Posted on by Abe Austin

The Secret to Permanent Sobriety: Part Two

The Never-Ending Journey)

In my last post I shared how addiction recovery programs and motivational mantras can help us to find sobriety for a time, but they are not a total cure for our sickness. If we are trying to find a way to fix our addiction in one great action, we will be forever disappointed. The secret to permanent sobriety is that there is no secret to permanent sobriety.

Yes, it is possible to live a life free of your addiction, but not as the result of a single grand gesture. It comes by a continual sequence of innumerable efforts. We seem to think of our recovery as a state, a place that we can reach and then stay there. But the fact is, sober living is the byproduct of a lifelong journey for personal improvement, and once we stop taking steps in that journey the sobriety will also falter. Thus, each program and each mantra is only a step that gives us a reprieve for a time, but it must be followed by another step.

The good news is that once we accept that the single grand gesture that brings permanent sobriety is a myth, then we can also accept that the daily gesture that brings a period of sobriety is real. Only by surrendering our desire for the big fix can we finally appreciate the little one. This is why the AA mantra has always been “one day at a time.”

Ongoing Programs)

And speaking of AA, the reason why twelve-step programs are able to permanently sustain an addict in his or her sobriety is because they never end. There is no graduating from a twelve-step program. You come to the meetings, you work the steps, you finish the last one…and then you start over at the beginning, and find someone to sponsor, and keep coming to the meetings.

I mentioned previously that I went to a one-time intensive recovery program, but even they did not profess to be the final cure for all that ailed us. As we finished up their program they repeatedly reiterated to us that if we hadn’t already, we needed to join some continuous recovery program to maintain our sobriety. I admit that I was lazy in making that transition. I was in a good place for the moment and I took their advice halfheartedly. I had seen for myself that I could be restored to sanity, but I guess I had to also see that I could start slipping back into insanity as well.

I have since made a commitment to myself that I will never allow myself to be inactive in my recovery work again. I will always be attending some sort of meeting and doing some sort of homework. I will always ask myself what the next step for a healthier life will be, rather than say that my life is good enough where it is.

Change Within the Ritual)

There is another seduction that we have to recognize and reject as well. After an addict accepts that a singular effort won’t keep him sober and he commits to regularly meeting with a group and doing recovery homework, he might think that he is now in the clear. He believes that he has found the recipe to a happy life, and if he repeats it over and over, it will carry him through to the end.

But this still isn’t quite true.

And the reason why it is not quite true is because we do have an enemy who actively makes war with our souls. I personally believe in the reality of the devil, and I believe that once we find a line of defense that keeps him at bay, he immediately starts concocting another method for attack.

This is how warfighting works, after all. Once an enemy has been defeated in one battle, they aren’t going to keep attacking on the same field under the same conditions. They are going to change tactics. At first they might deploy forces to a weak point. When that point is fortified, they might shift to guerilla, strike-and-run tactics. When precautions have been made against that, they might send spies into the country and stir up sedition from within.

The strategies that worked for you yesterday will not always be fit for the threats of today. You have to be prepared to change tactics just as much as your adversary does. So yes, you keep going to your recovery group and keep doing your homework, but you do that so you have a reserve of strength to respond to the ever-shifting battle.

As an example, in the beginning the addict does this work so that he can learn to overcome his immediate temptations. By the repeated effort, he gradually makes progress, and finally seems to be able to live with a constant sobriety. But now that he is living a healthier, more grounded lifestyle, he finds that the people in his home are resisting that change. His new patterns have broken their expectations of him, and even though he is clearly happier and healthier, they will exert pressure to return the relationship to more familiar places. Thus, the assault has changed from temptation to relationship. The attacks are coming from within the addict’s very own home. Now the addict must learn not only how to establish boundaries with his own behavior, but also with others. A twelve-step program and recovery homework will help him to connect to his higher power and have the strength to do this, but he is going to have to employ new practices in his life to keep up.

To Be a Warrior)

Every addict in recovery is called to fight an eternal war. Every addict is called to forever be a warrior. I realize that this probably sounds exhausting and grim, and perhaps on some days it is. But thankfully, miraculously, there really is an incredibly joy that comes out of living this sort of always-active lifestyle. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous they say: “There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all. I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is deadly earnestness.” Later on, they also say: “But we aren’t a glum lot. If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn’t want it. We absolutely insist on enjoying life.”

Getting started is hard. Sometimes it is hard enough that I try to put it off and look for an easier way around it. But when I finally stop wasting my time in vain pursuits, get to work, and build up just a little bit of momentum, I suddenly find that this labor becomes the most pleasant and rewarding work in all my life. Not only do I feel a sort of satisfaction and excitement about the whole thing, I am also able to look myself in the mirror with dignity and pride. I know that I’m genuinely doing my part and that God is making up for the rest.

