Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 30

Does Michael Mosley Know the Truth about Happiness?

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Last year I watched a Horizon documentary by Michael Mosley (Eat, Fast, and Live Longer) where he convinced me to attempt the 5:2 fasting diet. This turned out to be a nice adventure even if it didn’t provide me with the key to everlasting health. His latest documentary for Horizon is called The Truth about Personality, and it is about his search for happiness. This is something that has been on my mind a great deal recently, so this is one documentary I wasn’t going to miss.

Michael Mosley is a Real Human – I Like That

I tend to be a bit skeptical of sciency-people who make bold health claims based on the latest research, but I can’t help but trust Michael Mosley. He comes across as being as confused about life as I am, just someone muddling through, and I find this a wonderfully reassuring thing about him. Michael is a trained doctor, but his documentaries are about him looking for answers and not about telling other people what to do. I trusted him enough to go on a fasting diet for 14 days last year. I wouldn’t say that I’d be willing to follow him to hell and back, but I’m certainly interested enough to listen to what he says about happiness.

The Truth about Personality

Michael Mosley describes himself as a ‘catastrophic thinker’ – a pessimist who is just waiting for the next shitty thing to happen in his world. His attitude means there is a great deal of stress in his life – a predicament I can certainly appreciate. This Horizon documentary follows his search to find the cause of his pessimism as well as his hunt for a cure. Michael Mosley not only desires to be happier but he also wants to be a warmer and more open to life – just like I do. Basically, his goal with this project is to change his mind over the course of seven weeks.

The Power of Optimism

As to be expected with a Horizon documentary, his first port of call is science. The hunt for happiness starts off by looking at some studies that have shown that optimistic people tend to live longer. I have no problem believing this. During my time working as a nurse, I witnessed many examples of positive people who seemed to be able to shake off illness easier than the negative types. Pessimists tend to just give up when they become ill, and this means they can end up suffering more and even die much sooner. There was also an interesting article in the Huffington Post this week where Paul Spector MD suggested that having a negative view of our future-self may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy because it encourages us to make bad decisions now – it does make sense.

Negative People Tune into the Negative Aspects of Life

Near the beginning of the documentary, Michael Mosley takes part in a brain-experiment to see if science proves that he is a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of guy. His brain is monitored to see if he is better at focusing on negative or positive images – he is much better at focusing on negative images. Other tests confirm that his brain is ‘tuned to the dark side’. Science therefore proves that he is not faking his pessimism. More interestingly, the implications of the results are that negative people are just better at seeing the bad in life. This claim sounds reasonable enough. I remember during my alcoholic years it felt like the whole world revolved around alcohol because that was where my attention was always directed. Negative people are viewing the world through a filter that confirms their negativity. The good news is that we can modify our brains so we develop a more positive outlook on life.

Michael Mosley Changes His Mind

The first approach Michael turns to in order to change his negative outlook is cognitive bias modification (CBM). This basically is all about trying to train the mind to focus more on the positive things in life. It involves playing a type of computer game where he has to find happy faces. Apparently CBM works well for things like anxiety, but it doesn’t look to be any wonder cure for pessimism.

The most interesting part of the documentary is when Michael seeks the help of Andy Puddicombe (an ex-Buddhist monk). Andy teaches simple meditation techniques – he claims that as little as 10 minutes per day can help people become more optimistic. Michael Mosley does seem to benefit from his first meditation lesson. I laughed when I read how this reaction to the practice was described by Neil Midgley in the Telegraph article (see the first paragraph for the link):

“Mosley then started to witter about whether he was feeling more cheerful or not, sounding like a clubber who’d taken an ecstasy pill and wasn’t sure if it was working.”

For seven weeks, Michael Mosley combines CBM with meditation to see if he can change his mind. The first person to notice an improvement was his wife. He then began to sleep better and feel generally more positive about things. When he repeats brain tests in the laboratory it is confirmed that he has become significantly better at focusing on the positive in life. There are also changes in his brain to a pattern that is usually associated with an optimist.

Does Michael Mosley Know the Truth about Happiness?

