Recovery

Some of the people I disagree with most in recovery have enormous hearts They genuinely want to help They’ve found something that changed their life, the 12 Steps, therapy, trauma work, spirituality, religion, coaching, Tony Robbins, neuroscience, whatever it happens to be And something very human can happen next It worked for me becomes This is what works! Then Other people need this! And eventually If they aren’t getting better, they haven’t understood it, surrendered to it, worked it properly, become ready, committed enough, or found the right version of it yet That is the moment passion can quietly become dogma And it’s difficult to see because the intention can remain completely loving Someone can devote their life to helping people while becoming increasingly certain that they understand what those people need I’ve done it myself! For years I believed passionately in the 12 Steps because they had helped me stop using drugs. I wanted other people to have what I had found My heart wasn’t the problem I understood too soon I mistook something that had helped me for knowledge about somebody else And “but it saves lives” doesn’t resolve this Something helping one person, or thousands of people, tells us that it can help people It doesn’t tell us why it helped every person it helped It doesn’t tell us who it won’t help It doesn’t tell us what else might have helped And it certainly doesn’t give us the right to organise another human being’s experience around its explanation This is how movements become evangelical A transformation happens A story forms around the transformation The story becomes a method The method becomes an answer The answer becomes an identity And eventually questioning the answer feels like questioning the transformation itself That’s where curiosity becomes very difficult I don’t want less passion in recovery I want passion with humility Bring your experience, bring what saved you, bring your training, research, spirituality and everything you’ve learned Just leave enough space for the person standing in front of you to show you that none of it explains them Perhaps the greatest respect we can give something that changed our life is not insisting that it should change somebody else’s in the same way

I’ve been thinking about something uncomfortable again.. Go to a 12-Step convention Who gets invited to speak? Usually someone with a powerful story that confirms the value of the 12 Steps Their story moves the room, everyone applauds And another room full of people leaves with their existing understanding of recovery strengthened But think about who probably wasn’t invited… The person who did everything they were told, stayed abstinent for twenty years, and eventually began questioning whether the programme had actually brought them freedom Now take the 12 Steps out of it Go to a trauma conference, Who gets invited onto the stage? Go to a psychotherapy training, Who decides which theories become part of the curriculum? Submit a new model to an organisation, Who decides whether it deserves attention? Even here on LinkedIn, the same thing is happening everywhere! Eventually in this something strange happens, we look around and see our beliefs being confirmed everywhere And we call that evidence But some of it may simply be selection The people choosing the speakers already have beliefs The people designing the training already have beliefs The people deciding which research questions deserve funding already have beliefs The algorithms learn what we respond to And we naturally gravitate towards people who make sense of the world in ways that make sense to us None of this requires conspiracy, and nobody has to be dishonest! In fact, everyone involved can be completely sincere That’s what makes it so interesting A system can become incredibly good at reproducing its own understanding of reality without anyone consciously deciding to silence another one And then the people most successful within that system may be the people who articulate its existing assumptions most convincingly Their success becomes evidence for the system Their visibility becomes evidence for the system Their qualifications become evidence for the system The applause becomes evidence for the system And eventually – “Everyone knows this” But who exactly is everyone? And who never got the microphone? I’m beginning to think one of the most important questions we can ask of any belief system including my own isn’t How much evidence confirms this? It’s Where could I encounter the evidence that contradicts it? Because if the people, institutions, training, conferences and algorithms surrounding me continually select for what I already believe… I could spend my entire life being proven right And still be wrong

His death was tragic His return to drug use was real The consequences were catastrophic But none of that tells us what addiction fundamentally is Hoffman’s relapse has been used for years as evidence that addiction remains present even through decades of abstinence – dormant, waiting, progressing, ready to return, you may have read the recent post I commented on about it, where I was attacked by multiple people for stating the obvious So let’s think about the logic We observed a behaviour return…. Then we used the explanation we already believed in to tell us why it returned… Recurrence is evidence of recurrence It is not automatically evidence of a lifelong disease that existed invisibly for the previous 23 years Perhaps that explanation is correct Perhaps it isn’t But Hoffman’s death cannot prove it, that’s the point And I think we owe someone who can no longer tell us about his own experience more than turning his death into confirmation of whatever recovery philosophy we already believed, I see this as a very poor etiquette So… If remaining abstinent supports the model, and eventually returning to drugs also supports the model, what outcome could ever show us that the model was wrong? It simply cannot be that, it could never be wrong, imagine that….

