Category Archives: addiction

No Bigotry in Addiction

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I was in a conversation about the insanity of the disease of addiction which, of course, includes alcoholism. The conversation was with a group of friends who, like me, are in recovery. One fellow said, “Oh yeah. I remember driving drunk one time and crashing into all these trees.  I immediately realized I needed to cut back on my driving.” We all laughed because we all recognized how severely the disease of addiction mangles our thinking. The same holds true for Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen and the far too many like them, including me. When we are using we are tenaciously insistent that the responsibility for the problems and tragedies in our lives are the fault of anyone and anything other than us. Not true.

The reality of addiction guarantees that unless someone gets sober, in other words, gets well, their story never ends with the words, and they lived happily ever after.

Recent reports say Lindsay Lohan feels she is being picked on (Note to Lindsay: Don’t steal necklaces and when you are wrong, promptly admit it) and Charlie Sheen’s life continues to disintegrate.

The truth is there is no bigotry in addiction. Addiction doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether you’re rich and famous, poor, employed or unemployed, tall, short, fat, skinny; it doesn’t give a rat’s ass what your skin color is or what religion you are or what country you’re from. It has only one goal, to kill everyone it sinks its teeth into and, while it’s doing the killing, destroy and mangle every component of the person’s life.

Lohan’s enemy is not the system and Sheen’s enemy is not CBS; their enemy is addiction and as long as addiction – too often helped by its enabler-elves – can keep them blaming everyone but addiction, their stories along with stories of far too many like them will not end and they lived happily ever after.

Anywhere But Me

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Everybody’s texting, X-Gaming, PCing, laptoping, TVing, or talking on their (not so) smart phones. It’s as if we want, or are being encouraged, to be anywhere but the moment we’re in. Anywhere but with ourselves. Once we are so disengaged, we are all the more controllable. Capitalism is not democracy.  It is very much the never ending pressure to get us to spend money by convincing us our value is located in things outside ourselves, as long as they cost money.

We are inundated with the message that the more money things cost, the more “valuable” they are, and the more “valuable” they are, the more “successful” we are if we own them  in the eyes of, well, who? In the eyes of the very people who are trying to get you to buy this crap in the first place,  who are trying to sell us one gadget after another, gadgets that foster addiction. If there is anything addiction does (it destroys your life)  it keeps you out of the moment you’re in. Our physical, emotional and spiritual selves are neglected and starved as a result.

Were we truly born to fill the pockets of others and sacrifice the miraculous in-the-moment experience of our own lives?

I know of instances were people living in the same house text each other rather than meet in the same room (God forbid) and talk.  Hell, people sit in the same room with each other, each on their computer, and while away the hours without exchanging so much as a single word, other than to utter non-impressive robotic monotone nuggets like: “Fuckin’ computer’s slow” or, “Damned email won’t open.” There are pictures of people in such staggeringly beautiful places as the Grand Canyon entirely missing the majesty of their surrounding because they are on their cell phones!

And what is the upshot of all this? We are drawn away from the moment we are in in life.  We are robbed of our lives. If there is anything we don’t deserve it is to have our lives robbed by the greed and manipulation of others.

Life is too short and too precious. Remember to live the moment you’re in. As a dear friend of mine once said, “The moment you’re in is the only place you have to be.”

 

 

Special Favors Threaten Lindsay Lohan’s Life

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If news reports that Lindsay Lohan is receiving special favors in jail are true her already at-risk life is even more at risk. I say if because if there is anything I am sure of, it is the penchant of some members of the media to close-dance with rumor rather than spend time in the world of reality. The latter being something someone facing the challenge of addiction must do if they want to stay alive –and free.

Anything that gives someone facing the disease of addiction the message that they do not have to deal with reality is, in short, life threatening.  Like cancer and other diseases, addiction doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the person it has hold of is famous. Addiction knows no bigotry. It simply destroys everything in its path.

One news report claiming Ms. Lohan is getting special visiting privileges says that whenever she leaves her cell everyone else is placed in lockdown. Another report says she has been given a special room with a TV, hospital bed, and a dresser for her clothes. If any of these reports are true, Ms. Lohan is being put in real danger. In order for an addict-alcoholic, like me for instance, to get well, they must fully experience the damage the addiction is inflicting on their life. To spare someone this experience is to empower the addiction and put the person at greater risk.

