Category: Recovery From Addictions

All addicts seek a high from something. When I was an active love addict, what I sought was the feeling of falling in love. I loved all that gushiness, that ogling, that newness, and that spontaneity that came with it. But if there’s one thing I loved the most about it, it was the highs it created within me when it was happening.

I sought those highs for several decades and unfortunately it turned me into quite a sick sex and love addict, but mostly the latter. Now that I’ve been in my monogamous relationship for the past two and a half years and have settled down, those highs aren’t occurring on a daily basis. Because of that, my recovery from this addiction is currently facing its biggest challenge yet. That’s to continue growing in this relationship instead of running off like I used to do in all my previous ones.

It’s probably best that I set the record straight by stating I love and am still in love with my partner. The frustrating thing about being a love addict though is that I also miss that excitement that came when I was in the process of falling in love. My relationship is now in a new phase, and it’s one of growth. While we might still share those gushy moments and some ogling with each other, our focus isn’t as much on those things anymore. Nor is it on having to be on top of each other all the time either. Instead, I’m learning that being in a healthy long-term relationship means going through this growth period where we can grow closer on a soul level and where we can appreciate the highs when they still occur.

My old addict-based self never liked having only occasional highs after the falling in love period was over. To supplement my disease and this lack of highs, I always had to look at porn, strongly flirt with friends I was attracted to, masturbate regularly with fantasies of others, and spend vast amounts of time on dating websites trying to build potential future partners. I’m happy to say I’m not doing any of these things anymore and I’m seriously grateful to my Higher Power for that. The fact is I don’t want my love addiction to take me away from what I believe really matters and that’s to continuing building this long-term relationship.

No different than how my alcoholism and drug addiction once drove me to seek greater and greater highs, being a love addict also did the very same thing. But in the end, all that ever remained in that greater pursuit of any type of high was being utterly alone in whatever my addiction was. Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore. While I may no longer have those constant highs that came when I was falling in love, I do have something that’s a lot more priceless and that’s the unconditional love my partner and I share for each other now, mind, body, and soul.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I have been around long enough in the rooms of recovery to see there is really only one underlying reason why a person chooses to go back to their addiction.

They failed to enlarge their spiritual life…

The disease of addiction, especially with alcohol and drugs, is one that must be continuously kept at bay. For years I tried every non-spiritual based solution to keep mine that way, but each of them always landed me right back into my addictions. I was triggered constantly during this time and I had no defense against any of them when they occurred. But I kept right on trying to find my own way to recovery anyway. When the pain got great enough though, I decided to finally give Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the 12 Steps a whirl.

I had initially balked at the 12 Steps because six of them mentioned “God” so I assumed that AA and the other recovery programs were all just religious based. And I despised religion at the time, which in turn caused me to despise these programs. But soon I discovered that AA and the other 12 Step recoveries were actually spiritual and not religious based. I also found out I could create a Higher Power of my own understanding. And that’s exactly what I did.

Since then, AA and the 12 Steps have led me on a very strong spiritual path and it’s one that I don’t choose to stray from anymore. Each of the times I did though, my ego had gotten the best of me. When that’s happened, I usually abandoned the recovery work, the rooms, and my spirituality. The end result was always a return to my addiction-prone life. That’s not a place I choose to revisit anymore because it’s never been a happy one.

Over the years since immersing myself into my recovery, I have sponsored many individuals. Sadly, I’ve watched many of them struggle as well with the spiritual concept. It’s been just as hard for them to face the idea of turning their will over to some type of a Higher Power to guide them. They frequently have disappeared and gone back to their favorite poison because of this.

I can honestly say I don’t truly understand why enlarging one’s spiritual life keeps the disease of addiction at bay, but it does. It’s the only thing I’ve ever found to work, just as Bill Wilson discovered many decades ago. It’s also the only thing that has ever kept me from succumbing to those triggers that once led me frequently back to any of my former addictions.

I never want to go back to any of my former addictions, so I’m choosing nowadays to continue enlarging my spiritual life, because at least then, I know I will remain on the path of recovery…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

In recovery, when someone mentions their “sobriety date”, it usually represents the first day they became clean and sober from whatever the substance of their addiction was. I’ve learned over time though, especially in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), that the word “sobriety” itself actually means something different for each and every individual.

In AA, the general consensus as to what “sobriety” means seems to be that of when a person is free of all alcohol and drugs (unless prescribed and taken as instructed). There are those in recovery though who believe all we have is today because it’s a “one-day at a time” based program and many of them choose to never disclose the last time they drank or used a drug because of it. But there are others who follow this same mindset because they continue to relapse again and again. On the one hand that can help prevent putting themselves down each time they relapse, it can also become a way to avoid reaching any type of sobriety.

There’s another set of people I’ve met in AA who define their “sobriety” by breaking it down to each individual substance. In the meeting rooms I once attended in the Boston area, this was commonly known as “The Marijuana Maintenance Program”. That name was derived by the many individuals who came to meetings and shared they had been sober for years, yet they regularly still smoked pot. And while pot is just one of those substances this happened with, there were many others who remained totally free of alcohol but still abused their prescriptions or justified taking a medication they weren’t prescribed. To them, their sobriety date represented their freedom from alcohol only. The reverse has been just as true of “The Marijuana Maintenance Program”. Many have ceased taking all drugs (unless prescribed and taken as indicated), but still go on drinking alcohol occasionally because it was never a problem for them. To them, their sobriety date becomes the last time they got high only. Sadly, I’ve never heard of anyone having success with “sobriety” in either of these situations. One of them has ALWAYS led them back to their original poison and addiction.

For me, my first definition of sobriety began on June 11^th, 1995. That was the first day my system became free of all booze and drugs (that weren’t prescribed and taken as indicated), as well as nicotine. For the longest time, I shared that date out of pride and ego and not for the good it could do. I often wanted to make myself look better than others simply by sharing the number of years I had sober because they were greater than another. Through my spiritual work and walk with God, I’ve learned the importance of my sobriety date is only to show others that long-term sobriety can exist, even through the most difficult of life’s unfortunate circumstances.

But today, I have a new definition of “sobriety”, as it means something so much bigger than it ever used to for me. It has a lot to do with the intensive spiritual journey I’ve been on for the past few years. Now, “sobriety” means being free of all the things I once used to do to keep myself numb from any pain that came from living life. Initially that was only defined as alcohol, drugs, and nicotine, but today it also covers the addictions I had with sex and love, codependency, gambling, overeating, shopping, caffeine, and more.

I’m starting to believe now from my own experience that how one ends up defining their “sobriety” really depends on where they are on their spiritual journey and in their recovery. From observation only, the less I’ve seen someone be guided by a Higher Power, the more loosely they’ve seemed to define their sobriety. But the more I’ve seen someone be guided by a Higher Power, the more it seems they do their best to become free of all addictions. I realize though it’s not my place to judge how one ends up defining “sobriety”, but it is my hope that one day all of us will become free of all addictions and have our Higher Power guiding our ENTIRE lives.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson