Not Addicted Enough- The Rebuild Week 12

How my fear of other people's opinions prevented me from getting sober sooner.

I knew for a long time before getting sober that one day, I would more than likely reach a point where I would have to make a very hard decision about my drinking and drug use.

I knew this because of the way I would use drugs and alcohol differently from others. In my early 20s, when I was taking a lot of speed, my friends would use drugs and alcohol to enhance their experience, but it was a little different for me. I remember sitting in the backyard of our share house on a Saturday afternoon. We’d all be drinking and having a good time. Soon enough, we’d all start taking speed to turn things up a notch.

As the sun would start to set hours into a session, the guys would often start getting restless. “Let’s go do something. Let’s see what so and so’s up to. Let’s go out”. I would never want to go anywhere or do anything other than what we were already doing. Just sitting around in good company, shooting the shit. Some weekends I would sit under that same back patio from Friday afternoon through to Sunday afternoon, with different people coming and going to join me at different times.

All I wanted to do was feel as far removed as possible from the stresses of my day-to-day life. I just wanted to sit there and not feel the things I felt when I was sober. I didn’t have a lot of interest in busy public places or large social gatherings.

Although I got close at times, I was never an everyday drinker or drug user. I was more of a weekend warrior who eventually allowed weekends to start on Thursday nights and finish on Monday mornings. Leaving only Tuesday and Wednesday to be sober.

I found it almost impossible to stop once I had started. At times, I would feel what felt like the weight of the world come off my shoulders after only half a drink. The relief I felt was amazing. It was like with every drink, more weight would be released. I’d invest a lot of time and money to get to this place of bliss. Why would I want to sober up and have that taken away from me, to go back to a place that only made me miserable?

Although I wasn’t able to define it back then, I knew something wasn’t right. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and put on an SSRI medication. Being a naive 22-year-old, I figured this magic tablet would make me happy and squash the desire to escape my reality. I also thought the environment I was in was contributing to my behaviour. So armed with this magic tablet, I moved states, assuming I’d done my part and I I would never have to face these issues again.

Of course, things didn’t pan out how I had intended, and over the coming years, my issues with drugs and alcohol ebbed and flowed. The severity of my substance abuse was almost always correlated directly to the state of my mental health. As I moved around the country over the next seven years, I used drugs and alcohol as a way to make friends. It was the only way I would feel comfortable enough to put myself out there, and I didn’t realise just how hard it would be to make genuine friends as an adult. The kind of bond you can build with a stranger over a good 48 hours bender is amazing.

There was one thing that used to happen that still haunts me to this day. It’s one of the biggest motivators for me to maintain my sobriety. I call it “The Fuck It Switch”. Sometimes when drinking or using drugs, I would subconsciously flick the fuck it switch. I would just have this overwhelming feeling where I wanted to get as fucked up as I could, as quickly as possible. It’s scary because once it happened, there was nothing that could stop me from making the wrong decision wherever I was presented with one.

I didn’t care about anything other than myself and getting fucked up. Nothing else mattered. Not how much money I spent, when I had to front up at work next, how sick I would be the next day, how upset my partner would be at me for coming home a day later than initially planned, who I woke up at 3 am with annoying phone calls. It was like I had lost control and was being taken for a ride by someone or something else. I think that’s the scary part because I never knew when it would be over or how much damage I would do to myself, my relationships with people or my bank account while I was on the ride.

At the time, though, I fucking loved it. I loved not caring. I loved checking out from the everyday stress and wiping my brain of all the bullshit that would occupy my mind day to day. For that period, I stopped caring and worrying and it felt amazing. I wasn’t stressed about money, whether my partner was upset at me or not, whether I was actually comfortable with what I was doing or not, or whether I was conducting myself in a manner that I would be ok with the next day. It felt so good to rid myself of that stress temporarily.

Of course, when I eventually did sober up, I’d be hit with all of those same stresses I was avoiding but only harder. It was like they’d been away and done a course of steroids and come back even stronger than before, and in my frail state of mind, I was more susceptible to them kicking my arse. I have always likened a bender, more particularly drug use, to borrowing happiness from the future at a high-interest rate. One or two nights of drug and alcohol-induced escapism would usually equate to three to four days of misery and a compromised cognitive ability. I always knew that it was coming. But it never stopped me. The temptation of escape would outweigh the potential threat of days of misery.

It seems silly to do something so damaging to yourself. To do something that only compounds the feelings that you’re trying so hard to escape from. Logically, it makes no sense at all. But that’s the power of the emotional and/or addicted brain sometimes.

