Let’s Get Physical

I wish I was one of those people that are all about fitness.  I wish that sweating made me feel fulfilled, or that I was all about “gains.”  Hell, I wish I knew what “gains” applicably meant.  Instead, I am too chicken to go to a first intermediate pilates class so that I work up to fitting in at an intermediate pilates class.  I’m far from athletically inclined, but if we are going to talk about mental health then we absolutely need to talk about physical health.  The benefits of being active are numerous and if you think that your body’s condition doesn’t affect your psychological condition then you are dead wrong.  It’s imperative that you know that the two are linked and you do the work to improve both.  Being in good physical health isn’t simply about losing weight or gaining muscle or stamina.  In fact, with people who suffered from certain drug addictions, gaining weight is the healthy improvement.  The areas that need attention are different for each person, but you need to figure out what your body needs and start giving generously.

Let’s be honest, if you are an addict, then for a period of time you treated your body more like a dumpster than a temple.  You owe it an apology. Or, at least, some green juice.  It’s not about mea culpa, though.  Livers and kidneys don’t hold grudges or resentments.  It is, however, about establishing good habits that you will employ for the rest of your recovery.  If your body is neglected, then you are also neglecting your mind, and we’ve all seen what happens when our mind is in turmoil; we reach for the bottle, we reach for the powder, we reach for anything that will give us a moments peace even if it’s the worst possible temporary solution.  Once and addict, always an addict.  A major part of recovery is figuring out the difference between what you can control and what you cannot control.  We cannot control how our brain seemingly takes the high from a substance and runs as fast as it can in the opposite direction from sanity and rationality.  We can control whether or not we give it a substance to react to and subsequently abuse.  We cannot control our impulses to use.  We can control the series of good habits and behaviors in our day-to-day routine that lessen our cravings for that false, temporary sense of comfort- which brings us back to physical health.

Any room with more than one addict is going to be an intricate mosaic of neuroses.  If our minds worked correctly then we wouldn’t have had to use drugs and alcohol to shabbily patch all the psychological holes.  Most addicts, to some degree, suffer from an anxiety disorder.  That means that our minds tend to react with panic to little things that need not be panicked about.  Our fight-or-flight gauge is still set to a time when large animals were chasing us, except when we were chasing them.  Adrenaline: great for cavemen, anthropologically vestigial for businessmen.  We get a run in our panty hose or stuck with a high interest rate, and our body reacts as if we need to run away or throw a punch.  Our nerves are shot over little inconveniences and it leaves us with excess adrenaline swirling around our systems causing us to feel constantly unsettled.  What can we do about that?  Drink.  A few sips and you feel completely at ease.  But you’re an addict, so a few sips become a few drinks, a few becomes a lot, and you wake up in a Hell of your own making, which you then begin to stress about.  You start the whole pattern of anxiety over, getting worse and worse with every passing poor choice.  What else can we do with excess adrenaline?  Use it.

I learned from my bout of chronic panic attacks at age 21 that exercise was imperative to keeping it under control.  If I exerted myself and wore my body out, I literally didn’t have the chemical combination in my system to cause a full-blown panic attack, like the ones that had previously sent me to the emergency room.  When I finally realized that I needed to get, and stay, sober, I knew that exercise had to be a major, non-negotiable part of my routine.  I had to get out ahead of my anxiety by making my body a place that was incompatible with panic.  I had a lot of reasons for my excessive drinking, but the feeling of constant panic was the most prolific and the one that needed to be nipped in the bud immediately.  I resolved to take at least 10,000 steps a day.

Fitbit makes it sound like its just the baseline for a healthy routine, but 10,000 steps is a fucking lot of steps.  I don’t see how anyone with a desk job could get it done everyday and not lose their sanity. I was lucky that my crappy summer job involved a lot of walking and I had usually hit my goal by 5pm.  Even so, I would have somehow made it happen because I was in the beginning stage of an evolution.  It wasn’t just about using cardio to lower my physical manifestations of anxiety, it was about holding myself accountable- something I hadn’t done in a long time.  Exercise doesn’t just make you feel good because of the endorphins, you also get to ride the feeling that you’ve accomplished something.  It sets you up to be in a good mood.  In early sobriety, the difference between a day where you drink and a day where you don’t drink can be completely based on whether you are in a good mood or a bad mood. 

I may be biased about the importance of exercise, but there was a point in my early sobriety where it absolutely saved my life.  I’ve spoken before about how, in early sobriety, things may get worse before they get better.  Then I corrected myself and said that things will only seem worse.  It’s true.  Resolving to get sober comes with some intrinsic motivation that you can use to stay clean for a couple of weeks.  However, when your life hasn’t magically fallen back together after the longest 14 days of your life, you get discouraged and antsy.  You start to pace in the trench of “why am I even doing this?  What am I staying sober for?”  The frustrating answer is that you are getting sober for a life that you can’t see on the horizon quite yet.  You are running on fumes, but also on faith that your struggle will be worth it in the end.  Forgive me for using a cliché, but that is precisely why addicts are asked to take it “one day at a time.”  As a recovering addict, I had a lot to live for.  But I’ll be honest- there were days when the only reason I didn’t drink was because I had done my 10,000 steps and I didn’t want it to be wasted (pun intended).  My relationships were still in jeopardy, my health was iffy, my education needed focus, but none of that could be fixed at the moment.  Things that were true in the moment were that I had walked 10,000 steps, I wasn’t feeling anxious, and I didn’t want to ruin those two things by drinking that day. 

10,000 steps is roughly 5 miles- 4 laps around Jetton Park and I wore that route completely out.  I never strayed because it was a constant that I could control in a time when I was desperate for consistency and control.  In hindsight, the variety, intensity and abundance of emotions I experienced on that trail makes the park seem like the set of an epic drama- a one-man performance of Les Miserables where I played all the characters and wore the French flag as a toga.  It was the product of being alone with my thoughts everyday for 5 miles.  I cried most days, for at least part of my trek.  If I didn’t have a reason to cry, I’d pass a tree or a picnic table that I remembered passing the last time I was crying so I’d start crying again for continuity.  I walked in the rain, I walked in the midday heat, I walked in the humidity, I even walked in the dark when I had to.  It was just an extended stroll around a park, but it was one thing I could accomplish, even when it was a struggle, and it was something I could feel good about when it was over.  When you are on your way back up from rock bottom, one thing to feel good about is all you really need.

I still exercise regularly, though my life has a lot more in it than just 10,000 steps day.  While my need for control and consistency have eased, my need to stave off my anxiety has not.  Keeping that at bay is the key to keeping my addiction at bay as well.  It doesn’t matter how you get physical, just get physical.  Our chronic behaviors infiltrate every aspect of our life, as evidenced by our downfall brought on by our worst behaviors.  So, start stacking up your good behaviors.  Exercise is the easiest and most beneficial place to start.  No one expects you to run a marathon, but at the very least you can use a thigh master at night while you’re working on a second Klondike Bar and watching Forensic Files.  I’m also a big fan of the “just in case” mentality in recovery, so maybe you do something physical everyday just in case the idea of drinking or using crosses your mind and you immediately think “No, I’ve done too much today to ruin it.”