Stigma and Context Ruin the Party Again…
I don’t frequently tell stories about rehab, because that means admitting that I’ve been in rehab, but that’s one of my flaws I’m working to accept… Anyway, whilst in rehab, I met a lot of terrible people. I also met a few great people. And I forged a couple of unlikely friendships. It’s funny-- if you want to confirm every stereotype you’ve heard about people, become a waitress. If you want to disprove every stereotype you’ve ever heard about people, go to rehab.
Around 25 days into my 60 days of being institutionalized, we got a newcomer. I had seen his type before. He was a baby: 19? Maybe 20? Age is relative among addicts, because we have 18-year-olds who have lived through more harrowing shit than a 70-year-old, and 70-year-olds who whine like children and don’t know how to do their own laundry. I digress. *Cooper was in bad shape on day 1. He was going through withdrawal from heroine, he was half sleeping/half moaning in a ball in the corner of the meeting room. He was terse, he was mean, he had that “the world is against me” attitude, and he really, genuinely, did not want to be there. I thought he would ditch within days. I also thought that his shitty manner was a permanent part of his personality, like it was with most of the children that felt they had many more years to enjoy Fentanyl and Ketamine before they needed to take a stint in rehab seriously.
Cooper proved me completely wrong. Once his detox was mostly complete, he became a kinder, gentler person. He was curious and innocent, like a sniffling baby deer. Cooper wanted to stay clean. That realization came to him when he awoke from his last overdose coma. His mother came to see him, but she wasn’t overjoyed that he was alive, like the times before. She wasn’t visibly devastated at the thought of losing him, also like the times before. He said that she was icy and exhausted. His mother wasn’t by his bedside right when he opened his eyes, they called her when he returned consciousness and she didn’t show up for another couple of hours. When she did arrive, she didn’t hug him and hold him and she didn’t call him “baby,” or “precious,” or “chub chub” (an outdated nickname because he was now a heroin-addict beanpole). She called him “Cooper” and said he could stay in her basement for a few nights when he was released. That was all.
In therapy, Cooper said that he struggled to see his life without using drugs, because he couldn’t see what his life, or his future, would look like at all. He was well spoken, but apparently he struggled greatly in school. Not just with one or two subjects like most people, but with every subject. He pulled me aside one day and asked me if I could help him practice reading. His lack of phonic ability was one of the things he had always been self-conscious about and wanted desperately to improve. I put the word out with the therapists and they all brought in the Dr. Seuss books that had lying around at home. During the frequent, extended smoke breaks the others took, Cooper and I sat in the administrative office and practiced rapid alliteration and pronouncing made-up, consonant-heavy words.
One night, at the Narcotics Anonymous Convention, we were standing in the parking lot chatting while everyone else smoked (there’s a pattern here, in case you couldn’t tell). A man marched up to us with swinging arms and trap muscles like the Himalayas. Evidently, he’d channeled his addictive tendencies into Crossfit. “Hey kid!” He grumbled, pointing a meaty finger at Cooper. “You remember me?”
Cooper shook his head.
The man got uncomfortably close to Cooper’s face, both to intimidate and to confirm his identity.
“Yeah. It is you. You don’t recognize me?!”
“No, I’m sorry…” Cooper stammered.
“You held my arms behind my back while your buddies stole my wallet out of my front pocket.”
Cooper turned pale in an instant. It was that kind of panicked realization that only addicts get—where you don’t remember doing something terrible… but you know you probably did it.
“You stole $200 in cash. I had to cancel all of my credit and debit cards. You would have gotten a lot more if I hadn’t just left my dealer’s house. I had my junk hidden in my jacket pocket or you would’ve stolen that too and really hit the jackpot.”
The man’s bulky arm swung forward at Cooper. We both flinched. Quickly, we realized that he wasn’t going for a punch, he was going for a handshake. Cooper, understandably, gave his palm and fingers an inspection before nervously reaching out his hand for the gesture.
“Listen, kid. You’re in the right place. You stay clean, and you and I are all good. Understand?”
He shook Cooper’s hand with an unintentional force that shook Cooper’s entire body. With an additional, friendly slap on the shoulder, the man walked away.
I could see the tears welling up in Cooper’s eyes and I dragged him by the elbow to the bathroom inside the hotel lobby. He let me hug him while the nerves and the shock wore off.
