I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of success and failure. Probably because I'm such a resounding success at failing at anything competitive. Seriously, I rarely win anything. Recently some old friends and I have been getting together to play free bingo at a local restaurant so that we can laugh at all the losers (without a hint of irony) who go out and play bingo. It's tragically fun. Bingo is a hoot. The prizes are pathetic (ugly flower pots, bottles of shampoo). I haven't won once and I've played about 30 games by now. The last time I thought I had a bingo but it turns out I just suck at stamping numbers.
It's been like this my whole life. I am lousy at pool, an embarrassment at darts, I can't sit still long enough for a thorough poker game, I'm too short for basketball, too tall for tee-ball and I look awkward in a Speedo. That doesn't stop me from playing cards in my Speedo from time to time but I hardly ever win a hand. I'm just not much of a champion when it comes to games and sports. Fortunately I succeed at other things in life and most games aren't all that exciting to me anyways.
But for the purposes of this blog post I'm speaking about successes and failures in recovery. First, before I shatter your notions of success and failure wide open, allow me to give you some background. I have a dear friend who has been sober for longer than nearly anyone I know who I will leave anonymous in this post. He has extensive experience in the field of treatment and explained to me some of the metrics used for gauging a treatment center's "success rate." He says that the whole notion of quantifying a success in sobriety began in the 70's when health insurance companies were forced by state laws to start picking up the tab for alcoholics with coverage seeking help in rehab. They needed a way to determine which of the countless agencies were the most effective at "rehabilitating" the patients. It became industry standard to gauge a treatment agencies effectiveness by counting the number of patients who went through the program and subsequently abstained from alcohol entirely for one year. The methods for verifying this are simple. Court ordered patients will be tested periodically. Other patients can be given follow-up calls. Alcoholics who are drinking are obvious as hell about it. We have a bad habit of frequently turning up in places other people don't visit often like jails, hospitals and ex-girlfriends houses. These institutions can all be used to track a former patient.
There is a natural tendency to measure all kinds of progress in one year increments and it makes sense why people want to gauge recovery that way too. The first year of sobriety means you watched all the seasons change, survived your family through the holidays, experienced pro sports and did all of it without drinking. As a person who has stayed sober for a couple of years I can tell you that none of that is easy. I'm not asking for praise I'm just saying those things can be rough on an addict.
The problem is that we are holding some very complicated people with similar but vastly different problems to a high-fucking-standard. For a guy like me it was absolutely reasonable for people to expect that I would eventually get a year after I got rolling on recovery. I was employed, had insurance, my family hadn't cut me off and I hadn't lost too much in the way of mental faculties. But not everyone is situated like I am.
I believe very strongly that my sobriety is contingent on the help I get from others. I tried to do it alone and had very poor results. Any "success" I experience is far more yours and His than mine. What I'm trying to get around to saying is that just because you're not sober doesn't mean you're a failure and just because you are sober doesn't mean you're a success. As long as you keep trying nobody has the right to call you a failure.
When we pan the camera back and look at the bigger picture of addiction we see that the addict is harming far more people than just himself. An alcoholic endangers countless public lives with drunk driving. Addicts commit terrible property crimes to feed their habits often stealing from their own families. IV drug users share needles and spread diseases. Apparently people snort bath salts and take their clothes off and jesus nobody wants to see that, come on, really?!?
So can we not think about success as a person engaging in less episodic drinking? No longer sharing needles? No longer stealing from their grandmother? When I think about the people I care about who are still out there drinking and using I would love to know that they successfully stayed out of jail for a year or slept indoors the whole year. I would be delighted to know they're not prostitutes and they haven't gotten slapped around by a pimp in a year. I bet their families would agree that maybe they're not titans of the business world but if they are trying to do better and managing to maintain a certain level of dignity and hold an ounce of self-worth... they are a success.
The long-term goal for anyone serious about getting help with an addiction should be total abstinence from mind-altering chemicals. But the short-term reality for anyone with enough humility to ask for help is that they are the most successful person in the world that day and they deserve our respect.
As for me, I like to play...no... I like to lose at bingo every other Thursday night. But I succeed at having a great time and this week I might even wear my Speedo.
No comments:
Post a Comment