“I Hate This Disease”

I’ve shared those words many times:

• When my son’s birthday comes up, and I’m sharing about his overdose…
• When my “ex” passed away this year from cirrhosis of the liver…
• When I am sharing about how much I miss my oldest son, who’s in the middle of his addiction, and literally wasting away…
• When I find out that a newcomer (that I’ve begun to care about) has just died in jail…

 I get to a certain point and I say, “I hate this fucking disease!”

*****

I have a little time after I drop off  my wife at her meeting. Maybe I’ll swing by the regional office and pick up some Behind the Walls letters (one of my service commitments is to distribute letters for sponsors working steps with prisoners through the mail).  Well, that will take me about ten minutes…maybe I should call New York “M” and see if he is available for coffee or something.  

Texts:

What are you doing at 6:30?  I’ll be in your neighborhood.  Maybe we could get coffee or something?

Sounds Great.

See you there.    

The first thing M says to me as we get in the car is, “Uhhhh, I have to tell you that I’ve started smoking pot again.”

I don’t say anything yet.

“It’s for my hands.  They are just killing me and so I thought I’d give it a try….but I just wanted to tell you first, you know.”

M is a stone mason, and his hands are always beat up.  I ask, “And how’s that going for you?”

“It’s not bad really.  I only bought two grams, and I still have a little left, and it’s been a whole month.”

I still don’t really know what to say.  You see, M is one of my closest friends in NA.  I have a private men’s group that meets at my house every two weeks, and for the first five years that we got together, M was one of the regulars.  He had pulled out of the group about two years ago, though, and I hadn’t seen him nearly as much since then.  But I have to tell you, my heart is aching by this point. 

“I told one of the guys from my AA group, but I really haven’t been back to any of my NA meetings.  You know, I don’t want to disrespect the meeting…and I’m not ready to quit again, so.”

I still don’t really say anything.

“Of course, I haven’t told my wife.  She just got twenty two month’s clean, so, you know.”

His wife and had been really struggling for years, “Yeah, that’s the last thing she needs.”

“Well, I just wanted to let you know.”

“Is it helping with the pain?”

“Yeah, well it helps a little bit for sure…and you know—its legal now so…”

Those words just break my heart.  Pot is my drug of choice, and what that means is that marijuana is the drug I used all day, every day throughout my whole life.  I also drank alcohol, did loads of cocaine, psychedelics, pills and literally anything I could get my hands on.

But marijuana has been my lover, my confidant, and my best friend.  Pot is the only one who I could share my secrets with, who knew who I really was, and who (I thought) kept me sane.  Marijuana is also very abusive, codependent, enabling, and a very destructive master.  Of course, being high helps to keep all of that negativity hidden.  This is one example of true insanity.

Just because it’s legal now…then everything is okay, right? 

I never had a problem buying or smoking pot because it was illegal—ever.  But somehow, because it’s legal now; the addiction that speaks to us in our heads tell us that it won’t be a problem anymore! 

“I hate this fucking disease!” 

“It’s legal now.”  Tell that to all the addicts whose drug of choice is alcohol, and imagine how it feels for them to walk past a liquor store on every corner, or the alcohol isle in their local grocery store.  Legal has absolutely nothing to do with it!

As the night goes on, we talk a little bit more.  Here are a few other things that M says along the way;

• “I do miss seeing my NA friends, though.”
• “Yeah, my wife and I are thinking about selling the house, taking the equity and just moving to somewhere like Mexico or something.”
• “It also wasn’t like people say…I haven’t gone completely nuts with my using again.  You know, like when your life immediately goes to crap…it hasn’t been like that at all.”
• When I asked him if he had tried CBD oil, (which is a pain reliever without the mind/mood altering aspects of the THC in marijuana), at first he said, “That’s why I started smoking again, because that didn’t work at all.”  Then, later when I mentioned a few friends of ours that use the CBD oil (and continue working their program), Mike asked, “How do you take that, by rubbing it on?”
• “No,” I say, “There are capsules you take.”

This fucking disease.

*****

When I came back to the program after ten years of using again, I learned what I had given up by stepping away from recovery.

