Addiction is a tricky beast. It takes a beautiful thing and turns it into the hellish nightmare of obsession. It comes in many forms. An afternoon cocktail to take the edge off becomes a bottle a day. The rush of an afternoon at the racetrack becomes a way of life that takes away the house. The search for new and interesting ways to have an orgasm leaves the sex addict with no pleasure at all.
I used to drink. It started as fun. As a relief from life’s existential burdens of pain and fear. Eventually life became dull and problematic. I wanted more out of life. I couldn’t get what I wanted AND keep drinking. One had to go – my dreams or the booze.
So, I got sober. I went to AA. I learned how not to drink. I learned how to let go of my own demands and trust that if turn my will over the care of another power I might find the freedom I was looking for. I learned how to take responsibility for my own actions (change the things I can) and leave other people’s responsibility to themselves (accept the things I can’t change).
But perhaps the biggest gift of sobriety for me wasn’t on the list of promises in AA’s ninth step. I got to know what my values were. What I really wanted, down deep, beyond self-esteem, beyond ego. I learned that what I want to do is to contribute.
The coin that they give out for sobriety anniversaries in AA has a quote from Hamlet. It says, “to thine on self be true.” My recovery has been a journey of learning who that self is. Who I am. What are my actual values. My actual beliefs. Not the ones I had been handed or had adopted because of my family and various communities, but mine. And then I get to learn how to do what I can to live within those values.
My first last drink was almost 40 years ago. My last last drink was over 20 years ago. In between those two dates, I had a couple of short-lived convincers. (A convincer is what the British call slip or relapse – an episode that convinces one of one’s addiction.)
I have played a lot of roles in my primary recovery community, AA. Coffee maker, greeter, secretary, treasurer, GSR. Sponsee, sponsor. The role I value the most though, is being a friend. A friend among friends. A worker among workers as it is said. Over the years, work in the AA program has chipped off a lot of the edges of parts of myself that have been unhelpful. And those parts of myself frequently demand to be either the first or the last. The best or the worst.
A few years before I started looking into psychedelics, a men’s AA group I attend started reading a popular book on steps six and seven. It deepened my growth. I got a closer look at my character defects. My shortcomings. A more intimate understanding the exact nature of my wrongs. In recent years, I’ve found those terms about unhelpful character attributes interesting. Attributes that I tend to use for selfish, sometimes shameful purposes. Three steps in a row seem to point at the same list. Step 5 calls it the exact nature of our wrongs. I liked that. It’s not a list of wrongs, but the nature of them. The exact nature, to be precise. The wrong may be that I stole something. The nature of that wrong is that I coveted and demanded to have it and was willing to cross my own values to take something that wasn’t mine. Step 6 changes perspective and calls the list defects of character. That seems to be the most widely used way of referring to the list. They seem to indicate gaps in my moral makeup. Step 7’s shortcomings looks at my tendency to fall short of my values.
It was in that context that I started reading about some mental health benefits of psychedelics. An AA Sponsee recommended Psychedelics in Recovery. I had started with a psychedelic therapist. I had spoken with my AA sponsor and my doctor about going down that road. I was fortunate to have a sponsor who knew that he knew nothing about psychedelics. He said to me, “don’t ask me for permission, I don’t have any experience or opinion on it.”
Not everybody coming from traditional recovery programs has had that gentle or perceptive a response. I am grateful for my sponsor who knew the limits of his expertise. He checks in on me once in a while, ask me how it’s going. He observes with interest. And because of that, he remains a solid point of reference for me to check my motives and ideas.
When I came to Psychedelics in Recovery, I was asking the questions I hear from so many who come from traditional recovery.
• Have I crossed a line? Do I need to reset my sobriety date?
• How much of these plant medicines can I safely take?
• What, if anything, is permissible? What are the boundaries?
PiR seems to have no opinion on these questions. What PiR does have is a community of people in recovery who are asking these things of themselves and finding that the old narrative of “one is too many, a thousand not enough” doesn’t seem to apply with these psychedelic plant medicines. The allergy of the body and obsession of the mind doesn’t really come up for a lot of us in the context of the intentional use of psychedelics.
Traditional recovery programs often have very clear boundaries. In AA and NA, the definition of sobriety is clear: we don’t drink, we don’t take mind altering drugs. For people with food or sex addictions, boundaries are more nuanced, but ultimately do get clearly defined.
PiR has no answers and no opinion on these concerns. Individual members also often do not have answers or opinions. It’s a different paradigm. The definition of recovery is left to the values of the individual.
This position was confusing, even frustrating to me as a newcomer, coming in from a more traditional recovery background. I was encouraged to sit with it for a while and see how it plays out. Like in traditional recovery circles, I’ve found that sticking around and looking for the similarities and the good recovery is not a bad idea. Because of this, I find that I am having a new experience with some old things.
And through this new paradigm, I have a gratitude beyond anything could ever have imagined.
-Douglas, Moss Beach
