“Hitting Rock Bottom”

There is a phrase that is used quite a bit in all of the 12 Step recovery programs. Its’ words describe a period in a person’s life where they have reached the lowest point of their addiction. It also represents the moment in time when that person usually has lost everything which means something to themselves including family, friends, money, and their job. And to be in such a place for anyone is to mean that they’ve “hit rock bottom”.

While hitting rock bottom is a phrase most often used by those who have suffered from addictions, it’s also become widely used today by anyone who feels they have reached the lowest point in their lives. If you have ever experienced that feeling, then you know that one of the most predominant thoughts at that time is that things couldn’t possibly get any worse. Most of the sober people that I’ve known in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), as well as in many of the other recovery programs, have routinely told me that their sober date represents that time period when hitting rock bottom happened for them. In my case, that wasn’t true.

My final day of drinking and drugging came on June 10th, 1995. At that time in my life, I had been 6 months out of college, I was earning an incredible wage for someone that was only 23 years old, and I lived on my own in a very nice condo complex. I hadn’t lost anything and definitely didn’t feel as if I was at the lowest point in my life. But what was the case on that day was how bad the struggle was within myself about whether I was gay or not. The best friend I had at the time had come in for the weekend to celebrate my 23rd birthday, and as always we were whooping it up by way of getting wasted. What he didn’t know was that I had feelings for him and was trying to drink and drug them away. As we watched a movie that night on June 10th, I was sitting on the end of my couch and he, the middle. While the movie progressed and I grew more drunk, I slid closer to him and he, in turn, slid further away, until at one point he yelled at me to give him some space. At that moment, I thought I was going to throw up because of the anxiety I was feeling inside over my feelings and the whole situation with him. I ran to the bathroom and once safely within it, I knelt by the toilet but didn’t hurl. Instead, I prayed and asked God to help me figure out who I was, as I honestly thought the alcohol and drugs were making me be gay by causing me to have feelings for this guy. While that wasn’t my first rock bottom in life, it was definitely one of my lower periods. Thankfully, God answered my prayer that day in a way I hadn’t intended and removed my desire to drink, drug, and smoke cigarettes. The next day became the first day I drew a completely sober breath from all of them, but unfortunately, it also represented a day where my spiritual condition continued to decline even further. After checking out some AA meetings, I decided the 12 Step work wasn’t for me and left it behind for another 12 years.

During the course of those 12 years, I found many other ways to numb myself from various addictions that weren’t alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes. All of the pains from my childhood, from my insecurities within, and from things surrounding my sexuality plagued me day after day during all that time. My disease progressed as I did everything I could to stay numb. I tell people today when I speak at AA meetings that the disease of addiction progresses whether one is using alcohol or drugs or not, if they’re not working on healing the spiritual sickness that drives them to addictions. And mine progressed because I refused to work on healing mine. That all began to change when I copped a resentment with the United States of all things. I had burned so many bridges in all of the places I had visited and lived in my country that I thought going to another one would change things. So I went to Amsterdam of all places to spend an entire month with someone that ended with me burning even more bridges. When I finally landed back in the United States at Logan Airport in Boston, MA at the end of August, 2007, I hit that rock bottom and couldn’t stop crying. I had lost a seven year relationship with a man I had once deeply loved. I had wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and thrown a million dollar business away. Most of the people I had once called my friends had left my life and the only thought I had inside was that I wanted to die. At 12 years clean and sober, I thought about suicide and ending it all just like my father had done. Now, I can look back at that moment in my life not only as the beginning of my recovery, but also as the moment when I truly first hit rock bottom.

Since then, I have had several other moments that I could argue were also periods of hitting rock bottom and I don’t believe there is only one time that it can happen in life. While I found recovery and started working on it for my alcohol and drug addiction, I remained active in other substitute addictions for a few more years that kept me bouncing in and out of depression. Once I fully turned over my ENTIRE will to my Higher Power, I haven’t hit any type of rock bottom since.

Hitting rock bottom is not a fun place to be in. It’s a moment in time where death often seems like a better option than life. The only way I found out of that darkness which comes in that moment is to find a Higher Power who can give you enough light to show the way. If you are feeling like you are in that darkness right now, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and call upon your Higher Power to light up your path out of it. I can promise you that if you follow that Light for the rest of your life, you will never have to hit any type of rock bottom ever again…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Oh Those Pink Clouds…

One of the biggest misconceptions for anyone who is suffering from an addiction of any sort is that life will always be smooth sailing if they could just find permanent sobriety from their disease. What they don’t know is that although life, minus the active addiction, will become more manageable, there still will be many ups and downs. Unfortunately, there is this period of time that occurs somewhere between their first day of sobriety and their first major difficulty, that makes this initial misconception seem even more believable and it’s commonly referred to in the 12 Step community as the “pink clouds”.

I’ve never seen anyone come to their first recovery meeting from any addiction being happy, joyous, and free. More often than not, that person is instead broken and confused. But once the detox phase passes and they haven’t engaged in their addiction actively for a series of days or weeks, the person begins to experience acceptance of their addiction. They become exited about their recovery and see how great their life feels during that period, as compared to how it was only a short time ago. Some begin to feel invincible and think they have grasped what it takes to maintain quality recovery. Through all their various addiction treatment centers, self-help groups, therapists, and 12 Step meetings they’ve attended, they start to feel a reprieve from the oppression that their addictions once put them in. Quick moments of joy and a false sense of over confidence usually results, which last for different lengths of time for each person. But feelings and emotions come and go in life, and for each of these people who are experiencing those “pink cloud” days, one will arrive when it all seems to come crashing down.

