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Editor's note: The following fragment of an essay on
recovery from addiction was submitted by an author who, for reasons of his own,
prefers to remain anonymous. The anonymous author has, however, given the
present editor(FPG) permission to insert a few propadeutic remarks which, by
establishing the context, may facilitate the reading of the fragment below.
The author has specifically requested that the following
extract be included in any prefatory remarks, although he has otherwise exerted
no control over this introductory note.
From "How Johannes Climacus Became An Author,"
in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Soren
Kierkegaard. 1846.
"It is now about four years since I got the notion
of wanting to try my hand as an author. I remember it quite clearly; it was on a
Sunday, yes, that's it, a Sunday afternoon. As usual I was sitting outdoors at
the cafe' in the Frederiksberg Garden. . .
"So there I sat and smoked my cigar until I lapsed
into reverie. Among other thoughts I remember this: "You are now," I
said to myself, "on the way to becoming an old man, without being anything,
and without really undertaking to do anything. On the other hand, wherever you
look about you, in literature and in life, you see the celebrated names and
figures, precious and much heralded men who are coming into prominence and who
are much talked about, the many benefactors of the age who know how to benefit
mankind by making life easier and easier, some by railways, others by omnibuses
and steamboats, others by telegraph, others by easily apprehended compendiums
and short recitals of everything worth knowing, and finally the true benefactors
of the age who by virtue of thought make spiritual existence systematically
easier and easier, and yet more and more significant. And what are you
doing?"
"Here my self-communion was interrupted, for my
cigar was burned out and a new one had to be lit. So I smoked again, and then
suddenly there flashed through my mind this thought: "You must do
something, but inasmuch as with your limited capacities it will be impossible to
make anything easier than it has become, you must, with the same humanitarian
enthusiasm as the others, undertake to make something harder." This notion
pleased me immensely, and at the same time it flattered me to think that I, like
the rest of them, would be loved and esteemed by the whole community. For when
all combine in every way to make everything easier and easier, the remains only
one possible danger, namely, that the easiness might become so great that it
would be too great; then only one want is left, though not yet a felt want -
that people will want difficulty. Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at
my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable
to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine
interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it my task to create
difficulties everywhere."
In a recent communication to the editor, the author of the
following piece expressed his conviction that, in some cases(but not in all),
the topics of addiction and recovery had been made too easy for some individuals
to be able to understand and pursue them effectively. The saying "Nobody is
too stupid to get recovery, but plenty of people are too smart to get it"
indicates one aspect of a difficulty that is by no means restricted to a small
minority of those in need of recovery.
It is in fact quite common in the Editor's clinical
experience for alcoholics and other addicts to disdain and disparage standard
recovery methods, including the Twelve Step approach, as absurdly, even
insultingly superficial and obvious, and as far beneath their intellectual and
educational status. And in such appraisals, skeptical alcoholics and addicts are
by no means wholly in the wrong; for the traditional approaches to recovery in
fact are quite simple and obvious, and require no great subtlety,
intelligence, or background of knowledge to grasp and practice.
But simple, obvious, commonplace and banal as basic
recovery principles may be and in fact are, they nevertheless strictly require
one thing for them to be efficacious, namely, that they be put into actual
practice, if they are to be of benefit to anyone. And it is just at this point
that difficulties arise for those alcoholics and other addicts whose preferred
approach to them is theoretical rather than practical. For it is an all too
common thing for those first introduced to such insultingly simple and
superficial ideas that they remain for them just that, ideas, and never enjoy
the actualization of their potentiality that can only derive from their actual
personal flesh and blood performance by the very individual who is most need of
them.
The author of the following essay therefore concluded,
like Kierkegaard's Johannes
Climacus, that the whole business of recovery had in
many cases, and with the worthiest of aims, been made far too simple for some
minds; who as a consequence of their initial offense at the scandal of what
they, not incorrectly, took to be the ridiculous and insulting simplicity of the
program of recovery suggested to them, concluded without further ado that it was
simply not worth their while even to attempt to practice the ideas that were
thereby recommended to them. For surely, they reasoned, if recovery with its
promise of a better life were that simple and straightforward, then they
themselves would have deduced their way out of their addictive predicament long
before now. And after all they had endured and attempted, and everything they
had suffered and caused to be suffered in their unsuccessful struggles with
their addiction, it would be like adding insult, and an intolerable insult at
that, to injury in proposing to them something as simple, obvious and
straightforward as 1-2-3 or A-B-C.
