Category Archives: addiction

Honesty: Addiction’s Greatest Fear

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Addiction has one simple goal – murder life.

In the meantime, it will feast on your life, people in your life, and destroy anything and everything in its path. As discussed in the previous blog post, secrecy is its favorite fuel. The extent of your silence, the degree to which you are leaving things unsaid, the measure of your dishonesty is, in truth, an accurate measure of the distance you need to travel to get well, to be free. Free to be you, finally and gloriously, you.

Honesty is, if not the most powerful weapon, one of the most powerful weapons you can use in your war with addiction. Addiction cannot survive when faced with honesty, real, rigorous honesty which includes being open about what is going on.

Know this: whether you are the alcoholic-addict or you are a friend or family member, the extent to which you hide or don’t admit what is happening reflects the danger you are in. The sunlight of honesty slays the vampire of addiction. Let the light in. And if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, consider two things. I am seven years sober because I have learned what an extraordinary and honorable friend honesty is. My younger brother could never get himself into the light and I missed the signs. What happened? When he was 23 he put a rifle to the side of his head and fired. I was 24. There are no happy endings without honesty. and openness. You drive away or hide from the honest people in your life, you drive away and hide from your allies.

A warning. If you do call attention to the presence of the addiction, you may get wounded. Some find it easier to shoot the messenger than deal with the message. But mark my words, however difficult the message may be for you to deal with ain’t shit compared to the wrenching pain and destruction addiction will inflict on your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Do you hear me?

Secrecy: Addiction’s Favorite Fuel

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Hoping to heal from the deadly grip of addiction without revealing what is going on in your life is like asking a doctor to make you better without revealing your symptoms, or asking firefighters to put out the fire without telling them where the flames are. It can’t be done.

Addiction – which includes alcoholism, folks – is a vicious, nasty, deadly, thing.

There is a well worn and accurate expression in 12-step programs that says, You’re only as sick as your secrets. It’s true. The extent to which you are keeping things hidden may be an accurate measure of how far you need to travel to get well. A simple fact to understand? Yes. Simple to reveal what is going on in your life? Anything but.

For the moment, think of secrecy as darkness, the absence of light. Addiction grows with a vengeance in the darkness that is secrecy. It sinks its poisonous tentacles deeper and deeper into the flesh of your being and workings of your mind until it is the conductor of your daily life. Conversely, if the movements and patterns of addiction are brought into the light, it will perish if it is kept there. Keep in mind though, when first brought into the light it will get angry and strike back, often attacking those who’ve revealed its presence in the hopes that they will be villainized and driven off so addiction can slink back into the darkness of secrecy and resume its role as the daily conductor (destroyer) of life.

One thing I have noticed, and I am quite sure I am not the first to notice it, is this. The use of secrecy is often driven by the wish to avoid the anger of others. I know this to be true because I’ve lived it. Anything, please, but having someone angry at me. Anger becomes the controlling presence and, in doing so, promotes the use of secrecy. You’ll hear, I drank today but please don’t tell my wife, she’ll get mad at me. And so you don’t tell his wife because, you tell yourself, you are keeping a confidence. I actuality, you have chosen not to tell his wife that her husband is continuing to take poison. And what is the underpinning for your secrecy? Your fear of enduring the anger you will no doubt absorb when you make the sober choice and let his wife know because if you don’t tell her you are enabling the disease that is trying to kill the very person who confided in you in the first place.

It is hard, deeply hard, not to take the anger personally. Anger hurts when it is aimed at you. Even when you know it comes from the addiction, it is deeply painful, especially when it is inflicted on you by people you love. But there is another expression common in 12-step programs: this too shall pass. And it will. In the meantime, use love and patience and honesty to the best of your ability. Stay in the moment you are in. As a close friend once told me, the moment you are in is the only place you have to be.

