Dialog about trauma, addiction, and behavior is broadly broken, at least from the sources I used to draw from. This dialog serves the purpose of explaining its own ineffectiveness at the cost of hope for those who suffer, it obscures the path one must travel to really and truly heal.
“They just don’t want it enough – He just self sabotages – She needs to hit rock bottom – If they really wanted to, they would do it – They have to find their own motivation.”
A world explaining its failure to cause change.
I am not seeking to enable those suffering to blame the people around them for failing to help them. I am seeking to identify the actual limitation to healing, a limitation that perpetuates brokenness in the world by seeking answers in our flawed mythology.
That mythology: failure to change is a moral crisis, and those who fail are defective.
To explain, my substance abuse began when I was 14. A year after my worst trauma, I contracted whooping cough. For 3 months, I stayed home, taking amphetamine to clear my lungs and codeine to calm my cough. I was in heaven. The pure joy of escape. No more autistic misunderstandings at school, doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, being the wrong person. Just feeling great and playing video games between horrific coughing sprees. No shame from my trauma, just pure freedom to feel good.
One day, the doctor said I was clear of the infection, and these substances went away; now depressed, I sought them out. At 15, I was buying pain pills from friends after their wisdom teeth were out. I was on antidepressants at 17, exploring illicit drugs in an exploration of the mind initiated by the pills I took to make me happier. By 22, I had full-blown alcoholism and cocaine addiction.
At 34 years old, having recently been injecting cocaine still trying to escape with substances. My brain chemistry was annihilated, and I was depressed and even a little delusional from the enormity of IV cocaine’s impact on my mind. I discovered I had red bumps in places on my body where lymph nodes were near the surface, sudden intense migraines, and a very stiff neck. I was never diagnosed, but I believed I had given myself meningitis. I stole my roommate’s unused bottle of antibiotics and consumed the bottle to rid myself of my suspected meningitis. I was infinitely alone and isolated, things were the darkest they’ve ever been for me. Looking into the void, I saw my daughter growing up without being able to speak of her disappointment or sadness to her long lost father.
My journey started by attempting to write a book, “Sure,” I thought, “I can write a book. I understand what it takes to heal and change”. The book was off to a tremendous start as I discussed the nature of our neurology and how dopamine is designed to form memories and habits, crystalizing our minds on what is supposed to help us survive. However, when I went to write the chapters on change, I found the hollow zeitgeist we are all up against. I found no wisdom freely available that answers the specific question, ‘How do people change things that don’t change?’ I found that real answers were missing. I found our mythology.
Suddenly, I was confronting the mythology in our common narrative about change. Built with platitudes, dismissing the failure of those who suffer as morally flawed, incomplete, and ultimately failures for having their challenges.
Substance abuse counsellors’ language of recovery and ‘being an addict’ was final. AA told me I was incurable. The resources I found prosecuted my future; I will always be an addict, somehow broken or diseased. The well forged path I thought my book would lead to had ended. I would not find my destination on any map I had access to.
This is when, by some great fortune, delusion, or narcissism, I had the audacity to believe there was more than sobriety. I believed there was more than getting it right or managing some broken state. I believed there was a time before I was left this way, and there could be a time after.
I read instructional books on behavioural therapy, and I participated in 40 weeks of DBT. I was gaining skills that allowed me to make sense of the senselessness of my life. But my behaviours persisted. Cocaine called for me. I was skilled enough then – however – to identify something outside my thinking mind was running the show: trauma. After trying CBT with limited success, I evaluated myself as having PTSD and sought out EMDR. Diagnosed with PTSD in EMDR, my traumas, humiliation, and shame bestowed upon me by some damaged boys in my youth became integrated into my current self; the deeper machinery of a surviving young boy was revealed to me. Continuing, I took coaching programs. I extended my EMDR sessions. I identified a severe TBI from a car accident at 22 and found Stellate Ganglion Block treatment for emotional outbursts. I worked with a world class hypnotherapist to create security around my sleeping and eating habits and to model a life where I thrive, to establish safety and maturity for that boy. I continue to forge this path, once for healing, now for vitality… to squeeze every drop of juice from my life.
If I could share anything with the world, it would be the knowledge that healing is out there. It is a path that must be walked without a map. A path that must be trailblazed by every individual, without certainty, where having the audacity to believe – without proof – that healing is possible… shines the light of a north star. That light is sufficient for any person, in any circumstances, to find their way.
Are you ready to share your story of RESILIENCE? You can do that HERE.