This time of year many resolutions are made, only to be quietly dismissed shortly thereafter. But how can such a determined resolution to quit drinking end in another failed attempt to stop a behavior that can be so harmful to self and others? One would think such a person is either very weak or just doesn’t care. It is easy to see how others can come to this conclusion about the problem drinker if they are judging him based on his actions. Sometimes opinions can be formed based on what a person says, but when it comes down to intentions or what a person actually does, the latter will usually make the determination about who we think he or she is.

I am a recovering alcoholic and very grateful to be in long-term recovery. In my drinking days, I would get intoxicated and inevitably hurt someone with my behavior. It might be physically, verbally or simply not following through with a commitment or a promise. I would offer up an honest apology and a solemn oath to quit, only to return to a similar behavior somewhere down the road. As such, my apologies became hollow. My intention was not to hurt anyone, but my behavior said something else. That is the precise reason why alcoholics do not have the trust of those around them. Their actions do not show a history of consistent, trustworthy behaviors.

I experienced much regret, guilt and shame as a result of my drinking. Common sense would surely guide a person in the direction of not repeating a behavior over and over when it causes such angst and turmoil. It would appear that a person is not learning from her mistakes when repeating this negative behavior. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to understand alcoholics. Who in their right mind would exhibit this irrational behavior? Why can’t they see what they are doing and just quit? Loved ones can fall into the trap of trying to help them by repeatedly explaining the impact of their drinking behaviors. The more the alcoholic continues their irrational behavior, the more the family members try to reason with them. Loved ones of a practicing addict can be significantly affected by this powerful disease, thus leading to their own desperate and bizarre behavior.

Addiction is a very powerful and complex process that takes place in the primal part of the brain. When this process is active, it will very often override the thinking brain and push out any type of reasonable thinking. It replaces common sense and rational thought with distorted, magical thinking that becomes paramount. Denial assists in this process. In addition, alcohol is a depressant, and the more alcohol a person consumes, the more it depresses or puts to sleep different areas of the brain, starting with the frontal lobe (the decision-making center). If this area of our brain is inhibited, it is much easier to chase that euphoric feeling that is created through the chemical changes of drinking or drugging. The thinking becomes: if one is good, then more is better.

Many helpful books and loads of materials have been written on relapse. Counselors, treatments center and self-help groups around the world are familiar with it, study it and offer ideas, methods, tips and tools to try to help a person prevent it. There is no single proven method, no magic pill and sometimes seemingly no rhythm or reason to relapse.

Typically, though, there are warning signs that a relapse is about to occur. One thing I can share about relapse is that it does not have to mean hopelessness. I have witnessed many chronic relapsers come up out of the ashes of deep-rooted addiction and get clean and sober. It is important to note that family members do not have to tolerate unacceptable behavior until a person reaches the point of wanting to get sober. Strong, firm boundaries need to be in place while the person goes through the process of their addiction.

I have much faith in the person who continually to tries to get sober. My message to alcoholics would be, don’t ever give up, it can happen. It is not impossible nor is it hopeless. Family members and loved ones need to tend to their own journey and take care of themselves when dealing with someone who struggles with relapse. Left unchecked, this illness can also take them hostage. They, too, can experience a relapse and return to the crazy behavior of trying to stop, control or cure the alcoholic.

I have experienced relapse, and getting back on track was difficult. But I needed that experience because I was convinced I could get sober by myself. My relapse taught me I needed help from those who were sober. Also, learning about my triggers and relapse warning signs helped me to avoid those pitfalls.

The good news is that relapse doesn’t have to continually occur; long-term sobriety is possible; and family members can also lead a sane and serene life.

My father used duct tape in an attempt to fix me. When I used to drink and black out — which was more often than I care to recall — I wasn’t always the best driver. I drank and I drove and I bounced off things all over town, including utility poles, other vehicles, sidewalks, walls, you name it and I hit it if it happened to cross the path of my vehicle while I was intoxicated and driving. I am not proud of this; it was simply the reality of my life and my addiction at the time. I would oftentimes awaken from a night of heavy drinking and have a fog of emptiness in my head where the memories of the last evening should have been. I would find my father fixing my car with, of course, duct tape. Whether it be a smashed light or my fender half hanging down from hitting a riser on the road, he would be there quietly, lovingly duct-taping the parts back together.

I would always act as if I had no idea what happened, which in essence was the truth; I rarely had any recollection of the past evening’s events, and in the rare case I did remember bouncing off something, I never admitted it to my father. I would just dismissively say, “Oh someone must have hit me in the parking lot,” and thank him for fixing the damage for me while never making eye contact with him.

I know he knew that I was lying. I know he taped my vehicle because he loved me and wanted to protect me and also because he felt unable to help me in any other way. My disease was full-blown and directly in his face, and there was nothing he could do to stop me from getting behind the wheel on any given night and drinking and driving. It was his way of trying to put me back together, part by part, piece of tape by piece of tape. He fixed my vehicle in absence of his ability to fix me. It was the one thing over which he felt he had some type of control.

