Pearl 16 – Breaking the Cycles
In this installment I’d like to talk about the different cycles an alcoholic may have encountered and could encounter in recovery, as well as some other cycles that may not be considered.
Of course, the key element to recovery is my desire to stop drinking and admit that I am powerless over alcohol. Alcohol has control over me, but I do not have control over it.
It begins with a cycle of innocence.
Alcohol wasn’t always in control of my actions. In the beginning alcohol was an interesting, mind-altering substance. On the one hand it seemed fun but harmless. On the other it was edgy and dangerous. It was attractive in a mysterious kind of way, but it seemed people could use and stop, and that was that. It made sense to try something that everyone else seemed to enjoy, and enjoy it too.
The beginnings of my own drinking were innocent enough. Infrequent drinking happened from a perspective of fun times and laughter. A connection between using alcohol and an addiction to it seemed impossible. Even when I drank too much in those early years, a brief hangover was my only penance.
Yet throughout the college years, and then adulthood beyond, drinking morphed from being appealing and enjoyable, to something that was needed to make an occasion worthwhile. Without it, the event would be boring and drab, but with it, one drink after another would keep a stumbling smiling Terry in play.
Next came the cycle of experience.
I can’t tell when the switchover from want to need came about, but the more I think about it, the farther back I must go in my decades of drinking to feel like I drank from choice, and not need. Allowing that need to take root and progress over the years was the result of an ever-increasing cycle of finding acceptable reasons to drink. Ultimately, my waking life became a reason to drink.
As an experienced drinker I had all kinds of reasons to drink, and any reason to drink is a reason to get drunk. I was fortunate (unfortunate) enough to have a fairly high level of tolerance and stamina to go with it. I knew the jargon, the scene and the people to be around. As my drinking grew, I found that the situations that enabled it were always inviting and desirable. I had no hesitation using up a good portion of my meager spending money to keep the bars and liquor stores in business. I was an experienced drinker.
The cycle of alcoholism won’t stop increasing.
Every alcoholic has a unique life and therefore has a unique set of circumstances that lead to their dis-ease. Drinking became a condition of my life’s circumstances and events, solidifying it as an acceptable lifestyle. When my alcoholism took full effect, I wanted to drink above any other responsibility, loyalty, duty or expectation that was put before me. Most of the time I was functional enough that I could get things done well enough to cover my addiction. But there was no place in my day where alcohol would not be available. Without it, I would be in a mental breakdown state until I had some.
The cycle that started innocently enough; casually and in control, had over time become a mental addiction and then a physical addiction. I had to drink to stay sane (from an alcoholic’s perspective), and I had to drink to physically function. I had to drink to eat food and sleep. The cycle that was alcoholism had my whole being in an iron grip.
What started as a cycle of drinking towards innocent pleasure became a cycle of drinking away displeasure or pain. No longer was my drinking about going out to have a good time (although when I did go out I would convince myself of it), but instead it was about fulfilling the empty, unfulfilled and lonely nature of my soul. My life had moved from finding ways to grow to avoiding life altogether.
The control that alcohol has over the addicted is absolute. The progression from innocence, to experience, to addiction involves ever increasing consumption, and the negative effects of it increase perpetually. Unless stopped by a personal conviction of the person under its control, alcoholism will destroy one factor of their life after another until there’s nothing left that is life. Hopefully the moment of clarity will come sooner than that, and a break in the cycle can occur.
Breaking the cycle of alcoholism means breaking the conditions of alcoholism.
I haven’t witnessed a single person that was an alcoholic just because they just drank too much. There are reasons behind the drinking other than it’s direct effects. Alcohol has a unique way of morphing from a positive stimulant to a depressant of negative emotions.
These emotions can come from any number of life’s events and are different for everyone. Even people that aren’t alcoholics or never drank in the first place are faced with life’s challenges. Some of these circumstances are based on traumatic episodes a person has been involved in, a series of negative developments in their history, or a perception of self that was formed out of neglect.
These conditions of life often times cycle from one bad event to another, snowballing and combining with self-destructive actions. I can attest to this. I can also attest to how well addiction plugs right into that self-deprecating thought pattern and owns it, and owns the person feeling it. The cure for the negativity in my life became alcohol, and the reason for alcohol became the negativity in my life. These two factors cycled back and forth with one another, and one groveled for the other in a revolution of dis-ease.
The cycle of revolution is broken with a revelation.
Revolution is an interesting word. It has two unique but important meanings. The first definition is an object that rotates in a circular type of motion over and over. In essence, a revolution is a cycle. As a cycle, alcoholism is a revolution of action that doesn’t have a stopping point until there is something that changes in the revolution to make it stop. That change stops the wheel from spinning, but there is a chance the wheel will start spinning again. That’s because behind the revolution is the energy produced from a whole bunch of circumstances revolving around a person’s life. Here, the goal is to stop the wheel and break it so it can’t spin again. This has its best chance of happening if the revolutions powering it are also broken as a part of sobriety and recovery. Alcohol is the fuel to drive the revolutions of the machine of alcoholism, but other elements are required to keep that machine going. Removing the reasons for the fuel removes the need for the fuel altogether.
A revelation creates a revolution.
Another definition of revolution equates to a revelation followed by an evolution. An example of this is a scientist that develops a theory that changes the field. There was a moment of discovery followed by a change in the system and how it worked. Another example is the revolution of a system of government. The people as a collective find that the current form of government is dysfunctional and untrusted, then overthrow it in favor of a new system. The expectation is that the new system will be an evolved and improved form of government.
This should be the expectation of recovery, too. A revelation in one’s life that alcohol is not the way, followed by a desire to end its usage, and then action that removes what was empowering it and replaces it with evolved methods of living. It could be said that a person breaking out of the cycle of alcoholism and entering into a new life of recovery was revolutionary.
Recovery can be generational.
There are many stories I have witnessed of alcoholics coming from families of alcoholics that have gone on for generations. The same can be said for the cycles of abuse that are passed from one set of parents and family units to the next in a generational repetition of harmful circumstance. Alcohol and a life embroiled in abuse often go hand in hand. By stopping alcohol abuse and preventing further relationship abuse, recovery can break the cycle. If followed by a life lead by healing, example and teaching, it has the potential to affect many generations to come.
This is an important understanding of recovery. It is about changing self, but if recovery can reach a higher point in its evolution, its about creating positive change in others. These changes, whether simple or complex, can affect people far outside the alcoholics’ personal recovery. The knowledge of this gives me a great deal of energy toward maintaining my own recovery.
New life cycles begin in recovery.
For the uninitiated, recovery may simply be not drinking. At its basis, that is true. Yet just as there are numerous occurrences, events, experiences and influences that lead to alcoholism, there are numerous developments to be made to ensure that recovery is strong and permanent. It’s impossible to outline exactly how a recovery will take shape, as each person on this planet is incredibly unique. But at a critical level, breaking the cycles of what causes alcoholism can stop it and help keep it from coming back around. Then, by creating cycles of living that are positive, healthy and evolutionary can keep alcoholism unnecessary and unattractive. Recovery is about creating a superior cycle of sobriety to replace a negative cycle of self-destruction. At its peak, recovery is about carrying its benefits to the world beyond.