The summer before I got married, I tried desperately to clean myself up and get better for the sake of my soon-to-be wife and our new life together. Everybody kept talking about Methadone. So I tried it, and almost died.

     It was one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made in my life. Among countless other reasons, the hellish torture of coming off of Methadone will propel even the best of us right back to Methadone or just back heroin to relieve the mind-blowing pain. It also drove me insane. What it did to my brain and personality is beyond words. Truly, Methadone turned me into a freak.

      Harm reduction is basically an oxymoron. Think about how ridiculous the mentality is. We’re still going to harm you, just not quite as much (and the ‘not quite as much’ part is highly debatable). It reminds me of the government’s deficit/debt nonsense. We’re still going to accumulate debt, just at a slightly lower rate of ascent. Huh? Use some logic and just break it down for a sec. If our problem is talking and using drugs (as opposed to action and sobriety), what could be more contrary to a solution for addicts than more talking and more drugs?

 
     One of the most horrible things Methadone did to me is it coiled the spring inside that eventually exploded and led to the worst run I ever went on, the last one, the one that nearly ended me. Harm reduction sounds like quite the approachable and clever term, but take a moment and think about how ridiculous this notion of ‘meeting them where they are’ really is. Meeting us where, in full blown opiate addiction? Lol. How does that unchain us from opiate addiction or fix a mind that has gone completely insane? The addict MUST detox completely and remain abstinent before any real progress or recovery can occur, and they should detox right away.

     The Methadone pumpers love to attack people who are honest, accusing them of stigmatizing, criticizing, demeaning and outcasting addicts on Methadone. First of all, stuff like this, including addiction, SHOULD be stigmatized in an effort to push the addict to reach for something worthwhile, something better. If we accept Methadone as some wonderful solution, why would anyone go off of it? You have to understand how addicts think. If the people around us are satisfied and love us on 120 milligrams of Methadone, we’re gonna hit that clinic everyday for the rest of our shitty lives.

     The problem with addicts who go on Methadone is that they want to stay high and have zero intention of actually getting better. I know that will piss tons of people off, but deep down it’s true, and how is what I write any worse than pumping Methadone under some cloak of compassion and science when really it is harming, not helping? Believe me, I’m really trying to help.

Right from the CDC – “Methadone Linked to 30% of Prescription Painkiller Overdose Deaths”

      
     The real problem with Methadone is that every doctor, clinic, government agency, CDC shill, parent and addict who advocates it doesn’t understand addiction. In the above article, they are at pains to note that these deaths are probably not from treating addicts but from normal people using Methadone for pain. Lol, right. It’s not the addicts overdosing on Methadone, it’s regular people.

     An active addict who continues using will continue to suffer from the mental obsession. He or she will continue to have an addict mind and heart, a brain that is insane and subject to relapse at any point in time. The addict within is still very much alive and well and they are simply biding time before the switch goes off and they go back out and on an EPIC RUN. You have done nothing but coil a spring, one that when it explodes may very well end the person you are supposedly trying to help.

     To me, it’s just so obvious, even scientifically. You cannot treat opiate addiction with more opiates. All you are doing is changing brands, and instead of stealing just from your parents, you are stealing from every taxpayer in America. Methadone is without question the most insane form of treatment ever created, pumped and justified by the delusional advocates. Sorry.

From The Privileged Addict, p.134-35:

     “As the Methadone begins to run out, all there is for relief is the Xanax… then all of those are gone. First, all of my energy is sucked out of me. I’m beyond lethargic. My muscles feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. Moving anywhere becomes a struggle. Indescribable stomach pain begins, accompanied by sweats and chills. It’s the middle of the summer, temperature in the mid-nineties, and I’m freezing. I go around in pants and four shirts on, including a flannel jacket. My clothes hang off me, and if it isn’t clear that I’m a pathetic drug addict, I can easily be mistaken for a male anorexic.