My vehicle had more duct tape than actual paint. The duct tape held my car together and in many ways did hold me together for a little while. In fact, you could say that my drinking and drugging acted as my duct tape — they were my temporary fixes for to my feelings and inadequacy. In many ways, society uses duct tape to temporarily fix many things it doesn’t have the time, ability or energy to actually repair. Duct tape has an amazing elasticity that holds things together for a long time; however, like all temporary fixes, it will eventually give out and expose its weaknesses. These weaknesses may only become apparent in bits and pieces, but they will eventually give way to the real damage beneath. Until the tape is torn off and the real damage is actually repaired, the person or object will never fully function properly.

Recovery and healing from trauma have been about tearing off all those temporary fixes I placed on myself throughout the years to get me by and getting to the very core of my issues and fixing them, or at the very least, exposing them and working on them daily. I do not believe a person can achieve the true emotional, physical and spiritual freedom recovery has to offer without doing a total and complete inventory of his or her past and of the reasons why he or she drank and drugged. We have to look at everything we’ve done, forgive ourselves for the wrongdoings, forgive others and then find a way to let our past mistakes go. For me, a large part of that exposure was dealing with the trauma I had experienced as a child victim of sexual assault. My victimization and my lack of healing and understanding of healing at that time was a main driving force in my addiction. So often, for many of us victimization and addiction go hand-in-hand. As I continued using in my teen years and into my twenties, I found myself victimized again. In recovery, I learned that I had to really learn how to heal from my past trauma in order to keep my daily recovery intact.

Today, there is no duct tape on my vehicle because, fortunately, I don’t have a need for temporary fixes to damage I have done, and there are no temporary fixes on me because I work a stringent program of recovery. I can get to the core of my problems, and I have amazing tools to repair the issues. These tools include:

•    Going to meetings
•    Calling my sponsor
•    Therapy
•    Creative writing
•    Prayer and meditation
•    Reading self-help books
•    Exercise
•    Feeling my feelings and expressing them

In my recovery I have found writing and reading to be two huge tools to help me process my feelings and understand myself and this disease. This is one of the main reasons I decided to become an author. I made a choice to break my anonymity and share my experience, strength and hope with the world in the hopes that someday when someone else out there is struggling with this disease, he or she will have another tool to pick up to find some solace in. In writing these books, I was able to go one step deeper into the reasons why I drank and used. Life on life’s terms is not easy, and rehashing our painful pasts is not easy either; however, it is a necessity if one wants to obtain long-term, healthy sobriety and freedom from addiction. If we do this and we continue to do this on a daily basis, then the need for temporary fixes will leave us, and we can live a life of freedom, joy, happiness and peace.

Not to sound overly dramatic, but I understand this. I think a lot of ACOAs would. When something bad happens, that seems to come out of nowhere, that goes from bad to worse without your ever really knowing how that happened until one day your whole life was turned upside-down and is beyond repair…well, as the French say, “it marks you.”
I am never bored.

Rattled maybe, somewhat overly handwringing, hypervigilant and waiting for the other shoe to drop sometimes…well even more than sometimes. But not bored.
I am still intoxicated by what it feels like to have a life that has not folded back on itself, caved in, turned upside-down and inside out, or gone, as my Grandmother used to say “to smithereens.”

I am still grateful each and every day every hour on the hour to feel comfortable in my own skin, the way I recall feeling before, as my Mother was wont to say, “the shit hit the fan, pardon the expression.” (It’s impossible to talk about this without quoting my family.)

When I was a kid, I recall waking up in the morning pretty happy and calm, exited to see what the day might bring. Over time that changed; I would be hard pressed to give it a time, but let’s call it “the year of the bottle”, the year alcohol, like a thief in the night, stole my Dad and left someone else in his place. The world still looked the same. The weather, the trees, the sky all went on as they had, but everything else that held my life in place seemed different. I would wake up, still that happy kid, then, like a fog over the San Francisco Harbor, the reality of my life would close on me and I would remember, “nothing is as it used to be. We are falling apart.” And I would begin to make my mental list of things I needed to worry about that day. I think I saw it as a sort of psychological amulet, something I could hold in my mental hand so as to be prepared, to not get caught off guard and disillusioned and disappointed all over again at a possibly inopportune time.

I didn’t want, for example, to feel teary in the middle of the school hallway because I saw some girls talking about what to wear to prom as if it was the most important thing in the world; when I was worried about whether or not my father might drive drunk into a wall and kill himself. Nor did I want a repeat of crying while dancing with my nice boyfriend on New Year’s Eve because all my friends were drunk and I didn’t know how to handle it. I could only see it as the beginning of the end. I think I reasoned, in my teenage mind, that if I could get a sort of head start on the day’s worries and anticipate any upcoming dangers, I might somehow avoid being caught off guard and losing it. Or I could head off embarrassing myself and having to offer up answers to all sorts of questions I didn’t know any answers to.

