“Those who discourage your dreams have abandoned their own.” – Orrin Woodward

     I know I write some rather scathing indictments of the medical Establishment when it comes to addiction and recovery. And though I’ve also tried to describe the power behind a rigorous Twelve Step process, allow me to elaborate on the profound workings of this solution. Words on a page or screen are totally deficient here, and despite the fact that it’s impossible to truly describe something you haven’t experienced yourself, we should nonetheless attempt to do so for the very future of addiction treatment.

     I know deep in my heart that there is no miracle drug for addiction, nor can any person, place or worldly thing change us or fix us. We absolutely MUST do the work for ourselves. Only through hard work, faith and courage might we induce a true miracle to occur, and only God Himself can perform such miracles. This I know with every cell in my body.

     So I have this relative who always whines about the same shit – his drunk dad, his insane and narcissistic mom, our successful grandfather who checks up on us, and our crazy grandmother who tortured us by speeding all the way home from ToysRus in her purple Pontiac (not kidding) after emptying her bank account to spoil us silly. By the way, her “monstrous” effect is not exactly relevant anymore considering she died 18 years ago, not that it ever existed to begin with.

     I wrote about his situation in an older post entitled, Knowledge vs Knowledge, but the point is one that needs to be re-emphasized and absolutely smashed into the brains of each and every alcoholic and drug addict. If you are still blaming someone or something from 18 years ago for your addiction, depression and failure, you have definitely passed the statute of limitations on that particular excuse. And, oh yeah, anything outside of yourself is an excuse, not a reason.

     He, like me, whined incessantly about not being comfortable, both inside and out, for every second of every day. So what did we do? We drank and drugged ourselves into a fucking oblivion, and continued to even though it came at the expense of others and even though every person on earth knows it’s wrong to abuse drugs and alcohol. We turned ourselves into walking dumpsters, moaning and wailing about how nobody knows, nobody suffers the way we do, nobody has it as bad as we do. Yes, I know, not to worry. It’s unbelievable. And it is delusional. We abused the shit out of ourselves until we were completely broken – physically, mentally, spiritually. That is how you become an addict.      

     Addicts are not innocent people who just suddenly became afflicted by some external virus of addiction beyond their control. I’m sorry, but my fellow addicts who believe that are totally clueless and will continue to hurt others and to somehow rationalize or justify their drug use. And I hate to say it, but our loved ones have also been spun if they buy into all of that bullshit.

    Just because we now have a physical illness, we cannot simply assume that addiction is a disease beyond our control like other diseases. In fact, quite the contrary. Becoming an addict is not beyond our control, and quite frankly, it is sort of incredulous to assert otherwise, as if our addiction is somehow written in stone. Nobody HAS to become an addict. It is not written in stone. I really don’t understand how this stuff has been so effectively peddled.

     I studied psychology, drug action and neuroscience in college, and even though I haven’t stared into a petri dish and seen the science myself, studies seem to indicate the existence of an alcoholic “allele”, a genetic mutation that supposedly wires an individual for alcoholism. But guess what? Whether this nonsense is true or not is completely irrelevant, because nobody simply wakes up one day and suddenly they are some fully developed alcoholic. As well, our genes themselves don’t make us do anything. They may cement our addiction sooner than the next guy, but the process of becoming an alcoholic or an addict in entirely up to us and it is our choice. We must repeatedly drink/use and repeatedly do the wrong thing in order to set any such proclivity off.

     Furthermore, the physiological portion of our illness is totally irrelevant once an addict achieves sobriety and finds himself unable to stay that way. The mental obsession (the insanity and utter lack of reason or ration when the thought to use comes into our heads) is something that is 100% developed BY using and BY behaving like a nutjob, and has nothing to do with our genetics. Lying to people, having sex with the girl across the hall in rehab, breaking rules etc., um, these are not symptoms of anything. These are piss poor choices we make because we are stupid and because we are unbelievably selfish.

     The fact that we are a drug and disorder-obsessed America that is heavily medicated has nothing to do with pharmaceutical companies and free-market capitalism. Sorry. That is just propaganda, and quite frankly, I feel bad for those who actually think that way. It has everything to do with the fact that the clueless, gullible, masses of American sheep believe these commercials and believe what doctors and therapists tell them. The fact that there are a millions of prescription opiates and anti-depressants on the market has nothing to do with the fact that we take them all. When it comes to pill-popping, my friends, that is nobody’s fault but our own.

     People who say that it is the fault of Big Pharma for all of our children becoming opiate addicts really don’t get it. First of all, there has always been addicts and alcoholics, millions of them, throughout all of time. This is not a new problem, folks. Doesn’t matter the poison, if people want to drink or use something, they will find something to drink or use. There is nothing you or anybody can do.

     I’ll never understand why people think that advocacy, protesting and prevention will do anything. History just repeats. In fact, that is the very nature of existence. Fine if you want to waste your time, but please keep your paws off my tax dollars, especially when it comes to funding methadone maintenance. Anyone advocating for public subsidies to expand methadone and suboxone programs is extremely irresponsible and is not only hurting addicts but is actively aiding in the decay and decline in our culture.

     Remember, we can only influence those of us who are wired to listen and who on some level already know what they are looking for. Our only focus should be our spiritual lives back at home and putting the spiritual ‘teeth’ back into the solution.

     There is nothing that can be done to prevent people from becoming addicts other than having God in your family and trying to lovingly instill a moral compass in your child, and even then, it may happen. Besides that, it is useless. No person or government program can prevent people from using and becoming addicts. As well, there is also no solution other than to address the drinker or user’s spiritual condition, such that they are restored to sanity and remain abstinent for the remainder of their lives.

     People who say we need more government, more funding, more programs, more methadone, more suboxone, more awareness, more protesting and less stigma really don’t understand addiction at all. None of that will do anything and that is the truth. If people want to drink or use something, they will, and if they drink or use one too many times, they become alcoholics or addicts. It’s really that simple.

     So let me straighten something out for anyone who thinks it is appropriate to blame something outside of the addict for failing themselves, such as companies, peer pressure, lack of government, or the rules of a treatment center 😉

     ADDICTS ARE NOT VICTIMS. Perpetrating this lie is the very thing preventing addicts from getting better and recovering. Giving us the gift-wrapped excuse of ‘a reason’ only helps us to justify and rationalize using heroin to begin with.

     Please.