Pick your pain...

Ayn Rand, the famous rugged individualist writer of the mid-20^th century once said, “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” This is certainly true for everyone, but especially true for the active alcoholic and drug addict and has led me to thoughts about what a relapsing lifestyle looks like as opposed to a recovering lifestyle.

After years of studying the matter – in terms of “personal research” before and after recovery as well as professional addictions therapy for 19 years – I can summarize addiction and relapse in two short phrases:

Short-term gain, always leads to long-term pain.

Short-term pain, always leads to long term gain.

Short-term gain is always followed by long-term pain. Whatever one avoids – and addicts are notorious for avoiding reality at all costs - one is destined to repeat because the avoided person, place, thing, or situation is always there. Whatever is avoided is either in front of us or to the side, but always present in our lives because it has not been addressed and worked through. The pain that follows this avoidance can be as hurtful as life-long shame, guilt, fear, worry, or the nagging sense of a meaningless life that seems to go on forever without relief. When we have intentionally avoided those things in our lives that could cause us discomfort, we are setting ourselves up to feel that discomfort for a long time, perhaps forever. I have concluded that active addicts and alcoholics would rather suffer long-term pain than short-term pain. This is confusing because we would think that a person would want to remove pain from their lives. But, no so the addict or alcoholic who would often prefer to suffer what is known rather than suffer what is unknown, i.e., they know how to cope with the pain of rejection, shame, guilt, remorse, etc. by using. Regrettably, there are no guarantees when it comes to suffering and the active addict or alcoholic always looks for the sure thing to bet on.

The solution to the problem of relapse is to flip the script, i.e., learn how to suffer through small pains to get to the good stuff embedded in serenity. Recovery is based on the principle that as long as I am abstinent and following a program of recovering principles in my life, I have nothing to fear. It essentially says that there is no problem so great that it cannot be solved, and there is no pain so great that it cannot be endured. Recovery is based on the ability to suffer through painful experiences or times when I may be discomforted, disquieted, or otherwise feel some level of pain.

I have come to rely heavily on the principle of having the presence of my Higher Power in my daily life that is underlying Step 11. The key phrase of this step is “prayed only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.” When I seek knowledge of what is going on in my world so that I might get the power to carry out life on life’s terms I am comforted because I know that the slings and arrows of this world can never really hurt me in the end. Rather, these can be superficial, not mortal, wounds that I will survive because of my faith that the world will never have in it anything that I cannot endure or overcome. My mind can conjure up some nasty things that could happen to my family or me but even with those things, I have come to believe that I will never be given anything that I cannot handle.

Short-term pain, in any form, will eventually end and I can get on with the good stuff of living.

Long-term pain, in any form, will last forever.

Therefore, I usually ask people in treatment, “Pick your pain…do you want it over quickly or do you want it to last forever?” Most people answer that they want it done with fast. Moreover, this is as it should be. However, many of these do not see the numerous chances to suffer little problems in order to get to the great goals of serenity and happiness.

In some respects, masochistic as it may sound, I cannot wait every day to bear the little things so I can benefit from that suffering. It is something I learned through Steps 3 and 11 and carry with me every day.

All the best, Roger W.