Even during my most recent struggles, which were the catalyst for my getting sober, at a time when I had a better job than ever, had our own house and had a baby on the way, I knew what I was doing was not productive and didn’t align with the goals we had as a couple, but I couldn’t seem to win that inner power struggle and make better decisions. If these things couldn’t motivate me enough to make the right decisions, then I wasn’t sure anything could.

On reflection, I can see that I have never had enough healthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Apart from a three-month period when I was 23, I’d never not drunk. Looking back now, I can see that whenever my substance abuse was at its worst, it was in a higher stress period of my life. I think most, but not all, cases of addiction are simply people who haven’t learned or built healthy coping mechanisms and fall victim to a vice to help them cope.

When I reflect on the last 18 years of my life, from when I first started drinking regularly, I feel a bit silly. I can’t even say that I didn’t realise how susceptible I was to substance abuse problems. It’s been a fear of mine all along. I know what I am like. When I find something I like, I become obsessed with it. I knew I would be susceptible to it and fell into the trap anyway. I’m the kid who touches the hotplate to check if it’s actually hot, against all advice and then gets the shits when it hurts. It’s almost like subconsciously, I needed to know for myself. I’ve never been one to learn from the words of others, and if I had a dollar for every time, someone said, “I told you so”, I would have, well, let’s be honest, probably spent more money on drugs and alcohol, but you get the point.

As I rack my brain trying to uncover why it took me so long to sort my shit out finally, I keep landing on this, “I wasn’t addicted… enough”.

Feeling like I wasn’t addicted/depressed/anxious enough is a common theme in my life. I sometimes remember being miserable and thinking that even though I’m not happy, I’m not miserable enough to get professional help or even let someone know about it. Maybe this is just how life as an adult is. I thought I wasn’t addicted enough to do anything about it because I was still functioning relatively normally, or at least I had deluded myself into believing that I was.

I had a good job, we’d bought a house, we were paying our bills, and we even started to save some money. After 12 months of trying, we finally had a baby on the way. Everything was fine from the outside looking in, so I deluded myself into believing just that. If things appeared to be okay, surely they were okay, right?

I knew enough about addiction and substance abuse to know that this next part is horse shit, but I felt like, “How good is this? I’m managing work, we are managing financially. I’m getting fucked up regularly, and no one has a clue! I’m getting away with it!”. Ultimately, I think I was telling myself whatever I needed to hear to justify my behaviour.

But I did feel like these reasons were enough for me to classify myself as not addicted enough to do anything about it. Naively, I used to think addicts were the homeless people you saw on the streets living in garden beds under a plastic tarpaulin. Movies and Tv shows had me believing that addicts were people in rehab facilities or people sitting on plastic chairs in a circle in a desolate, poorly lit hall that was strangely big to be holding such a small meeting. I thought addiction was when someone got so sick that they needed either family or medical intervention because it was tearing their and their loved ones’ lives apart.

I thought that if I told people I was struggling with substance abuse problems, they wouldn’t believe me because, from the outside looking in, I seemed to have my shit together. I was worried that I wouldn’t be taken seriously because I didn’t have scabs on my face or wasn’t gauntly thin. I was comparing myself to the generalised stereotype of an addicted person I would see on Tv. I thought that maybe I wasn’t desperate enough in the eyes of others, and that would mean no one would help me.

But this is the absolute low of addiction that is dramatised by the media we digest for extra dramatic effect. Addiction looks so different to this for so many people. It starts so much earlier than most people realise. That’s the evil of it.

Often it’s got a hold of you before you even realise it. I think that’s why we come to the conclusion that we aren’t addicted enough to do anything about it. We believe we have it under control. But it only takes one or two unusual, stressful life occurrences or a flare-up of some old trauma for things to start spiralling out of control.

Terry Crews said, “Addiction grows in secrecy”. When I heard that, it hit me like a bus. It’s so true. Addiction is a plant that thrives in darkness and is fertilised by the vice itself. We feel shame about our addictions and don’t want people to know about them.

As a kid, I was ashamed of my weight. I was never an obese kid, I just never really grew out of my baby fat. I would sneak out at night time and eat snacks while everyone else was asleep. I started tricking myself into believing that if no one else knew about it, then it didn’t really happen.