I spent 22 years in recovery It helped me stop using drugs It gave me community, structure and a completely different life I’m grateful for much of it But there was an idea underneath almost everything I learned I would always be an addict I could recover, grow, stay clean for decades I could build a family, a career and a meaningful life But I could never actually be free of addiction At best, I could manage it, One day at a time!! Keep doing the work, and don’t become complacent Remember what you are, because the disease is patient! It’s waiting for you… doing press ups And here’s the question that eventually became impossible for me to ignore What if I actually changed? Not learned to manage myself better Not became better at resisting urges Not accumulated more clean time What if the organisation of experience that once made drugs so important to me genuinely changed? because it did, I am not an addict, and I am free, cured of addiction fully and have been for 10 years now, even though I have been clean almost 32 years, I still was in addiction for the first 22! Was my recovery framework capable of recognising that? no! it (meaning people)reinterpreted my freedom as dangerous complacency! it is installed into newcomers!, people who leave, die! That’s where I think recovery itself can become a trap Not because meetings are bad Not because abstinence is bad Not because ongoing support is bad But because an explanation that once saved your life can become an identity you are never permitted to outgrow Imagine being told after 30 years of profound change You’re still what you were You just manage it successfully… And if you question that?!? That might itself be evidence that your disease is talking Notice the problem The identity becomes almost impossible to escape Accept it → you’re recovering Question it → you’re in denial Remain abstinent → recovery is working Use again → proof you were never free Where is the door out? I don’t think everyone needs to leave recovery I don’t think everyone should drink or use drugs again I don’t think everyone should abandon an identity that gives their life meaning, connection and safety I’m asking something much simpler Are we allowed to get well? like really? Not according to a programme According to the person actually living the life Maybe recovery should ultimately make itself unnecessary Maybe the greatest outcome isn’t becoming exceptionally good at being “in recovery” it’s reaching a point where your life is no longer organised around addiction at all Not fighting it, managing it, not proving you’ve defeated it Just living!! Recovery isn’t supposed to become your life! it’s supposed to give your life back!

Someone enters treatment They’re told they have a chronic, relapsing condition They stop using They attend meetings Work a programme Learn their triggers Manage their cravings Build their life around recovery Then, five years later, they return to using And something strange happens Almost immediately, the explanation turns towards them Their disease was still there They became complacent They stopped doing what worked They lost connection They weren’t vigilant enough They didn’t prioritise their recovery Maybe….. But there is another possibility we seem far less willing to consider Maybe what we gave them wasn’t enough!! Maybe abstinence changed the behaviour without changing whatever made that behaviour necessary Maybe they became extraordinarily good at managing themselves without becoming fundamentally freer Maybe the explanation we gave them never adequately understood their experience in the first place Maybe the intervention worked exactly as designed, and what it was designed to achieve wasn’t enough I spent 22 years in recovery For much of that time, if somebody returned to using, I knew how to explain it I rarely remember asking whether we might have failed them That’s uncomfortable now… Because the prevailing logic has an extraordinary protection built into it If the person remains abstinent, recovery worked If the person returns to using, their disease progressed The system gets the success –  The person gets the failure I’m not suggesting every relapse means treatment failed That would simply replace one certainty with another I’m asking why treatment failure isn’t routinely considered as one of the possibilities In almost every other area of healthcare, if an intervention repeatedly fails to produce the outcome we hoped for, we examine the intervention In addiction, we have become remarkably comfortable examining the patient Perhaps returning to use doesn’t automatically tell us something about the chronicity of their disease Perhaps sometimes it tells us something about the limits of our understanding And perhaps the question after someone returns to using shouldn’t immediately be: What did they stop doing? Maybe we should also have the courage to ask What did we fail to understand?

I spent 22 years in 12-step recovery and It helped me stop using drugs And for a long time, I thought that gave me something incredibly valuable when helping other people I knew what worked and I’d lived it I’d survived it and I’d seen other people survive it too So when someone was struggling, I could recognise what was happening Or at least I thought I could! Because there is a very small distance between This saved my life and This is what will save yours And we can cross it without ever noticing The same thing happens everywhere Someone transforms their life through the 12 Steps Someone discovers therapy Someone finds God Someone has an extraordinary experience with psychedelics Someone discovers trauma Someone finds meditation, breathwork, exercise, medication, a particular teacher or philosophy It changes everything And naturally, they want other people to experience what they’ve experienced The heart behind that can be completely genuine But passion is not proof Your transformation tells me something extraordinary about what was possible for you. It doesn’t tell me what another human being needs In fact, the more profound our own transformation was, the harder this may be to see Because now we don’t merely have an idea We have evidence that feels personal “I was dying and this saved me” “I tried everything until I found this” “I know because I’ve been there” And suddenly our experience isn’t informing our curiosity anymore It’s supplying the answer! We stop asking “What is happening for you?” and begin asking “How do I help you see what I already know?” That’s a completely different relationship I don’t think we need to throw away lived experience I think we need to become much more careful about the authority we give it Your recovery story can offer hope It can show someone what is possible It can create connection It can even save a life But it can never tell you who the person sitting in front of you is So… “Can I meet this person without needing their answer to look anything like mine?” Might be one of the hardest things any of us with lived experience ever learn to do

