BrendaChenowyth

Are they necessary for lasting recovery from addiction?

What I mean by quantum leap is "a huge, often sudden, increase or change in something".

I experienced a major shift where I actually began to see my world differently. It was triggered by one situation that made me very uncomfortable, and I won't get in to what it was, yet. I had to question why it made me uncomfortable and asking that question lead to a restored faith in a higher power. Everything that needed to happen went from there.

I had been in a cycle of drinking until I hit a bottom, and wanting desperately to quit, but nothing would ever change. Something had to come along and break that cycle. It shook me at my very core and changed everything. One person, a stranger, walking up on to a porch on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, changed my whole life.

In one of my favorite movies Kill Your Darlings, the character Lucien is talking about the poet Yeats' "wheel" theory, that we are all stuck on this endless circle of living and dying.. later his teacher/lover calls the cycle of patterns and routines a "wheel of self-abuse". As Lucien says, something has to happen, "You walked in here, you broke the circle - BANG! The whole world gets wider."

Is this all way too artsy-fartsy?

What I'm trying to get at, is that I believe a quantum shift is required to stop something as powerful as the addiction cycle. Or, energy flows until something gets in its way and stops it. (The alternative I guess would be entropy, gradual decline in to disorder)

Therefore, I think it is *possible* for someone to just simply make the decision that they're not gonna drink anymore, walk to the sink and pour out the rest of the bottle and never pick up another one, but I do not think it's likely to happen that way. I think an outside force is necessary.

Any thoughts? Did your recovery start with a "disturbance" from outside, or was it all inner resolve? Was it a "quantum leap" or.. what I personally would feel to be a one-day-at-a-time white-knuckle crawl otherwise.

soberlicious

This happens more than you'd think. Some people have a moment of clarity that creates a shift, and they are done. Really done. I know lots of ppl like that, here and irl.

My drinking ended when I was involuntarily placed in the psych ward. I guess you could say that that was an outside force, however, my sister (and many other people) have the same thing happen to them and continue to drink. I had a "light switch" moment whereby everything changed. Outside forces may have gotten me detoxed, but the rest was entirely an inside job in my opinion. Not that I didn't rely on others to help me in ways in my life, I did. But the onus for staying permanently abstinent was squarely on me.

Some things are a quantum leap mentally, but a rather small change in the physical sense in that all is required is not drinking. It may look to others as if people simply pour it out and it's done, however one never knows the giant leap/shift that took in their mind, or the years of inner turmoil that preceded. The breaking of the cycle looks different for everyone. How these things come about for each individual is the million dollar question.

BrendaChenowyth

There's a Carrie Underwood song I really like called Wasted and in one verse goes: Another glass of whiskey / but it still don't kill the pain / so he stumbles to the sink / and pours it down the drain / he said, it's time to be a man / and stop living for yesterday / I'm gonna face it

I like the chorus as well, and the other verses speak to leaving other types of situations that waste you in different ways. It's uplifting, but sometimes I think when we boil struggles down to uplifting words, we leave out 99% of our story.

Everybody isn't going to hear my story. I use a pseudonym here. And I guess I don't expect people to understand me and why I am the person I am.. I find that people who struggle to be present and positive have much animosity towards people who are. They can not see their way to that, and so they assume you must be faking it. How could you be positive? You never get to learn 99% of the stories of the people around you.

You mentioned people who end up in detox and still won't get sober.. I guess everyone really does have a different "bottom" point.. I'm understanding why it's necessary to get to that extreme low end before you can get out of the hole you've dug yourself in to. I envision a sling shot, and I'm sitting in it, and I want to be propelled to bigger and better things in my life, but I keep pushing back and pushing back and stretching the elastic band until finally it meets its limits and can't stretch in that direction anymore, it HAS to fire me in the opposite direction. This is why I think the people with the most pain in their life really have a gift, because the farther you are stretched by negative forces, the farther you can propel yourself towards good.

But once that happens, I think it becomes fine tuning, and it becomes a little bit of a housekeeping chore to stay in that new place.. I've been working that out.. I think maybe that is what scares people out of sobriety and back to drinking, because there's a lot of anxiety in the unfamiliar and nothing guaranteeing you're going to stay there.. except you. But you know that you also have the power to get to a very low place and stay there!

soberlicious

Yes. This reminds me of a person at work who was being really short and negative toward me. I finally asked her if I had done something to upset her. She said, "I'm just so sick of you and that f*cking bluebird you have on your shoulder all the time" lol It made me laugh because, yes, being positive can be kind of annoying to others I guess.