Ms. Lohan is not her fame, she is not her looks, she is not her addiction. She is a human being who, unless she fully experiences the damage be inflicted on her by addiction, is, in a word, doomed. 

For those who continue to use the story never ends with, they lived happily ever after.  For the most part the media doesn’t give a damn about Ms. Lohan.  In fact, you can be sure some members of the media would love it if she died from an overdose of some kind because oh my the papers they would sell, the ratings they’d get.

Ms. Lohan, like anyone facing the challenge of addiction, is in a fight for her life. If those who love her give a damn, they will allow her to fully experience jail, and not seek to create an abbreviated version of the experience. After she is released, she should go right into treatment, her father should get his self-serving ass off the talk show circuit, and those who love her should show their love by supporting all things sobriety.

Ms. Lohan deserves to get well. And she deserves  people around her who empower her, not the addiction.

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Eight Years Sober

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If anyone told me years ago that I’d go eight years without drinking or smoking pot I would have immediately concluded they were smoking better weed than I ever smoked, and truth to tell, I smoked some good weed. But here I am, eight years sober today, July 12.

Without question sobriety is the most glorious presence in my life. All of life is here for me and I get to live it and experience  it, good and bad, as me. And isn’t that the point of life in the first place? To live it being who you are? Not some distorted version of yourself. Not as someone whose health: emotional, spiritual and physical is at risk because of the large amounts of alcohol and drugs your body is ingesting.

In my last days of using I was high on pot at all times and drinking 10 to 14 large glass gin and tonics every night. Being asthmatic, I would put myself through three or four nebulizer treatments daily so I could keep my lungs open for pot. It is a miracle I am alive.

I remember when I first went into a 12-step program, which works if you work it because if you truly work it you are wedded to rigorous honesty, I’d hear people refer to themselves as grateful recovering alcoholics. I’d hear people say this and think, Oh for God sakes, give me a break. But, I had a long way to go at the time. They knew this. I didn’t. But I do now. And now, with all my heart and soul I am proud to say I am a grateful recovering alcoholic.

I know there was a time, years in fact, when I  believed it was impossible for me to live life without the presence of pot, and, after my one mother’s suicide in 1992, the presence of alcohol. I have, however, learned a remarkable thing. What feels impossible may not be impossible. If you think it is impossible for you to be free of alcohol and drugs, you too have a right to discover that what feels impossible is not impossible, it simply feels that way.

Now, I am proud to say, it is impossible for me to live life with the presence of alcohol or pot. I love life this way.

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Thoughts on Lindsay Lohan

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No matter how you hold Lindsay Lohan’s behavior up to the light, you are looking at someone in the merciless grip of addiction.  I am a recovering alcoholic so the struggle for sobriety is not foreign to me. Continued use usually ends in, as the saying goes, jails, institution or death.  The story for those who continue to use never ends with the words, and they lived happily ever after. As long as Ms Lohan or anyone is using, life is at risk.

This week Superior Court Judge Marsha N. Revel sentenced Ms. Lohan to 90 days in jail to be followed by a 90-day inpatient rehab program to commence within two days of her release. With all my heart I hope Ms. Lohan gets that she is battling with addiction, accepts its reality, and commits to getting sober, sobriety being far more important than any waiting screen role. Apparently this is lost on Chris Hanely, one of the producers of Inferno, a so-called biopic of Linda Lovelace with Ms. Lohan slated to play the part. Hanely is quoted in PEOPLE as calling the 90 and 90 sentence “A pretty brutal judgment.”  Ms. Lohan’s parents have complained that the sentence is too harsh.

Here’s the reality as I see it. Ms. Lohan has not hit her “bottom” yet, the “bottom” being that moment when it finally hits the person deep in their center that unless they get well, all is lost. Without hitting “bottom”, no one recovers. I am genuinely sorry for the suffering Ms. Lohan and the millions of others who are battling with addiction endure. It’s hell. I can only hope those around her and those around the countless others understand that you will lose anything and everything you put before your sobriety.

As a good friend of mine, Jimmy, once said: “You’re not responsible for your addiction, you’re responsible for your recovery.” And so it is for Ms. Lohan, me, and everyone else who faces the challenge of addiction.

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