I’ve benefited a great deal from meditation, so I’m not surprised that it worked so well here. In the past, I’ve been attracted to long meditation sessions, hours at a time, and looking back this may have been a form of escapism. I’m prone to strange and intense experiences when I meditate, so I can become a bit obsessive about it. Meditation works best for me when I combine it with physical exercises because this helps to keep me grounded.

Update – you can try some of the tests that Michael Mosley underwent to check his optimism levels at Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. If the results are correct, I’m far more of an optimism than I realized.

Hippy Parents Do Not Deserve to be Happy

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When I was fourteen my dad told me that he wanted to check-out of our family to follow his bliss. He didn’t use those exact words, but his basic argument was that I should agree with his decision to abandon us because he deserved to be happy. My father did offer to stick with the family and be miserable, if that was what I really wanted, but the unspoken understanding was this would be an incredibly selfish thing for me to ask him to do. There seemed to be no choice but to give my blessing to my dad’s plan to run off and start a new family, but that conversation haunted me for years. I still tend to feel a bit angry when I hear anyone say that they deserve to be happy. I know they are full of shit.

The Right of Hippies to be Happy

I could be wrong, but this idea that people ‘deserve’ to be happy seems to have originated in the late sixties – or at least this is when it became a fashionable notion. From what I can tell, the nearest my father ever came to being a hippy was buying records by the Beatles, but he was certainly strongly influenced by that culture. My dad was a wonderful man in many ways, but he also possessed a selfish type of optimism and sense of entitlement that I associate with hippies – the follow your bliss mentality. This ‘right to be happy’ idea is not only illogical, but it has also been used as a justification for all kinds of shitty decisions. It is a kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card that can be used by the self-obsessed.

Who Gave Us the Right to be Happy?

I can’t figure out where this right to happiness idea originated from in the first place. I have no problem with the claim that people have a right to food and shelter because these are tangible objects, and it is just a matter of fair distribution. It is not like there is a store of happiness somewhere on the planet though that we can ration out so that everyone gets their just share. Happiness isn’t something that we can accumulate and exchange like a commodity. It is not something that can be given to us, so where does this right come from? It reminds me of the scene from the Life of Brain where the Judea People’s Front agree to fight for a man’s right to have a baby even though he doesn’t have a womb. The right to happiness is something that could never be enforced, so it is a useless idea.

How to Make a Happy Hippy

This right to happiness becomes even more difficult to understand when we stop to consider what this word actually means. How do we define happiness? Does it mean constantly tripping out on feelings of bliss or just doing okay in life? The problem is that happiness is a very subjective term. I now associate happiness with a general feeling of contentment, but I used to have much higher standards. In fact, my current understanding of happiness would probably sound a bit drab to the person I was twenty years ago.

The real irony with the ‘right to be happy’ mentality is that it can only ever lead to misery. Happiness is just one part of this wonderful experience we call life, and it is something that comes and goes like the weather. As far as I can tell, it is not something we own, and it may not even be within our control. The suggestion that we just follow our bliss doesn’t seem to have worked out very well anyway. It makes people feel bad about feeling bad, and their resistance to this normal emotion just makes things much worse. We believe that any unhappiness in our life is a sign that we are doing something wrong. We have to defend our right to be happy so we exercise more, join a club, take a drug, or abandon our family.

Become an Extrovert for Future Happiness and Health

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Research from the UK suggests that extroverts enjoy improved life expectancy, better health, and a greater sense of well-being as they get older. I came across this news today while reading a web article on the Discover Magazine called Extroverts are Happier and Healthier Later in Life. I take any claims based on the latest research surveys with a large pinch of salt, but the suggestion that extroverts live longer does sound reasonable to me.

Social Misfits Are Screwed

If you read my recent post on here called Confessions of a Social Misfit, you will know that I tend to look upon social intercourse as a type of communicable disease that is usually best avoided. I can be a compulsive talker, but I just don’t feel comfortable around other people – I tend to walk away from social intercourse feeling a bit dirty and yucky. My status as a social misfit doesn’t feel like that big a deal to me, but I understand that it probably should be.