So I am committing these thoughts to words, but my rabbit’s foot is nearby and I am wearing my cross around my neck. I take nothing for granted and do not assume much. I don’t want to jinx anything; I just want to say how much I love a quiet evening at home. How never boring they are, how the easy, normal rhythm of my life wraps me up in it and makes me feel so blessed and lucky. Nothing is perfect of course, but normal feels wonderful.

I want to say how deeply and endlessly grateful I am for finding recovery and for having the sense to stick with it, to go with the program, keep my soles in the room and put one foot in front of the other.

I still love the magic of a boring (not!) evening at home. Thank you, God, another one. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Life changed for me that night some twenty-five years ago; but at the time, I would have no idea just where it would take me. I assumed, as did most everyone else in the late 1980’s, that my life was no longer infinite as young men of 26 years, bewitched by the narcissism of youth, foolishly believe. Yes, I would die and probably sooner rather than later. This, in the days and weeks after that night in the San Francisco fog, I would come to accept as fact.

And why wouldn’t I? As a young therapist with a newly-crafted PHD, I had already seen so much devastation from the HIV epidemic. Young men were going blind, tapping with canes their way down streets lined with gay bars. Others were slipping into eternal idiocy with dementia. Still others went to work one day, fell ill the next, and were laid to rest within the same week. “Where is John?” is a question even I knew never to ask. It didn’t matter who it was–if they suddenly disappeared from the scene–you just assumed they had succumbed to the plague.

That was more than two decades ago, and since you are now reading my words, you know that I am still alive. Fortunately for me, a combination of good genes, perhaps a weak strain of the virus and the invention of the “cocktail” in 1996 turned my near-death experience into a manageable chronic illness. I was one of the very lucky ones who narrowly escaped with my life.

Only now have I come to understand the profound impact that virus has had on who I was and what I have become. It gave me my life to live in hurry. I had places to go, people to meet, jobs to treasure and quit, and many miles to travel before the darkness descended. For the better part of 10 years, I lived under a cloud of a temporary future. Before the HIV “cocktail” of medications, no one knew how long it would take for the virus to ultimately destroy my immune system. For some, it was almost immediate; others showed very few effects for almost ten years before becoming ill. After the cocktail, we all wondered when the clever virus would outsmart the antiviral medication and once again invade our immune systems as it had for the unlucky ones.

As it turned out, those dire futures never materialized for me, but I wouldn’t come to trust this until the century rolled over. In that time, I lived in fast-forward, always trying to get the very best—or at least the most—out of life before the final fog descended. I craved, no I demanded that life deliver everything I wanted. The clicking of my viral clock was loud and undeniable. I had nothing, not time nor love, to waste.

Ironically, HIV became one of the greatest gifts of my life. This truth runs very deep in me, my loves and my career. HIV radically changed my hunger and thirst for what is authentic and wonderful in life. I needed desperately to penetrate to the very core of things before precious time ran out. I wanted to taste it all. I wanted to know for myself–know like I know my own name–what the meaning of my life is. So much of what I had known and lived as a gay man in America had taken for a wild ride and left me wanting something more; something, as the dear Sylvester sang, mighty real.

With these hounds of time and mortality nipping at my heels, I dove into my own life and my work. I needed to know what was truly meaningful and not just the accepted counterfeits, proclamations of educated men who observe and rarely live life fully. I had learned so much in school and knew so very little of what mattered.

Like me, many gay men struggle more than do most other people in this world with finding our true, authentic voice. While HIV turned up the volume on my struggle with shame and authenticity, it is the same struggle experienced by gay men who have never been touched by the disease. As a group of men, we are undeniably present and visible in the world, yet our true inner worlds remained buried deep within the tight grip of a rejected child who wants acceptance and love. Modern heterosexual culture is, for the most part, undeniably hyper-masculine and invalidating of men who love other men. And as painful as this is, there is even a deeper wound of invalidation that prevents many gay men from discovering their true authenticity and inner passion. It is best summed up as we will never be like mom and dad. All children, straight and gay, are biologically predisposed to seek the approval and acceptance of their parents by mirroring the parents’ behavior. When it comes to the deeply fundamental behaviors of romance, tenderness and intimacy, we cannot mirror our parents in these. Instead, we are different. In the child’s world, being different is akin to risking abandonment, separation, and ultimately death. To avoid such intolerable feelings, we unknowingly but steadily abandoned our true selves and attempted to become something that was more desirable in straight world. In essence, we gave away our power for a seat at the table.

The experience of invalidation and the resulting wounds of shame we sustained are documented in-depth in my book, The Velvet Rage. For too long, many of us have lived lives that are beautiful facsimiles of the expectations of others rather than creations of our own authenticity and joy. We have excelled at beauty and succeeded at success, and still, there remains a nagging emptiness and a knowing that something is missing. It is something that seems vaguely familiar and childlike but is just beyond the reaches of our minds.