     No appetite either. I mean zero fucking appetite. The thought of food makes me sicker and more depressed, forget about the constant reminder that I’ve been reduced to a Methadone-sick waif, writhing in bed. I try drinking a protein shake one morning. As soon as I gulp the shake, I throw it back up into the glass. I try to swallow it again and throw it up again. I manage to keep some down each time, so I repeat this swallowing and puking process over and over until the chocolate-flavored protein shake is gone. Protein shakes have to do it for a few days because I just can’t swallow food.

     For some reason, I attempted a summer course at UMASS Boston. I think I did it to feign productivity. Sweating and shaking, I tried to participate, but while answering a question, I blacked out in mid-sentence from a benzodiazepine seizure. Waking back up, I apologized out loud to the entire room. Absolutely no idea how much time had passed. I think all the normal people around me were so boggled by my condition that they just sat there in dead silence. No one looked in my direction. Not even the professor responded to my awkward apology. The side effects of Methadone alone will cause an addict to relapse or eat more, just to get out of the hell.”  

Repost.

     So everybody’s wrong, right? Uh, no, I don’t think so.

     Regardless of what changes may occur to the brain from abusing drugs and alcohol year after year, the root of our problem is selfishness and the root of our recovery is unselfish action. Whether you want to believe that or not doesn’t change the truth. Whether you want to explain away an illness by blaming others, blaming environment or blaming genes doesn’t change the fact that addiction is acquired through selfish action and it is vanquished through unselfish action.

     I tracked some more searches for you over the course of the last two days. Hopefully this will help to illuminate the nature of our malady. Addicts can be likened to children who refuse to grow up, as growing up means shedding the ignorance of youth and the fantasy of adolescent narcissism. Growing up means hard work and personal responsibility. Growing up challenges us and pushes us out of our comfort zone – the one thing addicts don’t want to do – feel uncomfortable.

     With addiction, we need to challenge conventional wisdom. What you think will work for you or your addicted loved one may be the last thing you want to do, so consider trying the opposite. In fact, since nothing and nobody can stop an addict, we should probably do nothing at all. Blasphemy! Actually, it’s not. It’s common sense, which is uncommon. People usually choose to get better on their own as opposed to someone telling them to. Left alone, we are much more likely to change than if we are followed around, coddled and so forth. Huh?! Why! Charlie, you dumbass!

     Cool, no problem. Do whatever you want. However, the people who tried to intervene and shower me with pamphlets, doctors, pills and even love and friendship simply delayed my recovery. Allowing me to sink lower into the depths of darkness and despair was what closed the gap between me and God. The lower we go and the worse we get, the closer we get to God, one way or the other.

     Sure you don’t have to lose all of your teeth and become a walking STD before recovering, but trust me, most addicts won’t stop using until they want to stop. To be more accurate, most addicts won’t change until they want to change, short of some miracle… and yes, those occur as well, though not usually while we’re sitting on our asses nodding off after a trip to the methadone clinic. 

01/23/15 – 01/24/15

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God, please rid us from the spiritual disease of selfishness, the preoccupation with self, and the addiction to comfort…

     The only thing that really matters is how we feel, and I don’t mean in the selfish way. I used to experience a kind of inner torture when I stopped playing music or stopped acting or writing. I was especially torn by having passed on major opportunities that would have propelled me into success. But in recovering and committing to a life of trying to avoid self-will, I’ve learned the most valuable lesson on earth.

     Having found some inner freedom and contentment (except for maybe when my 3 year-old is having an aneurysm at 4:00 in the morning), there is nothing better than the peace of letting go and just being okay with where you are and what is happening. Why is that? Well, because if you are miserable and depressed or filled with angst and inner turmoil, nothing matters.

     Sure I would still pursue this or that or the other thing, but even better than playing music live or losing myself in some character on stage or achieving worldly success and recognition is just being completely okay with any outcome whatsoever. If it happens, great. If it doesn’t happen, great.

      Perhaps this is especially true for an addict, who is always expecting, always wanting more, always obsessed with me, me, me.

     People don’t realize that it’s not the high that relieves us so, but rather the brief moment after we use when we stop WANTING. That brief moment is peace, but no one believes it can be achieved without something outside of self, without something filling our heads – drugs, alcohol, money, sex or worldly accomplishment, prestige, fame or recognition.