Cooper completely captured my wasted little rehabilitated heart. I love him like the little brother that I never had. After rehab, he lived in a sober house. Then he got a job working at the sober house, then he became peer counselor. That’s a lot of a recently sober child to accomplish in one year. Like me, he talks openly about his struggle and subsequent sobriety on social media. Every time I see that he has accomplished something new, or just that he is simply doing well, I am overcome with pride. Statistically, Cooper didn’t have a chance in Hell of ending up anywhere but dead in a motel room and then, lastly, in a grave.
Last week, on Cooper’s birthday, I sent him a message reminding him again of how proud I am and how much I love him. Of course, addict to addict, I reminded him that I see what a lot of other people don’t see. Not only is he doing his best in life, fighting to improve, making and reaching goals, repairing relationships, and following his purpose… he is doing it all while fighting a 24/7 battle against a monster that is stronger than he is, more clever than he is, more cutthroat than he is, and has absolutely no sense of humanity to hold it back. Yet, Cooper is winning.
I feel a great deal of responsibility to let other (recently) sober people know that they are seen; for a lot of reasons. For starters, it’s the one thing people have said to me lately that truly makes me feel like I’m doing something right. It feels honest, too, because it’s not a phrase people would employ in any other situation. So, when people reach out to me and say, “I see you,” it brings me great relief. “I see you trying,” “I see your hard work,” “I see you fighting,” is all I need to hear to keep going at my pace. It’s also important to say from one addict to another, because only another addict could possibly know the depth and difficulty of the battle to get and stay sober. Even a non-addict with the best intentions and empathy could not possibly know the internal chaos, misery, and strain of acknowledging and reckoning with addiction. It is beyond their meager definition of “brutal.”
Of all the people I’ve spoken with, addict-to-addict, I think I bonded with Cooper because he and I connected with a very important trait: being sober was never going to be enough for us. Rehab didn’t work for either of us the first or second time because the overall concept didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t to be honest. I say this with humble arrogance, but simple models only work on simple people. Simple people are a rehab center’s bread and butter, lets be honest. Simple people start doing drugs with no regard for the inevitable consequences. Simple people do drugs because they like doing drugs. Simple people finish an entire case of Budweiser by themselves after a long day of flipping a sign that says “STOP” on one side and “SLOW” on the other. Simple people keep drinking beer in excess because they like drinking beer. Simple people think that their problems begin and end with drugs and alcohol. Simple people are comfortable with the goal of being able to stop drinking and stop using drugs.
Complicated people, like Cooper and I, need to know why drugs and alcohol felt like the only answer. Complicated people don’t struggle with how to stop using. Complicated people struggle with the fact that when we are not drunk or high, we feel like we just got shoved out of an airplane door with no parachute. Complicated people need to know what is broken inside them so that they can mend it. And complicated people will never be satisfied with waking up sober, going to be sober, or getting through the day sober. Complicated people just need to achieve sobriety so they can move on to achieving everything else they long to achieve.
When I say to an addict, “I see you. I know your struggle. You are fighting a monster every day,” I’m not referring to drugs or alcohol. Using was a symptom of our problems, not the problem. The monster we are fighting is us. Whatever that broken piece of us was that lead to the bottle and the needle, it’s still in us and it’s still broken. I’m in therapy, but I’m still broken. I take medication for my chronic anxiety, but I’m still broken. I have sedatives for panic attacks and anti-psychotics for depressive states, but I’m still broken. Those things are just Band-Aids on bullet holes. They are Scotch Tape on a fault line. Our legal and “acceptable” coping mechanisms are all just sandbags trying to do the Hoover Dam’s job. So, when you see someone who used to drink or used to do drugs, they didn’t find another way to conquer their issues. Their sober existence is brought to you entirely by sheer will power, guts, and guile.
So, my question is, if I can be an addict who acknowledges the thankless ambition of another addict to be sober, then why can’t I be an addict who acknowledges the thankless ambition of this addict to be sober? Not just to be sober, but to be sober and have that just be item #1 on my daily To-Do List?
Being an alcoholic is humiliating. It is. Not because of what I did, what I am, what all occurred, or how I handled it, but because of what people automatically assume about me when they find out that I am an associate of addiction. If it weren’t for stigma and context, I’d feel like a warrior. I’ve been fighting an epic, invisible battle since I learned to walk and talk. I kept marching forward in life despite being bogged down with existential barricades and questions like, “why can’t I remember anything my teacher says in class? Why do I run to my neighbor’s basement when I see one dark cloud? Why do I get nervous butterflies like I’m about to go on stage when I’m just sitting around doing nothing? Why can’t I force myself to get out of bed somedays? Why do I forget how to breathe when I’m just sitting at my desk at work?