It is here that our journey to regain the missing pieces of our selves begins. Some pieces we deliberately traded off, others we abandoned and allowed to wither away, and still others were taken from us by the well-meaning but misguided guardians of our childhood. In The Velvet Rage, I chronicle our crusade into the challenges of adulthood without having been given the armor or the sword that our straight brothers were gifted by their fathers and a world that understood and accepted them. How we learn to fight our battles, love our men, and ultimately find lasting passion and fulfillment is where the story of The Velvet Rage ends. Far from the closet of shame, we ultimately find our true self and the authentic life we were always meant to have.

Being completely unfamiliar with any kind of addiction due to my surroundings, I would never at the time, have been able to expect something like that to have happened to me. I was the least likely candidate for falling into the downward spiral of addiction. Starting to experiment at a young age and being in a long-term relationship as a child is a deadly combination. My innocence was destroyed. The second I found what made things seem fun, the switch was flipped. There was no such thing as this addict turning back. I wish I could say that I saw my life being entirely consumed with drugs, but unfortunately, I have a typical addicted brain that blocks out the bad. If I knew later that I was going to be on the streets committing crimes that I only saw on TV, injecting heroin into my veins, I assume I would have stopped. Once I was in way over my head, I was no longer the same person. I became everything I promised myself I would not be. I crossed all my own lines, which unfortunately lead me to believe that I might as well cross everyone else’s.

Hitting what most wanted to call bottoms, I decided to look past all of them. I always put drugs before my life, and that was made obvious after using up my 8th life didn’t scare me away from my 9th. Being involved in things that disgust me now, and experiencing darker places than I even knew existed, and slowly killing my body has opened my eyes to my last chance to live.

Feeling as though my purpose in life was to be a junkie and die a junkie, I held on to the little bit of hope I had left to change my life .Although knowing I needed to reach out and ask for help, I was scared. Scared of change. However, I was more scared of my life without change. In a matter of seconds, I made a commitment. A commitment to chase sobriety like I chased the high. But I knew I couldn’t do it alone, so after leaving my program and relapsing,6 months later, I asked the same people that I turned my back on to help me again. So hanging onto those people, and working the recovery program at benchmark to the best of my ability, I do not have to use today. I have a chance at life, and its no surprise the people who were waiting with open arms were the ones running the recovery program. I think sometimes I owe them my life, but my life is what they gave me. All I can do is turn around and return the favor. That, alone, has shown me my real purpose in life. I’ve realized that I need to work with addicts, because not only do I feel that is the only way I will stay sober, I also think there is one life out there, similar to mine, in need of help. One day I will stumble across them and change their life, just like mine way.

Therefore, when I tell myself I should not have ended up where I did, I step back and realize I ended up exactly where I was supposed to end up. Through the help of Benchmark and the 12 Step process I am finally looking at my life with out drugs in it. I owe a lot of my strength,

Willingness, and a new way of looking at life to  two men at Benchmark; Mike V. and Greg Burks, they both believe in me when there are times that I do not believe in myself. Also, I would like to say without Toii this whole thing would not be possible, she’s firm, fair, and truly cares about me. She was the one who came to the airport to get me after my AWOL and relapse, I felt safe! With the help of these people and many others I feel not only I moving toward my future but also I’m getting my childhood back!

This resulted in dropping out of college, losing my girlfriend, losing the respect of my non-using friends, and furthered my unhappiness. Due to this, I did what addicts do best. I used the aforementioned events to justify further use. But this time I was alone, no friends, no parties, no girls around just myself and my drug of choice. I was using copious amounts daily and thus needed a lot of money; so I began stealing in a variety of despicable ways, forging checks, stealing out of purses, wallets, making fraudulent A.T.M. withdrawals etc. This pinnacled when I had a drug overdose in which I was literally inches away from death (but you better believe I had a stash waiting for me when I left the hospital). In essence I had lost touch of all morality and lived to use and used to live.

Through Benchmark and The Matrix Recovery Program, I have learned more about myself and the nature of my disease than I have in the 6 or so “30 day band-aids” I have attended in the past.  Today although I still have struggles, I face them. I no longer need something external to make me feel internally sound. I have realized that relapse occurs way before I take that first drug or drink.  I have been proactive on my biggest fear: change.  Although my bottom may not be as low as others my life was completely unmanageable and my behaviors insane. Today I can look people in the eye and more importantly be able to look at myself in the mirror and be happy with what I see. I owe a lot to Benchmark and the Matrix institute for the light they have shown me at the end of the darkness.