Perhaps you are also one of those who has lapsed between programs. Perhaps you thought you were all better, and seemed to be so for a time, but now the enemy is knocking at the gate once more. Perhaps you have felt afraid that this means you will never be whole. I hope these posts have helped you to see that there is still hope for you. Not hope for a one-time cure-all, but hope for an ongoing pattern of life, one which evolves and grows with the changing times, and which keeps you healthy in the moment, from moment-to-moment. It might require a paradigm shift for you to accept these realities, but I pray that you will make that shift quickly. Once you do, you will ascend to a higher truth and sobriety than you had the first time around! A truth and a sobriety that works, and then works again and again!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Holding Back the Tide: Part One

Slipping to the Bottom)

There is an engineering problem that is so difficult that it has become an idiom for any impossible task: pushing water uphill. All of us know that the tendency of water is to take the most immediate route downhill. It pauses when it comes to a level surface and pools up, but only until it is able to feel out another path downward.

Many times, living with an addiction can feel much like this problem of trying to keep water at the top of a hill. There are steeper edges on some side of the hill, where your temptations are strongest, and the tendency to fall is constant. Through sincerely working an addiction recovery program, one may start to shore up the steepest sides of the hill, putting up a bulwark to prevent themselves from slipping that way anymore, but what happens next? Well, if you deny water its usual route, it run along the length of the barricade until it finds whatever the next best route downward is. And this is the case with our addictive tendencies, too. Many the addict has momentarily rejoiced at having his addiction under control, only to slowly realize that he is losing control in another area of his life! One addiction is traded for another!

My Victory and Defeat)

This was the case with me when I began recovery work for my addiction to lust. I threw myself into a program with all my heart and will, determined to make any changes whatsoever until I had beaten this unacceptable behavior. And you know what? It really worked! I started accumulating some real sobriety, and it stuck! At last I felt I had solved the riddle that had stumped me for twenty years.

Then, a couple years into sobriety, I started to notice something annoying. When I had first started my campaign against lust I had started to live a more healthy lifestyle overall, resulting in me losing a good deal of weight. Now, though, the numbers on the scale were starting to go the wrong way again.

Okay, I thought, I got a little lazy with my exercise these past couple months. I just have to recommit to my routine of running and calorie counting. Things will get back into place in no time.

Except that they didn’t. Though I recommitted myself to being physically healthy (multiple times!) I just couldn’t make those changes stick. In fact, the more I tried to improve my behavior, the more I seemed to dive off the deep end instead. Now the overeating had my full attention, and I was horrified to recognize in it the same impulsive, stress-coping, habitual nature that had defined my addiction to lust.

But even realizing this fact was not enough to regain power over my appetite. Until recently, I was trying to approach my sedentary life and unhealthy diet as an addendum to the first addiction, an additional area to work on now that the main issue was under control. But this wasn’t an accurate portrayal at all. This wasn’t an addendum to the addiction, it was the full addiction itself. The same water, just pooled to a different part of the hill. I had pinned the dragon down in the cave, but it had snuck out under disguise and was razing the village once more!

You can’t keep the water in place by laying sandbags in one place. If you shore it up where it was running out, it will come spilling out of areas that were only somewhat a problem before. If you shore up those areas, then the water will start coming out of areas that weren’t a problem at all before. You have got to get the sandbags around the entire perimeter of the hill.

A Total Reformation)

Now I admit, I had allowed myself to get complacent in my recovery work. When I first started I was singularly focused on my addiction to lust, but soon learned that nothing short of an entire life restructure was going to suffice. This was why I had been able to make some headway on my physical health, as well as my social and financial health, too.

But after I finished my initial addiction recovery program I did not immediately get myself to a consistent twelve-step group. Just when I started to realize that I needed to, COVID shut down in-person meetings, and I took that as an excuse to still float adrift. By the time all the lockdowns had been lifted, I had stopped thinking about joining a group entirely. And through all of this I had maintained my singular focus on continuing sobriety from lust, but I had given up on the broader view of maintaining an entirely new lifestyle. My physical care was therefore in severe decline, as well as my social connections and my finances.

Half a year ago I started to right the ship. I joined a twelve-step group and have been attending diligently ever since, while also doing recovery homework. I have, as a result, seen the downward trends be halted, and some of them have started to turn back in the right direction. The journey seems to be slower this time than it was before, but maybe that’s just how it feels when you’re in the trenches.

Most importantly, I have become reconvinced that if I am not willing to change my entire life, then my life will not change in any significant way. I am trying to rebuild control and consistency, with the understanding that areas must be worked on. If I get my health and wellbeing back where I want them in just one area first, I won’t make the mistake of thinking that now I’m done and the other sectors of my life can be left to themselves.

Tomorrow I will discuss a little more of how I am trying to make changes in my life on a day-by-day basis. I’ll see you then.

