a year a mere 20 days following the death of my father and yet another relationship was over. But as I finally began to slow the seemingly endless cycle of self-pity and rumination, both the present and future began to come into better focus. I could appreciate the fact that owning my behavior, accepting responsibility and emerging from this turmoil without being propped up by my father posed a unique and novel opportunity for me begin to more independently carve out a life and begin to respect myself again. 

This Momento Hanging in my office is Symbolic of the Mindset that it Takes to End the Cycle of Rumination & Fully Commit to Recovery

The time being single allowed me to focus within as opposed to my previous aversion to doing so. And actually develop a plan for my life that included going back to school to get my MSW and ultimately leaving the job that I hated so much. The key to ending misery is taking action to do something abouty your misery. Go figure-

Taking action early on in recovery represents a crucial vehicle for the shift in perspective from one that laments life to one that sees the potential of life. When I had reached that low point in my existence, I had never felt so different from the father that I respected so much and was convinced that I was that "apple that fell so hopelessly very far from the tree". But over time I began to enjoy life again and it wasn't until many years later, aided by a greatly enhanced breadth of perspective, that I could appreciate just how much like my father I really was.  He had become the man that he was by coming from a family of very limited means and overcoming adversity. And for the first time in my life, I had also perservered in the face of tremendous adversity. It is these qualities that he had so desperately tried to will into me and unseccesfully instill in me, that I was ultimately able to develop through perseverance. What he failed to tech me in life he instilled in death. The reality is that it sometimes takes a hole as gigantic as the one seared by the throes of addiction for the beam of enlightment to shine through. No one has given me my sobriety. I have earned it. Recovery from addiction affords people with a unique opportunity and breadth of perspective that can only be gleaned through enduring that unique hell at rock bottom and having the strength and resiliency to rebuild oneself from the ground up. There is a reason that the most compelling of movie scripts always feature a period of tension and doubt through which the main characters ultimately perservere. Anyone in recovery has the opporunity to write that script as long as they still have a pulse and air in their lungs. Its crucial to always remember that you hold the pen to the script for the narrative of your life and that is a temendous power. But in order to take advantage of that, it is imperative to both let go and accept the past so that all energy can be allocated towards the present and the future. "Accepting and letting go" of the past simply implies that rumination comes to an end and relaity is accepted, however, this does not prohibit the ability to remain mindful of lessons learned and therein lays the duaility of recovery. This is a delicate balance that is always refined over a lifetime and what makes maintaining this even more challening is the changes to the brain that take place during extended periods of addiction.

Rule #3: You don't need to teach an old dog new tricks. But rather news ways of doing the same tricks.

I recently had a psychotherapy client lament to me in session that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". What he was referring to was a certain rigidity regarding thought patterns and proclivities that have been forged over a lifetime that were causing issues in his life. As a recovering alcoholic, my mind immediately drew a parallel to my own personal journey through recovery and the personality traits and thought patterns that rendered my susecpitble to it. My response to him was "you do not have to teach an old dog new tricks". I then proceeded to reframe his thought pattern using a strength-based perspective that could potentially be advantageious for him, as opposed to self-defeating. This is a perspective that is directly applicable to those recovering from addiction.

There is no cure for addiction; this is why we are always "recovering" and never "recovered". The key is, much like I articulated to my client, to view the trait(s) as a strength and seek outlets to utilize those obsessive tendnecies constructively instead of deconstructively. Accept them as being a part of you because they are. In lieu of drinking, I rellocated that energy towards my passion for sports and became involved in fantasy baseball. I channeled that obsessive proclivity into starting a blog amd earning my LICSW, where I focused on my passion for meteorology much more extensively and utilized my own personal exerience to assit others in empowering themselves. I immersed myself in exercise much more intensely and refined my weight training program. Addiction and the obsessive prolcivities that drive and accompany it can not be cured, but they can be harnassed and rechanneled towards productive outlets to provide the structure necessary to continue on the road to recovery and overall enhanced quality of life. 

Conclusions

There are a few folks in my network who are mindful of my 10 year anniversary and the question of how large of a sobriety chip is awarded for 10 years has been posed. My answer is invariably four pretty damn large ones that epitoize everything that was made possible by my sobriety and the changes that were made along with it:

Its no coincidence that I was never able to remain faithful in any relationship until after I stopped drinking. I didn't respect myself enough to maintain the level consciousness necessary to remain faithful to myself, so there was just no way I could remain faithful to anyone else. But through my sobriety I now have the self-respect to honor myself and my family by treating my wife they way that I would like my own daughter to be treate done day. And four years ago on our first wedding anniversary, my wife suprised me with that elusive trip to Cooperstown that my father never made it to. 

The reality is that while my past no longer detracts from my present and future, it still provides some tearful excursions along the way during personal times of relfection, which keep me grounded. The passage of time and collection of experiences has afforded me a certain serenity through which I no longer torment myself over what has happened and instead celebreate what is happening and what is going to happen. I can accept that I just wasn't meant to figure things out until after my father passed because if I were, I would have. And I am confident that if he knew the impact that his loss would have on me, then he would without hesitation have made the sacrafice of never having met his grandchildren and his beautiful daughter-in-law. Hell, knowing what I know now, he never really met me, or at least this version of me that he would have liked to know. I'm from perfect and am still learning to naviagte the issue of loss. I still struggle with the loss of a dear friend just his past year. However, the difference is that today I have both my sobriety and my family, so I have a fighting chance-