The Narrative of Addiction and Recovery
The Narrative of Addiction and Recovery
I have a question to ponder. Is it helpful to demonize our addiction?
Just consider for a moment your own script around your addiction, how you see your addiction? What language do you use?
From my perspective one of great ills of society is an idea that human nature is broken, mostly but not always a religious story of having fallen and then being redeemed. In many recovery rooms (gee even the word "recovery" hints at this) the main framework is the powerless/higher power relationship.
Our recovery script will often look like, us the drinker/user/gambler....... The fallen-person Broken and unfixable in human terms, and only fixable in higher power terms. We are often at our most lowest point when we are ready for change and this makes us vulnerable for indoctrination into a story of "you cant do it but God can" We are of course unskilled and immature at living rich and robust lives but does this really mean we are powerless?
We can end up seeing our addiction as the worst thing in the world and as a counterweight non addictive recovery as the best thing ever. We can try and create a hard line between the two and hedge on the truth to get there. I think what occurs here for some is a fear based attack, an idea that we cannot give any breathing room in our thoughts and emotions to the addiction. Therefore we write the demonizing script for the addiction and the virtuous one for the recovery and try to live up to it. Is it not possible we are replacing reality with idealism, and thus in the long term are still trapped in another kind addictive behavior?
One of the main focuses of my recovery today is mindfulness, the kind of mindfulness that lets me curiously observe whats going on, without my own labels of what is good and bad. Seeing things and giving myself permission to not panic or indulge. Things like urges or thoughts are only as powerful as the labels they hold, So I try to drop the labels and understand I am not separate from them (the idea that the true person is buried underneath is a delusion) Today I can have a thought about my addiction and even miss it sometimes, then in a mindful process watch the urge come and go without being in a fearful state, from here I can calmly and rationally tell myself I don't want my addictive life anymore and get on with living.