Thus the author undertook to compose what he terms, not
altogether in jest, an "infernal complication of something essentially,
i.e. in its essence, uncomplicated," recovery from addiction. His hope is
that such an approach to the topic will be useful to those who find standard
approaches too simple - who are, indeed, insulted by them, and who require
something more difficult, verbose, and abstract in order to take the topic of
recovery with any degree of adequate seriousness - with the seriousness, that is
to say, that is forceful enough to overcome the inertia of pure theory and to
provide the traction required for the application of praxis. For the necessary
first step is for the basic ideas of recovery to attract and hold sufficient
attention to permit them to begin to 'heat up' to the critical state required
for their practical implementation. And it was therefore with this in mind that
he composed and submitted the following
PROLEGOMENON TO THE METAPHYSICS OF RECOVERY FROM
ADDICTION
1.1 Introduction and General
Overview of the Topic
Entering the world of recovery from addiction can be like
exploring a vast, frightening and unknown continent without maps, guides or
landmarks of any kind - despite the fact such such maps, guides and landmarks
exist in bounteous plenty if only those in need of them were able and willing to
make use of them. But usually it is not so; and the perplexed alcoholic or
addict, a rugged and defiant individualist to the end typically insists upon
making and discovering his own way. And perhaps at bottom this is the
essential nature of the journey, which after all is as unique, individual and
personal as the solitary soul making the trek.
Addiction, both in its active and recovery stages, teaches
nothing if not the limitations and boundaries of language and conceptual
thought. In the last analysis recovery from addiction, like much if not indeed
most of life, is experiential and performative, not abstract and theoretical.
Words, ideas, theories, models and concepts can take one but so far. In most
cases they serve well enough if they guide the explorer into the general ball
park in which his own highly individual and personal discoveries must, if they
are to be meaningful and valid, take place through his own frequently trial and
error tactics. One learns to ride a bicycle, after all, by getting on the bike
and struggling to make it balance and go where he wants, not by studying the
craft of bicycle construction or the theory of bicycle riding.
Taken to an extreme, the line of thought sketched above
might mean that no one could truly teach or tell, nor even usefully guide anyone
else in any significant degree about anything of fundamental personal
importance, including -but by no means limited to- recovery from alcoholism and
addiction. Worse than that, it might mean that all attempts, no matter how
sincere or diligent they might be, to help someone else find their way in such
matters, are irrelevant at best, harmful at worst. If you want to learn to ride
a bike, this view of matters might suggest, go get a bicycle, spend time
struggling with it(including the inevitable falls and frustrations), and either
persevere until you have mastered the task - or give up and learn to live
without the skill that proved too much for you. An unbridgeable abyss divides
each individual from every other individual in such matters, with the result
that no useful communication from person to person is possible. Under such a
scenario the best to be hoped for would be the power of example, imitation and
desire, the cumulative force of which might, in favorable instances, supply
inspiration and motivation for the individual to exert himself to become like
those whose skills he admired.
And in the special case of recovery from alcoholism and
addiction, even more daunting obstacles usually present themselves. For in
almost all other instances in which difficult to learn skills are sought by the
individual, there is a relatively pure and unmixed desire on the part of the
student or neophyte actually to acquire the skill - whereas in the case of
recovery from addictions that desire is apt to be mixed at best, absent at
worst, and in all cases ignorant and confused to begin with.
The addicted individual, in the beginning, understands
recovery from his addiction principally as deprivation, loss, and abandonment.
It often seems to him that everything that makes life worthwhile -or at least
bearable- is to be taken away from him, leaving him stranded in the world, and
upon his narrow bank and shoal of time, all alone, with no means of emotional
support or capacity to cope with the stresses and terrors of life.
Recovery, to those in such a state of mind, means always
having to say you're sorry, and never being able to have a drink or drug to help
you relax and forget your cares and stresses.
In short, the addicted individual typically does not want
to acquire the knowledge and skills of recovery, whatever they may
turn out to be for him. The reason for this is obvious if we understand that he
considers the whole business of recovery to be nothing but a 'bait and switch'
offer. For at the outset he believes that the only thing really asked of him is
the giving up of his addiction - in most cases at the behest of other people and
hence at least partially against his own will. And he doubts, because he does
not and cannot know, that there can or will be anything whatever to take the
place of his addiction and whatever scant and costly comfort it may have
provided him.