Look, none of this is easy. There are no pain free ways of freeing yourself from addiction. I wish there were, believe me. I recently celebrated seven years of sobriety and it has not always been a cakewalk. Helping others, while anything but a cakewalk at times, is well worth it, and helps me shore up my own sobriety, even when I make mistakes, albeit honest well-intentioned ones, along the way.

REFLECTIONS AT STOKES

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In a quiet cabin in New Jersey’s Stokes State Forest my mind can unclench and breathe. This year has been the most grueling one for me in many years. However, lest you think I am on the pity-pot, think again. When one begins to break free of the emotional bruising of betrayal, and proceeds to fracture the grip some of the greedy have had on his (or her) life, a welcome sense of freedom and possibility emerges.

This sense of freedom and possibility is an independence reborn. In the magic place linked so powerfully to my father, I can sit and watch the flames dance in the wood stove and let my mind, heart, and soul, relax, breathe, ponder the possibilities. And there are many.

I am rethinking all my connections and relationships in life. I think I remain linked to some more out of habit and ritual than need and desire. I don’t know how this process will tease itself out, but it’s just a matter of time before it does.



I am starting with those things I know for sure. The realities that are, for me, the non-negotiables. Realities I will not relinquish and, in some cases, defend with my life.



My friendship with Michael Sulsona along with his sons Vincent and Philip will never end. We are all more than friends. Michael and I refer to each other as brothers from time to time and the boys have grown up calling me Uncle Peter. And they are, in my heart, my nephews.



There are others in my life who I love very much too. But those who know me well and know me deep, know that Michael and his boys have a place in my heart and soul like no one else. Why? We are, in the real heart-meaning of the word, family.



There are other non-negotiables as well. An obvious one would be this; I will give up my sobriety for no one. Moreover, I will, with all my might continue to work against our society’s addiction to violence as well as the right every person has to be who they are fully and safely in the world. In other words, I will not set aside my penchant for working against the unhealthy forces of bigotry. I can tell you that I am taking a look at how best to do that.



Anyway, enough for now. I’ll talk to you more soon, in the meantime, be well, take care of yourselves…and remember to live.



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STRENGTH & OUR ADDICTION TO VIOLENCE

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I will soon call an extraordinary man who has reached out to me to talk about our shared desire to see our culture’s addiction to violence decrease, if not vanish all together. Particularly the grip this addiction has on so many of our young people. I am deeply humbled by his request to connect with me.

I wanted to talk a little about this addiction to violence.

Before I do, let me relate a fairly well known piece of American Indian lore. A warrior goes to his chief and says, “Chief, I have two wolves battling inside me, the good wolf and the bad wolf. Which one is going to win.” The chief says, “Whichever one you feed the most.”

There are many forms of nutrition for the good wolf, chief among them, perhaps, is honesty. Honesty may be the greatest form of nutrition for the good wolf, dishonesty, the favorite dish of the bad wolf.

Having said this, let me say that I have both received and delivered violence in my life. I am no saint. Yes, it has been many years since I have delivered any, but I have put men in hospitals and my violence destroyed my first marriage. And my first wife was, without question, one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

But addiction to violence is like any other addiction. You cannot get well by yourself. You cannot do it alone. The sobbing man who swears he will never be violent again is no different that the ashen faced vomiting alcoholic or addict who swears they’ll never use again. The can all pass a polygraph in that moment of gut searing agony, but unless the get real treatment, the man will be violent again the alcoholic and addict will use again. It is as simple and horrible as that.

And far too many people never choose to declare war on their addiction and by doing so, discover the wondrous relief when you realize how truly wonderful it is that you don’t have get well all by yourself. And life free of addiction? Well, it doesn’t get any better, I can tell you that.

There are many reasons for our penchant for violence, and I do not pretend to know them all. But I do know that one of the reasons we are, as a culture, crazy-addicted to violence is this. We are raised to believe the following is true. Your ability to inflict violence is a true and accurate measure of your strength. Is that true? No. It’s bullshit.