I have always believed that the best sort of treatment for alcoholics and addicts is in some kind of residential situation. Alcoholics are great conmerchants and can easily pull themselves together for an hour or two while they go to an AA meeting or a visit to their counsellor or therapist. 24 hour observation and communication help to get to the roots of the problems quicker and deeper and more truthfully.  I also know that the best therapy for Alcoholics is from a former alcoholic who has been through it all. It needs someone who has worked on the causes for their own drinking. I stopped drinking 22 years ago and have deepened my self knowledge using many different techniques, much endurance and total soul searching. A long but rewarding process. It can be relatively easy to stop drinking but working on the self is the only way to stay stopped. I feel myself fortunate to understand myself and my behaviour. During the last 15 years I also worked with hundreds of people with alcohol and emotion problems. This has been in one-to-one, small group and large group situations. I really enjoy working with whole families to help with their emotional needs and communications. My approach requires total honesty with myself and to my clients about what I have been through. I have also worked in theatre and television since I was a child as a director, writer, actor and choreographer. Much as I love my theatre life I find many more rewards in my Emotional Fitness practice. Talk, play, psycho-drama and a healing situation help to convert negativity and pessimism into hope and optimism. I had always thought of opening my home to help people and this year I was given the perfect opportunity. I would like to tell you about this adventure as it was 100% successful.

The telephone calls

I had a dramatic phone call from a respected fellow therapist in Ireland.  She told me of a 19 year old boy who was fighting a losing battle with alcohol. He was self harming and becoming more and more depressed. He was sent down from University mid year and he was losing friends and support. He had always been charming and popular until the drinking really kicked in the previous year. I said almost without thinking….”Send him to me here in Italy”. I put down the phone and went away thinking “What am I saying….he might be violent…. he might have terrible problems……. but here I am, when I am at my busiest, taking a problem boy into my own home”. Yes I had plenty of space and rooms but who knows how it would work? Could I sustain this 24 hour responsibility. More important, could he?  I squashed my own fears in favour of helping him. I really believe in what I do, and it was time to prove my theories. That night he had another massive drinking bout complete with further self harming and the boy was warned he would be sectioned if he didn’t come here to me. His family found his behaviour frightening and they could take no more. I was his last chance as all other routes had ended in failure.

The arrival

He duly arrived the following evening by plane from Belfast to Rome and then a car journey from Rome through the mountains to my house and church in the mountains of central Italy. When he walked through the door, with his Mother and Aunt as travelling companions, he looked like a hostage. His skin was bloated and yellowish while his hair was a moppish mess. He didn’t want to be here with me at all and I could feel his anger and resentment across the other side of the room. He was, however, a pleasant looking boy with little or no self esteem. He had pockets of anger round his chin and jaw which later gave rise to the joke name of ‘the hamster’ because he looked as if he had pouches. His family members left and we made tea. Then we talked. And how we talked. Finally at about 4 a.m. the next morning I said good night and left him alone for the first time.

Time after time that first night and in the following weeks we discovered so many similarities in our problems and behaviour. Mine, I had done in the past.  His were current. It was fun seeing him realising that there was someone like him. There was an immediate bond – like conspirators. We spent some 5-6 hours in this getting to know you dialogue. I told him we had to look at his prejudices and resentments and he seemed suddenly very happy. The barriers were dropping and so quickly too. I really liked him. That night, I slept like a log and for the first time in weeks so did he.

The change begins

Day one.  I decided to take him through the mountains to Assisi and we did a typical tourist day mixed with a lot of questions and answers about his feelings, his tastes, his relationships and his degradation into alcohol at University. He talked about his drinking jokingly and defensively which made it clear to me that he saw nothing wrong in his behaviour. He told me that it was his parents’ fault he had ended up here. His parents made him want to drink. “Mother made him come here.” He informed me that, in spite of that, he liked me and knew I was honest. I didn’t choose to change any of his thoughts that day or the next. I always prefer to let the client express himself for the first few encounters. I just kept affirming my belief that life was something wonderful and really worth living. He was growing more and more open about his thoughts and feelings. I saw his hatred of his own looks. His hair had been badly dyed a sort of sad yellow blonde with dark roots although it was actually a naturally dark chestnut colour which contrasted with his amazing blue eyes. We talked of his anger with his parents, mostly with his father and his desire to attack them verbally and emotionally all the time. He talked of revenge for what they had done to him. I observed his need to punish himself and them. True addict behaviour and thoughts. Real guilt behaviour. One of his main problems was that he asserted “I drink because EVERYONE DRINKS, so I HAVE to. I would be lonely if I didn’t drink because I would lose all my friends”. He lived in a predominantly drinking culture. He saw it as clever to drink and to be drunk.

The Process begins

I decided to make rules although I wanted each day to feel as flexible as possible for him. There was no regular daily time fixed for anything. At the beginning of each day I suggested times for different activities and I changed the times and activities every day. This was not school or work. I wanted it to feel more like a holiday. I made a pledge to myself to give him at least 5 or 6 hours each day one-to-one. He could smoke but only in his bedroom or outside on the terrace. He could use the computer, but I preferred him not to use my phone. Feelings were to be voiced and honesty an imperative at all times. That meant both of us. We started to remove his prejudices one by one. The problem with alcohol is that it opens everyone who drinks to all the negative thoughts and feelings both in themselves and everyone else they come in contact with. Alcohol removes our natural self protection and we forget it is also a huge depressant. He drank because he was depressed which was creating even deeper depression and quickly he had created a vicious circle for himself. His darkness and ability to slip into shadow self was fast and at times almost irretrievable. We ate together, watched movies together and talked hours and hours each day. We looked at his lack of vision for and about himself. Everything, for him, had been a negative and downward spiral. He had wallowed in withdrawal. Life, friends and family all came under attack. He created activity constantly and noise. If he stayed in left brain activity he wouldn’t have to look inside himself and acknowledge his right brain emotional impulses. First, music on the music centre followed by his headphones and his Mini disc player with discs of various types of music. Then quickly to the computer after he rang out on his mobile phone. I left his self medicating props such as these, for the minute, but looked to remove and reduce their hold on him. He improved for a day or two. He sunbathed. He started very slowly to look after his looks. We talked of diet and the need to drink water. His aversion to fruit and salad was extreme but his love of eating vegetables was at this point a saving grace. We adopted a healthier diet for a healthier outlook on life for him. It worked.

