Scott Weiland & Recovery

At the time when my teenage angst was heightening, Stone Temple Pilots were topping the charts. You bet that I had the CD and it travelled with me to college and happens to remain in the small collection of CDs I still have today. Then Velvet Revolver, etc.  I followed Scott Weiland's  career. He died in my  state of Minnesota not long ago. A death that really came as no big surprise to me. Sadly, it was no surprise.

I read the letter from his ex-wife and it really struck home to me the amount that family members suffer at the cost of our disease. I agreed with all that she had to say. So, this blog is not to glorify his death or his behavior. Rather, it is an opportunity to talk about yet another high profile death and the struggles of recovery. Maybe this is a time to talk about the "rule of thirds" I learned while in graduate school. 1/3 of people with substance abuse issues will just stop and walk away, 1/3 of people will require some type of intervention to quit and will go back and forth between active addiction and recovery and 1/3 of people will never stop.  4 years ago, I could have told you that Mr. Weiland was going to fall into the category of the folks who will never stop. 

I have to tell you that I can't totally imagine the ravages that addiction causes to family members. Addicts and alcoholics have to be the most frustrating individuals in the world. We were "normal" once, with dreams, personality, a future. Then we present one day, wrecked, doing the opposite of all our dreams, making horrible decisions, protecting our drug over everything. We land in jail, rehab, in the hospital and on the streets. Addiction plays out in such a behavioral type of way with sick thinking that promotes denial, lying and stealing all in the name of the high. 

So, why do we do this? I do believe that addiction is a disease. Those of us that suffer from addiction have a bit of a different brain. When drugs enter our system, our reward center of our brain becomes corrupted. The part of the brain that is concerned with our survival starts to give our mixed signals telling us that the drug come before everything - EVERYTHING - eating, sleeping, etc. When I am sober, my logical part of my brain sees the consequences of my actions. My reward center always is thinking of pleasurable things to do. If that part of my brain was in charge all day long, I would be doing all sorts of irrational things for a quick 15 seconds of joy. My logical part of the brain overrides and sets up some reasonable patterns in my life (aka, I won't jump into traffic to get a piece of candy that looks good). In active addiction, the communication from the logical part of the brain is diminished. The reward center is overriding the logical part of the brain - requesting that big #1 drug/alcohol is the priority. Do anything to get it. That is the disease part of addiction. We now understand the communication pattern and how the brain is reacting to drugs.

Here is the hard thing about addiction. In my first stint in rehab, I learned about the disease process and what was going on. It was REALLY nice to know that all these horrible decisions that I was making was part of a process in the brain that is well understood. For the last 5 years of my addiction, I just thought I was bat-shit crazy. I had hoped that I would be diagnosed with something that would explain how messed up I felt beyond intoxication. Well, I was diagnosed with it - alcoholism. I sure as hell didn't like that but going through the diagnostic criteria, I certainly fit every single one. 

So, Mr. Weiland and I were both offered opportunities for rehab. I went 1 time in 2007 and twice in 2010. Mr. Weiland went quite a few more times than I did. I got into recovery. He didn't make it there. Why? We know what is going on the brain. I begged and pleaded to get into treatment and relapsed within a few months? We understand addiction more now than ever yet people are dying at a higher rate. By 2020, addiction is going to be the biggest public health crisis in America. What is going on? If I wanted to get better so badly, why didn't I?

In my opinion, it comes down to each individual to make a decision about recovery. Even though I participated in a program to monitor my recovery, I always had the option to use. I still have the option to use. I finally got to a place where my fear of a life without using was less scary than the life I was living. It took some time to make the effort to commit to change everything about my life in order to get into recovery. It's not easy. It took awhile to learn all the things I needed to watch out for. No one can get me sober except for me. No one can keep sober except for me. 

In the past 5 years of recovery, I have seen several people that fall into each of the 1/3rds. I have seen people just up and walk away from drugs and alcohol. Part of me gets jealous from time to time when I see that. I had to fight like hell for my recovery. I am grateful, though, that not everyone needs to fight so hard to obtain a new lifestyle. I am happy they made a decision to live a better and happier life without drugs and alcohol. 

I see many people who need help. I see people who keep trying, again and again, pulling time together and relapsing again. I admire, always, that they continue to return to meetings, continue to reach out and continue to return to treatment. In the deepest part of their souls, they are fighting for their lives. They are working to try to find the path that works. I was on the lower end of average for treatment. I had 3 rounds, on average it takes 5-6 times of treatment. Each time I learned something more, got a new perspective and got new skills. I can't say I will be recovery forever, because I just don't know that. But, I will do my best ev

The final third, however, are the most heartbreaking. I see people like Scott Weiland walk through my door at work. I have seen people bring someone like Scott Weiland into a meeting. I see people that are literally dying of addiction right before my eyes. In transplant, I saw more than my fair share of people die from liver failure. I hear through my clients of friends of theirs who died of an overdose. I read in the paper on a near weekly basis of people dying from drunk driving. As a treatment provider and a person in the recovery community, I don't believe in giving up. However, the advice that I often give family members now is to love from a distance. Professionally, I have to do this as well. I can send a prayer and hope that maybe something changes for them. I need to be realistic too. There are plenty of people who suffer from other disease processes that choose not to get well. People with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol that do not make any life changes to support the management of their disease process ultimately succumbing to the complications. Those suffering from the disease of addiction are not different although it can be hard to see it that way because of the behavioral way that addiction plays out. 

So, this is the third or fourth entry I have written about a famous person. A few years ago, I wondered who failed Whitney Houston. Did treatment fail her? Did her family and friends fail her because they knew she was using and didn't intervene? Did she fail herself because she was in treatment enough times to know the path she was going down? Then, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I wondered why such a talent had to die alone under terrible circumstances. Then, Robin Williams. His suicide ended up being related to a dementia process that led to impulsivity and a very ugly terminal diagnosis. Regardless, he did start a conversation about recovery and mental illness. Now, Scott Weiland. My perspective on recovery and getting well has changed quite a bit. The more I am involved with addiction on a professional level, the more I realize we have a long way to go in providing treatment for addiction. That bottom 1/3rd is not hopeless and helpless. As a field, we haven't found how to tap into the motivation of the individual to see recovery as a viable option.

To end this very long rant, I respect the decision of Scott's ex-wife to remove herself and shield her children from the chaos of addiction. She was very right - his children deserved at least some effort and he did not make the decision to commit to that. When an addict or alcoholic chooses not to change, that is their choice; however, this person should not be surprised when the family distances themselves. One of the basic rules of recovery is that we cannot control things that are out of control. The choices and thoughts of other people definitely fall into the category of things that we can't change. We especially cannot change a person that does not want to be changed. 

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