I’ve become a far more positive person in recent years, and I already enjoy long stretches of inner contentment, so I’m not sure how being less of a social misfit would improve my life. I’m also not interested in becoming more extroverted in the hope that it might help me live for longer. This Discover Magazine article is about people who had been extroverts all of their lives anyway, so maybe my many years of being a miserable git means that I’ve missed the boat as far as those benefits are concerned. My drive to become less of a social misfit is coming from somewhere else – it is the desire to be the best person I can be.

How to Become a People Person

I’ve been looking online for tips on how to be more sociable. I found this useful article from the Guardian Newspaper called How to be an Extrovert which contained a few interesting ideas including:

• Allow myself to be an extrovert. This is based on the idea that inside every introvert is an extrovert just waiting to burst out – possibly true.

• Focus more on the positive things in life – I’m starting to just naturally do this as I become more positive.

• Be more adventurous. I am itching to take up kite surfing, but it is just finding the funds for this.

I’m interested in becoming more sociable rather than necessarily becoming an extrovert. The things that have worked for me in the past would include

• As a nurse I was taught to count to 10 after somebody stops speaking before saying anything. This forced me to pay attention to what they were saying and not on what I wanted to say.

• I need to take more interest in other people. I tend to be a self-obsessed prick most of the time – it’s all me, me, me, and can we talk about me now.

• I’ve found that mindfulness makes social situations much easier for me. I just concentrate on what is happening, and I ignore the mental chatter inside of my brain.

• Find legitimate reasons to compliment other people. This is worked for me in the past, but it does feel a bit sleazy unless the compliment is completely honest. The trick is to look for something about the other person that deserves complimenting – it is always there if I look for it.

• Smile at people more – even if it means risking a blank stare or a complete rundown of a stranger’s sex life.

My Dreams are Ruining My Life

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It is clear to me that my dreams for the future have caused me to develop a scarcity mentality. I judge my current level of satisfaction based on the things I don’t have rather than the things I do have.

Warning – I’m Full of Shit

The universe is set up in such a way that I’m regularly forced to eat my own words. Those cherished notions I’ve developed about how things work just keep turning out to be false. One of the driving forces in my life has been the conviction that I should follow my dreams because this will lead me to increasing levels of happiness. I’ve even wasted time trying to convince other people that this is what they need to do the same, or they will be faced with a lifetime of mediocrity. Well, it turns out that I might as well have been trying to promote heroin because I now see that my dreams are getting in the way of my happiness.



Dreams and the Scarcity Mentality

It is clear to me that my dreams for the future have caused me to develop a scarcity mentality. I judge my current level of satisfaction based on the things I don’t have rather than the things I do have. It means that I’m consistently rejecting what is there right in front of my in favor of things that do not exist. My attitude means that I miss out on the satisfaction of getting things done because I’m so focused on the results I hope the action will achieve. The real kick-in-the-teeth is that many of my dreams do become reality, but I don’t even notice because I’m too focused on what is lacking from my life. The scarcity mentality means that the goal-posts are always well beyond my reach.

Dreams and Disillusionment

I once believed that dreaming big would give me to the motivation to work hard to achieve these ambitions. I’m no longer convinced that this is the way it works at all. I’m motivated to do things because there is satisfaction in doing them. I think this is easier to understand by using a real life example. I wrote my first book because I felt compelled to do so. It was a joyous process, and I didn’t expect it to lead to anything. After the book was accepted by a publisher though, I began having big dreams of where it would all lead. These fanciful notions intensified when I got to go on a book tour. I could taste the big time, but when my book failed to sell millions of copies, I felt like a failure.

My childhood dream was to walk into Eason’s bookstore in Dublin and see something I’d written on the shelves. I achieved this ambition in 2010, but I couldn’t appreciate it. Getting my book in shop no longer felt like such a big deal to me – I’d bigger fish to fry. I wanted crowds queuing up to purchase my masterpiece and to clap me on the back. The fact that this didn’t happen meant I felt like a complete loser.