Trauma mattered in my life But saying it caused my addiction now feels far too simple Plenty of people experience trauma and never become addicted And people who become addicted can have completely different histories So somewhere between what happened and what I eventually did, something else mattered How I experienced myself How I experienced the world What became unbearable What heroin changed for me From inside that experience, using made sense Calling trauma “the cause” can give us an answer too quickly The question I’m much more interested in is What made that behaviour necessary for me? Trauma may be part of that answer But it should never be allowed to end the inquiry

Most recovery models begin with an explanation Disease Trauma Powerlessness Attachment Nervous system dysregulation Underlying pain Then the questions tend to follow the model And if we are not careful, the person’s answers get interpreted through the explanation we arrived with But look at the relief loop Life feels too much Something is used Relief happens Consequences follow Life becomes harder The cycle repeats The obvious temptation is to decide what the person really needs But that is exactly where inquiry has to begin What did this behaviour make possible for you? Not what do I think it gave you Not what my training says it must have been doing Not what happened for me when I was addicted For one person it may have created silence For another confidence For another belonging For another intensity For another escape from thinking For another something neither of us would have predicted That answer matters because the behaviour did not become necessary in a textbook It became necessary inside this person’s experience And that is why simply removing the substance can leave the whole organisation untouched The drug disappears The need does not Then we call what happens next relapse, self-sabotage, resistance or the disease But perhaps we never understood what the behaviour was solving in the first place A model can help us think It should never be allowed to answer for the person Recovery begins when we stop asking, Which model explains this? and start asking What became possible here that you could not find anywhere else? The answer has to come from the inquiry Not from us….

That may sound strange when the drug is destroying someone’s life But from inside their experience, it was doing something It changed how they felt It made something quieter Made something bearable Gave confidence, relief, belonging, intensity, escape, certainty, whatever that person needed at the time And that changes the question completely Instead of – Why won’t they stop? We can ask – What problem was this answering? Because if we remove the drug without understanding why it became so important, we may remove the behaviour while leaving the need untouched Sometimes that person stays abstinent and struggles for years Sometimes another behaviour takes its place Sometimes life simply becomes something they have to endure without the thing that once changed it – The drug matters – The consequences matter But the drug is not where the story begins The deeper inquiry is – What became true in this person’s experience that made this answer make sense? That is where I think our understanding of addiction needs to begin

I can eat one chocolate I don’t get on the scales every morning I can say yes to sweets. I can say no I maintain a healthy, relatively stable weight without thinking about it Sometimes I train regularly. Sometimes I don’t I don’t weigh my food I don’t count everything I eat I don’t look in the mirror and hate what I see I can choose to lose some weight if i want I don’t call myself a compulsive overeater I don’t maintain a disease Most Importantly I am free It wasn’t always like this For around 37 years, food and my body occupied my internal world almost full time I would wake up and weigh myself The number on the scales could determine the quality of my entire day Up meant one thing, down meant another I checked my reflection constantly, mirrors, shop windows, I needed reassurance that I was okay! I had an endless collection of supplements, some for what I wasn’t eating, others promised to change something about a body I couldn’t accept I underwent seven cosmetic surgeries trying to change it, it was extreme My struggle with my body went back to childhood, I was eight years old when I was first given diet pills without choice (tenuate dospan) Food became control, relief, punishment, reward and obsession And later, some of the things offered as solutions simply gave the obsession a different structure Weigh the food Measure the portions Report what you ate Tell your sponsor what you ate yesterday Photograph your meal and send it to someone before eating it Call it accountability For me, these practices reinforced something I now see very differently I couldn’t be trusted with myself My own signals were something to override My appetite required supervision My body needed controlling My wisdom couldn’t be trusted Yet the behaviours I’d spent decades fighting were communicating something They weren’t the enemy They made sense! That’s what I’m interested in now Not – How do we control disordered eating? But – What made this relationship with food and the body necessary in the first place? What was it doing? What was it regulating? What did I believe about myself? How had I learned to see myself? What happened to those perceptions when they were genuinely seen rather than endlessly managed? Today I don’t consider myself someone successfully managing an eating disorder! I just don’t have one It occupied about 37 years of my life Now I rarely even think about it That distinction matters enormously to me! Im 70% through my 3rd book – The Unspeakable Hunger: The Intelligence of Disordered Eating I don’t want to write another book about controlling food I want to explore the human intelligence underneath it and help guide people to total freedom Because perhaps the behaviour we’ve spent so long trying to silence has been trying to tell us something all along!