Walls of Denial Fed by Stigma

The stigma of alcoholism and addiction and the hatred and ignorance behind it have forced many of us to hide our addictions behind walls of denial. We hid them (and our drugs), sometimes quite cleverly (a chef I once worked with hid his bottle at work in the toilet tank).
"Why doesn't he just stop?"
And when we finally got clean and sober, we met behind closed doors because some of us had to protect our dirty, little secrets.
"You'll never be anything but a drunk."
*****
BUT... the scabs that are the stigmas of addiction (and recovery) will not heal by retaliation. A well-placed "Drop Dead!" simply won't do. The stigma of addiction is slowly being undone. Being in recovery becomes more than a state of being when it is shared with others, admitted, discussed. The cloak of addiction is unravelled and revealed by the evidence of science and acts of kindness. A few kind words go a long way in bridging the gap between hatred and understanding.
AND... there is a certain backlash occurring in the political sector from which I presently recoil. I don't want to see any progress made in the recovery movement lost to a changing political climate. Whether it be progress ON addiction or the progress OF addiction, I realize that progress is never straight forward (or straight downward).
SO... as a member of the recovering community, I feel I have to dig deeper trenches, strengthen my foundation in recovery and continue to speak out against stigma and in favor of greater progress and social acceptance for the recovering communities.
*****
WE and THEY, US and THEM, will one day be ALL of US. The Common Good will eventually triumph. I've seen so much positive change in my own lifetime that I feel the future holds great promise. We need to air our thoughts and feelings, not to stuff them. For me, personally, anonymity is an old, old shoe which no longer fits the person I have become after well-over a dozen years of sobriety. "Yard by yard, it's hard. Inch by inch, it's a cinch" is perhaps an overstatement, but I, for one, truly believe that the butterfly effect will be realized as millions and millions more emerge from their cocoons of recovery from addiction.
Millions more will become the fulcrum that will move the world. History is on the side of progress so, from where I sit, things are looking up.
*****
"These people don't deserve... "
"These people can't... "
"These people won't..."
*****
13 years sober and I continue to heal.
*****
"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
History is on the side of the Common Good.
HOPE: Our Most Renewable Natural Resource

(Sculpture by Daniel Arsham on Pinterest)

*****

#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery

*****

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THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Are YOU the Fifteenth Stone?

In youth, I sought self-knowledge by pluck and luck, striving to uncover a self-identity. Getting nowhere fast, my self-knowledge was obscured, blurred and most certainly delayed by the 30-year chemical assault of alcohol and other drugs on my spirit, my body and my brain. Where I picked myself up after that 30-year onslaught on my senses ended was not where I left off as a teen. When I got off the bus after my first rehab hospital, I felt like I had entered a personal, futureless wasteland. Lost, directionless. Somehow, I began. My recovery has been a long, continuing journey of who... how... when. 
Early in my recovery, I ran across this THOUGHT EXPERIMENT (source unknown):

"Somewhere, Japan or China, who knows? San Francisco? A garden exists somewhere, a rock garden: let's say the size of a tennis court. You can walk completely around it, but you are not allowed to cross its borders. This rock garden contains fifteen large stones of varying sizes, say, knee to chest high. And this rock garden is so constructed that no matter where you stand on the garden's perimeter, only fourteen of the stones are ever visible. One stone, forever changing, is always hidden from view. Fifteen stones in the garden, and no matter where you stand, only fourteen are visible."
*****
The possibilities of sober tomorrows are the unknown treasures at my feet. Torn apart, destroyed, by substance or by self, by fear or doubt or a thousand endless emotions known and unknowable, I am here to stay, for now, for this one day.
Seek, strive on, celebrate!
The chemical assault is over, has been over, will continue to be... Over!
My Fifteenth Stone... Unstoned at Last!

