Dead Set on Living

by Chris Grosso

  Then Anne returned to my question. “If it’s that easy, if that’s all it takes, why does relapse happen? Why relapse? In the eighties, there was a wonderful person named Terence Gorski who was on the front end of the addiction and recovery movement. I asked Terry to come and speak at a program I was managing for the University of California because he had written or cowritten a series of books, one of which stood out for me: Staying Sober: A Guide for Relapse Prevention. It’s been around since the eighties, but I still think it’s the go-to text for understanding the psychology of relapse.3 Basically, what Terry brought to the conversation at that time was that relapse doesn’t happen at the bottle—it happens days, weeks, and even months before the decision to drink.”

  I could certainly relate to that. I could pinpoint the instant my last relapse began, the moments when I would feel unhappy about my marriage and would know my wife shared similar views. I’d quickly suppress those thoughts with ruminations about work or food or something, anything else. I’d pretty much repeated this pattern over the course of a couple of months every time I picked up a drink. I also became aware that I would pay more attention to liquor stores as I drove by them, noting what neon signs were lit up in the window or making a mental note that they were open in the evenings. Seemingly innocent thoughts in and of themselves—that is, unless you have a history of alcoholism or addiction.

  Anne broke it down, noting that we each have a unique core set of triggers that set off a relapse. “They’re specific to our orientation in the world and how we manage love, being a householder, getting up and going to work, and the stresses of life. From that perspective, relapse starts to show itself well in advance of the action to drink or use. In that way, it’s one more layer of understanding and knowing ourselves. It requires a high degree of self-awareness, which takes time and effort to develop, but once we have it, it becomes a useful tool in helping us see the signs early and start to mitigate them more effectively and more immediately.”

  What I’ve learned from personal experience is that it’s not enough to have the awareness of these triggers; instead, it’s necessary to be proactive in telling on ourselves when they begin to activate. What I mean is to let a friend or sponsor or someone we trust in our recovery circle know what’s coming up for us. As they say in the twelve-step programs, we’re only as sick as our secrets, and I’ll be goddamned if that isn’t some serious truth. (Well, I’m probably goddamned for plenty of other reasons, but let that not be one of them!) I shared with Anne that when I think about my relapses, the one thing I always remember feeling is a sense of freedom once I’d ingested the alcohol. I grew up as a punk-rock-loving skateboarder in a rural town; I had many experiences of being judged and not feeling free to be myself. But in later years, I came to realize that after I do relapse, a sense of freedom comes with it. Because when I’m not drinking, it’s not that I dwell on it, but there is the feeling that I’m not free to drink. The catch-22 is that once I begin to drink again, although I feel that initial sense of relief and freedom, it always leads to a bondage to the alcohol. There is no real liberation in it because I’m the kind of drinker who starts drinking as soon as I wake up, before withdrawal kicks in and I start feeling sick. Even when my relapse only lasted twenty-four hours, I started with one pint, then two pints, and before the week was over, I was drinking mouthwash. On the one hand, I was experiencing a sense of relief and freedom in drinking; on the other, I was right back to being a slave to it. In my case, when I go back to drinking, it’s not just that I’m drunk, it’s the mental stuff that comes with it—all the old, ingrained stuff. The horrible self-talk.

  Anne picked up on something interesting. “This is the place where agreement, acceptance, and approval can be most powerful as you explore your relapse triggers. That becomes a meditation versus something that is preventing the monster from coming back. It becomes a moving prayer for you. You are a person with a tremendous life force. There’s tremendous aliveness inside of you. It’s what has driven you to create on the scale that you have, and even as a child, to operate outside of the conditions of your world. There is a tremendous drive inside of you to feel that sense of interconnectivity, that sense of quantum correlation.

  “I grew up like you. Running as hard and fast as I could in my body, trying to chase my brothers down. Why did I do that? I was trying to keep up with them, but the real reason I did it is because when I’m in a state of emotion within myself, I enter a zone that is much bigger than human. It was no surprise that during the years I was an adolescent and a young adult I was using very heavily, because that was a part of the paradigm that got me there. Now the task for me as an adult—and perhaps you share in this—is, ‘How do I achieve that sense of quantum correlation, that flow of life force, as a sober person? How do I get to those states of rapture through intimate contact with my beloved? With my sense of purpose and work in the world?’ Even in the moment when I respond to someone who has pissed me off in traffic. It’s like the world is now our ashram, so that you’re always on your skateboard. I’m always running on Taos Mountain. I could be thrown into the category of an adrenaline junky, but I don’t believe that’s it at all. There’s nothing more grounding and more enlivening to me than to be in that sense of correlation, which is why I love indigenous cultures, because everything about them was cultivating and sustaining the correlation.”

  Then Anne told me I struck her as a person who’s addicted to correlation. I found that to be a fair and accurate assessment. She said it was a healthy desire. “You have come so far in your own personal development that when you reached for the old habit, you discovered that it no longer correlates you. Not in your head—you already knew that. I’m talking about in your nervous system. It was like, ‘Nah, this isn’t it.’ Now the burn is in the sobriety for you. It’s in daring to be beholden to other humans. That’s the temple. That’s it. That’s the burn.”