To speak to such an individual of the joys and pleasures
of recovery is to invite cynicism, skepticism and outright scorn. For him, all
such promises are cruel jests or simple lies. He cannot imagine a satisfactory
life for himself deprived of his addiction. Perhaps circumstances have brought
him to the stage of readiness in which he is prepared to contemplate a life
devoid of his addiction - but it is with a grudging and despairing countenance,
not one full of hope and optimism, that he confronts the prospect of an
addiction-free life. For it is the essence of addictive thinking that it shapes
and constructs a future world of deprivation, pain and loss for the addict to
envision whenever he attempts to imagine a life without addiction.
Were the active addict to be able to imagine with
sufficient force and clarity a truly positive and happy life without addiction,
he would surely cast off his chains and be thenceforth and forever free that
very instant. But precisely because he is prevented by the requirements of his
addiction from conceiving of a livable life without his addiction, he resists as
long as he is able all efforts, either by himself or by others, to separate him
from what he passionately believes to be the only true source of solace and
security he has: his addiction.
Teaching and learning about recovery, therefore, would
seem to be difficult if not impossible. For the very nature of the education in
recovery is personal, subjective, and acquired largely by the blood, sweat and
tears of the individual's own trial-and-error wrestling with his circumstances;
and the peculiar, indeed the distinguishing characteristic of addictive thinking
is that it recoils in fear and loathing from anything whatever that threatens to
separate the addict from his addiction - thus rendering the addict highly
ambivalent(at best) at the prospect of any set of skills or way of life that
promises to help him learn to live without his addiction.
But there is still more: for in addition to the inherent
difficulty of the instruction and the unwillingness of the addict to learn, the
addict, insofar as he is in addiction, can without exaggeration be
described as functionally psychotic. For though to modern ears it is somewhat
startling to describe alcoholics and other addicts as clinically insane, we are
only a few generations removed from the widespread usage of the medical term
dipsomania with its rich connotations of insanity and entrenched irrational
behavior. By whatever name the addict is called, no one who closely observes his
behavior over any considerable length of time can doubt that a serious and often
progressive disturbance in the sense of reality is indicated by his sometimes
ludicrous, sometimes tragic but always irrational defense and pursuit of his
addiction in the face of accumulating evidence of its harmfulness to himself and
frequently to others.
The addict, so far as he is an addict, is a kind of subtle
and sophisticated high grade delusional monomaniac, an individual seemingly sane
and rational in every area but one, that of his idee fixee'(fixed idea,
delusion). Thus he may display perfectly normal, even at times exceptional
insight, self-control and competence in all areas save those touching upon his
secret insanity, his addiction. But when his progressively expanding addictive
belief system is encroached upon or threatened in any way by reality, the full
spectrum of psychotic and non-psychotic mental defense mechanisms
are promptly
deployed, like soldiers dispatched and rushing to plug a break in the line
through which the enemy threatens to pour through if not contained and repulsed.
Considerations such as these go some way towards
accounting for the observed fact that most serious addicts are brought to
contemplate 'doing something' about their addiction, not merely by logical and
rational reflection upon their condition and its 'cost-benefit' ratio, nor by
prudent analysis of their actions and their results in regard to their
addiction, but by some concatenation or constellation of external and
uncontrollable circumstances which conspire to drive the addict, largely and
frequently entirely against his will in the direction of recovery.
The addict is thus often somewhat like a captured soldier
marched at bayonet point in a direction he does not desire to go. More often
than not, he is prodded into recovery at least in part against his will. For it
is a distinguishing feature of addiction that the afflicted individual tends to
cling to his addiction with the desperation and perseverance of a drowning man,
and to reject attempts at rescue. For he realizes that rescue means separation
from his addiction - and it is precisely this that he cannot, in the more
advanced cases, bear to think about. His desire therefore is not so much for
recovery -whatever, if anything, that term means for him besides the giving up of
his addiction- as it is for discovering some means of continuing his addiction without
the negative consequences and difficulties that have arisen and brought him to
the point of considering -reluctantly, in most cases- recovery. In short, his deepest desire is to be able to
continue his addiction unmolested by adverse consequences which threaten the continuance of his addiction.