I now work full-time as a writer, but I sometimes feel like my career is one huge let-down. I resent the fact that I’m not getting paid to write about the things I want to write about. I feel disappointed because my career appears to have stagnated, and I have to work my arse off just to stay afloat. I’m nowhere close to the riches and luxury my dreams tell me I deserve, and this means I feel cheated. It sometimes feels like I’m a victim of the Chinese curse – may your dreams come true.



Letting Go of My Dreams for the Future

Maybe my dreams did serve a useful function in the past, but they have now become a liability. There is just too much good stuff in my life right now for me to be focused on all the things I don’t have. I just need to let go of all of that stuff. I want a future full of surprises and not one where I’m always struggling to reach the next summit.

Addiction is a Choice Not a Disease

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“It is true that some people don’t end up recovering from addiction—and some of them use the ‘disease’ excuse to sidetrack themselves. “I have a disease,” they claim, “I can’t help it.”

Yes, you can help it—of course you can ‘help it’—but only if you choose to. When I discovered that I was an addict, I was actually relieved. I’d had no clue about what was going on with me, but I knew that the consequences I was struggling with had, over time, become progressively worse. Once I understood why I was doing what I was doing and how my negative choices were sabotaging my life, I also understood that I could change this way of living. At that point I was ready to be done with the miserable and dire consequences my addictions were causing.”

Candace Plattor

There is a article in the Vancouver Times today called, What if…addiction isn’t really a ‘disease’? written by Candace Plattor. This piece nicely sums up many of my own concerns about the disease model of addiction.

For years, I used the excuse that I had a ‘disease’ to justify my behaviour. It was only when I gave up believing in the disease theory that I could break completely away from alcohol. If indeed I did have a disease – how is that even possible? Can people with other diseases just decide they don’t have it and be cured?

Addiction to Neuroscience

In a recent post, (Is neuroscience wrong about addiction?) I discussed some of my concerns about the evidence being used from neuroscience to support the idea that addiction is a disease of the brain. Candace Plattor has similar doubts, and he sums his views up nicely with this paragraph:

“The most recent argument in favor of this comes from the understanding that there is brain involvement in addiction. As captivating and useful as much of this current research is, I know that there is also brain involvement when I lift my little pinky—there is brain involvement in everything we do, that’s how we’re wired. For me, this is not a particularly compelling argument for addiction being included in the medical model.”

Addiction is a Choice

Candace goes on to outline the choice model of addiction, and this is something that makes far more sense to me than the addiction model. It was only when I took full responsibility for my condition that I was able to make a clean break from alcohol. I understand that the theory of addiction as a disease does help many people come to terms with their condition, but the only thing it really did for me leave me feeling powerless.

This original article by Candace Plattor in the Vancouver Times is worth reading. You will find the link above in the text. There may be an annoying pop-up when you reach the site but just press the ‘x’, and it will go away.

8 Things Alcoholics Could Learn from Successful Business Entrepreneurs

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I recently had a conversation with someone where I mentioned that getting sober was a lot like launching your own business. It was a flippant remark, but I thought about it afterwards, and it does kind of make sense. In fact, it seems reasonable to me that alcoholics could learn at least eight important things from business entrepreneurs:

Have a Vision for the Future

At the end of my drinking, I would have been happy just for the pain to stop, but I doubt this would have been enough motivation to keep me sober long-term. The problem here is that after a bit of time it is easy to forget our suffering, and this means that the motivation that got us that far dries up. I needed to have a positive vision that would really get my juices going. I imagined a future where I got to experience plenty of inner peace and contentment. This was the desire that led me into addiction in the first place, so I knew it was powerful enough to help me escape. If you develop a clear vision for the life you want to experience away from alcohol, it will add to your motivation to quit.



Set Clear Goals

I must have tried to give up alcohol at least a thousand times. Some of these attempts only lasted a few hours but sometimes I’d remain sober for a few months – once even for two years. A common reason for why I’d fail in these attempts was that I didn’t have clear goals. I would just have some vague reason for quitting (there would usually be a ‘should’ in there somewhere), and I’d have no plan for what to do with my new sober life. This failure to set a clear goal meant that as soon as things became bumpy I’d abandon ship – I’d no real reason not to. It was only by setting clear goals for my recovery that I could start to make progress.

