Addiction

Yesterday I received an email that pretty much changed my entire outlook on life, recovery, and most importantly addictions. The email opened with this statement:

 
"I have come to believe that no one passes through our society unscathed, and virtually everyone has (extremely few can honestly say "had") their addictions-which they commonly pass off as just "habits", or if they're really brave (read that with compassionate sarcasm) they might admit that they have a few "bad habits". We mistakenly tend to reserve the word "addiction" to stigmatize those who turn and run to substances instead of turning and running to the TV, dependent romantic relationships, shopping, sex, work, cleaning, exercise, food, facebook... you name it. 

  But I think we're all somewhere on the same spectrum, and we just differ in 

 (1) the specific coping/escaping mechanisms we happened to choose; 

(2) in our levels and thresholds of suffering/guilt/stress/anxiety/boredom; and 

(3) in our levels of honesty and openness (with ourselves and others) about growing up as a human being in very lost cultures (and for many growing up in very broken families and communities)." 

A few weeks ago when I guest spoke at my old treatment center one of the patients asked if I considered myself an alcoholic. Although I often speak of my alcohol abuse, I still could not answer yes to this question out of shame or fear, maybe both. When the Libero Network editor asked me to join their team, she gave me the title of "Eating Disorder and Addiction Writer," but I still could not admit to myself that I was an addict. 

Addiction has become this awful, shameful thing in today's society; like the quote says above, "we mistakenly tend to reserve the word "addiction" to stigmatize those who turn and run to substances." There was no way I was going to allow myself to fall victim to that stereotype. I was never a drunk living on the streets or drinking out of a brown paper bag, so I must not really be an alcoholic - or at least that's what I told myself.  

The second part of the quote talks about the different levels of the addiction spectrum. I had never thought of addictions in this manor, but it makes perfect sense. Over the course of my life my addictions have changed - from different eating disordered behaviors to dependent relationships to drinking - but they have all served the same purpose. Depending on what negative emotion I was feeling, my addiction of choice would be there to help me avoid or numb out the pain. Only by facing my fears and anxieties through recovery, I have finally begun to tear down some of those walls. 

So maybe I am an addict, but that does not mean those addictions need to run my life anymore. 
Maybe I am an alcoholic, but I am also 381 days sober. 

We live in a society that teaches us to be ashamed of our mistakes and puts us down for our faults, but honestly, I'm getting pretty sick of it. I'm sick of the stigma. The stigma keeps many of us stuck in our illnesses and addictions. 

Receiving this email has been a turning point in my recovery. I can finally admit to myself that, "I am an alcoholic," and not feel like the most horrible person on earth. This person also shared some of their own personal addictions with me in this email and expressed their own embarrassment regarding these issues, but I do not think there is anything for this individual to be embarrassed about. At all.
 

Maybe I don't need to feel embarrassed about my addictions either.

Progress.