In other words, education in and about recovery is
typically offered to addicted individuals who are incapable of understanding it;
who, even if they were able to comprehend it, would adamantly refuse
to; who would decline to participate in it even if they could and would
understand it; and by instructional methods whose very nature(cognitive,
abstract, intellectual, impersonal) make it probable that they will fail or be
only spottily effective in the specific, individual, concrete and living
instance. On top of all that, the typical targets of such instruction in
recovery are quite often if not usually clinically insane on the topic of their
addiction and everything relating to it. Candidates for such essentially
involuntary edification about recovery must also usually be forced against their
will, or dragged sometimes quite literally kicking and screaming, into programs
and facilities whose aim is to awaken them to the benefits and wonders of a life
without their addiction - a prospect that to them is frequently such a dire fate
that it is more to be dreaded and hence avoided than death itself.
Considered from such an angle the wonder is, not that
instruction in recovery so seldom succeeds, but indeed that it ever
attains its goal. For the odds against recovery from serious addiction are
formidable, the obstacles are many, and the successes far fewer than we should
like. No doubt breakthroughs in understanding the neurochemistry and
pharmacotherapy of addiction will one day soon permit us simply to bypass or
overleap the psychological barriers described above by proceeding directly to
efficacious remedial modification of brain function via corrective medications;
but for the present, as we await such fresh approaches, we must continue to
grapple with the problem of addiction the old fashioned way: by hard work,
diligent perseverance, and courage in the face of the Absurd.
Yet it is the very difficulties of addiction and recovery
and the turbulence they generate that, by posing obstacles to the smooth flow of
mental processes, and churning up psychic contents and structures normally
invisible and transparent in healthier times, establish the conditions of
creativity and growth for the afflicted individual. At the same time, they may
shed fresh light upon how the mind(and not merely the mind of the alcoholic or
addict) actually functions. For it is just in such morbid, dysfunctional,
unhealthy or 'breakdown' situations that we are sometimes permitted to peek
behind the scenes and thereby get a glimpse of the deeper workings, or the
engine and control rooms of the self.
Participation in the addictive process is always the path
of least resistance. For there is a natural, smooth, seductive flow to
addiction that stands in the strongest possible contrast to the awkward,
'unnatural' and against the grain feeling of early recovery. A rough rule of
thumb for recovery from addiction might even be "If it feels good, don't do
it." And perhaps in more instances than not, the converse also might be
true, or at least worth considering seriously: "If it doesn't feel good, do
it."
The practicing addict is like one floating effortlessly
downstream, carried along by the natural tug of the current. Only when it almost
too late does he sometimes -by no means always- awaken and notice that the speed
and force of the current have insidiously picked up and are now difficult
if not impossible to resist. He realizes that he is being pulled inexorably
toward the falls, sees that the water is becoming rougher and more hazardous,
but fears that he lacks the strength and the will to make his way back upstream.
He may indeed make some efforts, half-hearted or strenuous; when they fail, he
sometimes resigns himself to his fate and just tries to hold on for dear life
and hope for the best as his little craft is swept along the increasingly
violent cataract towards the falls ahead.
Thus, getting started in recovery from addiction means
going against the flow and the grain. It means doing what does not come
naturally - for at this stage, what comes naturally is continued participation
in the addiction itself. A massive and sustained expenditure of conscious effort
and energy is required to (a) cease and desist the addictive behavior, (b)
continue to cease and desist, and (c) overcome the numerous obstacles and
barriers to the acquisition of recovery skills which, by serving as the deep
foundation of recovery, are essential for the construction of the individual's
unique recovery 'home.'
Those who are able to surmount these formidable 'front
end' difficulties and endure the strain of the initial phase of abstinence and
recovery, and who become open and willing to learn both by listening and also by
patient performance and practice both the universal and the specific personal
skills of recovery, go on to a sustained and productive phase of personal
growth which actually becomes easier and easier until at last it sometimes seems
effortless, like flying on autopilot(though of course, in turbulent weather,
manual flying is also required!).