• I learned that my ability to lie to myself and others was just as powerful as it had ever been. 
• I learned that by not attending meetings, I missed out on the support of hundreds of people who cared about me, and who had experience that I could draw from to help me with anything I was going through.  Also, that I was not longer held accountable by those who really knew me.
• I learned that by not sharing at meetings, I had no outlet to dump my personal issues; I kept secrets from others—and I especially kept secrets from myself.   
• I learned that by not working steps with a sponsor…I had no way to catch when I was lying to myself, or to make amends when I was wrong.  And, eventually, I began to think the best way to handle things was to pull away from social interaction…rather than to have to hide from those I was interacting with.
• I began to trust my higher power less and less, and eventually I stopped reaching out to my higher power for anything but help with whatever disaster was befalling me at that moment.
• Also…I didn’t see any of these things in the beginning.  I think I was expecting for lightning to strike if I used again (after thirteen years clean).  I just knew that God would somehow strike me down if I used again…but that didn’t happen.  Disaster didn’t strike, the world didn’t end, and I wasn’t crushed like a bug.  I didn’t lose my job, my house, and my family all in one week.

Life went on…and my misery was refunded, very slowly.

Today I believe that the drug of choice that you are using brings with it a certain, very specific, set of consequences. 

For instance; if alcohol is your drug of choice…then you can expect a certain set of consequences (DUI’s, cirrhosis of the liver, etc.).

If you use heroin, Oxy, or other or other opiates…then you can expect the kinds of things that come from those kinds of drugs.

If you use Meth, then…

If you work your doctors to support your prescription drug habit…then there are a particular set of ramifications that come with that kind of addiction.  If you are using street drugs…then there are a whole different set of after-effects.

If sex is your drug, or gambling, or over work, or food…or spending money; you’ll experience different kinds of misery, depending.  It doesn’t matter what you “use” in active addiction; the cycle repeats itself, with different kinds of costs. 

*****

When I began smoking pot again I cut myself off from NA, from the program, and from my friends in the program that loved me—but smoking, didn’t put me in jail.  The hallucinogenic properties of pot helped me to hide reality from myself.  I immediately began to lie to myself again, to my wife, to my children, and to every person or institution I came in contact with (I know this sounds exaggerated, but unfortunately it’s true).  This process cut me off from any real personal interaction with anyone and everyone.

 I convinced myself that the only way I could survive and support my family was to keep up these lies—and, that because my life was so fucked up, I had to get high—just to make it through all the bullshit.

“If you had my life…you’d use too.”

So for me, the ramifications of going back to using were: isolation, a distorted sense of reality, creating my own problems by continuing to use (but telling myself that using was the only thing that was keeping me sane), and not noticing how destructive “being high all the time” was…because I was high all the time.

I can see all these things happening to my friend M, just like they happened for me; slowly, quietly, destructively and insidiously. 

Insidiously means: operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect.

*****

Recently, I met a friend who was struggling with staying clean.  He attended one of my regular noon meetings, and would share about how he was doing.  He was newly out of rehab (again); some days he was doing fine and other he was not doing so well.  But he continued to come to meetings, to share, and to come back even when he had gone back to using.  I’ve seen this many times before, and I spent many days after the meeting talking to him (offering him support and guidance in recovery).  My friend’s name was Vito.  The other day, I found out that he was found wandering around the city naked and screaming.  When the police officers took him into custody, the mixture of drugs that he had used caused him to break – and whatever happened – he died that night in jail.  I don’t blame the cops.   I blame this fucking disease.  

My son’s death was an accident.  He never intended to take too much ecstasy.

My wife’s cirrhosis of the liver was a very long process, but it was also her choice.  When she was first diagnosed, she kept drinking; and after that it was about a two year dance with death.

I’ve known many people who go back to using heroin, speed, or whatever, and because their bodies are not used to the same amounts of drugs anymore…they died in one night.

Two of my very good friends were riding their motorcycle home from a meeting one night, when a drunk driver ran over them going over 100 miles an hour.  At their funerals, after the mortician put them back together, their bodies looked plastic.

Addiction is amazingly deadly!

*****

Recovery, on the other hand…

• I am a living miracle, my life is a miracle. 
• My friends are miracles and their lives are miracles. 
• I know many more people who are living lives that are better than they could have ever dreamed…because they aren’t living in active addiction anymore—and I’m one of them. 
• I’m not lying to myself or others, I’m financially responsible, I love not being high all the time, and I can even say that I love myself today (which was literally 50+ years in the making).
• Life happens, which means that bad things do happen, but I don’t have to use to help me deny my feelings anymore…and that is so much better.
• One of our other sayings that we use is, “We aren’t responsible for our addiction…but we are responsible for our recovery.” 

I’m praying for New York M.  I pray that he remembers that he has an illness. I pray that his higher power takes care of him in every way, and that somehow he finds a way to take responsibility for treating his illness. I hope that he doesn’t have to live with as much misery as I did – for as long as I did. 

“Please help him to find the gift of recovery again.”

“I hate this fucking disease!”