Alcoholic – PART III – Addiction
The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.
A series of essays exploring my experiences with alcohol and alcoholism
Alcoholic Part 1
Alcoholic Part 2
Alcoholic Part 3
You might recall a series I started last year exploring my relationship with alcohol and alcoholism in my family. There's a bunch of it.
I've certainly had my share of problems with the bottle, though I don't believe I've ever been medically addicted.
Part 4 is partly written and I've sketched out the rest of the series, but other matters have kept me tied up and distracted.
I ran across this tonight completely at random. I was watching Romeo + Juliet (Luhrman 1996) when my phone lit up. Addict that I am, I flicked it open to see an alert for Youtube.
The title 'Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong' rang my bell. I've always feard addiction and can see addictive tendencies in my own personality. Hell, I think I might even be addicted to a person! And if you read my 3500 word essay, The Lion Will Lie Down with the Lamb that dwelled long up on my own sister's addictive assaults, you'll understand this is an important topic for me.
Often, these kinds of videos hit me as click-bait. But I paused Romeo—and gave Johann Hari fifteen minutes of my night.
After conducting three years of field research for his book, Hari concluded addiction may be more of a social illness than a medical or psychological illness. For Hari, “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.
Early studies conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America placed individual rats in an empty cage with a bowl of regular water and a bowl of cocaine- or heroin-infused water. The rats almost exclusively chose the cocaine- or heroin-water and most of them eventually died of drug overdose. This supported the notion “drugs cause addiction,” and once you are hooked, there is little hope for recovering.
However, in the 1970s, Canadian Psychologist Bruce Alexander conducted the famous “Rat Park” study and found very different results. Rats were placed in an environment where they had plenty of cheese, toys, and the company of several other rats. Here, the opposite effect occurred. The rats consumed 75 percent less drug-infused water than the isolated rats and none of the rats overdosed.
Years later, Alexander reran the experiments, taking rats who were isolated and using cocaine for 57 days and placing them in Rat Park with other rats. These rats showed a few signs of withdrawal, but soon stopped heavy use and went back to normal life, contrary to what one would expect under the disease model of addiction.
This scratched an itch bugging me for a LONG LONG time.
For most of my adult life, I have practiced shunning. The practice forces isolation which can be dangerous. Certainly losing connection with every meaningful relationship in your life is the kind of threat that makes you want to follow the rules. The danger is that when we get into trouble, we need our tribe the most.
This seems to be at the heart of what this avenue of study regarding addiction is all about. Given the opportunity to be involved and part of a welcoming and loving group, the rats chose community over self.
We are designed as social creatures. We need BONDING in the words of Johann Hari. But if we sever the bond, those most in need seek it elsewhere.
I suspect this is at the heart of my own emotional troubles. Mental illness notwithstanding, what if my struggles are related to a lack of connection with my peers where I live?
I have at least one longtime, trusted and loved ally who postulated much of my suffering would be alleviated if I just moved away. And I can't argue against it in general. Now, in specifics, I think it only reinforces the truth we need to be around OUR PEOPLE. Our tribe.
If we aren't bonding with the people we spend the most time with, we're a ticking time bomb looking for a connection. And according to this TED talk, we'll find it alcohol, drugs or people.
From my own experience, ALL of my deepest, most meaningful connections are with people who live at least a thousand miles away. And those are rich and rewarding relationships, but they can't suffice when we need to breathe the air, smell the smells, play games with and otherwise humanize with fellow humans.
This is requiring me to rethink my entire approach to people and how I see them. Both past and present. And future.
And it isn't enough to just 'power through' and get to know a person. Doing so can be good for the group. But as a human, I need people with whom I mesh.
Hell.
It even makes me question other types of bonding we take for granted — like marriage. What if a person marries someone and finds out over time they've connected with someone they can never completely bond to? It is a slippery slope, I know. It would be easy to pull the ripcord and shout 'non-bondable'!
It is irrelevant as a moral person will fulfill their vow. But it certainly does reinforce the importance of make the RIGHT decision up front.
Surely with enough effort and love you can bond with a person that you were in love with enough to dedicate yourself to until death do you part. But certainly it can be easier if we choose wisely.
As regards the shunning. I'm relieved that as a group, we've changed our approach to the practice of shutting disobedient one's out of the group. But we are now being trained to handle those cases drastically different. To urge and coax and lead people back to a desire to try to do what is right.
No longer about what you did, but a willingness to try to do better.
But, the old guard is slow to change. I for one am not going to drag my feet. As far as I am concerned, in the future when faced with a situation where I have to make that decision, there is no way I'm cutting someone off unless they actually beg for it. No more erring on the side of caution, or teaching lessons, or claiming it wasn't clear. From now on, if I'm the judge, you're my brother or sister come hell or high water.
This video is 9 years old. And the research it's based on is even older. I wonder how I would have faired if I'd understood this argument five years ago?
One thing is for sure, THIS is why it's been SO IMPORTANT for me to get the hell out of Dust Meridian for 4-8 weeks every year for the last 10 years. I'm going somewhere and getting bonded.
Covid screwed that pooch and I've been dying ever since.
Insult to injury, the assistance I sought 9 months ago did not only just result in not getting emotional and spiritual support, it actually resulted in me have LESS access to that which I've relied on for so damn long.
Double hell.
Watch the video. Maybe it won't be the tidal wave of realization it was for me. But it's interesting nonetheless.
Maybe Johann Hari is right — it’s not about sobriety, it’s about connection. And maybe, like Romeo, I’ve been starving for it all along.
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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