Many times in recovery I find myself triggered, not to use, but to go back to the lifestyle of crime I once lived. To get back with my old crew and "do it right this time". After meditating on the matter I came to realize that the lifestyle itself I could take or leave, it was the people within that lifestyle whom are the true source of my desires. These are great people I am talking about, unhealthy as a McDonalds diet but great in their niche of life and when I too inhabited that niche they were truly wonderful people whom I learned much from and owe a lot of who I am today to. But now I have moved out of that niche and they have not. I am out fulfilling my dreams with new associates and new comrades and these new people are the type of people whom allow me to continue growing and continue to achieve. Why then do I feel such an indescribable pull back towards that and they whom I know to be unhealthy for me? They whom walk different roads than I now.
I have deliberated upon this puzzle for well over two years now and have come up entirely stumped and absolutely empty handed, until last week that is. You see there is one other group of people whom come, although not quite to par, rather close to it. This group of people is my fraternity of sobriety: Shunda Alumni. If you don't know who or what this group is that is fine, I can make my point regardless. You see Shunda Creek is one of the treatment centers I attended, the last center before my now long term sobriety. At Shunda Creek clients are engaged in wilderness adventure therapy. That means that clients are taken out into the wilderness and pitted against the forces of nature (with a therapeutic undertone of course). This is significant because while out in that wilderness with my brothers we were forced to take on very extreme challenges with very real danger associated with the cost of failing. We had each other though and so we would come together and overcome all that was thrown our way. This struggle through adversity and difficulty forged unbreakable bonds between the lot of us.
Last week I was out in the bush with some of the boys and we were doing a particularly gruesome trek up the side of a mountain. Sleep deprived, physically exhausted and still behind the halfway point of our journey, it dawned on me. In the mountains, as in sobriety itself: the We-All experience general serenity laced with periods of extreme challenge. The nature of active-addiction however, causes the We-All to experience general difficulty laced with periods of colossal adversity. Therefore in active-addiction every moment is rife with interpersonal bond forging, whereas in sobriety the forging of bonds happens intermittently.
A useful metaphor is to imagine two men: Man 1 works in an accounting office and goes to the gym for an extremely intense workout two to three times a week. Man 2 works as a labourer on a concrete crew, working quite hard for eight hours a day every day and sometimes goes to the gym when he is feeling bored. These men start both on the same day, two years from now which man will be stronger? As you likely guessed Man 1 is sobriety and Man 2 is active-addiction. After two years Man 2 will be vastly superior in strength to Man 1; as are the interpersonal bonds of active addiction, vastly superior to the bonds of sobriety.
Man 2 will always be stronger than Man 1, unless something changes. Perhaps Man 2 starts getting less days at work and now only works two to three days a week (and does not go to the gym any more frequently). Man 1 will soon close the difference and then rapidly overtake Man 2 because he is working harder for the same amount of time now.
In the sense of interpersonal peer bonding however, it is hard to predict when this overtaking of potency may occur. Especially considering the chaotic nature of the concept in general, as well as the lack of drugs which (in active-addiction) can be a strong motivating force in choosing to maintain an unstable relationship, which if re-stabilized reinforces existing bonds many times over.
Therefore it is critical that we, in recovery, choose to maintain absolute consistency in new habits we are forming, and the new relationships we are developing. These new habits, this new identity, will overthrow the old identity and habits. But not for a significant amount of time. The old ties we hold are so strong, that they will take years to weaken; and if our consistency in avoiding the old and sowing into the new are not impeccable, then those years could turn into decades.
But as they say in the Anonymous community: "As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well".
~CCH2015
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