First breakthrough

Suddenly, on Tuesday, I could feel that something had changed. His honesty was replaced by a veneer personality and it was difficult to approach him on any level. He was hiding in there behind an adopted facade. I kept going and said nothing until we had our so-called quiet, healing time of day. I gave him energy healing most days he was here and afterwards, as he was usually at his most open and relaxed, we would see how he could re-programme his thinking. It was a slow but worthwhile process. He had been very open to it the first two or three days but, on this day, there was a wall that I hadn’t met before. I was aware that he had spent a lot of time on his mobile and that seemed to affect him rather adversely.

We started the healing and talking work but he was in another world. I had already noticed his desire to be in fantasy, but this was different and almost impenetrable. I knew I had to take action somehow. My way of working usually is to see what comes out of the client, but I knew I needed a really strong proactive stance to reclaim him into the here and now. I pushed him by going into psycho drama. I was suddenly, in essence, what he thought of as his Father and not his co-conspirator. I saw his anger rise and then he froze into a fear paralysis. I was suddenly the enemy. He withdrew to his room for the rest of the day where he packed and got ready to leave while submerging himself into his headphones and mobile phone. The next day we talked and laughed and talked again. He saw how he had reacted to the situation that I had created and he realised how he created the impasse of the previous day. Our situation worked from then on. We talked about where he had gone in his head and why he needed that fantasy world which he was so adept at creating. I realised that he had been talking a lot on his mobile to his closest friend and she seemed to have a destructive influence on him. I always let him see and understand my moods and feelings. I explained exactly where I was inside me at all times to encourage him to observe his own emotional responses. He stopped the veneer for the following 8 weeks and I was able to assess his mood swings and where and when he was acting, instead of being himself. Brick by brick we removed the negative blocks of his emotions and thoughts. We started with ‘All Americans are..’… ‘Detective stories are sh***’ ….. there seemed to be nothing that really suited him for the first three weeks. I had him take a day where the words ‘I hate’ were not allowed and he was shocked at how he used it in every other sentence.  We ate together lunchtimes and evenings. His sleep pattern had been wrecked by the alcohol so he was often awake until 3 or 4 in the morning so I left him to breakfast alone. He was better left alone in the mornings in these first days. His anger was always swallowed then exploded some time later. How well I knew that pattern from my past…….he invariably went into freeze and flight emotionally when I said something he didn’t like. He tried to be as honest as he possibly could. He wanted to learn self knowledge. One day, I told him of some problems I had at the time of a practical and difficult nature and he listened and was helpful. I had intended to keep it from him but felt that honesty was the best course. He showed his care and support for me which ran very deep inside him. It showed clearly that his feeling attacked and also wanting to attack the world covered a sensitive and caring soul. This never left our relationship and he found he had great untapped sub-layers of compassion.

An unusual breakthrough

On a particularly quiet and difficult day I put on a DVD of the film LA VIE EN ROSE which tells the story of Edith Piaf’s life. A magnificent film. I felt it was unlikely to attract him but I had let him choose the movies for the first week or so and it was time for my choice! He moved from the next room to watch and to my surprise was glued to the screen for the next two hours. He loved it. And (I can’t believe I am telling you this) he adored the music of this extraordinary woman in the 1950′s and 60′s. He watched the film some 12 or more times while he was here. This was unexpected and a sort of miracle.

I believe that every client has their own unique way to self recovery and it is often not where the therapist might think or plan.

This film led us on a journey of discovery. First, he started to learn French. Languages are his passion but his former unreasonable prejudice against the French people had made him resistant to learning French at all. He also wanted to exercise or rather Dancercise which led us to do some stretching and dance every day for the next two weeks.  He got stronger and everything about him improved. He held his head up for the first time since he arrived. Going out for runs or jogging was not his way but dance was. I took him to a really good ballet performance as he had never been to one before and his joy and pleasure were astounding. Then, some two to three weeks later he decided that he wanted to learn to sing. I had spent many years in theatre showing non-singers how to sing. When we started out the next day I could hear the potential of a big strong tenor voice. It surfaced with a little work each day. He had been scared to speak up for himself at all, except in anger, but the singing helped him breathe and speak his way into the world. He even read out loud in French. He was creating real inner and not outer self confidence.  I suggested he write and draw and I saw how intuitive and creative he really was and is. This was his unique way through to a new life and one I was easily able to help him with. It was not the programme I had planned at all. I have never thus used my theatre and television background in therapy before with any client. This unusual approach had more spontaneity and was more personal for him. He also quickly accepted that his sexuality was about men. He talked, dreamt and thought about men. He arrived saying he was bisexual but left feeling safe in his truth. He had been conning himself. I discovered he had never really talked with anyone about sex and particularly about gay sex so here was another area needing frank discussion and information. He realised that his sexual drive was not weird or exclusive to him.