The year I had my first full-blown panic attack was the same year it became legal for me to drink so, y’all, its shocking to me that I didn’t pack up a U-Haul and move directly into a bottle for another 5-6 years after that. I took 3 years out of my 30 to do the wrong thing, but to finally feel right. I didn’t quit because it stopped working. I didn’t quit because I got bored. I quit because, when I was drinking, I made the people I love feel the way I feel when I’m sober: Nervous. Awkward. Burdened. Terrified. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
Even so, admitting that “I’m an alcoholic,” does not evoke awe in people. Rightfully so, it is a naughty thing. What alcoholism says about me to other people is that I am prone to losing control and therefore cannot be trusted. They’re not wrong, considering how easy it was to lose control and how difficult it is to maintain it. Also, they are wrong, considering how exhausted I had to be to let control slip away, and considering how hard I bust my ass every day to ensure that control of my mind, my body, and my actions stays firmly in my own hands.
When I see Cooper succeeding in his endeavors, I recognize that he is going above and beyond. Why does that not apply to me? If someone ever discounted him, minimalized his accomplishments, berated him for having been an addict without an ounce of recognition for the fact that he’s no longer a slave to his addiction… I’d take them down. Hard. Not just for being an ignorant simpleton, but because of the risk involved in making an addict feel like they aren’t enough. Yet, I let the stigma run my life. What started as a “being sober isn’t enough” state of mind, quickly became “I have to be better than everyone else to combat the fact that I’m an alcoholic.”
I adopted this theory that I have to be the best and then maybe people will take me seriously. I have to run 3 miles a day, I have to wake up at 5am, I have to work the hardest, stay the latest, read the most, write the best, study the hardest, eat the least, look the sharpest, be the quickest, be the funniest, be the most intelligent and then maybe some, not all, but some will see me as more than just an alcoholic.
Last night, I checked my academic records for the semester and confirmed that I did, indeed, make that 4.0. Irrelevant. I’m dead on the inside. I spent 3 years drinking away the belief that I would never be good enough. Now, I’m sober, I’m quite nearly the best at everything I do, and I still don’t believe that I am good enough. I think that I was frustrated with the invisible battle for a long time— no one could see how much I was hurting and I thought that gave me the right to drink the hurt away. Now, I’m sober but I don’t even acknowledge that invisible battle because I have to focus on the accomplishments that everyone else can see. As if every new accolade would slowly apply paint thinner to the word “alcoholic.”
I realized that the thing I’m most proud of, and the thing I’m most ashamed of, are one in the same. I also realized that I am not fighting the stigma of addiction—I’m making it worse. I am putting a completely unreasonable expectation on people with mental handicaps, for starters. I’m also shrinking the great divide between addict and recovering addict. There is nothing I hate more, or know to be less true than the opinion that “addicts are garbage people who choose to live that way and they should just stop using. Its that easy: just stop.”
I would never dream of saying to Cooper, or any recovering addict, the harsh things I say to myself in the mirror. “You’re just an alcoholic until you get a degree. You’re just an alcoholic until you get two degrees. You’re just an alcoholic unless you stay a size 2. You’re just an alcoholic unless you ruin the curve. You’re just an alcoholic until you charm people enough that they forget you’re an alcoholic.” Those beliefs are sick for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I make it seem like recovering from addiction isn’t the unyielding enterprise that it is. When I minimalize my own recovery, I minimalize everyone else’s too. Not. Okay. I have been there, I have done it, I am doing it, I know what a vicious, unpredictable lifestyle addiction recovery is. The only lifestyle more vicious and unpredictable than addiction recovery is active addiction.
At the end of the day, I can be vain about recovery for myself, or I can be vulnerable about it for everyone else. I don’t want to force people’s heads underwater by saying that being sober isn’t enough, when being sober is a massive undertaking. I think its alright that I want more out of life than just sobriety, but I can strive for that while also announcing to the world that “recovery is hard, and endless, and the people who make it deserve a lot of praise and a little grace.” I think “a little grace” is a good place for me to start with myself. Yesterday I achieved a 4.0 GPA. Tomorrow I sleep past 5am and give myself a little grace… and a big donut.
