Dry Addict
A reminder to all of us - Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Once an addict, always an addict! Just because you are not using, it doesn't mean you are no longer an addict!
Ever heard of a dry drunk or a dry addict? It's a slang expression which describes a person who no longer drinks or drugs but is still behaving in a dysfunctional way. It can be someone who has given up drinking and drugging and not made any internal or emotional changes, they stay the same but the substance is gone. Or in the second case, it can be someone who once was abstinent and on a progressive path of recovery, but has slowly returned to chaotic and unrealistic thinking, which may be leading back toward relapse.
The Dry addict is easily distracted from productive tasks. I visualize this as having the vivid color go out of recovery. Nothing excites you anymore. The initial euphoria when the colors were brighter, the sounds were clearer, and the smells were more fragrant, has dulled into listlessness and a ‘so what’ attitude and perception. We can start to wonder about the whole point of becoming sober and staying that way. This is the time YOU need to start a gratitude list.
Being active in your addiction, sets up many trains of thought, attitudes, feelings, and actions that are destructive. Simply removing the drugs without changing these underlying factors will produce a ‘dry addict personality’. It is important to recognize a reversion back to their old ways of thinking and acting, or lack of progress in moving forward in recovery. The dry addict now things he can drink and is in the beginnings of relapse. The AA Big Book describes this condition as being “restless, irritable, and discontented”. I learned many years ago thru recovery as the mother of an addict, that this set of attitudes can apply to anyone who is chemically dependent.
A way of looking at the dry addict is that it generates two distinct dangers to their recovery: Dangerous and mental attitudes that exist or can develop in a person who has not worked on “underlying issues”, or moved forward growing in recovery.
If left unchecked or unresolved, These can result in certain sobriety threatening actions or behaviors ie drinking, partying and surrounding themselves with people who do!
The addict believes he is Superior and doesn't need recovery which results in the return to a self-centered person, ‘the world revolves around’ me attitude. Chemically dependent people are self centered in the extreme. The problem is that with grandiosity they are setting themselves up to be the center of attention, either superior to everyone around them, or by playing the victim. Either way, they're separating themselves and putting distance between themselvs and from the people and world around them. They're really saying I am not like you; the implication is that I am unique and rules don’t apply to me. In the 12 step programs they call this believing that I am ‘terminally unique’. It does not have to necessarily mean that they believe they are the best; it can also be seeking attention through playing the victim or sitting on the pity pot (the woah is me factor).
Possibly one of the most common attitudes or observable behaviors of people with
addiction problems I experienced was poor impulse control and impatience. Addicts tend to do what they want, when they want, with little regard for self
harm or hurting others around them. Impulsivity can be linked with
grandiosity to engage in behaviors designed to make them the center of
attention. Another common feature of impulsivity and lack of patience has
to do with time frames. They want and expect things to happen within their
own time frame. Unfortunately, the time frame they impose on themselves and
others is often quite unrealistic. They expect instant gratification in
all areas of their lives. Let’s face it drugs and alcohol work almost
instantly. They have conditioned themselves, to expect
immediate rewards. Unfortunately things don’t happen that way. I heard
the phrase “time takes time” so often in early recovery as the addicts mom, that honestly I wanted to
punch somebody in the nose. (No resentments there!). I couldn't understand that way of thinking because my son was raised my a mom who worked hard for everything she had! He was raised in "family", community, and the ideal that you reap what you sow so where did this selfish, instant gratification, entitlement attitude come from!Being judgmental is a very destructive attitude for people in recovery. When we judge a person as being better than or less than, we are setting up a situation where we inflate our egos feeling better than other people. On the other hand, if we judge ourselves to be on the short end of the comparison, we can feel bitter and generate low self-esteem. Being judgmental is a low self-esteem generator. There is another aspect of being judgmental they can be very defeatist in nature. That is the fact that if we are busy judging other people, we are not paying attention to ourselves. That my friends, is the easy way out! Judge everybody else, so we don't have to look in the mirror at our own behaviors! Its an excuse an addict uses to justify what they are doing!