Just as with the acquisition and learning of any other
essentially performative skill, e.g. playing a musical instrument, speaking a
foreign language, riding a bicycle, the steepest and most challenging part of
the learning curve comes at the beginning. As the skill is progressively
mastered it becomes less and less difficult to practice until, after a period of
time that is unique to each individual, it seems altogether natural, intuitive
and 'transparent' - as though, like reading and writing themselves, it had
simply always been there, and now to be without it would be strange, even
unthinkable.
Recovery, therefore, is initially a difficult, frustrating
and discouraging business that occurs step by step, gradually, and
'horizontally' in time - not an immediate flash or moment of insight that by its
'vertical' or outside-of-time quality, transpires in an instant and requires
nothing whatever of the individual but his passive acceptance. In a certain
sense, indeed, recovery resembles going to war, from the first recruitment of
the future 'soldier,' through a period of arduous training and apprenticeship,
to a series of battles and campaigns to a final victory which, however, is not
altogether final but tentative in that vigilance is required to ensure that it
not one day be overthrown and reversed. Therefore the virtues that are required
for successful recovery are precisely those necessary for war: courage,
discipline, endurance and skill in the art or science at hand.
From his throne of contempt and scorn the lordly alcoholic
and addict typically looks down upon the humble precepts and techniques of
recovery as being too far beneath him to merit his serious consideration. For he
characteristically imagines, and may even say to himself, that anybody
could do that, if they desired to do so. Such an easy and childish approach to
his own difficulties, difficulties which he naturally enough conceives to be
unusually complex, even unique, seems ludicrous and pathetic to him - though if
he is in a generous frame of mind, he may allow that it is undeniably a good
thing that there exist such shallow and easily accomplished programs of recovery for those
who are both in need of and suited for them. For himself, however, such
kindergarten methods simply will not do.
The aim of the present work is therefore neither to simplify
nor to minimize the difficulties of recovery from addiction, but indeed
to multiply them, highlight them, and thereby to throw them into the boldest possible relief; to
emphasize, perhaps even at times to exaggerate their complexity, until the
reader(if by this point any reader remains) will be ready to throw up his hands
and with a groan exclaim, "Enough! I have had enough! For now I see that this whole business
of recovery from addiction is in fact so infernally difficult, so
incredibly complicated, and so heroically strenuous that only a tiny remnant,
only the select and perhaps indeed even the chosen few, can ever hope to master
it."
Yet out of each one thousand who have come thus far, and
who have thereby been brought face to face with the well-nigh insuperable
magnitude of the challenge, perhaps there will be one, just one, who will say to
himself, "Very well, then! I have been searching all my life, though
perhaps I did not always realize it as clearly as I do now, for precisely such a
daunting and yet incomparably rewarding task! Let it therefore be as impossible,
even absurd as it certainly seems: I am the one for for the job! And thus like a
knight on his quest for the Grail I shall mount up, and ride forth, and
persevere, and remain undaunted no matter how terrible, nor how fearsome may be
the dragons and other trials I must encounter and overcome in order to achieve
the glorious object of my adventure!"
And thus it is to that one in a thousand, or even perhaps
to that one in ten thousand, that the cornucopia of complexities and problems
that the present humble treatise depicts, is directed.
1.2 The Role of Language in Addiction and Recovery
Because it is through language -words, concepts, ideas, theories and
interpretations- that man comes to know himself and his world, indeed
establishes and functions in that very world(a world that would not exist for
him except through his language) it becomes possible to consider the experience
and phenomena of addiction and recovery in terms of language. And when it comes
to initiating and sustaining recovery, we find on purely empirical grounds that
semantic and linguistic obstacles as well as, of course, philosophical
conflicts(themselves invariably stemming from disputes about the proper
signification of terms) are the chief barriers to success.
It is as though an entire semantic and conceptual city of ancient and
venerable origin and lineage must first be razed to the ground to make way for
what is now to grow and prosper on its foundations. For in most cases, without
the painful destruction, or at least the considerable paring down and clearing
away of what is already extant, there can be no sufficient space for the new
beginning required for a substantial and lasting recovery. But like the
inhabitant of a an actual physical city, besieged and facing invasion, overthrow
and destruction by an outside power, the addicted individual is by no means
eager to surrender his homeland and his patrimony upon the mere assurance that
something better will surely be provided to take its place. In fact he can be,
and often is, the stubbornest and most courageous of resistance fighters,
prepared to defend his City of Addiction block by block and house by
house, even at times forfeiting his life in order to defend what he considers to
he rightly his - and also to escape what he sees as the ignominy of surrender to
the invader.