We are taught that crying is weak, admitting we are afraid is weak, admitting we lack knowledge in one are or another is weak, walking away from a challenge to fight is weak. All not true. How do I know? Try these questions on for size.

– If it’s an act of weakness for you to cry, then why is it so hard for you?

– If it is an act of weakness to admit you lack knowledge, then why is it so hard for you to admit it?

– If it is an act of weakness for you to admit you are afraid, then why is it so hard for you to admit it?

– If it is an act of weakness to walk away from a fight, then how come it’s so hard for you to do it?

The discovery these questions lead us to is this truth: real acts of strength are not pleasant. Real acts if human strength are not easy and they are not pain free. But they are rewarding and freeing.

Consider this. Few human events take as much strength as the strength a woman displays when she gives birth. Yet, I dare you to walk up to a woman in the middle of labor with a mic in hand (make it a mic with a cord so you can pull it out from where she is going to put it) and ask her, Do you feel strong right now?


The people in our country, the youth in our country don’t need support in getting free of their addiction to violence. They deserve it.

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WE OUGHT TO JAIL FEAR

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I live in fear every day. Some days more than others. Like the London fog, it rarely leaves. And when it does leave, it hasn’t gone far. Fear can be crippling. It is a master thief. It robs us of more than we realize.

An extraordinary song by Marc Cohn, an e-mail exchange with a loved one, and a recent discussion with a group of trauma survivors has me pondering the presence of fear in far too many lives. Like the song, “One Safe Place,” by Mr. Cohn reminds us, we all deserve a sanctuary.

Life happens to us whether we like it or not. Life, unlike people, knows no bigotry. It visits all of us. It brings us its greatest rewards if we stay open to them: the love of a fellow human being, the joy of loving another human being, the sweetness of a soft morning mist, a baby’s laughter, a piece of music that sends chills of joy riding up and down our spine and wets our eyes. Life brings fear too. There is a Life Growth phrase that says, It’s okay to be afraid, don’t let is scare you. The phrase seeks to help someone discover they have a relationship with the fear and thus have some say in the relationship. The idea is to wrest as much decision making power from the fear as possible by going towards and through the fear. Believe me, I am not always able to do it. But when I do, the results are not as horrifying as I thought they would be.

Not long after I was shot in the head in 1984 I was held up again at gunpoint and did what any sane person would do, I retreated into my home and did not leave it for nearly one year. Fear had me by the throat. It robbed me of participation in the world around me. How did I get free of it, at least to the point I could leave my home? Acceptance. Acceptance does not, I repeat, does not mean giving in to it. The equation goes like this; you have to accept it in order to manage it and you have to manage it in order to get free of it. You have to go through it.

We can be a spoiled lot at times. We want short cuts. Smokers want to defeat the cigarrette habit with a patch, hypnosis, nicotine gum, or accupuncture (I’ve always thought there should inaccupuncture too. Fairness, you know). In other words, they want to kick the habit without going through the experience of, well, kicking the habit (bet you didn’t see that coming).

There are some common sources of fear: violence, disease, death, loss of employment, end of relationship, of marriage, and so forth. But there are other fear-laden landscapes where the master thief robs more from our lives: fear of loving someone fully and allowing someone to love you. Fear of following your dreams: going back to school, picking up some paints because you’ve always wanted to paint, learning how to play an instrument because you think you’re too old or lack talent, and so forth.

We ought to jail fear every chance we get. The only way to jail it is to move through it. Will it be easy? No.

Hear me. You go through the fear and you will come out the other side. You will notice that you made it. You’re still breathing. It didn’t kill you (that’s what we think it wants to do, isn’t it?). You are alive and face to face a new kind of glory – you. Each time you go through the fear you erase more and more of its ability to control you and rob you of your dreams in life. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll paint that painting, play that instrument, love that person and let that person love you. Impossibilities become possibilities. And one of the last things in the world that deserves to rob you of your dreams and your possibilities is fear.

Remember, it’s okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. Remember to live.
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