     But it can. That is the secret. When we let go of wanting things and believing that we need them to be okay, the irony is that’s when they start happening. And when we let go of EVERYTHING, that’s when we are free. So got for it. Let go. Why not?

     Rumi was a Sufi poet who lived from 1207-1273 in Persia. According to Wikipedia, ‘In the Mevlevi tradition, samāʿ represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations.’

On recovering vs recovered:

     “Prophets and religious teachers are like signs on the road, to guide spiritual travelers who become lost in the desert. But those who have attained union with God need nothing but their inner eye and the divine lamp of faith; they need no signs or even a road to travel along. Such people then become signs for others.” – MASNAVI II:3312-14

     Unfortunately, that will never happen if your recovery program amounts to sucking on methadone wafers or suboxone tabs, especially if you believe you are sober or think you can grow spiritually when your body and mind are still filled with synthetic morphine. I’m really not trying to be a dick, but we need people to recover and get really solid in order to properly carry this message and be of use to others who still suffer.

On putting God first instead of self:

     “If the thirsty drink water from a cup, they will see God in it. Those who are not intoxicated with the love of God will see only their own faces in it.”

On taking a leap of faith:

     “A lover never seeks without being sought by his beloved. When the lightening bolt of love has pierced this heart, be assured that there is love in that heart. When the love of God grows in your heart, beyond any doubt God loves you.” MASNAVI III:4393-6

On how God is recovery because recovery is being filled with love and moving towards love instead of away from it:

     “The religion of Love transcends all other religions: for lovers, the only religion and belief is God.” MASVANI II:1770

On asking for help:

     “The water said to the dirty one, ‘Come here.’ The dirty one said, ‘I am too ashamed.’ The water replied, ‘How will your shame be washed away without me?'” MASNAVI II:1366-7

On ignorance:

     “Love of God is rooted in our knowledge of God. When did ignorance lead to true love? Such ignorance is the cause of our banishment and prevents us from drawing near to Him.” MASNAVI:1532-3;1538

    You gotta understand that before I recovered, I LOVED DRUGS AND ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES WITH ALL MY HEART.

     Yes, that’s right. Contrary to popular belief nowadays, addicts love drugs. Micro-brewed beer, vodka, weed, oxycontin and heroin were the loves of my life. I loved coke, benzos and every other thing, too, but opiates were at the top of the list. Actually, mixing coke and heroin was probably the best thing. The point is that there isn’t some evil force that takes us over or some disease that suddenly manifests itself. You really need to understand that people who become alcoholics and addicts love drugs and alcohol.

     I know a lot of addicts tell their parents all kinds of shit like, “Hey, it really wasn’t my fault, I don’t want to be this way. If I hadn’t gotten injured in sports and the doctor didn’t prescribe me Vicodin, I’d be fine right now.” Sorry, but that is all bullshit. The doctor and the Vicodin and the companies and the system and the lack of funding and blah, blah, blah have nothing to do with it. The kid wants to go through life high. He wants to get jammed and he wants to stay that way. He loves opiates and would have found them sooner or later. He wants a false and easy solution for the problem of life and he will find one.

     *Note: Please don’t tell me that he organically needs opiates and that is why he seeks them, and because of this completely natural bio-chemical need we should actually prescribe him regular doses of opiates… oh and that poor little him in fact deserves to be taking opiates everyday because of his blameless chemical deficiency. People are actually saying this now and it is LUNACY. This is what addiction neuroscientists are pumping into the brains of parents. Sorry, but just listen to how nuts that sounds. It’s much better to find a way of being okay without some adjusted homeostasis, without needing above-normal levels of dopamine. Increasing dopamine production is not a solution, and it is actually one of the primary causes for addicts failing in recovery.