Yes, and what's interesting is how that varies for people. For some the extreme low is not feeling congruent, knowing that they are not acting as their true selves. That shakes them to their core and they quit. For others, like me, it takes being tied to a bed. For others, it's losing literally everything in their lives. For yet others, even that doesn't do it. Sadly, there are people who will die from addiction, never finding a way out.

I'm enjoying your posts and your introspection.

BrendaChenowyth

Another thought... How is it our loved ones often have no affect on getting us to seek recovery? We care about them, they may be everything to us.. Well, granted the addiction is everything, and even we are nothing. I think this could be because our loved ones exist inside the circle with us. When you read about codependency you find that to be true.. And enabling goes on that no one is even aware of.. It took a random stranger, and I can see that being very offensive to a narcissistic codependent that has LOVINGLY wished to control what the alcoholic does. That whole last statement was just full of contradictions, lol!

Maudcat

Very interesting thread, Brenda. My own feeling is that ocd type people are really good at quitting things on a dime. My fil decided he was drinking too much , so he just stopped. White knuckled it all the way. Unfortunately, he was sober but not recovered, if you know what I mean. Dry drunk, I guess, is the term. For me, I stopped when I realized that the drink was controlling every aspect of my life, and I was tired of it. I wanted my life back. Peace.

BrendaChenowyth

Mmhmm. I know what you mean. Still stuck in addictive thinking that has no method of control.. I was really stuck in it yesterday, my mother told me about three times while I was decorating the Christmas tree, that it didn't need to be perfect! But it did because I needed to obsess and control.

I quit drinking lots of times. Interestingly enough, sometimes the thing that makes you put it down is the same thing that made you do it, the same thing that will make you go back to it - addictive thinking. Heh. It's baffling.

I think changing a thought pattern that had nothing to do with the drinking may have helped. I was an atheist for a decade and suddenly I had faith in a higher power! BAM! Something broke the circle, my world cracked open!

SoberCAH

I appreciate your bring up this notion.

I had several true epiphanies along the way to sobriety.

By that, I mean conversations and experiences which were truly life-changing.

It all started for me on the day I actually sought help from my drinking.

The day of my surrender.

The day on which I decided that, even though alcohol had become like oxygen to me and I really didn't want to try to get sober, it was the only choice that I had to keep from losing everything of value to me (for me, it was my career).

During those soul-searching times, I had a handful of truly enlightening conversations that I remember to this day.

They may have been trivial to the other participants in them, but they seemed to explain everything for me.

I believe that God put those people and experiences in my life.

August252015

To soberlicious's point- I am one of those people who said "Bam." Done.

Cold turkey, bottles down.

Development as a person since? Gradual and ongoing.

Eye opening and life changing notions and ideas? Oh, yeah- lots of realizations of the ESH variety.

Something greater than myself at work? Yep, God- my HP per AA lingo.

Things beyond my comprehension going on? Indeed. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." - 1 Cor 2:9

I read this today and it was impactful: "First the fall, then the recovery from the fall, and both are the mercy of God." - Julian Norwich.

I was very sick, mind and body, and completely away from all that is honorable, reasonable, highest, good - now I am in recovery, and getting "better" and more "whole" every day that I work at it.

If you consider just quitting cold turkey a quantum leap, then one began my sobriety. For me, it's just what I did - I knew it was the only thing to do because I did not want to die and I finally accepted that. The "leaps" and momentous things are now the promises coming true (per AA lingo) and the opportunities, relationships and more that are happening in my life. Do I need them to continue my recovery? Not in the literal sense as in if they don't happen, I will drink; certainly in the sense that I will continue making myself "open" to them by maintaining spiritual fitness.

cure4sleep

The quantum leap experience that everyone here is sharing might be a hypnotic experience. Something captivated your attention and entered deep into your subconscious. For me, experience like that never last long. Maybe I have too many epiphanies (my ADHD) which made me flip flop a lot. Too much of a good thing I guess.

I can imagine people who chase after this experience finding it frustrating, especially with so many former addicts having moved on from the addiction with mysterious experience like that, which seems to forever exclude them (the chasers).

But have hope! Read "Andrew Carr's Easy Way to Stop Drinking" (check it out on Amazon). It creates that kind of experience for most people who read the book. They said it was effortless. No willpower required. I read his other book on how to quit smoking, which was like hypnosis to me, but it makes sense too.