Understand that the Excuses are Worthless

Alcoholics are highly skilled when it comes to finding reasons for why we can’t walk away from our addiction. We will use these excuses like badges of honor and insist that this gives us a free-pass to remain as we are. The reality is that these excuses aren’t worth shit. They just mean that we remain powerless because no matter what the suggested path of recovery we will have a good excuse to reject it. We have to stop focusing on all the things that don’t work for us and find something that will work for us.



Be Willing to Do Whatever It Takes

My half-hearted attempts to break away from alcohol never lasted. It was always the things that I wasn’t willing to do to remain sober that became my undoing. At the end of my drinking, I became willing to do whatever it took, and I really meant it. At that time in my life I’d grown to dislike recovery fellowships, but I would have been willing to spend the rest of my life going to meetings if I thought it was my only option – luckily it wasn’t. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to escape addiction?

Surround Yourself with the Right Resources

It is a bit of a myth that successful entrepreneurs get to where they are by being a one-man-show. The secret to their success is that they surround themselves with the right resources. This same rule applies in recovery. We need to make use of all those things that will help us build a great new life.

Keep an Open Mind

Alcoholics can be incredibly arrogant and closed-minded. Despite the fact that their life is a complete mess, they will still be full to the brim with opinions, and be convinced they know better than everyone else. It was this attitude that held me back for years. In order to escape alcoholism, we need to have a bit of humility and be open to the possibility that we are full of shit.



Don’t Listen to People Who Want to Hold You Back

Most entrepreneurs will have needed to deal with the naysayers – those people who mocked their ideas or encourage them to quit. This is something that people trying to break away from alcohol are likely to face as well. The sad truth is that there are some people out there who prefer us as failures – it makes them feel better about themselves. If we listen to these negative voices, we will never achieve anything in life.



Learn from Failure

I don’t believe that relapse is a ‘normal’ part of recovery. It is a shitty thing to happen, and it means that we are going to be facing another large dose of suffering. We only really fail in life though, when we stop trying. It is our job to pick ourselves up right away and get back to the drawing board. If we can learn from our mistakes, it will not be a complete failure. Most of the entrepreneurs have a lost history of failed projects behind them, but they kept on trying new things until they found success.

How to Speak Like an Alcoholic

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I sometimes use jargon in my posts that some people might be unfamiliar with hearing. I forget that not everyone has lived the same type of debauched life I did. I will keep adding to this glossary over time but here are just a few words to get you speaking like an educated alcoholic. If there are any words that you feel should be on here, please let me know.

Glossary of Terms Related to Alcoholism

Alcoholic – a subjective and contentions term.

Alcoholic arrogance – is the ability to be lying in the gutter but still be convinced that we know better than other people.

Alcoholic excuses – could bring the internet to a standstill if they were all uploaded at once.

Antabuse – this is a drug given to drunks to help them quit alcohol. If you drink while using this drug, you become very sick. I was prescribed this drug at my first treatment center back in the eighties.

Blackout – a type of amnesia that occurs due to excessive alcohol intake. I once broke up with a girlfriend during a blackout, and I didn’t remember it the next day.

Bleeding varices – this was my biggest fear as an alcoholic. It occurs due to alcohol liver disease, and it can mean that you drown on your own blood.

Demand resistance – it is common for alcoholics to be demand resistant. This basically means that they hate being told what to do, and they will usually do the opposite.

Delirium Tremens (DTs) – this is a particularly dangerous type of alcohol withdrawals where people can have seizures and intense hallucinations. I would sometimes hallucinate when I gave up alcohol (usually rodents or insects), but I never had seizures. There is a real risk of people dying due to DTs, so a supervised detox is usually required.

Detox – this is where people go so they can be monitored as they go through the early stages of alcohol withdrawal. This is particularly important for anyone who is at risk of DTs. Some people detox in rehab, but it is also possible to have a supervised detox at home or in hospital.