Posted on by Abe Austin

You Get to Choose, Even When it Seems Impossible: Summary

Capable but Powerless)

I began this journey by considering the conundrum of the addict who hates his addiction but lives it even so. The addict possesses the physical capability to change his behavior, and sufficient desire to cease his behavior, yet finds himself falling into it again and again. The missing piece, as we have discussed, is that the addict lacks the mental willpower to translate his desires to his actions, at least when in the face of powerful temptation. His prefrontal cortex has been eroded, which is responsible for all his higher mental functions. When the need for another hit arises, all feelings and rationality are numbed into silence, leaving the addict a slave to his base impulses.

Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it – this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish. - Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book

This conundrum has led many the addict to despair. He feels that at some point earlier in life he must have forfeited his last chance at salvation. By the time he became really serious about wanting to change, it was already too late, and now he believes that he is doomed to do the very things he despises most for the rest of his life. This demoralizes the addict, is almost certain to cause him to enter a deep depression, and can even make him suicidal.

While I would certainly never encourage any suicidal notions in any person, reaching this moment of despair does suggest that the addict has finally reached the point where he can be totally honest with himself. Because he’s right, he can’t win this battle. Only by accepting this soul-crushing defeat can he begin the path to victory.

Other Paths)

When one door closes, another opens

For most addicts, it is only the total failure of their attempts to control their lives that will finally humble them enough to hear alternative methods. Inherent in all of us is the desire to fix ourselves by ourselves, so we have to try at that for a very long time, and to absolutely ruinous results, before we will start to look outside for help. And it is in this shift outwards, though, that we can actually find the success that has eluded us for so long.

Quite probably the single method that has brought the most hopeless-case addicts to true healing has been the twelve-step program invented by the Alcoholics Anonymous organization, and this program is entirely predicated upon the notion that the addict, though powerless by himself, can find the power to overcome his addiction through the strength of God and the recovery group that he binds himself to. Relying upon others goes absolutely in the face of our desire to be autonomous and self-powerful, but, paradoxically, it is also the only thing that will ever allow us to regain out autonomy and self-power.

In the course of this study, we examined how the addict who reaches out to a fellow brother or sister when facing temptation is inviting a working rational mind to the situation. The addict who calls for help is having his mind assaulted and numbed by an active temptation, but the person that he calls probably is not. The helper can provide the calm reasoning to the distressed addict, talking them down off the ledge and back into rational ways of thinking.

We also considered how uniting together for this good purpose gives us access to Christ’s promise that “where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). Coming together as a group for a holy cause is one of the surest ways I know of to tap into the strength and willpower of the divine. And, in my experience, that strength and willpower is far more than enough to overcome every temptation that we might face. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

We also discussed personal practices that the addict can put in place to help shore up his defenses. These are in no way an alternative to calling upon the strength of our brothers and sisters and God, but an addendum to those resources.

The practices we described included recognizing and avoiding the sequence of events that typically precede our acting out. Often there are trigger events that come before the temptation, and much of our acting out can be avoided if we simply avoid the trigger event. Usually we are able to circumvent that trigger because our mind isn’t yet fogged over by temptation.

The other personal practice we discussed was finding the areas of life where our damaged prefrontal cortex and higher reasoning weren’t being entirely steamrolled by temptation. In those areas we make a conscious effort to act deliberately and conscientiously. I pointed out how when we deliberately do little things to improve our lives, even if they seem fairly inconsequential, we are exercising the regions of our brain needed to perform higher executive functions. Bit-by-bit we are increasing our willpower, mental strength, and conviction. Eventually we will have enough power to reclaim the fields taken by our addiction.

Hopelessness isn’t Hopeless)

Sometimes it isn’t the situation that is hopeless, it is the method that we are bringing to it. Each of us needs to give up on using the wrong tool so that we can start to use the right one.

If you have a genuine addiction, powering through on your own is doomed to failure, but that doesn’t mean that you are necessarily doomed to failure. After failing countless times over it is easy to become pessimistic and assume that nothing could ever work for you.

I’m here to give you the good news that this is not the case at all, though. You are not the first person to have felt this way, and you will not be the last person to find salvation even so. Leaving behind the methods that didn’t work, now embrace the methods that do. Learn to be shrewd in how you avoid temptation, build up strength of willpower through small wins, and tap into the strength of others and God.

Do these things and your mind will heal, your impulsive behaviors will fade, and self-control will return. You will become one of those of whom it has been said, “For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:28).

I have seen it in myself and in numerous others. The brain can heal itself. Hope can be restored. The numbing forces can be numbed.

As I pointed out at the start of this post, the addict in the midst of despair can find himself entertaining thoughts of suicide. He is wrong to think he has no alternative but to end his life, however he is correct that a death of some sort must occur. That death, though, is the death of the ego. Only by denying himself, putting to death his pride and isolationism, can he be reborn through the baptism of fellowship in Christ. He must immerse himself in the brotherhood and sisterhood of fellow addicts in recovery, and when he does, he will feel Christ manifesting within himself. Then his new life truly begins.