I've heard it - "Well, you drink", Well, you just bought a new TV", Well, you stayed out late", "Well, you just took a vacation", "Well you did it for my sister", and the list goes on! And Well, your right and because he is being judgemental to justify his behavior, I want to scream at the top of my LUNGS "YOU flippin just don't get it!" Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect! But I have worked hard all my life, since I was 16 years old and I still do! If I want to have a drink, I'm going to have a drink! I don't have a drinking problem! If I want to spend money, I work hard and I can! If I want to go out for an evening with friends, I'm responsible. If I go on vacation, I've earned it and pay my bills. If I did it for your sister or your brother,
In life, when I found myself being judgmental, I used what I called my centering thought: I am always in the middle. There are people richer than me and poorer than me. There are people smarter than me, and not so smart as me. There are people with junkier cars than mine, and there are people with nicer cars than mine. so, knowing that, I’m always in the middle. What’s the point comparing?
Complacency – is not only an attitude of someone who is Dry drunk, but it is a red flag, warning whistle, fireworks shooting, warning sign of someone who is well into the relapse process. An important facet of being in active recovery is just that, being active, and moving forward. It is not how fast you are going but rather the direction in which you are headed. If you become lazy or disinterested and stop being proactive about your recovery, the natural tendency is to fall back into addictive behaviors. Your re-engagement in them is just a short step away.
Once you are lured into any of these attitudes, they start to affect how you think. Once your thinking is affected and you start to buy into self-centered thoughts, chances are you’ll engage in the actions stemming from these self-centered thoughts. My son needs to look at sobriety and recovery as being always on the move. He is either moving toward a drink and drug, or away from a drug and drink. The key is that left alone, and not moving forward in recovery, he is actually sliding toward using. It’s like parking a car on a hill, sooner or later the brakes will give out before that hill flattens out.
Dry drunk thinking is dangerous! You will become restless and irritable and discontent. Little things start to annoy you. We start to look for differences in those around you, yet you are the one who is changing, which causes separation. If you remember, this is actually the first stage in the relapse process. It is also is the trickiest because YOU cannot see it coming. If you do not have a support system of people around you who you freely gave permission to offer you feedback, You will be in a world of trouble.
Our emotions and feelings get listless and dull and we start overreacting. Either we become emotionally dull or dead or we go hyper or ballistic. The key point here it is that our reactions are out of proportion to the event that caused them. Perhaps, an occurrence that happens every day suddenly sends us into a rage. This can enter the realm of misplaced or misdirected anger or other emotional venting. At this point it is a very good idea to seek some emotional support, sit down and have a good cry. Let’s face it, in recovery and in life there are highs and lows, ups and downs. Maybe these are starting to feel a little more dramatic because they are not using drugs, but seeking another drug like alcohol to anesthetize ourselves is a recipe for disaster. Why flirt with replacing one addiction for another! This may sound corny but we do learn more from our mistakes that are successes. Pain can be a great motivator.
I wonder sometimes if complacency is not rooted in laziness, but rather than fear. Is he afraid of success? Is he afraid of failure? Is he just sitting around waiting for things to work out the way he wants them to without putting the effort into it? Does he keep asking “when do the good things start happening? Is this all here is?” If negativity sets in, it is real important to look what going on beneath the surface. Is it anger and resentments; is some person, place or thing not working out the way you expect it? Is excessive anxiety and worry setting in?
Euphoric recall is a real fancy way of saying we only remember the good times. They remember how much fun they had when they're using, how much more social they were, how clever, witty, and handsome or beautiful. It really is a journey into the fantasy land of the past. At the same time they're engaging in this selective recall of only the good times, another mind game is actually being played. They're consciously or unconsciously choosing not to remember all the pain and misery. They tend to ‘forget’ things like making a fool of themselves at a party, throwing up all over the place, waking up in strange beds,(or other places), and not having memory of the night before. They forget being homeless, helpless, and on the run. They forget the lack of support from family and friends where they burned every bridge. They forget the demon who stole their life!