Disease theory – is the idea that alcoholism is a disease of the mind. This medicalization of alcohol abuse is the driving force behind the modern addiction recovery movement. I don’t personally prescribe to the theory that addiction is a disease, but I understand that this means I’m outside of the consensus.

Drunk-a-logue – is the life story that people give at 12 Step meetings.

Dry house – this can be a place where people go after they have completed rehab. It is like a half-way house. Residents have a good deal of freedom in a dry house, but if they drink alcohol they will be kicked out. I stayed in a dry house for one year during the nineties.

Dual diagnosis – it is common for alcoholics to be also dealing with some type of mental health problem such as depression. It may have been the symptoms of this condition that drove them into addiction in the first place (see self medication).



Elevated LFTs – this refers to the liver function test and elevated LFTs are a sign that the liver is damaged. I was told that my LFTs were high five years before I gave up alcohol, but it didn’t stop me.

Fuzzy brain – when people first become sober, they can have concentration problems. Things will usually get better over time.

Flagon – usually refers to a 2 liter bottle of cider. This is what I used to drink when I was too young looking to get served in pubs.

Geographical cure – this is when drunks move from one place to the next with the hope of escaping their addiction. I once moved to Saudi Arabia in the hope that it would cure me.

Harm reduction – is an alternative to the ‘all or nothing’ approach to recovery that has become so popular. It is all about helping the person to make small improvements in their life, as this will help keep them alive. When these people see their life improving, they can become more willing to try permanent abstinence.

Hepatic encephalopathy – this usually occurs with end stage alcoholic liver disease. The malfunctioning liver leads to rising levels of chemicals in the bloodstream which interfere with brain functioning. The person with hepatic encephalopathy becomes very confused.

Learned helplessness – means that the alcoholic becomes completely dependent on other people to fix them. Of course, this is not going to happen because nobody else can fix us – only us.

Liver cirrhosis – this refers to permanent scarring to the liver.

Manipulation – is one of the tools alcoholics use to get what they want.

Post-Acute Withdrawal Symptoms (PAWS) – some people will continue to have withdrawal symptoms up to a year after they have given up alcohol. This can include things like fuzzy thinking and insomnia.



Recovering alcoholic – some people who have given up alcohol like to describe themselves this way – I don’t.



Relapsing – is where people choose to return to alcohol abuse after a period of being sober.

Resentment – is a fuel that alcoholics use to keep on going in the direction they have being going.

Revolving door syndrome – this is where people spend years going in and out of treatment.

Rock bottom – is a word that is often used to justify continued drinking. I once believed that it would be necessary for me to lose everything before I could escape addiction. This was bullshit. Rock bottom just means that we’ve reached a point where we have had enough – we can do that without losing anything.



Saudi Arabia – the worst rehab in the world

Self-directed addiction recovery – this is where people build a good life in recovery without the help of any support group. I’ve created a template for people who wish to follow this path.

Self-pity – is a tool that alcoholics used to beat themselves up without having to go to the trouble of actually making any positive changes to their life.

Self-medication – this is where people being to use alcohol to help them deal with the symptoms of some type of mental or emotional problem.

Should – is a weasel word that people use when they have no real intention of doing anything to change.

Spike – this is a word used to describe some type of homeless unit (I think it is only used in the UK). I don’t know what these places are like now but during the eighties they were very dangerous – apparently some drunks like to bully other drunks or steal their money. I was briefly homeless, but I stayed on the streets because I was told it was safer. The word ‘spike’ is also used to describe the scumbag trick of adding alcohol or drugs to another person’s drink without them knowing about it.

Thamkrabok – this is a Thai detox temple where I gave up alcohol forever.

Twelve Steps – this is a program for recovery that is used by groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. I was in and out of AA for years. I’m grateful to the program, and I know it works for many people, but it wasn’t the right path for me.

Wet brain – this is the no-frills name for alcoholic dementia.

