Thank you for this share. Your story really resonates with me. I'm new here and has a story to tell. I've been sharing it for a couple of years with other buddies in private. We're a sober collective where the power of love has healed many.
Now I want to share it with the world cause the power of a collective, community, connection is totally undervalued in this egoistic, liquid modernity era. I'm hoping to build such a collective here on substack and work with others who feel the same way.
Right on, and well done for speaking up with your own experience. There's a huge need for community and discussion around changing relationship with addictive behavior that isn't necessarily AA, "recovery," or dogmatic "sober". I'd be happy to participate in something like that.
This was a great essay. Lot of thought-provoking stuff in here. I've gone back and forth on the addictive thinking/personality characterization. And to me, that is just incorrect terminology. What does exist, I am convinced, is obsessive thinking. The mode I slip into (with extreme subtlety at times) that makes me want to zero out everything other thing in my life to focus on fill in the blank with whatever is nearby. Work, money, women, exercise, food, recovery, travel, music, books, scrolling, TV, you name it. Hard for any sort of intuition to develop when the mind locks in like that. And, as you pointed out, some of these obsessive tendencies can even be helpful in trying to accomplish objectively hard things out in the world. So why cast it aside wholesale one part of my mind whispers? I don't know what the answer is there, other than that it is really hard to live that way over an extended stretch of time, even with activities deemed socially "positive".
This also caused me to reflect on the "hunger for vice" as you so aptly put it. I agree that is a more universal human thing, rather than something unique to addicts/alcoholics. Things are going well by objective measures. But I want to rip the structure down around me. Light a match and burn it to the ground in some of my most extreme moments. Where does that come from? Just the innate drive for risk and adventure? The ultimate exercise of self-will? The immaturity of that fourteen year old still alive in well in there, rattling around, looking to cause some trouble? Have been thinking about this a lot lately.
thanks so much for reading, and for your thoughts Andrew.
yeah my feeling is that the hunger for vice is part of our drive to explore, grow, search for new experiences, but/and exaggerated by modern culture. There's just so much more available to us now, it's almost impossible not to over-do it. The underlying impulse though, is the stuff of life!
So good, man. So true. Especially the lifelong desire to not be ordinary, or not appear or feel ordinary. Sweet Jesus I relate. (And of course to the addiction stuff!)
Addiction as a pathway to normalcy. I get that Bowen. Nice angle and I love reading more about your journey to get there. I shared the mentality you mentioned for so long—I’m not normal—never wanted to be normal. And I got my wish 🙄
I too appreciate the peace and the ordinary joys and can feel them exquisitely now in my sobriety.
Good piece my friend. Now go lay down and take a damn nap with your puppy.
Hi Bowen
Thank you for this share. Your story really resonates with me. I'm new here and has a story to tell. I've been sharing it for a couple of years with other buddies in private. We're a sober collective where the power of love has healed many.
Now I want to share it with the world cause the power of a collective, community, connection is totally undervalued in this egoistic, liquid modernity era. I'm hoping to build such a collective here on substack and work with others who feel the same way.
Love never fails 🌾
https://substack.com/@soberhorseman/note/c-104987791?r=5g8wzg
Right on, and well done for speaking up with your own experience. There's a huge need for community and discussion around changing relationship with addictive behavior that isn't necessarily AA, "recovery," or dogmatic "sober". I'd be happy to participate in something like that.
This was a great essay. Lot of thought-provoking stuff in here. I've gone back and forth on the addictive thinking/personality characterization. And to me, that is just incorrect terminology. What does exist, I am convinced, is obsessive thinking. The mode I slip into (with extreme subtlety at times) that makes me want to zero out everything other thing in my life to focus on fill in the blank with whatever is nearby. Work, money, women, exercise, food, recovery, travel, music, books, scrolling, TV, you name it. Hard for any sort of intuition to develop when the mind locks in like that. And, as you pointed out, some of these obsessive tendencies can even be helpful in trying to accomplish objectively hard things out in the world. So why cast it aside wholesale one part of my mind whispers? I don't know what the answer is there, other than that it is really hard to live that way over an extended stretch of time, even with activities deemed socially "positive".
This also caused me to reflect on the "hunger for vice" as you so aptly put it. I agree that is a more universal human thing, rather than something unique to addicts/alcoholics. Things are going well by objective measures. But I want to rip the structure down around me. Light a match and burn it to the ground in some of my most extreme moments. Where does that come from? Just the innate drive for risk and adventure? The ultimate exercise of self-will? The immaturity of that fourteen year old still alive in well in there, rattling around, looking to cause some trouble? Have been thinking about this a lot lately.
thanks so much for reading, and for your thoughts Andrew.
yeah my feeling is that the hunger for vice is part of our drive to explore, grow, search for new experiences, but/and exaggerated by modern culture. There's just so much more available to us now, it's almost impossible not to over-do it. The underlying impulse though, is the stuff of life!
So good, man. So true. Especially the lifelong desire to not be ordinary, or not appear or feel ordinary. Sweet Jesus I relate. (And of course to the addiction stuff!)
Addiction as a pathway to normalcy. I get that Bowen. Nice angle and I love reading more about your journey to get there. I shared the mentality you mentioned for so long—I’m not normal—never wanted to be normal. And I got my wish 🙄
I too appreciate the peace and the ordinary joys and can feel them exquisitely now in my sobriety.
Good piece my friend. Now go lay down and take a damn nap with your puppy.