How I used rational recovery to find my way from addiction to sobriety.
My program of rational recovery is unlike any other. Not because I’m a genius and I’ve discovered the “right” way to recover, but because it’s mine, individually and perfectly arranged to suit me. As an addict/alcoholic, I was unlike all other suffering people because my experience was a specific solution to my individual pain. My story might be similar to others, the feelings of shame, sensitivity, lack of self-worth and purpose. Our escape routes might resemble one another – the way addiction snuck up over the nights of never enough and the mornings filled with unbearable regret. My trauma may even remind you of what pained you – a broken home, pressure and unrealistic expectations. All of which led to more shame, guilt, and the feeling that though I was never enough, somehow everything was my fault. But no matter how similar our paths to addiction and the ways in which we used substances to quell the suffering, we have to recognize that we our unique in our experiences. It cannot be another way. So why should we settle for a one-size-fits-all approach to recovery?
For 20 years I relied on substances, in one form or another, to help me feel like I fit in.
To fill the hole where a sense of belonging should live. I used to enhance the self I thought wasn’t creative or smart enough, wasn’t productive enough, I used to numb the self I thought was undeserving of love. The first decade it seemed like my solution was working. The negative consequences were few and far between. I learned to silence pain with the right combination of pills and pot and earned a few degrees. I had friends to fill in my blackouts and family I could count on, and I even found love. I traveled and taught, lived by the ocean (and a cash-only pill mill) and eventually married that man. We had two healthy babies before I turned 28. When the South Florida party seemed over, we moved home to Pennsylvania. But I brought my suffering and fear with me.
That unresolved trauma grew.
It silently spread over my little family and my solutions seemed to suddenly stop working. I felt like I was suffocating all alone despite the play dates and family functions. So, I drank more and asked the doctor to increase my Xanax. I thought some purpose would help so I decided to go back to school. A Master’s degree in counseling seemed to tick the boxes but as I gained psychological awareness, I felt less and less like the woman I wanted to be. The fights spilled into each semester and eventually that man and I divorced.
That same year, I rekindled a relationship with the first female crush of my life. She was the woman that I thought I’d be share myself with forever, the friend I’d loved since the third grade. She’d taken time from caring for patients to come home from San Franscisco to nurse her mother back to health after a double mastectomy. After a few short months of the most intense connection I’d ever felt, we decided to build a life of love together. With her support, I quit drinking. I thought “this, this is it! This is how the hole is filled.” And for the first year or two, it seemed I was right. We loved hard and lived creatively, but late nights gave way to all nights. I’d never considered the pills my problem so what’s a steady (and neurotically scheduled) stream of stimulants and benzos…
We seemed to give up appearances and spiraled out of control.
Eventually the inevitable legal troubles started. Our relationship strained under the weight of our shared suffering. She left. The guilt of knowing I selfishly sabotaged everything we built roared in my ears when the house was quiet. But I couldn’t stop. My life got worse. I’ll save the war stories for another time, but multiple DUI’s and the death of a friend due to overdose eventually landed me in County Treatment Court. I had a choice to make. The reason I am here telling you my story is because I was brave enough to rattle the cage my addiction built around rational thought.
The official definition according to the American Society for Addiction Medicine is that it’s primarily a brain disorder that arises in the brain neurologically due to genetic reasons. The popular belief is that addiction is a choice that we make. Just ask any addict that’s suffered legal consequences or judgement from addiction – but if that’s the case, if addiction is a brain disorder no one would choose, then why are we punished for it under the facade of preference? And further, if I believe that addiction is neither a genetic brain disorder nor a choice, then how can I proport to recover rationally?
I couldn’t stop using because escape was the only cure I’d ever found that touched the pain. Substances provided me with intense relief, though temporary, from the constant ache of living in my own skin.
That’s what addiction is: an attempt to solve the problem of emotional pain. Gabor Maté defines addiction as “a complex, psychological, physiological process which manifests itself in any behavior that a person finds temporary relief in and therefore craves but suffers negative consequences in the long-term and cannot give up.” I look to this, and I see myself. I see the years of sweet relief I found in pain pills and how much more I could accomplish enhanced by stimulants. Remembering how a drink just seemed to make my problems smaller and how one of any of these was never enough. And then I remember losing everything. The feeling of worthlessness heavy over me, making it impossible to move.
Maté goes further to argue that addiction originates in trauma and urges us to ask:
not why addiction, but why the pain?