Sometimes that crash happens when a person leaves their addiction treatment programs after weeks and weeks of being secluded in the security blanket from them. They emerge into the world and see the mess all over again that they left behind. Or for those like myself who never went into any type of addiction treatment programs, and instead just attended recovery meetings, the day comes where all the dominos seem to fall over and one thing after another appears to go wrong. In both cases, it’s on that day where the risk for relapse becomes greater as the person starts to doubt the quality of their recovery. This is when all those pink clouds quickly depart and instead are replaced by dark and ominous ones. Things such as anxiety attacks and spirals into depression, along with thoughts reappearing of wanting to act out again in their addiction, become commonplace. For the lucky ones who decide to push through these feelings and keep a determined course to doing what’s necessary to stay sober from their addiction, moments of those “pink clouds” will reappear intermittently for the rest of their lives. For those that don’t, the result is usually, and quite sadly, a serious relapse.

It took me 16 years of sobriety from alcohol and drugs and a few teachings from Buddhism, to fully grasp the absolute truth behind this “pink cloud” phenomena. The bottom line is that nothing ever remains the same in this world. Life is constantly shifting. And positive feelings will come and go as much as the negative ones. By removing myself out of the repetitive cycle of all addictions, I have been able to see that many “pink clouds” come and go just like the ones we all see in the sky everyday. The more committed I keep myself to God, to my spirituality, and to a life free from all addictions, the easier it has been to be like a tree standing firm in the ground as the positive and negative winds blow past me day after day after day. The less I’ve committed myself over the years to any of those things, the weaker my root structure becomes and the more those negative winds have ripped my roots out of the ground and carried me with them for great lengths of time.

It’s really this simple. Life will always be filled with many ups and downs. In active addiction, each of them can become severely high and low for a person. But in recovery, they can become much more manageable. “Pink clouds” will be present on and off throughout one’s entire lifetime of sobriety, as much as other types of clouds. Appreciate and be grateful to God for those moments of serenity that come during those “pink cloud” days and do whatever is necessary to strengthen your own spiritual tree’s root system in that time as well. For you’ll surely need them when those negative winds come blow those “pink clouds” away, just as much as they’ll hold you strong to get to the next time they return…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Hanging Out At Any Of Those “Barbershops”

“If you hang out at the barbershop long enough, you’re bound to get a haircut…”

I’ve lost count of the number of times that someone has taken a moment during their share at a 12 Step recovery meeting to mention this slogan. It’s become such a cliche now that I usually expect to hear it at least once during any time I attend a recovery meeting. But maybe that’s because this saying has such profound truth to it, especially for those who have suffered from an addiction at any point in their life.

It’s unclear where this slogan originated. My guess is that most people would probably say it began with Bill Wilson using it during the early days when he first started up the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The original idea behind this slogan was supposed to be a parallelism for those alcoholics who were trying to remain sober but still were choosing to hang out in bars. Eventually, it was found that those people who did that, only relapsed and fell back into an active state of alcoholism.

While I’m not a big fan of using any type of slogan when I speak, as you might already know from my previous entries, that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them like I do this one. Throughout my life, I have suffered from various addictions that began with alcohol and drugs and ended with sex, love, codependencies, and obsessions.  During the active periods of any of those addictions, I allowed my ego to run the show and rarely did I stay away from those people, places, and things that triggered me to partake in those addictions. Unfortunately, even when I began the path of recovery for each of them, my ego still held onto some form of control. It would convince me at times that it was ok to hold onto some of those people, places, and things, even though they triggered me. And the result was always the same. I fell back into one of the many addictions that had afflicted me previously.

When someone hangs around those people, places, and things long enough that are triggering for their addictions, the defenses and walls they built up for protection against those addictions begin to wear down. And being around any of them long enough, will totally remove every last bit of their defense until the person relapses completely back into their addition.

After my first few years of sobriety, I grew very comfortable, no doubt too comfortable, with the amount of time that had passed without taking a drink and a drug. As my sober years continued to pass by one by one, I went back to those bars and clubs, and made friends with those who were actively suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. I stopped working on any type of spiritual recovery program and like that saying goes, the longer I hung around those toxic people, places, and things, the more I became like them. Thank God, I never did go back to alcohol and drugs, but what did happen was that I still grew more toxic, found other addictions, and increased my negative traits and character defects. Truthfully, it probably was only a matter of time before I would have picked up alcohol and drugs again at the rate I was going.

The bottom line here is this. Each of the 12 Step recovery programs have taught me a very valuable lesson and that is I can’t be around any of those people, places, or things, on any regularly basis, where my former addictions run rampant. Because if I do, there’s a good chance I’ll fall back into doing any one of them again. So for those former gamblers knowing this now, I’d encourage you to stay away from all those casinos. For those former sex and love addicts, I’d encourage you to stay away from all those pornographic websites and sex shops. For those former overeaters, I’d encourage you to stay away from all those all-you-can-eat buffets. For those former drug addicts, I’d encourage you to stay away from all those dealers and people still using drugs. For those former alcoholics, I’d encourage you to stay away from all those bars and liquor stores. And well, I’m sure you’re getting my point by now. But in any case, just know that that it really is true that a person who hasn’t had their haircut in awhile is eventually just going to get one when they choose to hang out in any one of those barbershops long enough…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson