As stated in the Big Book, “Remember that we deal with alcohol [addiction]—cunning, baffling, powerful.” So, we should not be surprised to hear the following comments from residents in Recovery: “Why am I here? Since checking myself into a Rehab treatment center for addiction, and after detoxing and being sober for a few days, I am starting to doubt my need for any further restrictions, supervision, or therapy. I don’t think I need to be here any longer: this sucks!

When I hear people in Recovery expressing doubts about whether they are really addicted, and wondering if maybe they are just going through a rough patch in their life, or struggling with the isolation and complaining about the rigid structure of this Recovery quarantine. I am no longer surprised by how adamantly we addicts cling to the things we know and what we think identifies our value in the world, not yet ready to change our lifestyle—even if it might cost us our life, if we don’t.

Please don’t get defensive; I’m not judging anyone here! I was sitting right where you are now, experiencing thoughts similar to the ones I just highlighted, questioning whether this temporary sober jail time could work for me. At the same time, I’m not here to sugarcoat the reasons for how we ended up here. I am here to rip off the Band-Aid, so we don’t get tricked by our addictive thinking, which is always from the past trying to blindside us into relapsing, or get persuaded by others, selfish influencers, telling us we can handle our addiction with some in-moderation technique. My intent here is to point out that we do have a fighting chance to wake up and spend more time understanding our addiction, rather than convincing ourselves that we can control our cravings—which means we’ve already relapsed.

It can be heartbreaking to observe residents changing their state of mind from being so grateful and humble shortly after detoxing, trying to join their newfound sober community. Some immediately start feeling and expressing loving-kindness again, without truly understanding the meaning of unconditional Love; others are cured, ready to leave within a matter of days, to get back on their horse and ride off into that sober pink cloud, no problem; a few retreat fully into the self-ego personality they were trying to escape when they checked in just days before, as if hitting bottom in addiction never happened.

Initially, most tend to stay isolated, just as they were in addiction—living in doubt, scared of exposing their sensitivities, protecting their heart, not wanting to be vulnerable, desperately avoiding being wounded or having their heart broken again.

Some, after a short period of sobriety, get a hyper-sense of Recovery: they feel physically and mentally revived, they can see clearly—for the first time in a long time—ready to take on the world again.

Others aren’t thinking so much; they are starting to feel again, still grateful for the miracle of being sober, feeling a deep connection with their Recovery community, and experiencing a heightened sense of loving-kindness for themselves and everyone they meet.

Then some forget, sometimes overnight: asking, how did I end up here, and why the hell do I need to stay in Recovery any longer? I’m not convinced that I’m an addict; I’m not like the rest of these people sharing about all their problems, shortcomings, or dysfunctional backgrounds; I really think my lifestyle is much more manageable than the stories that I’m hearing in this addiction asylum; this sucks, I’m tired of being preached at: about how dysfunctional I am and how I need to change my lifestyle to stay sober; I have a family, a job, a mortgage, I can’t just snap my fingers and change my life—this is crazy talk!

I got sober, that’s it; now I just need to stay sober. I don’t need to knuckle under to this sobriety propaganda, change my lifestyle, and learn all these self-help tools, or join an addiction community with steps and rules to stay sober.

“If you’re not ready to acknowledge your addiction, you’re not ready to stay sober. So, why are you here?”

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? If not, no worries; we addicts can think up tons more. There are countless “cunning, baffling, and powerful” reasons to doubt our addictions, and they all stem from our past, which is where our present thoughts come from. The truth is, we can never think of anything original, because all of our thoughts are just different versions of our past: our memories—reassembled thought patterns from what we already know and have experienced; our past that has been embedded in the 86 billion neurons that make up our brain—of which they say most of us only ever use 10-15%. And science doesn’t know exactly how we manipulate our past wiring and shape thoughts to meet our survival needs—right now?

Now, during my journey in sobriety, I figured out this mantra early on to remind myself how quickly I can relapse: “If I’m thinkin’ I’m drinkin’”—because, if I’m thinking I’m living in the past. So, the question becomes: am I ready to stop thinking and stay aware of my addiction and truly live in the present moment, so that I can stay sober? Am I ready to wake up from constantly daydreaming—thinking and recreating the past in my head—wrestling with past traumas and neglect, feeling unloved—which causes my cravings, wanting to escape the pain and mental suffering, which always ends in relapse? Most importantly, how do I stop thinking about my past and free myself from it?

Freedom from the past is freedom from thinking about the past. The problem is I can’t change the past or make the hard-wired memories in my brain disappear. But I can heal the past now, in the present moment, if I can learn to stay sober and sit with the pain from the past when it arises, and face it, really look at the truth of why and what happened, so I can understand now what I didn’t understand then. That acceptance and understanding can bring healing to the past—now. So, the next time those thoughts are triggered and surface, they get easier to face; they last for shorter periods and occur less often, until that hard-wiring goes dormant and thoughts about those past experiences stop surfacing altogether.

So, freedom is staying aware: to stay sober and free from trying to reassemble my past (thinking) to deal with what is happening now. Freedom is not a physical location or a psychological state of mind that I can somehow reach by changing the old hard-wiring in my brain. Freedom is the constant, natural state of being in the present moment, feeling the truth of life happening now and creating new sober-wiring that allows me to live unrestricted by substances outside my body, or by psychological bars created from the past that keep me imprisoned in this temporary body-mind, self-ego, which is not my true Self of eternal, spiritual being in reality.

Freedom is the universal energy source of Love constantly flowing through me, into the world I create, when unrestricted by my thinking, self-ego.

VAB  07.16.26

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