*****
Pictured: (Derbies' Twist Modern Stone Circle: Fallmore, Ireland. Photographed by Pierre Lapointe on Pinterest)

*****
"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more." 
*****
#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
Passages in quotes are excerpted from All Drinking Aside: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal
 http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
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Anonymity about Addiction is Slowly Melting. Progress Drinks In These Waters.

I live somewhere here between the next two sentences:
1) Just because you can see it in the rear view mirror does not mean that it was inevitable.
2) Just because you lived it does not mean that the next generation must.
*****
That places me somewhere tenuous in time. And such I live. A life precarious, as all lives are and so must be. 
*****
Growing up, addiction was almost unheard of and alcoholism was a word to be only whispered. Uncle Ned didn't go to a sanatorium to dry out. He "had a nervous breakdown..." or so we were told.
The disgrace of addiction, to me, is not the person who suffers from it, but rather, the misperceptions of the larger culture that has ignored, distorted or kept silent about its causes and conditions while the sufferer has been simultaneously ignored, shunned or disgraced.
The enigma of this stigma surrounding addiction is nearly impossible for me to completely understand and explain. But let me say this: You don't have to be an addict or alcoholic to be a recovery advocate....
The stigma of addiction is slowly being dissolved. Everyone seems to be slowly learning that recovery is possible, doable and desirable. And although there are still many personal and professional reasons for one to remain anonymous, I am no longer that. Anonymity has consequences for the world-at-large. It may help sustain, amplify and perpetuate the stigma. Anonymity will not solve the stigma. When you are ready (I am ready), the stigma of addiction will be slowly chipped away and dissolve. I am now strong enough and stable enough and realistic enough to humbly proclaim (I can hold myself back no longer):
My name is Jim and I am an alcoholic living in long-term recovery.
Addiction: Ignorance, Distortion... Silence?
I DON'T THINK SO. I DON'T LIVE SO.
Loving to drink. Living to drink. Dying to drink. Dying from drinking. This is the progression of alcoholism. Wanting to live. Learning to live. Loving to live. Living with love. This is the progression of recovery.
Ignorance, Distortion... Silence.
Say it isn't so.
It isn't so.
"My name is Jim and I am an alcoholic living in long-term recovery."
*****
Just because you can see it in the rear view mirror does not mean that it was inevitable and just because you lived it does not mean that the next generation must.
A beautiful bird lives out there and I have held it in my brain's momentary madness.
Hold it in yours, let it flower, pass it on.

*****
"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
*****
#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
The passages in quotes are excerpted from ALL DRINKING ASIDE: 
The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
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140+ Recovery Posts: https://goo.gl/fmzt9b

1st 5***** Star Review of 2018 Shines a Light for "All of Us" to Read ALL DRINKING ASIDE

5.0 out of 5 starsFor all of us who have loved a person who loves the bottle.

By blounsberry on January 2, 2018

Format: Paperback

Great book! Honest and insightful, provides a unique perspective that can be 
appreciated by heavy drinkers, teetotalers, and all of us in between. A witty,
good read.

*****

#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
Look here for all 30+ Five Star Reviews of ALL DRINKING ASIDE: 

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3 Pieces from the Puzzle of What Once Was: A Witless Sampler

Just because you can see it in the rear view mirror does not mean it was inevitable. 

Just because you lived it does not mean the next generation must.

*****

3 Perspectives on Addiction:

*****

A Blind Man Descending a Spiral Staircase Leading to Nowhere:

"My brain knows my disease. My brain loves my disease and my brain will never forget my disease because my disease has carved permanent grooves into my brain that no amount of sobriety can ever putty shut. The grooves in my brain lay waiting for me to pick up again so that the grooves can progressively deepen. I must depend on the help of others. Acting alone, I will be devoured by my disease. For addicts, alcohol will devour memories of the past and anxiety about the future, drowning them in the unreal, insane world of addiction. A living lobotomy. A blind man descending a spiral staircase leading to nowhere. No past. No present. No future. Addiction will survive by eating you alive."