     Anyway, enough of that. Let me briefly explain in the simplest possible terms what the difference is between me as an addict and you as a non-addict: I would rather not even start drinking or using anything than to have only a small amount. In other words, drinking one or two beers and then stopping is absolute TORTURE. Same with drugs. I’m much happier staying sober than not having enough to become jammed out of my skull and enter a state of near paralysis. Yes, that is the truth, and it’s true for all of us. We don’t just want to drink or use. We want use until we pass out… and then wake up and have more and more and more.

     Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking we don’t really like using, that it just happened, or if it wasn’t for those pesky wisdom teeth and that stupid doctor. That is nonsense. Anyone who becomes a lushbag or a junkhead is totally obsessed and in love with drugs and alcohol. I used to dissect kind bud under a microscope in complete awe. I honestly thought that God brought us these drugs and that I was put here on earth to drink and use. I really believed that Oxycontin was a miracle.

     Drugs and alcohol are #1 in the life of any addict or alcoholic until they basically find God and start to care more about the consequences of their actions than they do about pleasuring themselves at the expense of others. This is without question a moral issue. Or let me put it this way. Addicts and alcoholics have obliterated their conscience. It has shrunk up into the size and the texture of an overcooked, wilted pea. Trust me, this is the truth. We don’t care. Addicts and alcoholics lack a conscience or they have pummeled one that was once in tact. We feel entitled.

     Recovery is entirely dependent on the restoration of one’s conscience. Believe me, if we start to care enough, we won’t every use drugs and alcohol again. When the size of an addict’s conscience is greater than his obsession, he or she is recovered, most likely for good. And we nourish and expand our conscience with each right action we take (right action meaning moral or spiritual action). So the better you want to get, the more good stuff you will do. That’s the deal.   

     Bear in mind that as you read through this blog, don’t worry about it too much because who really knows anything?

     Being in recovery is the antithesis of blaming everyone else. That is the very point and definition of recovery. That is what we are recovering from. Achieving sobriety is nothing. That is just a 72-hour clinical procedure. We are recovering from the people we were, the people we are. There is no recovery if we continue to blame others for anything, especially for why we are failing to change. Well, if only this or if only that, I’d be okay... nope.

     No, don’t worry, I’m an asshole too, but I am willing to admit it, regardless of the circumstance. I blame nothing and nobody for my condition, for my inner and outer life, for anything. I take full responsibility for my flaws and failures. Period. I also understand that being a good person and doing right by my family and others who suffer peripherally from this illness is the single most important thing in life and must be for any other addict and alcoholic in the world. Sorry, you just can’t continue to be a needy, selfish, dry addict and have any chance of recovery or a good life. You really have to throw away the pity pot.

 

     This search phrase (title) I saw last night sums up why psychotherapy is 100% useless for addicts and alcoholics. There is nothing outside of ourselves that can be blamed for our addiction or for anything else in our lives. There is no reason why we do what we do. There are no triggers. There is no external circumstance which prevents us from getting better. There is no external circumstance which needs to change for us to get better. And there is no use in empowering a warped and delusional self.

     Why boost the self-esteem of an addict until that self has been repaired and restored to sanity, until he understands that he is not the only one who is struggling, who has needs, who exists? The old and messed up self must be exposed, understood and shed before we can build ourselves back up. The addict must let go emotionally before he can move on.

     There is no use in wasting money on therapy until the addict begins acting his way into right thinking, as addicts are incapable of thinking or talking their way into right action. CBT is just backwards on its face and doesn’t work for people like us. Never has. Never will. Same with finding reasons, triggers, excuses, or focusing so much on our feelings. The trick is to STOP focusing on self. Therapy is useless for addicts because it’s all about self. Trust me, the last thing anybody needs is for the addict to continue talking about himself.

     Until the addict is willing to get off of his ass and give of himself (talking to myself, relax), until he is willing to give back to those he has stolen from, until he is willing to give his time, energy and love, until he can shut up and just listen to others without interjecting and reacting constantly, until he can vow subservience to his conscience and commit to a life of spiritual principles, moral action, health, sanity and other-centeredness, there is little to no chance for him to get better and stay that way.

