Achieving Serenity

Eight Addicts

Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness

This is the story of eight addicts. Only one of them was able to achieve a state of serenity, having arrested the underlying addictions and maintaining a solid foundation of recovery.

Addict #1 was honest. His word was gold as he knew the crushing guilt that came with bearing false witness. He had a bit of an ego problem and was fixated only on his own strategies for success. When external activities and pathways were offered to #1, he would dismiss them and continue thriving in his own way of thinking. Addict #1 relapsed.

Addict #2 was open-minded. She understood that she did not have all the answers and that her best frame of thinking had landed her in several tragic spots in the past. When solutions were offered to her, to the tune of treatment centers and twelve-step meetings, #2 agreed that these were the best ways to get her life back on track. She would look up meetings online, tell her mom about them and drive over to them frequently. The only problem was she didn't actually go inside the meeting rooms. She was afraid and would just drive to the casinos instead, lying to her support network about her whereabouts. Addict #2 relapsed.

Addict #3 was willing. He knew that sobriety consisted of going to meetings and opening up about his reality in an effort to gain understanding and to relate to others. He would go to meetings often and was able to accrue eighty-eight days of clean time. Just before reaching his ninety-day milestone, he returns to his old circle of friends and goes back to drinking. Things only ended up worse for #3 and he acquired the reputation of a chronic relapser in addition to a compulsive liar. Luckily he had it within him that recovery was his best option, though he was not open to doing things any other way this own "version". Addict #3 relapsed.

Addict #4 was honest and open-minded. She didn't see the point in lying to her therapist as this was her time to get everything out in a safe, judgment-free environment. #4 trusted her therapist with all her heart, knowing that she had the answers and could provide the inspiration that was necessary for her to continue on in her journey. She became addicted to therapy and recovery altogether, going to meetings up to three times a day. It appears things were going well for #4, but she couldn't deny the underlying loneliness she felt almost incessantly. Her therapist wanted her to get involved in more activities in order to put her real self out there but she was not willing. She continued to go to meetings like they were the meth she used to smoke, but when her beloved pet died unexpectedly, she ended up returning to meth. Addict #4 relapsed.

Addict #5 was honest and willing but the benzos were gradually becoming a problem in his life. He found himself needing them for everyday trivial circumstances, only to suffer the horrendous withdrawal effects later on. He knew there just had to be some better way of living. However, in addition to his problems with drugs, #5 also had codependency issues and would latch onto people in an effort to distract himself from his own self-hatred. Anything that his role models would do, he would imitate without a second thought. However, problems would arise in many of his relationships. The source of the information was too important for #5; he would often ignore the message and pay attention only to the messenger. He had a history of rebelling whenever he was told to do things that he felt contradicted what his heroes would do. Addict #5 was not open-minded and relapsed.

Addict #6 was open-minded and willing. She was tired of being an alcoholic and ended up calling a hotline one depressing and lonely night. Her parents were more than willing to chip in the out-of-pocket cost to go to a treatment center and surely enough she actually wanted to take on the experience. She got through the sixty-day rehab program, was put into a halfway house with six other women and was enrolled in an outpatient program. When she realized that while even being sober she felt lost and alone, she wasted no time in returning to the bottle, ensuring to lie to the house managers about where she was. She was inevitably caught and discharged from the halfway house. #6 attempted to continue with other sobriety programs, she also continued to lie about clean time and her true feelings. Addict #6 relapsed.

Addict #7 was a stubborn and indisposed liar. Waiting on the world to change for him, #7 was a hostile and aggressive person to be around. He had seen his efforts to do right in the world, only to find that the world would treat him and other innocent people terribly in response. He saw the world as a devious place and prayed to God, asking him to punish the devious sinners. When life became too intolerable for #7, he would smoke meth to get an intense blast of energy, followed by some marijuana to "keep himself balanced out." He felt he was a good and hardworking person but was sick and tired of not getting what he felt the world owed him. When offered solutions from friends and family, #7 rejected them and became irate that people thought that they knew better than him. They don't know my path or my struggles and aren't qualified to give me advice. Addict #7 relapsed.

Addict #8 was honest, open-minded and willing. He was sick and tired of being sick and tired and wanted more than anything to be strong again. He wanted the indisputable reputation of being a reliant father figure toward his young daughter but his actions weren't supporting this. A couple years back he had a football injury that led to an opiate addiction and today he found himself in a very scary place. He had two DUIs yet was still taking pills before driving. It was a thrill he could not escape; he would always tell himself that he wouldn't get behind the wheel but whenever he needed to go somewhere, being blasted on drugs never stopped him from driving. He understood that if he kept up his behavior, he would end up in jail, institutionalized or dead, so he felt he had to seek help immediately. He got financial assistance from his parents and entered a treatment center when he began to see life in the way that he used to, without the fear and self-criticism. #8 was truthful to all the people he was around, even when he truly wanted to relapse. He understood the concept of complacency and knew that recovery was a process, not a destination. When sponsors would give him new ideas that went against his natural order of thinking, he accepted the advice with gracious humility. #8 set his ego aside and used the knowledge of all other people to learn as much as he could about the beauty of existence. He was willing to put action and effort into the strategies suggested to him. When things went badly, he was honest to the people around him. People loved and cared about #8 and it made him love and care about himself. Addict #8 achieved a state of serenity and did not relapse.

Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness areall necessary components in the first steps of recovery. Without utilizingexactly all three of them into your character, abstaining from self-destructivebehavior and sustaining a healthy lifestyle is merely not possible. Like theact of relapsing, one lie is too many and a thousand is never enough. It isimportant for the addict to truly value oneself and keep working toward whatthey know will provide them with a life of happiness and strength.