Recovery from addiction is about growing, getting, becoming healthier and
therefore more powerful and capable of dealing with life; but there is no hiding
the fact that the necessary first step, the sine qua non that initiates
but is not alone sufficient for the entire process, is one of giving
something up. It is of course obvious that one thing that must be given up
is the physical or behavioral expression of the addiction itself, i.e. alcohol,
drugs, compulsive behaviors such as spending, sex, gambling or eating. And it is
upon just such a surrender of rights and privileges to continue to engage in his
preferred addiction that the eye of the addict is inevitably and exclusively
fixed in a kind of horrified and paralyzed stare, like the eye of a bird
captured by the gaze of a serpent.
Yet even though the addict in the preliminary or early stages of recovery is
seldom fully conscious of the actual extent of giving up that is going to
be required of him, on a deeper level he is invariably aware, perhaps with the
same dim but undeniable prescience of animals and birds before a an impeding
natural disaster, that what lies before him as he contemplates a continued
existence without the presence of his active addiction is not going to be any
picnic at the park. It is indeed often just the awful, hovering, darkening
presence of such apocalyptic forebodings of what may lie in store for him if he
abandons what he conceives of, wrongly but nevertheless intensely, as the
security and safety of his addiction, that not infrequently drives the addict
back into his addiction like a frightened individual seeking shelter from enemy
attack in a familiar and therefore trusted fortress.
What the addict actually gives up to begin his recovery is far more profound
and substantial than simply refraining from whatever chemical substance or
behavioral pattern happens to express his underlying addiction. Difficult as it
certainly is to cease and desist his obvious addictive behaviors, the most
difficult and frightening thing of all for the addict is relinquishing his
entire addictive world, i.e. the world, including his sense and awareness
of himself and who he is, that has subserved, and in extreme cases been entirely
constructed by his addiction. In this sense the addict regarding the prospect of
recovery risks the loss of his entire self, so far as that self has become
familiar with, hospitable to, shaped by, and grounded upon the point of view of
the addiction.
Because the sense of self and the valuative and emotional 'color' of the
world itself for the individual are approachable and expressible only through
the medium of language and concepts, the alterations and transformations of
recovery find expression in equivalent modifications of language itself. The
meaning and interpretation of words alters as recovery commences and progresses.
And though these modifications of meaning are frequently unnoticed in both their
particular and cumulative effects, the overall consequences are profound. It has
been said that "language is the house of Being"(Heidegger); thus if
the constituent parts of that house, the words themselves, acquire different
attributes(meanings), then the house itself will be transformed in its very
essence.
An example of the above is the transformation of meaning for the recovering
individual of terms like "alcoholic" and "addict." Prior to
recovery, and often for quite some while afterwards in early recovery itself,
these terms denote and connote for the addicted individual the common cultural
meanings plus, of course, any special shades or refinements they may possess for
the individual as a consequence of his unique life experiences and exposures.
What words denote is not as important as what they connote in
establishing the emotional and valuative texture and tone of an individual's
experience of himself and his world. The denotative meaning of the word
"table," for example, is bland and neutral, thus lacking any
particular valence for an individual. But for the person who has just turned
over a dinner table in a drunken rage, there is a painful emotional connotation
attached to the word that does not exist for other people. It is obvious that
each individual's actual life experience with the word "table" is
absolutely unique and at bottom unknowable - even by the individual himself.
Perhaps, for example, sitting at the dinner table as a child possessed a certain
emotional meaning for him that has carried over, "leaked through" as
it were, into his contemporary emotional and value associations to the term,
rendering it no longer "neutral" for him but in fact a charged sign
capable of attracting other charged signs(words with emotional and value
connotations). Looked at in this way, it seems that all words are not
only capable of, but indeed required to carry highly personal, unique, and
idiosyncratic emotional and value meanings in addition to their consensually
understood dictionary meanings - and that these "stowaway" connotative
meanings, because they are unconscious or unexamined or both, exert a hidden and
therefore incalculable influence upon the "house of Being" and the
lifeworld that the interactive fabric of words and ideas establish and maintain.