  That’s a big part of why I do what I do. I’ve worked very hard on myself over the course of the past several years, but there’s still more to be done. Now I’m trying to look under those rocks that I’ve yet to turn over to see what I can find. My conversation with Anne opened doors that I wanted to walk through and explore. During my relapse and active addiction stages, I kept journals, the underlying theme of which was anger toward God. I’d often write about wondering where God was. Why was I empty and hurt? I was trying to fill that pain with alcohol and drugs, but now I see how that doesn’t serve me at all.

  I’m piecing it all together. Drinking doesn’t serve me in any way, shape, or form; it’s just horrible. It’s a horrible thing, and it’s sad for me to see countless people lose their lives to this. It’s tragic. I told Anne that in rural Connecticut, where I live, there’s a huge opioid epidemic, as there is across the nation. Conversations like this one make me grateful to be in a place to help people, even while working through the guilt of relapsing again, because I know better. It’s just part of what I live with.

  Anne told me she appreciated my creative courage, and that meant a lot. Then she turned me on to Anne Wilson Schaef, who wrote When Society Becomes an Addict.4 “She provided the most brilliant commentary on patriarchy, its consequences, the rise of the industrial world, and what happened to soul within that, even though she doesn’t use this language. She also talked about one of the consequences of this—the sense of dis-ease across an entire culture being the rise of addictive behaviors. What your work collectively speaks to is that condition, and it is part of how the culture is both destroying itself and remaking itself at the same time, which is exactly what happens in the cycle of addiction. In my opinion, your most recent relapse is an indicator of your growth. It’s not a signature that you’re still at risk. It’s a signpost indicating how much you’re not at risk any longer because of how you handled it. I give you the highest praise for being willing to live it and to then rise on the other side of it, because that moment is now guiding and informing everything you do in a way that you weren’t bei
ng guided and informed before. It’s taken you to the next level.”

  This was high praise coming from someone like Anne. It inspired me even more to do my work and share hers.

  PRACTICE

  Thank Your Habit

  Anne taught me an exercise that worked for her when she quit smoking. It’s a way to get into agreement with an addiction, ultimately accepting that you’re not in control.

  1. Draw a simple picture of your habit.

  I chose to draw a cookie, representing my periodic sugar problem.

  2. Label it.

  I wrote the words “cookie/sugar” and added how it made me feel: fat and weak.

  3. Turn the page over and draw two columns. Label them + and −.

  4. Under the minus sign, write eleven reasons this habit is a problem.

  I wrote: “weight gain, trouble sleeping (if eaten in the evening), form of aversion, unhealthy, zits (poor complexion), feelings of shame, high blood pressure, increased uric acid levels (which have already been an issue for me since my early twenties, when I was diagnosed with gout due to my drinking), bad for my teeth, potential for diabetes, and, like many things in this world, increased chances of cancer.” That wasn’t so bad.

  5. Under the plus sign, write eleven positive consequences of the habit.

  WTF? This was harder than a double kickflip on a board with shitty bearings. I finally listed four: “comfort, safety, temporary relief (from whatever stress or emotion I was trying to escape), and a temporary rush of pleasure.”

  6. Look at the positive aspects, your reasons for the habit every time you engage it.

  As I sat in contemplation of this practice, I began to think about how it might work better for some habits, like cigarettes and sugar, than others, like alcohol and speedballs, but even so, it’s powerful to see why we literally love our habits. That’s my two cents, at least.

  One of the positives or payoffs for Anne when she did this exercise in regards to her smoking habit was that she realized it connected her to her father, who had passed away. “We had a very conflicted relationship, and one of the few ways that we could have loving contact was that we shared the habit of smoking. Not that he smoked with me or that he supported my habit, but he smoked, and therefore I smoked. There was an unconscious agreement that I could be tethered to my father through this habit. We were from that village of smokers.

  “I decided to partner with my addiction in a new way, which was to bring gratitude to it. I didn’t try to stop. I didn’t try to change it. Every time I smoked, my first inhale was dedicated to my father. I would say, ‘This one’s for you.’ I was saying that a lot throughout the day. Gradually it began to change my behavior toward smoking, until I didn’t smoke anymore.

  “That approach worked in that instance and that context for me because I was working on the relational part of how I was associating to smoking. There was a physiological addiction that was going on as well, and it would draw on things that happened subtly over a period of time, but the hook for me was that relationship. Now, that can be true across many habits, whether it’s drinking, drugging, overspending, sexcapades.”

