My Addictive Personality - My Experience in 12 Step Programs

I grew up in a normal family, the youngest of five children, raised with Catholic values; the idea of faith inherent in all of our actions. Along with faith came guilt. Add a little dosing of shame, and you have the personality of a loving home, ripe for denial and addiction.

When I think about addiction, I become angry, because it has been a curse in my life. I have allowed this phenomenal affliction to compromise my values, destroy my integrity, and place into question my character. Addiction to me signals more problems, more controversy, continued paranoia, looking over my shoulder, losing touch with what is good and positive in my life; all for what; a few moments of unbridled gratification. For that is what the general outcome of a full blown addiction is, isn't it? It's a chance to feel an adrenaline rush like no other, one that pushes a person past their sense of normalcy and allows them to relish the notion of "living on the edge".

I once had a therapist that categorized my life as being such that I needed an edge to be happy, living on the fence. I was flattered that I was such a creative soul that I wasn't satisfied with the status quo, that in order to tap into my genius, one of many delusions, I needed to feed that unorthodox manner of living; that was my identity. Yet, I was always unable to fully achieve a feeling of confidence that allowed me to not question the benefit of such a lifestyle. I wasn't feeling whole; my life being a mess most of the time, and not containing the fruition of an artist finding their niche. I became complacent and rather than living life, kept waiting for something, someone to help me live my life accordingly. What though, I would often end up asking myself, was life according to society's rules? Why can't I simply exist like the others around me? Why do I have to be special? For a lot of years, I questioned how special I really was. I mean, telling myself I'm special had the seriously negative connotations that lack of awareness would suggest. Indeed, the amount of time I spent labeling my personality as sub-par in respect to my family could have been well spent far differently, but rather than succeed I decidedly stayed deep in my head. It was safer, it was predictable, and by God, staying there allowed my mind to continually validate all the worries, fears and self-defeating notions that would turn a budding addiction into the monster it became, and quite realistically remains.

Studies suggest that addiction can never go completely away. In the world of 12 step programs, people like me are said to be in recovery. That is, recovery can exist when a person is practicing taking care of themselves with honesty, willingness and openness. Those three words have become my necessary mantra to stay healthy and alive. If not for occasional clarity around the meaning of that mantra, I'd probably have found a bridge, a rope, or more likely a Mack truck at 70 mph years ago. But, I got lucky. I surrounded myself with people that cared about my well-being. Despite my efforts to practice the necessary tools to destroy everything good and substantial in my life, luckily my wife always managed to prevent the final outcome by intervening and suggesting I get help. Oh my how long it took me to acknowledge her efforts, and how many different layers of self-destruction she had to witness until I finally started to get it. The question remains, have I truly gotten it? I think that answers the dilemma that lies around the whole realistic grip that addiction has on our lives.

We never really do recover completely. We're never completely cured. We are in recovery for the remainder of our lives. We continue to use the tools of the 12 steps to guide our lives in a positive direction, and by doing so in small increments of time, we might assuredly be able to exist in our given society without pain, suffering and a willingness to destroy all that is meaningful and spiritual in our lives. For years, we've struggled alone to overcome the obstacles that continue to drag our lives down, seeking our own unique bottom. But therein the problem exists. Each of us believes in our own mind our issues to be far different than anyone else's. When we allow ourselves to compare our addiction to another person, and really allow ourselves to let other people inside our turbulent lives, we begin to recognize commonalities amongst one another's maladies. In other words, it's all been said, experienced, and dealt with. Addiction crosses many barriers, has no favorite, and is the result of many years practicing a direction filled with fantasy and delusion rather than reality.