Breakthroughs of a quieter kind

I have always believed nature and animals in particular were an important part of the recovery process for any emotional problems. I have three dogs and they buzzed round him like demented nurses lavishing indulgent care on a patient. I have a Golden Retriever who he loved to have sleeping by his bed whenever possible. It made him feel safe and that was one of the biggest keys in this man’s progress. I told him on a daily basis that he was always safe no matter where he was and who he was with. Mantra-like I repeated for him that he was at home anywhere in the world. His fear of being alone had been enormous and his fear of being in groups was also totally intimidating for him. Some five weeks into his stay here I had arranged a Jazz concert in my church and the day before that event the musicians and their partners had arrived to set up for the following evening. We had a communal meal in the church and there were some 14 of us that evening. I knew this would be a test for my live-in guest and I decided not to say anything about the alcohol although I suspected it might open Pandora’s box on his stay here. His freeze fear at the start of the evening because of his paranoia about groups of people developed into a major drinking bout. I finally went against my beliefs and went over to him saying that I could not in all conscience condone his drinking after the work we had so successfully done together. I never say “don’t” to anyone, particularly to an addict. He stared at me and pushed away the glass. Eventually he went to his bedroom looking very shabby of mood. I put my head round his bedroom door and quietly said “I’m not giving up on you, you know!” The next morning I went into his room and he had returned to his headphone hiding. He asked me if I was ashamed of him and I said “No way!” I asked him if he knew how much he had drunk and he said that he thought around two glasses or three at most. I told him that I knew he had consumed in excess of 8 or 9 glasses of wine that I had noticed. The shock on his face was genuine. In that moment he saw how he lost control once he started drinking. I avoided the punishment route he was seeking and pushed him on to new discoveries about himself all day. This was a man who had seen his drinking as destructive for him. You will notice that I have now said man again and not boy as I watched him mature on all levels. His inner growth and positive attitude grew daily. His need for alcohol diminished and even his need for cigarettes lessened. As we ate together, went swimming together and laughed on a daily basis together his view of what his life could be in the future expanded. The negative past had less and less of a hold on him. I was working on him to feel comfortable with, and even enjoy, silence.

This addiction for constant activity and noise is, I feel, a modern disease. He had been frightened that if a silence fell anywhere near him it had to be filled. He had shaken with fear when there was a silence. At home silence was synonymous with frozen out and ignored. I had taken away his mobile phone after the first few days. He used his headphones less and less. A voice teacher friend told him that headphones reduced his hearing abilities. As he already had impaired hearing he realised this was not a good way for him. I also noticed that his singing was marred after he had used the headphones. He took everything on board. He understood and tried to put all of it into practice. I discovered that his deafness was less than he had believed or had been lead to believe. I sometimes whispered deliberately to see if he responded and invariably he did. It was a family weakness but it was reinforced in his belief system by a constant reminder from the rest of his family and friends.

Conclusion

We looked at many of the emotional causes of his alcohol problems. His anger and resentment of his Father and to a lesser extent his Mother, jealousy of his siblings and the peer pressure he felt around alcohol and how he was seen by others. Using Psychotherapy, Psychodrama and general analysis we saw how much of his thoughts had not been real and were founded on misconceptions or lack of knowledge about emotions. He was here 60 days and that is not long enough to deal with all the roots of the causes but we laid the foundations for his life beginning on a more positive and fruitful landscape. He left here wanting to enjoy life and do well. His work and life continue with enthusiasm and success as he faces reality with fortitude, clarity and optimism. He is doing amazingly well. His care of himself and his family has grown and he appreciates his own look and talents for the first time in his life. On the day he left as I drove him through the mountains to Spoleto to catch the Rome train he turned to me and said “I feel ill”.  I asked him what this ill looked like, felt like. He breathed in and said “Oh wait a minute, this is not illness. I feel angry that I have to leave and frightened to return home. Not illness but feelings. Wow.” What he had previously understood as illness in the past, he now recognised as feelings. He can show the way for his family and others now with that thought. He had gone past the need to crave booze and anti-depressants with this simple recognition.