  This ultimately puts us back in control. “By accepting that the addiction is what it is—not good, bad, or neutral, it just is—there’s a level of approval that begins to permeate the situation. You’re not trying to run away from it. You’re not trying to stop it. You’re not trying to do anything. It’s more like a curiosity, like ‘Whoa, I’m addicted to cigarettes. That’s fascinating. What’s up with that? God, that’s brilliant. It’s providing this connection to my father. My unconscious is genius!’ ”

  I too found this to be a fascinating exploration of why I engage in this certain behavior, what its “payoffs” are as opposed to the harm it causes, and have since used it to be increasingly mindful of the reasons when I act out like this. Sure, it hasn’t cured me of my sugar “appreciation” (let’s call it), but it has helped me look at the behavior in real time as it’s happening (incidents of which have become increasingly fewer) and be honest with myself about what I’m doing in those moments and why.

  There is something to be said for that level of honesty in one’s life. Real shit.

  5

  I DON’T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING

  CONVERSATION WITH RAM DASS

  Ram Dass is a revered spiritual teacher of bhakti, or devotional, yoga. He was one of the first teachers I resonated with when I stepped onto the spiritual path. I came across his classic Be Here Now at Russell Library in Middletown, Connecticut, while browsing the religion/spirituality section. For those unfamiliar with Be Here Now, it’s like a divine cookbook, divided into three parts. The first covers ex-Harvard professor Richard Alpert’s 1967 voyage to India, where, through a series of incredible events, he met Bhagavan Das, a fellow seeker who introduced him to his guru, Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji). Alpert then became Ram Dass. The third section is a series of practices from meditation to yoga (and much more) to help readers as they begin their spiritual adventures. It was the middle section that spoke my language—108 pages of trippy, countercultural art, accompanied by some of the sagest advice and insight you’ll find anywhere. The short version is “Love everyone. Serve everyone. Remember God. And tell the truth”—something so important to my own path that I have it tattooed on my arm. Good for a constant reminder, right?

  My account was in good standing (an unusual state for me at Russell Library, since I was always overdue on something or other), so I took Be Here Now home. Since that day, I’ve considered Ram Dass an inadvertent punk-rock spiritual guide, so when I began working on this book, he was one of the first people I reached out to for his insights on how difficult times in our lives can become vehicles for awakening the courage and love that reside within each of us.

  Ram Dass helped me see that sometimes, even if we have all the spiritual tools we need, we don’t use them, because we distract ourselves. We get caught up in our thoughts, but our positive and negative habits are all in the mind. Ram Dass believes we’ve become captivated by our drama or by things in the outside world, and we get stuck. “We’re too identified with the thoughts that are going around the situation, whatever it may be. We need to bring the identification from the thoughts to the watcher of the thoughts, and that takes us away from the thoughts. Then we should watch these thoughts as our perspective shifts around them.”

  That made sense. If we take a step back from thinking and look at thoughts, they lose their hold over us. A powerful first step to help in this is to take a slow, deep, intentional breath that begins to break the chatter of what the Buddhists refer to as our “monkey mind.” When we recognize that we’re caught up in our judgments and feelings, we can use this realization about our minds to connect with what Ram Dass calls our “witness” and work with any sort of difficulty. This can apply to drug addiction, grief, or abuse, or even bad habits like smoking cigarettes or an overindulgence in Snapchat. You see, observing our thoughts can become a vehicle for awakening the courage and love inside us. Please, try this yourself the next time you’re tangled in opinions and emotion.

  Ram Dass explains that “your thoughts of addiction or other hard times happen in your mind, your head. It feels thick there, but you start in the head with the understanding that you’re aiming for the soul.” He says that when it comes to addiction, we need to pull back or zoom out like a movie camera. “Pulling back to the witness and recognizing that the witness is part of the soul identifies you with your soul, and that’s freedom. With addiction, you pull back and you witness the addiction, and then you’re identified with the witness watching the addiction.”

  Now, I know some of you reading this may have a difficult time with the word “soul.” I get that. Really, I do. Recently, when I was on a retreat in Maui, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ram Dass and Sharon Salzberg (you’ll meet her later) banter about soul or a lack thereof as they gave dharma talks together. No matter what side of this belief line you fall on, when it comes to soul, I
believe you’ll appreciate Ram Dass’s take on the concept: When we’re identified with the part of ourselves that is greater than our small, finite limited self (spiritually speaking, this refers to our bodies, thoughts, and egos), we’re able to connect with an awareness or witness. This is the part of ourselves that is always available, underlying every second of every day, behind whatever life situation we find ourselves in. It’s there impartially observing, as if it’s merely a curious onlooker.

  Ram Dass teaches a mantra practice that can help with this. He suggested repeating, “I am loving awareness . . . I am loving awareness . . . I am loving awareness.” As you do this, move your consciousness down from your thinking mind into your heart center, the place in the middle of your chest. In other words, don’t stay stuck in your head, but breathe from your heart. Now add to the mantra: “I breathe in love and breathe out love . . . I watch all the thoughts that create the stuff of my mind, and I love everything, I love everything I can be aware of. I just love, just love, just love. I love from my heart-mind.”

  Try it, please, and see for yourself.

  I am loving awareness . . . I am loving awareness . . . I am loving awareness.

  I breathe in love and breathe out love.

  I watch all the thoughts that create the stuff of my mind.