One Million Excuses Not to Give Up Alcohol

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The one skill that all alcoholics share is the ability to think up great reasons for why they won’t be able to end their addiction. Their justifications will usually sound plausible enough – it is only when it becomes obvious that this person will have a good reason to refuse every suggestion that their excuses can be seen for what they are. In this video and podcast, I discuss the bullshit thinking that we can use to stay trapped in addiction. You will find the podcast below the video:

Here is the podcast edition of this episode:

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Confessions of a Social Misfit

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My best friend at the moment is a stranger I wave to every day on the beach – I like to think we have the perfect relationship. I suppose I could say that my wife is my best friend but that sort of feels like cheating – sort of like people boasting about getting a Valentine’s Day card from their mother . The reality is that I’m just not very good when it comes to making friends. I feel uncomfortable around other people, and I tend to rub them the wrong way. I suppose the real problem is that I just don’t have any desire to have this type of close relationship. I’ve always been a bit of a social misfit.

I Care About People but I Just Don’t Like Being Around Them

Despite my friend-phobia, I do genuinely care about people. I like to hear from those who are doing well in life, and it hurts me to hear that people are struggling. I may be lacking in some aspects of emotional intelligence, but I’ve no problems when it comes to empathy.

I became a nurse because I felt compelled to help people. Since giving up nursing, I’ve been spending some of my time trying to help people dealing with addiction. I don’t do this because I’m some type of do-gooder or I’m looking for some reward – it is just who I am.

I’ve also noticed in recent months that I can be out and about, completely minding my own business, when I’ll see a complete stranger, and for no apparent reason I experience this intense feeling of love for that person. It has nothing to do with sexual attraction because it happens with men and women – it can even happen with stray dogs. I have no urge to go introduce myself or begin stalking them – it is just this silent desire to wish them well. It’s all very strange, and I feel embarrassed writing about it.

History of a Social Misfit

I’ve no real opinion on the nature/nurture debate, but it does appear to me that I’ve always been a bit of a social misfit. Most of my earliest memories involve feeling uncomfortable around other people. I’ve said in the past that one of the reasons for why I turned to alcohol was that it helped me make friends – it would be more honest to say that it made it bearable for me to be around other people. In the beginning, alcohol took the edge of my feelings of discomfort, but it lost its potency for this as the year went by. Instead of alcohol being a cure for my problems. it just meant that I became a drunk as well as a social misfit – this was not a winning combination.

I’m terrible in social situations. I’m not unfriendly or anything, but I just feel awkward, and I end up saying too much. I nearly always walk away from these encounters thinking ‘what the fuck was all that about?’ I also become demand resistant when I’m part of a group. I always want to do the opposite of the group consensus, and this tends to rub people up the wrong way.

Since giving up alcohol seven years ago, my life has improved in many wonderful ways. The one thing that hasn’t changed is my discomfort around other people. I’ve made lots of online friends, and this is perfect because I don’t have to actually be around them. These people sometimes offer to visit me here in Thailand – to them, it’s a nice idea but for me it is like they are threatening to come and break my legs. With the exception of my family, I’d be happy to only ever have to deal with people online.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

My painful encounter with career uncertainty last year led to a real breakthrough in letting go. I don’t think that I’ll ever have to deal with that type of fear again. I’ve been on a bit of a high for the last few months because of this new freedom. I’m beginning to suspect now though that some dark clouds are on the horizon because I’m witnessing all the signs that the universe wants to challenge me again. I keep on having intense dreams involving my relationships with other people, and powerful dreams were a bit part of my last encounter. There also seems to be increasing evidence in my waking life that my social skills need to be improved – it is like the universe is determined to make me face this challenge

I know that it must sound outrageous for me to say that the universe would go to the trouble of trying to change little ol’ me. I don’t claim to know how any of this works, but it is just what I experience. I don’t have beliefs about any of this. It just obvious to me that there is something else that is responsible for the positive changes in my life because I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to all the good things in my life.

It will be interesting to see how things progress with my social awkwardness. Maybe I’m still in the denial stage because I just don’t see it as a problem. I also struggle to imagine what a cure would be like – nothing I can imagine appears very appealing.

The Reasons Alcoholics Anonymous Did Not Work for Me

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I Like It!