To the addict why not try simply to sit down with a piece of paper and make two columns: one for the good things that happened to YOU when you were using and the second to list the bad things that happened to YOU when you were using. Make a list. Look at it. Endgame.
You've lose interest in self-improvement. There’s a fine line between becoming peaceful and serene and, and becoming complacent and lazy. What happened to all those plans for a ‘new you’? Instead of doing more walking the walk They're doing a lot more talking the talk. The ‘action’ part of the program seems to have deserted them. They have lost the momentum driving them forward in their recovery. Their content to sit back on their butts, letting other people do the work and simply sit back and receive praise for how well we’re doing. This is where it is very important to have a sense of reality, and a purpose and some goals and life.
Many people have an idea that just becoming abstinent will solve all problems. Don’t get me wrong, stopping the use of drugs and alcohol can only improve things. However, there is a good chance that there is a lot of wreckage in the past that will take time to get cleaned up and resolved. This starts to move into the realm of having unrealistic expectations and time frames. The addict want things to happen quickly. But, without action and continual self-improvement, not much will change. Without Continued Recovery, not much will change ie. the dry addict!
Addicts start acting on their old defense mechanisms. They are not only thinking in terms of old attitudes and thought processes, now they're starting to act on them. The walls, supports, and the barriers that they erected to support their drinking and drugging are starting to be acted on again. Things like minimizing the drinking, rationalizing, and denial start to become real again. They start acting like they're bulletproof, and infallible and that all that’ recovery stuff’ is for other people, and they fool themselves into thinking they're doing quite well without it.I wonder sometimes if complacency is not rooted in laziness, but rather than fear. Is he afraid of success? Is he afraid of failure? Is he just sitting around waiting for things to work out the way he wants them to without putting the effort into it? Does he keep asking “when do the good things start happening? Is this all here is?” If negativity sets in, it is real important to look what going on beneath the surface. Is it anger and resentments; is some person, place or thing not working out the way you expect it? Is excessive anxiety and worry setting in?
Looking back at the list of attitudes I see, thought distortions and actions or behaviors they can generate, it is easy to see how the dry addict is simply nothing more then reverting back to the way it was when they were active in our use. As mom's of addicts, if you are starting to notice some of the attitudes discussed creeping back into your life, it is time to start paying attention to the possibility of relapse and start to once again prepare for your recovery remembering this is YOUR ADDICT'S CHOICE! Turning their life in sobriety and recovery around, is their choice and it is a continued life of recovery they have to choose to lead! The ‘dry drunk syndrome’ is a bright red flashing warning sign for relapse.
Yesterday for the first time in a long time, I as a mom of the addict went back to recovery. I need the community strength to fight for myself and my family as we are lead down this path again! I love my son and I have tried to give him a fresh start. He has the ability to save people and touch their lives. He was on such a strong path of building a new life, But the hopes, the plans, the dreams and his GOD and family, have all taken a back seat to new found people who lead him into nothingness! They care about their next party and nothing about Who He wants to be! Again the old saying rings true - You are who you hang with! Again, it's his choice and in the early months I started to see this thriving young man emerging. Granted he has alot to learn after 17 years of addiction, about life and people in general! Today, I still remain hopeful, but I'm not stupid and this isn't my first rodeo! I recognize the behavior, the lies, and the excuses! I never thought I would be in this place again, but I AM, and TODAY, I know I can only pray for him, he has to do the rest! As for me the mother of an addict, I can surround myself in the recovery community to stay healthy, strong and honest about his addiction! And today, like I have for the last 17 years, I bow my head in prayer for the boy, the man, MY SON, whom I love with everything that I am!By Addict's Mom - Junann Smith
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Deliverable June Amaral: junannamaral@gmail.com
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