If we imagine an experiment in which the meaning to the individual of the
term "alcoholic" is tracked through each stage of the addictive and
recovery process, we will, if we are familiar with this sequence, instantly
grasp the subtle, steadily shifting, and conceptually transformative nature of
the changes involved. Prior to recovery the individual has a conception of the
sort of person properly described by the word "alcoholic" as weak,
bad, undisciplined, foolish, immoral &etc. And by the time he has arrived at
the stage for which recovery is a meaningful consideration for him, it is very
likely that he has, almost in spite of himself, applied this very term to
describe himself. Thus when he is asked to describe himself in treatment or in
AA meetings as an "alcoholic" he is making a statement about himself
that is closely bound to his conception of the denotative and connotative
meaning of the word "alcoholic."
The entire addiction and recovery process is encapsulated in the slogan,
"Alcoholics are sick people trying to become well, not bad people striving
to become good." The change from the moral model of alcoholism(bad, sinful,
weak) to the medical model(alcoholism is a true illness requiring medical
treatment) is a major paradigm shift for the individual concerned. There is
therefore a necessary change in the way he understands the words
"alcoholism" and "recovery." But because these terms have,
or are claimed by others to have relevance to himself, he must undergo a
corresponding change in the way he conceives of and therefore experiences
himself. Far more is associated with and required of recovery from addiction
than a simple, superficial cognitive analysis might suggest. And it is just
because of the deep roots of the addiction, roots that extend into the language
and meaning system of the addicted individual, that achieving a sustained
remission of addictive illness is usually so difficult.
Because words and ideas serve as anchors, foundation stones and placeholders
for whatever view of self and world one has, it ought not to surprise us that
any tampering with them, especially by an 'outside party,' is vigorously
resisted and commonly counterattacked by the individual whose lifeworld is
thereby jeopardized. For even under ordinary circumstances, we cling to familiar
and established patterns of understanding, and only are willing to change them
when change is scarcely avoidable any longer; how much more tightly, then, does
the addict in crisis and upheaval tend to hold on to what he desperately
supposes to the the foundational stability of his language and its repository of
meaning and value. It is as though someone crouched and clinging for shelter in
a hurricane were to be approached by a benevolent lexicographer who wished to
persuade him to "try on" some alternative definitions of 'storm"
and "shelter" to see how he liked them. Surely the individual in such
a storm, hunkered down and holding on for dear life, would regard such a project
as inopportune, irrelevant, or even insane.
The universal proclivity of men to cling to what is familiar and established,
especially when it is foundational for their view of themselves and their world,
helps explain the curious resistance of almost all alcoholics to the disease
model of alcoholism and their frequently zealous holding on to the moral
model - even though it would and in fact does commonly seem to observers that a
guilt and shame ridden alcoholic in trouble for his drinking would literally
leap at the chance to exonerate himself from his supposed sins, while at the
same time preparing the way for still more drinking, by embracing the disease or
medical model of alcoholism.
It is indeed a common fear and criticism expressed by skeptics of the disease
model of alcoholism and addiction, that pathological drinkers exposed to such a
morally neutral formulation of their difficulties as the 'disease model' will
cast off all remaining restraint and thereafter drink without any attempt to
control themselves, claiming as they do so that they are sick people who,
because they cannot help themselves, should not be blamed or held accountable.
Such concerns are brought into even sharper focus when the topic is the famous
"First Step" of Alcoholics Anonymous, "We admitted that we were
powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable." For it
seems self-evident to some critics that such an ideology, which they consider to
be scandalous and absurd, can only lead to utter dissipation and total ruin by
giving the alcoholic drinker carte blanche to drink as much as they like
without fear of criticism.
But those actually familiar with the way alcoholics behave in the face of
such a seemingly impossible-to-resist offer to exchange the burdensome and
restrictive moral model of addiction for the nonjudgmental and seemingly
permissive freedom of the medical model, know quite well that it is by no means
a simple or easy matter to persuade even the most obviously pathological
drinkers than they suffer, not from stupidity, or foolishness, or immorality,
but from a medical condition for which they are not responsible. Alcoholics and
addicts cling stubbornly to their original conceptions of themselves and the
reasons for their behavior - even when an obviously more agreeable and
comfortable alternative such as the medical model is presented and re-presented
to them by therapists, experts, and peers who have themselves made the arduous
journey from one understanding of alcoholic drinking(and hence themselves and
their world) to another. Only if we grasp the fact that there is an extensive
though largely invisible semantic and conceptual "root system"
ramifying throughout the individual's total understanding and experience of
himself and his world, will we be able to account for such inveterate and often
intractable skepticism.
