5 Things I Learned About Addiction After 5 Years Sober
It's been a couple of years since I wrote on this subject, but the short version is that I used to be a slobbering drunk. Quitting was a huge positive change in my life that led to massive improvements in my family, finances, career, and overall happiness. Without sobriety, I wouldn't be writing for Cracked. I'd most likely be crammed into a high school barn party, playing acoustic covers of grunge songs that none of them remember, but they tolerate it because I bought all their booze for them and I've threatened to call the police if they don't pretend that I'm awesome.
The thing about quitting an addiction is that just when you think you have a solid grasp on the process, you realize that there are a ton of things happening that you were never prepared for. If you know someone who's battling for sobriety, maybe this will help you understand why they're so edgy, because for many of them, they're finding out for the first time that ...
The Addicted Mind Searches for
There's a common misconception about addicts that always drove me a little nuts: People tend to blame the substance instead of the physiology of the user. For instance, my drug of choice was beer, but it wasn't the beer itself that made me addicted. If that didn't exist, I would have been on meth or pain pills or binge sex sessions with retired porn stars. I just so happened to like beer, and it was the cheapest, most attainable substance to feed the part of my brain that constantly screamed for something to latch onto.
I know this not only from personal experience, but from talking to other recovering addicts. Once the drug of choice was gone, every last one of us found something else to obsess about. The ones who recognized the dangers chose small things like coffee, tea, and video games. The ones who had to feel a physical buzz went with things like pain pills, cigarettes, weed, and the ever-echoing screams of the lamented.
I'M TRYING TO FUCKING WATCH TV, ASSHOLE!
That's the danger. You have to constantly be aware of your actions and desires to make sure you're not overindulging on every little fun thing you pick up. That's hard for someone with an addiction-prone brain. Playing video games is fun and awesome, but playing them 14 hours a day is unhealthy and a little psychotic. It's also why a lot of therapists tell you to pick up healthy things like working out and running. The release of endorphins naturally fulfills part of that desire for a buzz, and the side effect is that you get wicked abs.
Of course, the number of people who take that advice are few and far between. The only way I'm running is if I have a TV in my hands at ground zero of a riot that I started. Personally, I'm on coffee, tea, cigarettes, video games, and binge watching old TV series on Netflix while chugging Red Bull. All at the same time. And if I gave all of that up tomorrow morning, by sunset I'd have 10 new vices, each one stupider than the last, until I ended up with a salt lick on my desk, telling people that it helps me "lick away the stress."
People Only Accept Your Commitment After a Certain Amount of Time
One of the weirdest things an addict has to adjust to is the reactions of his friends. When you first tell them that you're quitting your vice, most of them will assume that you're giving it up for a couple of weeks to detox and reset. After you've hit the finish line that they set up in their own heads, they'll show up again to invite you out. When you tell them that you've given it up for good, they'll be completely blown away. "Why? You're not an addict! You just really like heroin. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not like you're some back alley junkie like the guy we buy it from."
After a few months, they'll say that you've proven you can handle life without the booze or drugs or amateur rooftop wrestling. "That proves that you're not an addict. You should come out and get blasted like old times. If you've been clean for this long, one night of fun isn't going to hurt." If you resist the temptation, they'll once again leave, and you'll spend the rest of the night coping with the realization that your friends are collectively the devil.
After a year, it's like some switch is thrown, and everyone treats you like a hero. Especially people you haven't talked to in a while. It's surreal. "You quit? Oh, wow, that's great! I'm so proud of you!" Then it's usually followed with a variation of "I really need to quit myself. I don't do it nearly as much as I used to, but I'll occasionally still go up to the old apartment rooftop and do a few suplexes. Nothing big. Just socially."
It's such a relief when that happens, but it ends up being too little too late. Don't get me wrong -- the support is awesome. But in those first few months, quitting is hard enough on its own without other people trying to talk you out of it. That support could have really come in handy when you were at your weakest and losing the internal debate to just say fuck it and give in to the temptation. There's an extreme upside to that happening, though.
It's a milestone that lets you know that people have recognized your effort and ability to kick this thing right in its skin sack filled with balls. Just knowing that people now have that perception of you is enough motivation to continue the nut-stomping. You're no longer an addict battling for freedom. You're a normal person who overcame his demons. There's power in that.
People Want You to Diagnose Them
At a later point in your recovery, you'll be perceived as an authority on the subject. Not by everyone, mind you, but to your friends, acquaintances, and the pets that you supply voices for when you're super lonely. The reason a recovered addict gets that label is because not many of us make it. Relapse rates range anywhere from 50 to 90 percent, so someone who has beaten the statistics is somewhat of a rare commodity. People tend to latch onto that like the Internet to the slightest of assumed injustices.
