Very well said, Patrick. I had a rock bottom event, but it took 5-6 weeks from that moment to make my first ever attempt at sobriety. During that time, I too found “This Naked Mind” thanks to another Substacker (thanks Ellie!). I’m on Day 26 now. Grateful to finally be on the journey, just wish it didn’t take destroying my marriage to start it.
26 days, that's awesome Nate, I'm proud of you man. Glad you found that book early on. Also good on you for being willing to talk about it and look for resources, lot healthier way to approach it than I did. As for your marriage - that's really hard. Hope you can give yourself some grace around that, and know that at least you're doing the right thing right now.
I just read this article in the New York Times that follows your thinking regarding things not needing to be at "rock bottom" to drive positive change:
This is fantastic, I hadn't seen it yet, thanks for sharing. I very much see my journey as certainly overcoming a disease but not just that. It took me years to develop an addiction to alcohol, and it absolutely induced cravings and other behavior in me that felt like my brain was hijacked. I also found it far, far, easier to overcome those symptoms once I had figured out a bunch of other stuff in my life that wasn't related to alcohol at all. I'm also one of the lucky ones who feels basically no pull towards alcohol at all anymore, aside from an occasional wistful memory of it.
Patrick this was gorgeous. The graph is outstanding.
It took over 7,000 hours of hard-core IFS psychotherapy for me to get to a point where I wasn’t using sugar / bingeing to handle when my trauma got overwhelming. I agree, the personal emotional work is the brunt of the solution.
It’s such a relief we live in a world more welcoming of total abstinence for those of us who can’t handle substances, be they alcohol, sugar or drugs. No one says, “Oh, a little cocaine won’t hurt you!” and I’m glad society is coming to understand you don’t say that about alcohol or sugar to addicts in those areas either. Every inch of support helps!
Thanks so much for the kind words! Totally agree that some very solid progress is being made around support being more normalized. Also a huge fan of IFS ever since I was introduced to it a year or so ago. Such a game changer of a way to look at trauma, and I love how it can be applied to so many areas of my life in a way that tends to just make so much sense.
What an outstanding and helpful piece this is, Patrick. I really appreciate all of it, and especially the eggshells example, as well as the not being treated like a glass sculpture! I'm so hopeful that through conversations like the ones you invite us to here, as we begin to really normalize talking about the disaster alcohol is, fewer and fewer people will in fact hit rock bottom. I hope with my whole heart that we are catching them earlier in their fall. Annie Grace's work was pivotal for me as well.
Thank you Allison! I love the thought of fewer people ever even getting to rock bottom if we stop making drinking so centric to our culture, and start talking about it more honestly from the get-go. I do have some optimism in that area, if nothing else from the massive boom in popularity of N/A drinks, and the (slowly) growing acceptance that there really is no health benefits to drinking.
Sep 5·edited Sep 5Liked by Patrick Maguire, Jessi Moore
This really resonated, Patrick: thank you for posting. 🙏🏼
My sobriety journey has also been much longer and more winding than the narrative of “rock bottom -> realization -> 12-step -> spending the rest of your life ‘in recovery’”. As you also mention, gathering and practicing alternate coping tools is an important aspect that takes some time!
To emphasize one of the things you said: +100 to normalizing that addressing maladaptive behavior is seldom a simple story of deciding to quit and then quitting! I'm so deeply grateful for the people in my life - including you - that didn't shame me or consider the larger effort a failure when I relapse(d).
I've found that my relationship with alcohol has changed more through indirect adjustments than focusing on "just not drinking". In addition to those healthier coping skills, rebuilding a life that isn’t infused with alcohol, focusing on lifestyle changes that support more resilience, doing the therapeutic work of identifying and addressing emotional needs... these are the foundational changes that have helped make alcohol increasingly less relevant to my life.
Aw thank you Laura, I really appreciate that, and hearing more of your experience. Love how you frame the indirect adjustments, I couldn't agree more. Maybe 20% of the work I ended up doing was directly related to my alcohol addiction, and the rest was much deeper and broader self work. The frustrating part was how much easier all the self work got once I wasn't drinking every night.
