Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 33

How Alcohol Kept Me Sane

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It is easy for me to look back on my years of drunkenness, and to condemn myself for being a complete fool and a waster. The fact is though, that hindsight distorts reality because it means judging my past actions on what I know now. In other words, it’s kind of bullshit because I obviously didn’t know then what I know now. It is unfair of me to believe that I turned to alcohol at fifteen because of stupidity. The truth is that this was the best option available to me at the time, and I daresay that the same might apply to many people who end up falling into addiction.

Alcohol Helped Me Cope with Life

My parent’s marriage fell apart in a spectacular fashion when I was fifteen years old. Alcohol helped me cope with this reality. I’m not saying that it was my parent’s fault that I became a drunk – that’s not it at all- my real problem was that I didn’t have the inner resources to deal with that reality, and I’m not sure if anyone can be blamed for this. At first I tried to keep a handle on things by turning to meditation and martial arts, but these activities were at best only short-term distractions. My life spiraled out of control, and I did not feel able to cope at all. Suicide seemed to be the only way out for me until I realized that alcohol offered another way for me to escape.

I’ve no problem comprehending the motives that led me on a path to addiction. When I first began using alcohol it seemed to be offering everything that I ever wanted. It made me feel brave, and I no longer felt out of control. It gave me confidence. I loved the idea of walking through life in an alcohol fog. It felt like I’d been given a free pass in life – nothing could touch me. The only thing that I couldn’t understand was why everyone else wasn’t doing the same thing.

I continued to use alcohol even after the negatives effects of this behavior far outweighed the benefits. This was partly due to the fact that I’d developed a physical addiction, but this was certainly not the only reason. I continued to use alcohol because I didn’t have any better option – it was a case of, ‘it is better the devil you know’. I kept on looking for a way out of my problems, but none of these paths seemed to take me to where I wanted to go. It was only when I was able to find my own path that a full recovery became possible.

Why the Drugs Don’t Work

I don’t beat myself up for becoming a drunk. For all I know, things could have gone a lot worse for me if I hadn’t found a way to self-medicate my pain. The way I see it, alcohol was the best option open to me at that time in my life, but it turned out to be a lousy remedy in the long-run.

Alcohol is a drug, and it works by creating a temporary cushion between me and reality. It produces the illusion of coping but all that is really happening is avoidance. The problems are still there festering in the background, and it is impossible to stay numb to them forever. Reality refuses to be ignored, and it is able to find the cracks in any wall that we have built between ourselves and it.

I turned to alcohol to escape reality, but my problems had very little to do with reality. It was an easy mistake for me to make. At that time in my life, I didn’t understand that reality is always subjective and that it was my beliefs about the world that were the real source of my pain. It would never have occurred to me that all I needed to do was to abandon some bullshit beliefs about myself as these were the real cause of my suffering. I was incapable of understanding what I know now, and it wasn’t simply a case of lack of knowledge. It is a strange paradox, but it seems that I needed to suffer in order to discover that I never needed to suffer.

Dangers of Mental Masturbation

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I know one thing: that I know nothing

Socrates

In this video I discuss the dangers of mental masturbation. I can waste an excessive amount of time thinking about things even though there is no answer for me to find. Mental masturbation is not only a time-waster but it can also be a means to sabotage my own inner peace. Press play to watch the video. You will find the podcast of this edition below:

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Dangers of Alcoholics Anonymous

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I’ve no doubt that Alcoholics Anonymous does a great deal of good in the world– I’ve seen it first-hand. This recovery path has worked for many people, and it is wonderful that these individuals have been able to break free of the miserable life of a drunk. The founder of AA, ., is one of my heroes, and I would never try to discourage anyone from trying out the meetings. I do not personally subscribe to most of the tenets of this group, but I don’t have any interest in AA-bashing just for the sake it. I do think that it is important to talk about the more dangerous aspects of this program though, so that people who are experiencing difficulties with this group do not feel alone.

The Philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous Supports Addiction

The principles of Alcoholics Anonymous can be used to support addiction as well as recovery. I attended my first AA meeting at 18 years of age, and it came as a bit of a relief to find that I had this disease called alcoholism. It meant that for the next 17 years, I had the perfect excuse for my fuck-ups – of course I’m drinking, I’m an alcoholic. The philosophy of AA supported my behaviour because it was made clear to me that I needed to hit rock bottom before I’d be ready to quit. There were many times when I felt desperate to stop drinking, but I didn’t want to return to the meetings – AA members told me that this was a sign that I wasn’t really ready and that I should keep on drinking until I could fully accept the program. I now look back on this advice as not only bad but possibly even abusive.

The other way that this program supported my behaviour was by making relapse appear so natural. After all, I would always be just a recovering alcoholic, and the best I could hope for was staying sober one day at a time. At one point I managed to stay sober in AA for two years, but I never really felt free during this time – the old timers constantly reminded me that all I had was a daily reprieve that was dependent on my willingness to go to meetings and follow the program. I obediently went to a meeting almost every day for that two year period, but I still ended up back drinking. I didn’t feel too bad about my downfall though because I’d been told that alcoholism is a relapsing disease. It would be too cynical to claim that AA created the rehab revolving door syndrome, but it doesn’t seem to have done much to undermine it.