This was an intensive forage into the working of his mind and the emotions created by his mind. He understood how he swallowed his disappointments and anger and didn’t speak them at the time but stored them for his weekly or monthly eruptions. He came to understand that he had no control over his drinking but he wanted to try controlled drinking when he returned home. I never say ‘don’t’ to any human being and particularly not to an addictive personality. He knows the truth. It is his next challenge to accept himself as he is. To like and love himself just as he is. I found the most charismatic, intuitive, caring and intelligent young man under a former dark cloud of negative emotions and thoughts. He was a joy to work with as he was eager to find a better life for himself. A life in which he can be creative and intuitive. He was not easy to deal with every minute of his time here but being with him was always rewarding and fun too. A truly personal rehabilitation. The mountain area where I live offers many activities and explorations for all. I now look forward to homing 2 or 3 clients together. A successful venture indeed.

When a person reaches this point, they experience a moment of clarity, born from within. It is an understanding that comes from deep inside the soul, from the core of existence, that there is a new route, and an answer. It is an answer that touches the mind, body, and spirit, and leads to a new understanding that seems to be in synchronicity with all that is right. A new path is chosen, to replace the destructive one the person was following, and recovery begins.

It is my belief that every person who is presently enjoying a healthy and long-term lifestyle of recovery from alcoholism, other addiction, or impulse-control disorder has, at one time in their life, encountered a ‘point of return.’ It is a significant realization and subsequent change in behavior and understanding that allows that individual to refrain from the unhealthy behaviors associated with their disease.

I have seen the point of return first hand with my brother, who is a recovering addict, my late wife, who was not able to find her point of return before the disease of addiction took her life, and within myself, as a recovering workaholic. My personal experience with impulse control disorders was the cause for my entry into the substance dependency and impulse control disorder profession.

My own point of return took place as I worked a twelve step program in an attempt to rid myself of the pain associated with my wife’s addiction. However, as the cosmos would have it, I ended up discovering my own codependency as well as my workaholism. I always assumed that every business owner worked 16 hours days every day and sometimes had to work 24 to 36 hours straight.  I always assumed that business owners  who were growing their businesses never took time off and never paid any attention to their wives, families or non-existent friends. I figured that the motivation for success came first, and with success came power and money.  I figured that I was better than all the rest, and that my time was more important than just about everything and everyone around me.

I was fortunate to have a wife that supported me in my work efforts. While she did complain when my behaviors began to spiral out of control, she soon learned to keep quiet or suffer my wrath. I made sure to keep her just happy enough so she would stay around and serve my needs.  I became highly dependent on her being there to take care of my life when I was so totally burnt out I couldn’t function. Eventually, she took care of her own need to escape the terrible life she found herself in and she began to self-medicate.

Upon her entry into treatment, which was timed perfectly with my total burnout from exhausting work, I was exposed to the concepts of the twelve steps. At first I became interested in order to help my wife so I could get her back in my life. But soon after I realized I had a much larger part in things than I was willing to admit. I began to see a psychologist and slowly realized that I was very codependent. Then I realized my work ethic was not normal and that my impulses to work constantly were unhealthy at best. In ordinary fashion, I set out to prove I was the hero by delving deeply into my own recovery while attending to my ill wife. It did not take long for me to make another realization that turned out to be my point of return: I was not that important!

With this realization came all the guilt, shame, regret, remorse, anger, sadness, depression, angst, anxiety, stress, fear and numbness associated with any person in early recovery. I floundered a long time, swinging in emotions that I could not identify at the time. It was a terrible period in my life, but I did as I was told and I attended 12 step meetings and kept seeing my psychologist. Eventually the light began to show at the end of the tunnel. I began to forgive myself and love myself for who I really was, not who I thought I should be. I began to realize that people loved me no matter what. I began to realize that my identity was not represented by the possessions I had and the accomplishments I made, but it came from my spirit. I began to allow myself to feel and experience the world, and eventually I understood that I am a part of a greater energy that I call the cosmos. In short, I found humility, and that is my point of return. When I found humility I found peace in my soul, and I found happiness and presence in life.

My story is not unique. I have heard many confessions, tales, and accounts from those in recovery, at self-help meetings or while counseling substance dependence clients. The fellowship of addiction and impulse-control disorders is abundant with point of return stories and successes.

While each of these stories has a somewhat common theme, it is fascinating to discover that no two stories are alike. The point of return is different for everyone, as every individual is unique in his or her life experiences, attitudes, understandings, belief systems, support systems, and virtually every other way…  It seems that there are as many stories as there are individuals telling them.

Point of Return chronicles some of those stories in print. Authors from widely different walks of life, religions, sexual orientations, races, addictions, impulse-control disorders, and nationalities have been included. The writing styles and voices of the authors are as different as the stories that are being told. Each author has given their account of what their life was like leading up to their point of return, their insights in retrospect, and how they now maintain a healthy recovery lifestyle.

In authoring Point of Return it was my sincere hope that the reader finds stories within that ring true for them. I hope that the reader can find in the authors’ stories hints, actions, or insights to act as guideposts on their own road to long-term recovery. Perhaps someone who is desperately seeking a point of return will find in the reading an inspiration to gain that point. Regardless of the reading experience the stories written in Point of Return all share the miracle and hope of recovery.