The most frequent question people asked after I was into my solid grove of sobriety was "Am I an alcoholic?" The thing is, without knowing them personally and intimately, I can't answer that question. If my dad asked it, I'd be able to answer it before he even finished the sentence. And then I'd flip out, because he died like 10 years ago, and I sold my ghost-busting equipment to pay for beer at the time. For everyone else, I just don't have that kind of insight. I'm not around them when they're doing their normal routine out of the public eye. I'm not in their heads, analyzing their true unfiltered thoughts. Nor would I want to be, because ew. They tend to think that addiction comes down to the amount and frequency of use, and that just isn't true. That's just a small part of a very complex problem. It's like trying to figure out if they're good at gaming by watching what they do at the character creation screen.
More times than not, people have already made up their minds when they ask that question, and they're getting around to asking you for help or advice. Which is frustrating, because I'm not sure I've ever seen someone take the advice and put it to practical use. While I'm on the subject, if you really need to talk to someone and you don't know where else to go, go to this thread in our forums, skip to the end, and tell your story. There are tons of people in there going through exactly what you are, and they can give you legitimate real-world advice.
If you're expecting a miracle-working secret, however, you have the wrong idea. None of us, no matter how successful, has a shortcut cure-all. I frequently get the feeling that this is exactly what the advice seeker is looking for, though. All of the info is out there and easily found with simple Google searches, but the common thread among them all is "It's as hard as a golem orgy."
It's Easy to Burn Out on Your Hobbies
Boredom is a powerful sobriety killer. I talked about that in this article a couple of years ago. In it, I mentioned how important hobbies are because they keep your mind busy, distracting you from the ambush of cravings. For me, those hobbies were mainly writing (which led to this job) and video games (which keep me from doing this job efficiently).
What I didn't realize back then was that you have to be diverse in picking hobbies, because doing the same thing over and over will eventually lead to burnout. If you don't have a backup to keep you busy when you grow bored of one activity, you're going to stray into "what if" territory. "Man, I've been sober for four years. Drinking just this one time isn't going to re-addict me." It's your mind's way of trying to fill that "I have to be doing something right goddamn now" hole, and if you're not careful, you will fill it with old habits.
For me, that meant having multiple video games at the ready. If I got burned out on World of Warcraft, I could switch over to Civilization or Boner Jousting 9. If I got bored with video games entirely, I'd have a few different TV shows on standby so I could flop on the couch and relive those awesome moments where Sylar would cut the top of someone's head off while Claire whined about how bad her life is because she's immortal. Or I'd do real-life boner jousting, using my wife as my horse.
But you have to have lots and lots of things to do. Fun things. Awesome, rewarding things that don't feel like work. If you have to, use some of that money you're saving from no longer buying recreational poison. At first, you'll feel guilty buying or doing fun things just for yourself. You're used to sacrificing your time and money to the addiction and putting your real life on hold. But as you get deeper and deeper into sobriety, you'll understand that it's not only a good rule of thumb, but absolutely necessary for your mental survival.
When People Stop Giving a Shit, It's a Good Thing
So after all this, there's a pinnacle moment where the whole world looks at you and collectively rolls its eyes. It's how I imagine Morgan Freeman's character felt at the end of The Shawshank Redemption -- total freedom wrapped in a thin film of "Shit, now what?"
You get this feeling from family members first, because they're close enough to you that their filters for protecting your feelings are thinner. They'll ask how you're doing, and since you've been open about your recovery, you'll launch into that subject. Why not? It's a direct, honest answer to their question. Four sentences in, you catch a subtle sigh from one of them, followed by a thinly veiled look that says, "Christ, not this again." At that moment, you realize they're finally seeing you as just another normal person.
Normal.
That's what every addict is fighting for. We're not looking for medals, pats on the back, or even sympathy. We just want to be like every other person who doesn't have to put up with this mind-wrecking bullshit every day of their lives.
It's not a small deal for us. That journey takes goddamn ages to complete. We go from self-destruction to self-hatred. Shame, anger, extreme pain, breakdowns ... people view us as weak children devoid of willpower. People feel sorry for us, blame us, denounce us. Small towns and tight communities shun us from jobs and social functions because they assume we're trouble. But that day when people stop giving a shit is pure gold. "Yeah, we get it. You used to be an addict. Now you're not. Welcome to the adult world, pal. Now kindly suck all of our dicks, because we don't care."
It's a long, hard fight, but I'm telling you that if you have a legitimate problem, the journey is totally worth it. And remember that you're always welcome in that thread I mentioned earlier. Here it is again, if you're too lazy to scroll back to it. They'll support you when you need it and call you on your bullshit just the same, because they know what you're going through. But that rooftop wrestling thing? You might want an actual professional to help you out with that one. That's just fucking weird, dude.
John is an editor and columnist right here at Cracked, with a new article every Thursday. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.