*****

Scratch the Surface Until the Truth Runs Clear:

"Here you are drunk and walking the hallways of the Taj Mahal Casino, picking cigarette butts out of ashtrays. You break off the filters and re-roll the butt ends with new cigarette papers. This is a way to survive, to think that you're surviving. This is when the only food is the juice in this vodka and cranberry. This is when it takes you two solid hours to get out of bed and put on a pair of shoes. This is when there is no next drink, there is just this one long drink that goes on forever. This is where there is no up or down and you can only move sideways. This is where waking up is like falling through a stage prop wall. This is where you carry your addictions in a cardboard box as if you were moving to another location. This is finding no location and the box is empty. This is standing and not being able to move. This is drunk and crashing, falling, falling through a bottom, tumbling. This is where a hospital wakes you up and you do not know who you are or where you are..." 

Scratch the surface until the truth runs clear.

*****

Different Pasts / Different Paths:

"My younger sister's addictions came on harder, faster, and stronger than mine. A certain frailty, susceptibility, took over Betty sooner than it took over me. Our common genetic predisposition could have led to my death instead of her suicide, but that's not the way the addiction balls bounced. We had become too distant, detached. Our addictions kept us apart. I dissolved into mine. She dissolved into hers. There was no "We" as "She" and "I" dissolved into our addictions. It was distance that kept us apart. Not the distance between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The distance of disease, if you please. The distance of disease if you don't please."

*****

Just because you can see it in the rear view mirror does not mean it was inevitable. 

Just because you lived it does not mean the next generation must.

*****
"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
*****
#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
The passages in quotes are excerpted from ALL DRINKING ASIDE: 
The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
Recovery Tweets: http://twitter.com/JimAnders4
140+ Recovery Posts: https://goo.gl/fmzt9b

In depth, Insightful Review Inside ALL DRINKING ASIDE

5.0 out of 5 stars

Creative disclosure highly relevant and recommended

By Eloise 

Written as an autobiographical fiction, the author discusses his long struggle with alcohol addiction, his gradual acknowledgment and understanding of the disease, and his eventual journey into recovery. This book read for me as a meditation of sorts, due, I think, to the various powerful and dynamic literary devices the author uses. Interspersed within each section of the narrative (there are 90 sections) are pithy metaphors, quotes and proverbs, bits of poetry, morning & evening meditations, questions for the day, etc. These techniques are used to reflect on the author's life events, his feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, his relationships with others, how he finally comes to acknowledge his addiction, and on the lessons and truths garnered from his life in recovery. The best of these literary devices is, for me, the clever and brilliant inclusion of three fictional alter egos who stand by listening to his story as it unfolds (unbeknownst to him) and discuss with each other their opinions of him and their differing views on how he is relating his story. This stepping back from the narrative not only offers periodic distance from its intensity, but reveals differing perspectives that lend insight into the various facets of addiction and recovery as well as insight into the perspective others might take as they look in on someone addicted to alcohol. This intelligently written book should be of great interest to anyone at any stage of addiction--or simply, to anyone, since it brings forth useful insights and truths necessary to living a healthy life. And so, I do highly recommend this book to anyone!

*****

#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
Look here for all 30 Five Star Reviews of ALL DRINKING ASIDE: 

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Today's Reviewer: "it's really challenging me to... change my false reality and conquer my future!" - 5***** Star Review of ALL DRINKING ASIDE

5.0 out of 5 stars"Whatever power is, that’s what addiction steals. I need 

to repeat that to myself again"

By Tobias Mele on December 30, 2017

I didn't drink for almost a year but I've been struggling with life, Alcohol is one 

contribution to that struggle. I'm using your book to help guide me to a better place, 

but I'll proably have to read it again and again (I'm a very visual person) so far 

though it's really challenging me to think, reflect...change my false reality and 

conquer my future!

