A Plea For Tolerance and Sanity
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy, there's only you and me...
My need to be deliberately transparent with regard to my relationship with recovery stems from the very fact that, yes, I have written a book about recovery and yes also, I have finally found my way back.
Unfortunately, I still find myself at odds with many people who espouse and follow 12 steppery— which is okay. One person, who I met from my work on Elephant Journal and developed an online relationship with, responded to my piece from last week by asking me if I was completely sober from everything. “Did you also stop drinking?”
Now, at that point, I had every intention of stopping. I just figured I’d be asking for trouble if I attempted to remove all crutches all at once. So I explained in a private message that this was something my therapist and I were sorting out. The conversation got a little tense, but ended with the two of us having a greater understanding of one another.
The second response—this one, by someone I have known intimately for over a decade, did not end as happily:
“Although I can understand that you have moved on from recovery (although by some measures not very successfully it seems) I’m flummoxed by your need to bad mouth it. Your previous post about how boring everyone in recovery is (even celebrities although that part really lost me) let me feeling uneasy. Not the critique of recovery. Critiquing recovery is hardly new, and I know what works for me but since we’re referencing Shakespeare it seems "The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.”
It actually kept going, but I’m sure you get the point. If he thinks he’s lost, he should step into my Doc Martens. I kept going backwards from article to article, looking for the one where I called everyone in recovery (even celebrities) boring. I have yet to find it.
Second, his first parenthetical remark and its obvious passive aggressive tone, was really enough for me to end our friendship. I believe his rant included a few other passive aggressive remarks, but I digest those like uppercuts from the Mike Tyson of yore. After the first one, the others are unnecessary. The damage is done.
I don’t want to come off like a broken record, but the idea that people from NA get so angry about differing opinions only because they are paralyzed with fear that this sort of thing will directly cost lives is total bullshit. It’s something not quite as selfless and altruistic as that. I don’t think it is a stretch to describe me as an observant fellow. And I spent the better part of 11 years observing.
If you walked into any church, any probation center, any courthouse or any county lock up and asked 100 people with the sincere air of curiosity,
“What sort of options are available if a person desires to begin a life of sobriety at this moment?
The answer you’d likely receive from 98 of them would be something to the effect of “there are precious few options. There is really only one method that has ever been proven to work ‘if you work it.’
The crux of my article is not about trying to be contrary to popular opinion or to be gratuitously argumentative. I received many gifts from 12 step recovery. As my acid tongued former friend was so compelled to point out, “it saved [my]life, did it not? It GAVE [me] a life, did it not?”
The answer to this redundant and rhetorical catechism is, of course, yes. And the same could be said for my parents. They, too, gave me life and saved my life on numerous occasions–most especially when I was too little to nourish myself or provide my own heat and shelter.
This is why it is important to remember that, hypothetically, if we happen to see our father smacking our mother around or either one of our parents holding up an armored car, we need to keep our mouths shut. They were nice enough to foster our early survival—we needn’t be ingrates.
(Okay, I don’t completely trust everybody’s ability to discern sarcasm or parody, so I think I should call attention to the fact that I am using humor to illustrate a point. Or trying to, that is…)
I have expanded my own journey this week by attending a SMART™️ Recovery meeting and a Refuge Recovery meeting over Zoom. The latter was excellent. There’s always the chance that I’m just trying to be off-putting or obtuse, but I love the idea of replacing all of the Western religious principles of 12 Step ideology with Buddhist principles. Approached with an open mind, it might even seem that Eastern thought fits better with regard to healing one’s baggage and early trauma.
But look, I had no intention of dedicating so much headspace or column space to negativity.
There ain’t no good guy. There ain’t no bad guy. There’s only you and me and we both disagree.
I would like to think that disagreements can occur without one person trying to alienate everyone and everything around them. Especially with something as nuanced and gray as substance and alcohol recovery. It kind of makes sense that, of all the different arenas, this would be one where we can employ a little tolerance. Ya know, what with nuclear annihilation hanging over our head like a glass jar balancing on a broomstick, climate issues threatening our survival and inflation gutting the value of our currency–it almost seems ridiculous to exacerbate our collective situation by essentially arguing that Batman can take Superman, or vice versa.
Again, though…what the hell do I know?
I had a glass of wine two weeks ago.
Sobriety doesn't mean total abstinence for all of us, any more than addiction is strictly related to 'substance abuse.' And we get to critique the non-functional parts of systems that don't work, even as we appreciate the parts that do. It's called non-lateral thinking life if not black and white.
I didn't wreck my life over drinking wine with dinner--I wrecked my life 'slamming' meth.
The addictive part of my psyche is far more susceptible to the pitfalls of 'numbed scrolling' than it is to a couple of cocktails.
In our society, practically everyone is addicted to something. Some are just more socially acceptable than others.
Let he...yadda...rocks and glass houses and all that shit.
I love your words. ❤️❤️❤️