Addicted to Addiction

There was a blog entry that I started writing in the fall when I was still counseling full time. I titled it "I hate addiction". Honestly, I was so emotionally charged while writing it, I decided not to post it. The entry became more about my inability to accept certain things that were happening at the time. At the start of the entry, I thought I was hating addiction that day. I think I was more hating life at that point. I thought now might be a good time to circle back and think a bit more about my feelings toward addiction with hopefully a more even perspective.

I remember writing years ago about one of my first AA meetings after I enrolled in the monitoring program for my LPN license. It is important to know that I was in a very angry place when all of that went down. I wasn't grateful for much at that moment. I am sitting in a "now required by my stupid program to keep my nursing license" meeting and the guy next to me says, "Hi! I'm Tom and I am grateful alcoholic" during the round of introductions. What the hell is wrong with this guy? Who is grateful for being an alcoholic? Are you serious one because most of us hate being alcoholics? 

What took me some time to realize is that dear Tom was grateful for a couple of reasons. One, being an alcoholic is part of who he is and he has caged that beast for now and is living a good life. When addiction has dragged you into the depths of despair and sobriety starts to happen, a person starts to feel hope again. That's a powerful moment. He was grateful he survived and he was grateful for the lessons he learned in his recovery to take back his life and keep alcohol out of the picture. For a brief period in 2012 and 2013, I did feel like a grateful alcoholic. There was full acceptance that drinking was not the way to live my life anymore. I was learning SO much in recovery that everything was exciting and different. I was participating in DBT and using what I was taught on a weekly basis. Life was back. I was living and surviving it without my favorite and dangerous coping mechanism. So much to be optimistic about!

My views haven't inherently changed. I believe there is a lot to be grateful for in my personal recovery and the fact that I am an alcoholic. My recovery is now a huge part of who and what I am. I don't do it perfectly, but it's a heck of a lot better than what I would have done had my drinking continued. I have accepted that I am an alcoholic. I have accepted that long-term recovery is my life choice everyday. I have accepted what I lost because of addiction. I have accepted the changes that needed to happen to get to almost 10 years of sobriety. Acceptance is one of the key foundations of recovery whether you are in AA or not. At some point, we have to accept that we don't have all the answers and it might be time to get help. 

The struggle with acceptance is that one day I am fully accepting of most situations and things around me. There are other days that this acceptance fades and I have to make a conscious effort to get back to the place of acceptance. So, back to my previous blog post: Now that I am back in a great place with my job and still being connected the field, I feel like I can more authentically say that I still hate addiction. Let me tell you why. Addiction destroys lives. Addiction steals people's souls. Addiction almost killed me. Addiction still lives in my brain and eagerly waits for a time to shine again. Addiction wrecks families. Addiction kills. The road back from addiction is a long one and there are very few shortcuts to sobriety. Addiction exacerbates mental health issues. Addiction steals parents from their kids and kids from their parents. 23 million people are dealing with addiction on a daily basis (actively). 2 million of them have access to services. It feels like a losing battle. So many systemic issues. So much misunderstanding. So much misery. I hate that addiction is going to rise to #1 in the preventable death category soon. I hate watching my fellow brothers and sisters who are still suffering and knowing that there is only so much that I can do. 

Was this what made me leave counseling? How can I work with something I hate so much? That doesn't sound like the world's healthiest situation. There is perspective to be had here. If I view my job exclusively as fighting addiction, yeah, I am going to burn out. The outcomes of working with clients and addiction are low depending on how you define sobriety and recovery. The other perspective is looking at supporting clients to find recovery. That feels a little bit lighter and hopeful. Let me be real here, I lost that sense of hope for people in the last year I was working. The attitude was more "Oh now what?" versus "What happened and what will help you?" It's an odd thing to hate something so much and then immerse myself in addiction recovery services as a career and personal crusade. 

I hate addiction. I really do. I feel like my place in this world is to show compassion to the person. I think ALS is the most horrific disease I can think of; I would never stop loving the person who was diagnosed with it. The challenge is finding the "right way" (if there really is one) to love a person suffering from addiction. Part of that complex process is figuring out what it will take for the individual to push aside addiction for even a few moments to see the clarity of their own situation. I hated addiction in the beginning of my career and I hate it now. What I cannot tolerate from myself is losing the compassion for the person in front of me. I often felt like I was swing a sword in the dark trying to help people coming through emergency services. Watching people lie to my face about their use despite actively dying from addiction in front of me. In the beginning I didn't judge that behavior. Hell, I did it too! "Oh, I only have 2 drinks and evening." Which is true if 1 drink includes 1/3 of a liter of alcohol per drink. 

I started to judge. I made value judgments on people who were sick. I made moral judgments as well. Then, when I caught onto me doing that, I started judging the myself. What kind of clinician has such disdain for the condition she spent 2 years getting a masters degree to treat? Is all of this just making me lose my faith in humanity? Am I THAT burned out? What happened....I was so optimistic in the beginning. The great life of recovery is out there and I am going to help people see that! Yeah, well, only if they really want to. In the position that I was previously working, very few really wanted my help. I got manipulated from time to time. I got bullied by patients and family members. I got beat down. I may have been good at my job; however it came at great personal cost. 

So, tonight, I still hate addiction but love working in a treatment center with 34 individuals who are battling not only chemical dependency but also mental health issues. In my nursing role, I do not have to dive into every aspect of their lives and learn what makes them tick. I know the behaviors that come along with addiction. I still get played from time to time. I know some of my patient are full of it and have no desire to be sober. The big difference now is that their motivation and desires for recovery are not my concern. I can talk with them about either of those things, but I am not obligated to do so. I am there to assist with the health aspect of their recovery. I am there to educate about medications. I talk directly to them about addict thinking and behaviors. Most importantly, I ask every person, everyday, "How are you?" In this position I can care about the individual and show compassion without losing myself in the process. I can hate addiction and yet not be consumed by it. In a way, I am loving addiction from a distance. Addiction is going to do what it is going to do with my patients. It is not my battle to fight. I just want them to know at the end of the day that I really do care how they are doing. I can't change it - I accept that. I can only listen - I accept that. I can't make them change - I accept that. I will always have strong feelings about addiction and what is does - I need to accept that this viewpoint is not fixed, it has more fluidity as I engage, disengage and work around addiction.

I am grateful for many things now of days. I am so happy with my job. I am in my 5th month already. Time is flying by. School is plugging along. I decreased my credit load a bit which will push out my graduation date to 09/2021. My sanity is more important than overdoing a bunch of quarters to get it all done. I am in no rush to move on from where I am at. My own addiction has steadily calmed down since my change. What I am most grateful for is that I found the right connection to the field. I am still passionate. I still feel like there is something big out there for me. I hope someday I could speak professionally as public speaking is one of my favorite things to do. Or maybe teaching. Hope has been restored 100% now. I thank my previous coworkers for walking my journey with me as I sorted this out. I wasn't always the kindest or much fun to be around in those years. I miss those guys A LOT.  

Stay healthy and safe everyone!
​Jules