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During my twenties, I managed to stay sober for two years with the help of AA, so it might sound unfair for me to claim here that it did not work for me. I can also see how my contact with this program allowed me to pick up some useful tools that have been an asset in my life. The reason I say here that it did not work for me is that this program did not take me where I needed to go to build the best possible life away from addiction. It helped me escape the prison of the alcoholic but then replaced this with the prison of the recovering alcoholic.

My Experiences with Alcoholics Anonymous

I have many fond memories of my time in Alcoholics Anonymous. There were many meetings where it felt as if there was real magic in the air. I haven’t actually sat down and done the maths, but I know that I’ve been to well over a thousand meetings. I also spent hundreds of hours as a member of online AA communities. I developed deep connections with many people through the fellowship, and I had far more friends as a member than I do now.

I was an atheist when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, but I didn’t have any issues with it being a spiritual programme. I actually took to it like a duck to water because my atheism was based on a spiritual hunger – I desperately wanted to believe but my naturally skeptical mind made this impossible. I loved the idea of a higher power because it allowed me to sidestep religion and go directly to the source. Spiritual ideas like ‘letting go’ and ‘acceptance’ continue to be key components in my approach to life. I still don’t have a god, but I work on the assumption that there is some purpose to the universe. I know that dislike of the spiritual approach is what turns many people off AA, but this wasn’t the case with me.

The Reasons Alcoholics Anonymous Did Not Work for Me

It is now almost seven years since I ended my addiction at a temple here in Thailand. I know that I’ll never drink again, and I never miss it. Alcohol stopped being my problem when I gave it up, and there is nothing that I need to do in order to remain sober. My problems are all life related and have nothing to do with my former bad habits. I still like to write about addiction and make YouTube videos about it, but this is just something that I feel compelled to do – I do it because I want to and not because I need to in order to stay sober. I am free of alcohol.

During all my time in Alcoholics Anonymous, I never felt free of alcohol. It was like this cloud that was always there waiting to piss down on me. My friends in AA constantly reminded me that it was ‘just for today’, and that my continued recovery would be dependent on ‘doing the right things’ – going to meetings and following the programme. If I had ideas that did not fit in with the party line, the old timers would warn me that my recovery was in jeopardy. Basically, my future success in life became dependent on my ability to fit in with a programme that a few drunks had created decades before I was born. If I had a problem, I was expected to find the answer in the Big Book. If I began to question the programme, I was advised to go to more meetings (and of course read more of the Big Book). It is easy to understand why some people view Alcoholics Anonymous as a cult.

Another reason for why AA did not work for me was that I felt uncomfortable with living the rest of my life as a victim. That’s what I saw when I looked at many of the old-timers. I got fed up listening to people who had been sober for years who still talked as if they were just one angry word away from relapse. I couldn’t trust their praise of the programme when it was obvious that they were so obsessed by it – they seemed proud of the fact that they would go a little nuts if they missed a couple of meetings. They would use their alcoholism as an excuse for all types of bad behaviour and they seemed to believe that their ‘disease’ gave them special privileges in life (my wife shouldn’t speak to me like that because I’m a recovering alcoholic). I was grateful to be sober, but I just did not want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and feeling like fragile crystal.

Stop Being Critical of Alcoholics Anonymous

I’ve posted a few times on this blog about my views on Alcoholics Anonymous. It could be fairly argued that what goes on in this group is none of my business because I’m no longer a member. I understand this argument, but if the people like me do not discuss their reservations about the AA program, where are the criticisms going to come from – should they only come from practising AA members? Sorry, I don’t trust AA to promote its own limitations. Or is it that AA should be above criticism?

I’m not being critical of AA out of any desire to harm the group. I just believe that this information needs to be out there so that other people can make informed choices. I’m also not on any crusade to change the group. I believe that it is fine the way it is, but it may be of value to people looking for addiction help to know the possible cons as well as the pros of AA membership.

Alcoholics Anonymous Didn’t Work For Me But It Might Work For You

AA does work for many people who are trying to build a life away from addiction. Some of us will do better in an environment where there is a set programme for recovery and lots of support. There are also people like me who will fail to thrive in this type of environment – we need to find our own way.