Hopeless/Hopeful
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 11:09PM 
By Stuart Harper
I made a decision to try to stop my alcohol and drug addiction and entered a 28 Day rehab facility. I found myself the first night lying in bed wondering if I really had a problem or was this something I have to do to get back in the good graces of my family? I guessed it was a little bit of both. I quickly found out that I was there because I had a real problem and when I figured that out I had never been so scared in my life. For me that was 23 years ago and I have been clean and sober since July 27, 1988. July 27 was also the date of my youngest daughter’s 8th birthday. Can you imagine missing your daughter’s birthday because you were in rehab facility for alcohol and drug addiction? I was so ashamed, but that shame started me down a road I never thought I would survive. As an FYI , while on vacation this July, I celebrated my daughter’s 30th birthday with her husband and my wife and my two little boys. That’s the real payoff. I wasn’t there for her 8th, but I have been there ever since.
Recovering from addiction is not something you get cured of; it is something you learn to manage and live with. For me it has only been through the grace of God that I survived—by His direct intervention and through people He put in my life to help me along the way.
No one gets clean and sober on their own. You know the old saying, “… its takes a village to raise a child…” that’s true for an addict to get clean also. It is also complicated by the fact that addiction manifests itself differently in every person. I have talked to hundreds of addicts over the past 23 years and no two stories are the same. Some addicts grew up in a nice “Father Knows Best” household while others grew up in single parent or no parent homes. Some started with alcohol and progressed to hard drugs while others started through friends for the first time.
If there is one thing in common among addicts it is they love the feeling they initially got from their drug of choice; we loved the place our drug took us. I used to watch my dad come home everyday after a long day at work and pour himself a scotch, turn on his jazz music and take a seat in his favorite chair and zone out or relax as he called it. After twenty minutes or so he would get up pour himself another and as he said “unwind from the stress of the day.” He loved the place his drug of choice took him and so did I … until I didn’t. That’s when you can’t stop even when you want to, even when you know you are hurting other people you love, you can’t admit to yourself or anyone else that you have a problem. You are experiencing the big “D” – DENIAL. I can get up and go to work and no one knows what’s going on and I can control it, and why should I stop; I deserve this, I’m just having fun.
I used to play in a 30+ hockey league with a guy who was a salesman for one of the big beer companies. He used to “go on the wagon” on January 1st every year until January 31st just to prove to himself that he wasn’t an alcoholic. It didn’t matter that the other 334 days of the year he was drunk when he went to bed. I can remember thinking he had a real problem. How easy it is to see someone else’s problems and how blind we get to our own.
This denial starts to manifest itself in lies, first small ones and then big ones to try and explain away missing meeting, appointments, family gatherings, etc. the void between the addict and the family and friends starts growing and trust is slipping away. I am going through these examples because it is necessary to try and understand the challenge that faces an addict as they go through recovery. Prior to recovery most addicts have burned or severely tested every relationship they had and now they are trying to recover, their family and friends are suspicious at the least. An addict is trying to live clean but the only people who understand what they are going through are other addicts. That’s one of the reasons why organizations like AA are so powerful. They put the addict in positive contact with other addicts who understand what they are experiencing. In AA you listen to other experiences and learn how other people have dealt or not dealt with their addiction. They also give the newbie some real life tools to help. One of the tools that seemed overwhelming to me at the time was attending 90 meetings in 90 days. I was told by a man who I respected I can have a successful recovery as long as I do what I am told by recovering addicts I trust, so I did what I was told and he told me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and I shut up and did it. At the end of 90 days I was so much better prepared to start living life then I would have been without the meetings. It also gave me a place to go every night and it helped me to stop feeling sorry for myself. Wise advice from a wise man.
I titled this column Hopeless or Hopeful because that is the real dichotomy that presents itself every day to an addict recovering. “Should I be hopeful about my recovery or is it hopeless?” Working with recovering addicts is a tremendous challenge and being at the Mission I have seen true miracles performed by God. I am sorry to say many don’t make it, but some do and that’s where the joy and hopefulness stem. If you have a friend or family member who is dealing with recovery from an addiction, tell them you love them, and get them to a place that knows how to work with addicts. For you personally, listen to their actions, not their words. In early recovery I did four things – went to AA meetings, worked as hard and as often as I could at any job I could find, exercised everyday (to start feeling physically better) and spent as much time with my kids as I could … period. Recovery is a long term process and I am sorry to say the addict is never cured; once an addict always an addict. The good news is that the addiction can be channeled into good things and through learned skills over time can be channeled into very positive and productive areas. Five years into my recovery I was running international sales for a hundred million dollar division of a Fortune 500 company with responsibility for hundreds of salespeople spread around the world and I also my wife of now 16 years. Again focus on the actions, not the talk; at a minimum it will keep you from getting your expectations to high early on in their recovery. If your addict falters remember they are human and by definition will make mistakes; be there with a hug and tell them they know what to do to get back on track and if they don’t get to an AA or NA meeting drop them off. There is a tremendous amount of compassion among recovering addicts and they can see through every smoke screen know to man.
Most of the recovery successes I have seen have been Jesus Christ based or as AA puts it “Higher Power” who you come to know as God. Addicts need a new foundation to underpin their new lives and Jesus Christ provides that true and real underpinning. With a foundation in Christ centered Gospel, hope is possible. I see that Hope everyday in the eyes of recovering men and women who have truly put Jesus Christ as the driver of their lives. Try to remember that there was something you loved about the person in your life who is struggling with addiction recovery; during the difficult times try to focus on those good memories. The Lord can solve any problem we have as long as we let Him.!
Stuart Harper is Executive Director of the Buffalo City Mission