I felt the thrill of getting away with something I shouldn’t be doing as well as feeling the dopamine hit of whatever sugary snack I’d just darted back to my bedroom with. As a 33-year-old construction supervisor with a partner, mortgage and baby on the way, I felt the same way, but this time about drinking and doing cocaine. The fewer people who knew about it, the better it felt. I was getting away with a lie that made me feel good, albeit temporarily. In turn, I had to deal with the shame and guilt that comes with living that lie.

My belief that I wasn’t addicted enough to take action was fuelled by the fear of facing reality along with being externally motivated. I’ve always been a people pleaser because that boosts my self-esteem. I’ve always put others first and thought, well, if everyone else is okay, it doesn’t really matter if I’m okay or not.

I have realised, though, that I am of more value to the people around me when I am also okay. For me to be okay, I need to do things that motivate me intrinsically. I wanted to be better but wanted to look after everyone else first. I had it the wrong way around.

Only when you open up about your addiction can you start to do something about it. It’s not until you open the doors and let the light in that you can start to wrestle back some control over your addiction. The other day I heard another quote “Shame can’t survive empathy”. Meaning if you open up and share your shame in an empathetic environment, the shame will dissipate. You need to choose very carefully who you share that shame with and ensure that they will be someone who will help to create an empathetic environment for you, but once you have created or found that safe space, you can start chipping away at and ridding yourself of that shame. This is why AA is so successful.

I know that this is true because I have experienced it myself. I shared my shame with my partner, my psychologist and, in part, all of you. It’s another addition to the long list of shit I wish I had known long ago. I was so afraid to admit to anyone that I was losing control. It’s difficult as a man to admit that you are becoming overwhelmed and struggling to cope. I was about to be a fucking Dad. I’m supposed to be a pillar of strength. How am I going to tell anyone that I am not looking after myself, let alone my partner and unborn son?

In the nearly 15 months since my breakdown, I have learned far more than any other period of the same amount of time in my life. I know that true strength comes from vulnerability and admitting shortcomings, which is what I will teach my son. Not this macho, “boys don’t cry” bullshit.

I believe most things happen for a reason, usually when the narrative suits me. Furthermore, I believe they happen when they do for a reason. I don’t regret anything in terms of my drug and alcohol use. I once lost a job because of it. It drove me to the lowest point of my life. I don’t regret it because if that extreme low point had never happened, maybe I would still be bobbing along, getting drunk five days a week and doing cocaine every weekend.

The breakdown I had last easter was my own version of exposing light to the plant that strives in darkness. I’ve never been prouder of myself than I am today. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and still have a long way to go, but I am most certainly on the right trajectory.

If you take anything from this blog, I want it to be this…

Your problems, feelings, thoughts, and struggles are enough. They are valid and need to be both heard and worked on. I know I said I wouldn’t change a thing, but hopefully, someone can learn from my mistakes. Hopefully, reading this makes someone think, “I’m not comfortable with my behaviour, even if it’s only a slight discomfort, I’m going to talk to someone about it and try to make it better”. I feel like I’m not the only one in the sober community who will say that they didn’t think they were addicted enough to do anything about it. I think that in itself tells us that if you have the slightest concern that you’re starting to spiral, it’s worth doing something about it.

The “I don’t matter mindset” is the kind of mindset that addiction feeds off. That’s the mindset that makes you say, “Ah fuck it, not today, I’ll do it tomorrow”, the classic procrastination (avoidance of difficult feelings). It drains you of your energy. The mindset that tells you that you are worth the effort is the mindset that gives you the energy to do something about it.

Ultimately, you are the only person on the planet that needs to believe that you need help or you need to do something about it. Nothing outside of that matters. If you are uncomfortable with any of your habits, that is evidence that you should invest some energy in doing something about it. As harsh as it sounds, no one is going to do it for you, and if you are waiting for someone to do it for you, then you risk being motivated by the emotional investment of others, which is only setting yourself up to fail.

You need to be motivated to do it by yourself, for yourself. But finding that motivation all starts with you believing that you are worth the effort. Believing that your problems are enough. The longer you wait to do something about it, the harder the work is going to be. The Hollywood dramatisation of addiction is horse shit. You don’t need to be homeless, in a hospital, necking vodka at your work desk or doing lines of coke in the work bathroom to have enough of a problem to do something about it. It’s not a fucking competition.

If you are uncomfortable with it, if it doesn’t feel like it aligns with who you truly are, then it is worth investing your energy into doing something about it. Find someone who can empathise with your shame and let that light in. I know it’s terrifying, but nothing worth having comes easy. The good shit is on the other side of hard. Trust me, You won’t regret it.

Cheers Wankers.

X.

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