The invisible underground root system to which the superficial and easily
definable denotative dictionary definitions of terms are connected, and from
which in fact they are sustained and nourished, is modified only very slowly if
at all. For this pre-verbal affectively and value-charged "soil"
actually constitutes the fundament of the self and therefore of the individual's
experience of the world.
1.3 What's in a Word? (Accepting Acceptance)
The vocabulary of addiction and recovery is replete with terms whose meaning
may be obscure, elusive or actively misleading to those unfamiliar with their
usage. This stumbling and cursing over the meaning of words is in fact one of
the commonest obstacles to the maintenance of recovery from addiction.
Although many such terms might serve to illustrate the complexities and
difficulties involved, perhaps the concept of acceptance is the most widely and
seriously misunderstood one of all. And because it is so fundamental to the
Twelve Step recovery methods, this misunderstanding naturally leads to the most
serious consequences for the addicted individual, who is frequently thrown back
upon –and into- his addiction over a matter that, from one perspective, is as
simple as a correct understanding of language. But of course we have seen above
that such linguistic misunderstandings are by no means as simple and easy to
correct as one might think – for the self that is built upon and which remains
grounded upon them actively and fearfully resists their modification, lest the
whole structure of the self become unstable and itself begin to move in a new
direction.
Therefore one cannot as a rule simply say to a neophyte in recovery,
"Look here, your trouble is that you have not yet grasped precisely what
such-and-such words actually mean as we are using them now. Instead, you are
clinging to your prior and conventional understandings of these words, which
naturally and inevitably causes you to resist and reject them, and recovery
along with them. But if you will only consent to a shift in your understanding
of these terms such that you will understand and henceforth employ them as we
who have achieved recovery now do, all will be well."
Besides the usual human resistance to modification of understanding and
belief, the addicted individual also manifests a specific type of active and
frequently ingenious resistance to new learning. For anything that the addicted
individual learns that threatens the continuance of his addiction will be
attacked, undermined and if possible destroyed by the still relatively
autonomous independent subsystem of addictive belief.
One way of thinking about the state of the addicted psyche might be to
compare it to feudal Europe prior to the rise of the powerful nation state. For
the addict, like the medieval realm under feudalism, lacks a sufficiently strong
central organizing authority and is therefore subject to the competing claims of
powerful and at times unruly nobles, one of whom happens to be named "Count
Addiction." There may indeed be a King of sorts in the addicted individual,
i.e. a nominal and largely figurehead duly constituted authority claiming the
royal purple and scepter of the Self; but this King conspicuously lacks the
resolve and the strength to rule the realm, which is instead subject to the
contradictory and often wholly selfish designs of the great nobles who are often
at war not only with the King but also with each other.
Thus if we consider the dynamics of such a realm we shall find that all
parties from King to the least active and powerful noble possess the means and
certainly the aim of defending and advancing themselves, but that as a rule no
single party among them is powerful enough to prevail and to maintain effective
dominance over the others. What naturally results, then, is an unstable and
constantly shifting series of intrigues and usually highly unstable diplomatic
alliances in a jockeying for primacy and control.
Let us then imagine our "Count Addiction" as a powerful and
ambitious noble who is also cunning and clever enough to conceal his designs
upon the throne behind a smokescreen of patriotic loyalist rhetoric. He will
certainly have at his disposal a sufficient supply of lawyers, priests,
philosophers and scribes who will assist him in the acceptable formulation and
dissemination of his propaganda – which will aim simultaneously to satisfy the
suspicions of the nominal King and his Court, the competitive fears and
jealousies of the other powerful nobles with whom he may happen to be in a
temporary alliance, and the needs and concerns of his own subjects, subject as
they are to taxation and other onerous obligations to finance his machinations.
Editor's note:
Here the manuscript suddenly breaks off. The author, it
appears, has grown dispirited, convinced that no one will have bothered to
follow him thus far. Yet there is some reason to believe that he might be
induced to continue if any interest were shown. back to top
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