Byline: Keith Howard

No matter what kind of recovery meeting you go to, the narratives are likely to follow a predictable path. It’s not a bad path—in fact, it’s really good—but it is well worn by every other recovery story you’ve heard before.

Alcohol and drugs may at some point have been razors for me, although I couldn’t remember that time.  I’d misused and abused powders and liquids and pills and herbal supplements  long enough that I had transformed them into a Sawzall, a reciprocating saw.  For those not familiar with reciprocating saws, here’s an apt description from handyman.com.

If I had to place money on either a horse race or on picking winners from early recovery, I’d be a better bettor at Pimlico or Churchill Downs than at a church basement or outdoor All-Recovery meeting. At the track, at least I’d have luck on my side—along with a little bit of information about the horses’ previous record. In early recovery, where most folks look like they’re way below down on their luck, appearances can be are deceiving.

I’ve been down many times in my life, looking up at people in the power structure, whether case managers, or food pantry workers or just someone to bum enough money for smokes off of. That stinks. They didn’t seem fully human to me when I gazed up the nostrils of privilege or stared hopefully at the chin of pride and arrogance. At least, that’s how people above me always appeared, no matter what they did to try to establish “rapport,” which all too often just made me more suspicious of them. 

I am one of the last people you should listen to on issues of spirituality. After all, when I first got into recovery, my higher power (Higher Power for those of you for whom higher power is a substitute word for God) was an imaginary number—i is the symbol for the square root of -1, a value that does not exist for square roots must be positive. Although imaginary, i is indispensable in solving some quadratic equations. If math problems can be solved with a nonexistent value, then it was good enough to help me solve the problem of my life. If nothing else, it placed something outside my will, ego and appetite at the center of the universe.

I don’t believe these things because I’m an optimist. I don’t believe them because of a book I read or a movie I watched. My belief doesn’t come from tapping my heels three times and making wishes.

Employees of Hope are no better or of higher status than anyone who comes to us for support. We are comrades and allies and friends and companions with no special gifts or skills. Every person at Hope is in recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, eating disorders or other addictive behaviors. 

Theories offer only a half-constructed bridge to reality. Put another way, I’d rather learn about combat from real soldiers who have fought in real wars than from military theorists. Give me Norman Mailer, James Jones or Tobias Wolff over von Clausewitz, B.H. Liddell Hart or even Lao Tzu. The man who has been to war knows combat in his bones and heart; the theorist only in his mind.

Recovery is about way more than not drinking. It’s about redux—a return to health after a period of sickness. Sometimes, though, we get so used to being diseased that health feels unhealthy, particularly when that disease has provided our best friend, our constant companion, our soulmate—meth, dope, coke, booze. Like a starving man with a meal of diseased meat, we know we must consume even as that consumption slowly kills us.