     Let’s just stop kidding ourselves about the behavior and the moral failure of addicts and alcoholics, shall we? 

     1) Because they get people to God.

     I was personally born a Christian but to be honest, I really don’t give a shit how people get to God, so long as the tradition is loving and non-violent. Sorry, but people should be able to figure that stuff out for themselves. I mean, let’s face it, all any parent really cares about is that a miracle somehow occurs and we recover, find peace and live right. I’m pretty sure our specific belief system doesn’t matter when we’re lying on the floor convulsing from a heroin overdose as someone rushes in with Narcan to revive our soon-to-be corpse.

     Plus there are vast cultural differences all over the world, so seriously, who the fuck am I to go to the Amazon and tell people they are ignorant heathens who don’t know the truth and are going to rot in hell? I just don’t find that to be particularly appropriate for some reason. The bottom line is we can really only change ourselves and maybe help on a local level. To fly around the world in a 747 preaching nonsense, thinking you can change everybody and save the world, well, you probably need a head that can barely fit through the door.

     As far as our culture goes, the enormous effort to take God out of recovery is certainly reflective of a spiritual sickness in our culture and part of a larger effort to take God out of everything, so I find it equally inappropriate to ban kids from praying in school or from reading the Bible during free study time.

     Why is it such a threat to have people trying to study and practice God’s principles? Are we losing it as a society? Whoa man, watch out for those horrible principles of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. It’s almost as bad as the effort to demonize parents who think for themselves regarding their children’s health, or individuals simply attempting to think or preserve some semblance of privacy.

     As long as people get there somehow, I really don’t think it matters how. Not to mention that many who believe devoutly are ruthless sociopaths, or how about pedophiles living in castles of gold when they should probably be strapped to the chair instead? What good are a man’s beliefs when he does nothing but cast evil upon the world while pretending to be a man of God? That’s the sort of breathtaking hypocrisy normally reserved for politicians and presidential candidates ;-)

     All that really matters is that you are a good person. Belief is important but what you do is much more important than what you believe. Besides, I don’t believe anyone is really an atheist anyway, as God is simply part of our fundamental make-up.

 

     2) Because they work.

     Addicts must keep their eyes and ears open, which is difficult for a group so mind-blowingly self-centered. Find someone who has what you want (internally) and ask them to take you through the Steps as they’re laid out in the Big Book.

     If they have no clue what you’re talking about but are still in AA and acting all chipper, you might want to be careful. You probably don’t want to follow the guy who’s happy as a clam because he’s hopped up on six different psychotropics. Not only will he fail to help you build a foundation, but his contentment isn’t real, and therefore your source of inspiration is empty and will not provide any real solace, let alone substance.

     If someone is both not on meds nor have they taken Steps but is still in AA, they still can’t help you because they’re not really alcoholics. Many people in AA are not alcoholics. A good chunk of them are perhaps moderate to heavy drinkers who maybe caught a DUI or something and were court ordered to attend AA. Being socially inept (no offense), they grabbed onto it and religiously show up everyday for group therapy and snack time, and don’t forget the slogan recitation.

     AA has given many non-alcoholics a sort of ready-made identity. Watered down Open Speaker meetings didn’t exist until the 50s, and today, at least around here, are perfect for those who believe themselves to be victims. Don’t get me wrong as this was certainly not what Bill Wilson and Bob Smith intended back in the 1930s.

     The same goes for NA. A good friend of mine sent me this article about a mother who left her liquid methadone out on the table and her baby girl drank it and is now permanently damaged and disabled and will suffer in horrible ways all throughout life. How is this acceptable? Come on guys, having a child is not just picking up a puppy at the mall, especially if you’re an active junkbox with the maturity of a 3 year-old or a teenager with no job, no education and no skill set beyond texting really fast.

     My wife joins an online doula group where the other doulas sometimes rave about how diligent their clients are for sticking to their Methadone or Suboxone program. They are super eager to support their clients post-pardum after the baby is taken away to the ICU for detox and a complete CNS damage assessment. Huh?

The Only Chip You Ever Need – 24 Hours.