And thanks for bringing up relapse, I wish I had mentioned that more in the piece. (Perhaps I'll touch on that more in the future, I certainly have a ton of notes around it.) Such an area of shame that we handle so poorly as a society.
Sep 6·edited Sep 6Liked by Patrick Maguire, Jessi Moore
Brilliant article, Patrick. There's plenty of routes to addiction and plenty to sobriety. Nobody gets a prize for who hit the worst rock bottom, and I respect and admire the person who made such significant life changes before they got to what would have been theirs.
I quite enjoyed your graph and its description. The accumulation and embodiment of knowledge over time may very well lead to the elimination of the habit. For me, that knowledge alone wasn't enough, and I'm one of those people with the rock bottom story. But I know plenty enough people who have eliminated substances, even at a fairly hardcore level of use, as a matter of informed choice, and they've stuck to it. Thank you for sharing, Patrick. You raise some very important points that I feel are highly useful.
Thank you Adam! I really appreciate your perspective on this, especially coming from a different set of experiences than mine. To be honest, I certainly had several moments when drinking that were pretty awful, and I imagine could've spurred a "rock bottom" response in other people. I just never ended up reacting in a positive way to them... if anything they just drove me to drink more so I could forget what I had done. Just to say that for me, perhaps the only way out was through that accumulation of knowledge? Either way, I certainly agree that there are plenty of routes, and glad that we're both working to normalize a wide range of them.
This was the first blog post of yours that I ran into, and I was not only immediately impressed, but it touched on a theme that I struggle with as well. Your honesty helped me be honest with myself, and I thank you. Now I've started reading your other essays and I'm glad you're out there sharing for people who need to hear your experiences and what you're learning. I know it's hard, but please keep this up!
Thank you so much Madeleine! I love to hear how this has helped you be a bit more honest with yourself, I couldn't think of a more wonderful compliment. Absolutely gives me the fuel I need to keep writing.
Very well said, Patrick. I had a rock bottom event, but it took 5-6 weeks from that moment to make my first ever attempt at sobriety. During that time, I too found “This Naked Mind” thanks to another Substacker (thanks Ellie!). I’m on Day 26 now. Grateful to finally be on the journey, just wish it didn’t take destroying my marriage to start it.
Nate, kudos and support for your self-awareness and desire to be on this path!
Congrats on making it 26 days, Nate! You've got this.
26 days, that's awesome Nate, I'm proud of you man. Glad you found that book early on. Also good on you for being willing to talk about it and look for resources, lot healthier way to approach it than I did. As for your marriage - that's really hard. Hope you can give yourself some grace around that, and know that at least you're doing the right thing right now.
Way to go, Nate!
I just read this article in the New York Times that follows your thinking regarding things not needing to be at "rock bottom" to drive positive change:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/health/addiction-disease-choice.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
What a great article, Scott. Thank you for sharing!
This is fantastic, I hadn't seen it yet, thanks for sharing. I very much see my journey as certainly overcoming a disease but not just that. It took me years to develop an addiction to alcohol, and it absolutely induced cravings and other behavior in me that felt like my brain was hijacked. I also found it far, far, easier to overcome those symptoms once I had figured out a bunch of other stuff in my life that wasn't related to alcohol at all. I'm also one of the lucky ones who feels basically no pull towards alcohol at all anymore, aside from an occasional wistful memory of it.
OMG, love the sobriety graph
Patrick this was gorgeous. The graph is outstanding.
It took over 7,000 hours of hard-core IFS psychotherapy for me to get to a point where I wasn’t using sugar / bingeing to handle when my trauma got overwhelming. I agree, the personal emotional work is the brunt of the solution.
It’s such a relief we live in a world more welcoming of total abstinence for those of us who can’t handle substances, be they alcohol, sugar or drugs. No one says, “Oh, a little cocaine won’t hurt you!” and I’m glad society is coming to understand you don’t say that about alcohol or sugar to addicts in those areas either. Every inch of support helps!
Thanks so much for the kind words! Totally agree that some very solid progress is being made around support being more normalized. Also a huge fan of IFS ever since I was introduced to it a year or so ago. Such a game changer of a way to look at trauma, and I love how it can be applied to so many areas of my life in a way that tends to just make so much sense.