*****

#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
Look here for the other 29 Five Star Reviews of ALL DRINKING ASIDE: 

The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal

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18 Favorite Recovery-Related Quotes for 2018 (Happy, Deep & More)

HAPPY 2018! (in no particular order):

1) "I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on." - Oscar Levant

2) "Because you are alive, everything is possible." - Thich Nhat Hanh

3) "The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." - Samuel Johnson

4) "Everything you own, owns a part of you." - Gracie Allen

5) "The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself." - Mark Twain

6) "To live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in suffering." - Viktor Frankl

7) "It's not trespassing when you cross your own boundaries." - Anonymous

8) "In a full heart there is room for everything and in an empty heart there is room for nothing." - Antonio Porchia

9) "Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down." - Anonymous

10) "How come if alcohol kills millions of brain cells, it never killed the ones that make me want to drink?" - Anonymous

11) "Silent Gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." - Gertrude Stein

12) "It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." - Andrew J. Holmes

13) "Talk doesn't cook rice." - Chinese Proverb

14) "For fast-acting relief, try slowing down." - Lily Tomlin

15) "Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens." - Epictetus

16) "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them." - Albert Einstein

17) "Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more." - Jim Anders

18) "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." - Aesop
*****
(Please note: The "Me We" pictured is by Muhammad Ali, Harvard University, 1975, and is credited as being the world's shortest poem)

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#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
These and 172 additional quotes by the famous, infamous and anonymous are to be found in ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal: http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
Recovery Tweets: http://twitter.com/JimAnders4
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These 4 Short Reviews Score ALL DRINKING ASIDE 5***** Stars

1) By Gail Mary
Brilliance at it's absolute best!!! Captivating to say the least!!! Unlike any other book on the beast of the bottle!!!!
2) By Scott H
I appreciated his sharing of what is a intense and frightening story. It was a pleasure reading and his writing is well balanced in being entertaining as well as inspiring. His quotations reveal some heartfelt humility and intelligent humor.
3) By Marlene 
Humor, satire, fantasy...the book has it all. This autobiographical "fiction" will make you laugh; nod your head in agreement; question. You don't need to be an alcoholic ( active or passive, past or present ) to relate to Jim's characters and situations. My wife and I have totally enjoyed reading it.
4) By David W. MacDonald 
Autobiographical novel? So I probably wouldn't need my high-lighter, right WRONG!!! The book was so good that I found myself starting to bend the corners of certain pages and finally broke down and started high-lighting many passages. Much of the book is now high-lighted in yellow. Jim Anders tells the journey inside the mind of an alcoholic/addict from the beginnings through recovery. Whether or not you are an addict/alcoholic, we all know someone who is (often in our family). This book clears away the mystery of much that is going on. I highly recommend it and am already thinking of people to whom I might gift it.

*****
"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
*****
#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
*****
Look here for 25 lengthier 5***** Star Reviews of ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
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140+ Recovery Posts: https://goo.gl/fmzt9b

ALL DRINKING ASIDE Diagnosed "CLEVER" by Medic

5.0 out of 5 stars

A Medic writes,     

"I have read "All Drinking Aside" twice now, and look for different excerpts and meditations daily. Jim's clever conception of alter egos, as if anyone or alcoholic knows, an alcoholic has many, is genius at least. Some of the heart felt stories and the great lengths Jim has gone for recovery, shows what sobriety means to him. Substitute any vice for alcohol, out of the book, and anyone can apply some of the principles Jim has to offer, in their daily lives. This book has helped me in many ways, to help maintain my own sobriety, and how to continue to grow as a person. I related to many of Jim's character flaws and the depth he went to go to climb out of the pit of despair. I do not look at this book as just a recovery book, but a self help book for all to benefit from. Very well written and composed !!"

*****

"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."

*****

#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery

*****

Take a Ride on ALL DRINKING ASIDE, An Autobiographical Fiction: http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO

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