For me this question was impossible to answer in the haze of active use, isolated and still under that blanket of worthlessness. I had to climb out. I had to deal with my addiction before I could decipher the core issues causing me pain. And though I never thought I’d utter such a statement; I have the legal system to thank for my early recovery. This may be taking things too far; in actuality it was again fear that motivated my behaviors. But that fear (of prison, of truly losing everything) awoke my rational thinking, and was the catalyst for my recovery.
Just as it sees addiction as a progressive and lifelong disease, the legal system loosely follows the 12-step approach to recovery. So that was where I ended up. With my Big Book in hand and ankle bracelets strapped tight, I followed every rule laid out before me as if there was no other truth to be found. I worked with my sponsor, wrote lists of my character defects, and made amends to the father of my children. After what felt like a world-shaking re-appearance in the rooms, I even rekindled a friendship with the woman that broke my heart. I spent months listening to people share their experience, strength and hope in church basements. Contorting myself, yet again, to feel like I fit in. I wanted so badly to fill the painful hole only authentic belonging fits in, but eventually I realized that I was falling into old patterns. Smiling through prayers with which I didn’t agree. Despite clear thoughts and a blooming yoga practice, I was still ignoring both my mind and body.
I was still ignoring my spirit.
That same week my therapist explained radical acceptance and I lit up from within. I didn’t need reminded of my moral failures. Rather, I needed to detach from the pain I’d been lugging around all my life. The words poured from my mind to mouth and flooded his little softly lit office. I didn’t like the idea of turning the behaviors I’m personally responsible for over to a God I’m not entirely sure about. I insisted that everything was not about my ego. I explained that the idea of living one day at a time terrified me because it meant I had to spend the rest of my life fearful of relapse. I knew I was using to escape pain. Until I found a way to stay sober, I’d never have the strength to deal with the root of the suffering I wanted to avoid. By this point, I knew in my bones that I was ready to live free from substances.
I knew I’d never go back.
I wanted to decide I’d never use again but, in the groups and rooms of those church basements I was taught that “the idea of planning to quit drinking is considered unrealistic, most often the sign of a disease of [addiction]. Challenging the disease concept is dangerous and can result in death. To discourage people from making a commitment to permanent abstinence, which would result in immediate and complete recovery, the recovery group movement predicts that people who take that approach will disintegrate or explode. “Dry drunk” is a fictitious condition that is said to afflict [addicts] who merely quit drinking and fail to surrender to the 12-step way of life. This condition, called “addictive disease,” is inferred from any irregularity or imperfection that may be noticed in newly abstinent people, and it is said to be progressive and fatal. (Rational Recovery, 23).
I started on a mission to find alternatives to the 12-step approach.
I stumbled onto a discussion of AVRT on a Twitter recovery space. After googling, AVRT I realized that Addictive Voice Recognition Technique was used by those who wanted a more rational approach to recovery. Jack Trimpey wrote the book Rational Recovery in 1996 as an alternative to the 12-step approach. He was fascinated with the addicts left behind. While there are plenty of points with which Trimpey and I disagree, the need for an individualized plan to attack my addiction was clear.
I ordered the book. I read everything I could get my hands on. I felt invigorated and warm with the sense of ownership and instinct. Glennon Doyle calls this feeling her Knowing. For 20 years, I numbed, ignored, and stimulated my Knowing. Then I piled a layer of shame on it by reframing it as character defects or moral failures. I realized in the rooms I was feeling smaller and unsteady. I felt the same feelings that drove me to substances.
I knew something had to change.
I knew the indirect approach that assumes my addiction is a symptom of some other spiritual, mental, or physical cause would never help me to get sober. I had to separate the two. My addiction was killing me but instead of searching for why I was addicted, I needed to find out why I was in pain. A pause was necessary to get sober and then to work on myself. To step into my truth with open eyes, authenticity, and intentionality. I needed to work on finding my purpose, becoming more congruent and more centered so life and relationships could improve. So I could finally stop slowly killing myself to solve the pain.
What is rational recovery?
It can be whatever you need it to be. Your starting point. Hopefully the end of your addiction. I welcome you to consider my explanation: a personally empowering approach to complete addiction recovery in which rational thought is used to take control of yourself now so you can spend your time and energy living in the present, enjoying life, and focusing on my mental, physical, and spiritual growth.
Today, my kids are co-parented by their father and me. The woman I loved challenges my thoughts and encourages me to keep going. The courts sat me down, held me accountable and made me finally look at the destruction I’d caused. AA opened the door to sobriety and reconnected me with the world. Rational recovery empowered me to rebuild and reclaim my life. My addiction is now in the cage and instead of suffering, I feel whole.
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