What an outstanding and helpful piece this is, Patrick. I really appreciate all of it, and especially the eggshells example, as well as the not being treated like a glass sculpture! I'm so hopeful that through conversations like the ones you invite us to here, as we begin to really normalize talking about the disaster alcohol is, fewer and fewer people will in fact hit rock bottom. I hope with my whole heart that we are catching them earlier in their fall. Annie Grace's work was pivotal for me as well.
Thank you Allison! I love the thought of fewer people ever even getting to rock bottom if we stop making drinking so centric to our culture, and start talking about it more honestly from the get-go. I do have some optimism in that area, if nothing else from the massive boom in popularity of N/A drinks, and the (slowly) growing acceptance that there really is no health benefits to drinking.
Totally! It definitely seems the tides are turning on Big Alcohol for myriad reasons. It's a pretty awesome time to be on the sober side of things. :)
This really resonated, Patrick: thank you for posting. 🙏🏼
My sobriety journey has also been much longer and more winding than the narrative of “rock bottom -> realization -> 12-step -> spending the rest of your life ‘in recovery’”. As you also mention, gathering and practicing alternate coping tools is an important aspect that takes some time!
To emphasize one of the things you said: +100 to normalizing that addressing maladaptive behavior is seldom a simple story of deciding to quit and then quitting! I'm so deeply grateful for the people in my life - including you - that didn't shame me or consider the larger effort a failure when I relapse(d).
I've found that my relationship with alcohol has changed more through indirect adjustments than focusing on "just not drinking". In addition to those healthier coping skills, rebuilding a life that isn’t infused with alcohol, focusing on lifestyle changes that support more resilience, doing the therapeutic work of identifying and addressing emotional needs... these are the foundational changes that have helped make alcohol increasingly less relevant to my life.
Aw thank you Laura, I really appreciate that, and hearing more of your experience. Love how you frame the indirect adjustments, I couldn't agree more. Maybe 20% of the work I ended up doing was directly related to my alcohol addiction, and the rest was much deeper and broader self work. The frustrating part was how much easier all the self work got once I wasn't drinking every night.
And thanks for bringing up relapse, I wish I had mentioned that more in the piece. (Perhaps I'll touch on that more in the future, I certainly have a ton of notes around it.) Such an area of shame that we handle so poorly as a society.
Brilliant article, Patrick. There's plenty of routes to addiction and plenty to sobriety. Nobody gets a prize for who hit the worst rock bottom, and I respect and admire the person who made such significant life changes before they got to what would have been theirs.
I quite enjoyed your graph and its description. The accumulation and embodiment of knowledge over time may very well lead to the elimination of the habit. For me, that knowledge alone wasn't enough, and I'm one of those people with the rock bottom story. But I know plenty enough people who have eliminated substances, even at a fairly hardcore level of use, as a matter of informed choice, and they've stuck to it. Thank you for sharing, Patrick. You raise some very important points that I feel are highly useful.
Thank you Adam! I really appreciate your perspective on this, especially coming from a different set of experiences than mine. To be honest, I certainly had several moments when drinking that were pretty awful, and I imagine could've spurred a "rock bottom" response in other people. I just never ended up reacting in a positive way to them... if anything they just drove me to drink more so I could forget what I had done. Just to say that for me, perhaps the only way out was through that accumulation of knowledge? Either way, I certainly agree that there are plenty of routes, and glad that we're both working to normalize a wide range of them.
Thx for the book referral.
This was the first blog post of yours that I ran into, and I was not only immediately impressed, but it touched on a theme that I struggle with as well. Your honesty helped me be honest with myself, and I thank you. Now I've started reading your other essays and I'm glad you're out there sharing for people who need to hear your experiences and what you're learning. I know it's hard, but please keep this up!
Thank you so much Madeleine! I love to hear how this has helped you be a bit more honest with yourself, I couldn't think of a more wonderful compliment. Absolutely gives me the fuel I need to keep writing.
I am very sorry to hear about your struggles Patrick. The essay is good and very hopeful, though.
Thank you John, I appreciate it!