Alcoholics Anonymous is Oversold

The thing that worries me the most about the Alcoholics Anonymous program is that it is too heavily promoted. The members of this group can be very passionate, and the zeal by which they promote this approach can border on fanaticism. I was repeatedly told over the years that AA was my only hope of recovery, and there are still parts of the world where this is the only show in town. The success rate for this group is far from impressive (mind you, the same could be said for all addiction treatments), so to tout it as some type of miracle cure is disingenuous. It may be the best recovery approach for some people, but it is certainly not the best approach for everyone. It is horrible to feel ready to quit alcohol and to be told that AA is the only viable option, and to know that this option will not work for you. How may chances of recovery have been lost due to this shitty advice?

Alcoholics Anonymous, Circular Reasoning, and Group Think

Alcoholics can engage in a dangerous form of group think. There is this ‘us and them’ mentality, and members are encouraged to think of themselves as this special group with special problems. This feeling of having a unique set of problems can border on the ridiculous – I’ve heard people in Alcoholics Anonymous suffering from the common cold who talk as if they have some type of special alcoholic’s cold.

Those who follow the AA program can feel threatened by any type of criticism, and they sometimes seem more interested in defending AA than in helping alcoholics. I can’t remember ever meeting even one member of that group who was willing to suggest any other option than the meetings. This is all made to seem acceptable by using some fancy circular reasoning – if you are an alcoholic your only real hope is AA, but if you manage to get sober without AA you were never a real alcoholic to begin with.

Alcoholics Anonymous as a Refuge for Dangerous People

One of the nice things about Alcoholic’s Anonymous is that it is open to anyone. The downside of this is that there are plenty of dangerous people hanging around, and it is relatively easy for these individuals to gain positions of power over the vulnerable newcomer. It is expected that old timers are treated with respect but some of these guys are as fucked up as the people they are trying to help. Too many of them act as if they are on some type of power-trip, and there are even some of this guys who use their position to gain sexual favours from newcomers. The only requirement for AA membership is the desire to stop drinking, and the only requirement for winning respect in the meetings is the ability to say the right things.

Alcoholics Anonymous Does Work for Some People

Despite all of the dangers I’ve listed here, I still feel that this approach to recovery will work for at least some people. I’m glad that the meetings are there for those who need them. I think that AA suffers from problems that all large groups sharing a belief system end up having to deal with. Bill W. created the 12 traditions to help members avoid some of the most common pitfalls associated with this type of fellowship, but it is probably not possible to remove all the dangers.

Symptoms of Depression in Recovery

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In this video I discuss my experiences of dealing with depression in recovery. I’ve had plenty of times in my life where I felt completely crippled because of my low mood, but I now feel that I’ve found an effective way to deal with these symptoms. Press play to watch the video, and you will find the podcast of this edition below.

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Am I Qualified to Offer Addiction Advice?

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I’ve lots of opinions about addiction. It is subject that I feel passionate about, and it is the reason for why I first began blogging six years ago. Addiction is no longer a part of my life today, but it was for two painful decades. I trained and worked as a nurse, and this gave me a different perspective on the problem, but it is my personal experiences of being a drunk that influences my current thinking on the subject. I feel compelled to talk on this topic, but I do sometimes worry that my views could have a negative impact on people in need of help – especially as many of my ideas would be considered unorthodox (or just plain wrong) by experts in the recovery community.

More Than One Path Away from Addiction

My views on addiction have come from personal experiences. I don’t subscribe to the ‘disease model’, and I’m not convinced that the medicalisation of this type of problem is necessarily a good thing. I managed to break away from addiction, and build a wonderful life, by ignoring the advice of the experts. I worry, that for at least some of us, the traditional approaches may do more harm than good – it may also be part of the reason for why addiction problems seem to be on the increase. There is no one treatment for addiction that works for everyone, and none of the current approaches has a high enough success rate to be able to claim any type of monopoly over recovery. There are many paths away from addiction, and this is why I feel it is justifiable for me to add my voice to the mix.

I have faith in people to be able to figure out things for themselves. I provide my opinions, but it is up to the reader to make up their own minds about what I’m saying. I feel it is important for people like me, who decided to go it alone in recovery, to share their experiences. The goal is not to sow doubt in the minds of people who are happy with an approach like Alcoholics Anonymous, but to provide hope to those who would struggle with that approach. There were many people who tried to convince me that my options were to return to AA or die, and they almost had me completely convinced. One of the great things about the internet is that it is now relatively easy for people to access alternative opinions, and this can mean that they never have to feel as hopeless and alone as I once did.

Sharing My Thoughts on Addiction

I respond to the worry that my writing could have a negative impact on some readers by reminding myself that I’m not that important. The readers of this blog are unlikely to be children, so I don’t have to treat them that way. I will continue to share my thoughts on addiction until I run out of things to say, or until I receive a ‘cease and desist’ letter that would have legal power in Thailand

Using Intuition to Beat Addiction

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In this video, I discuss the important of intuition in my new life away from addiction. I don’t follow any particular recovery program, but my intuition has kept me on the right path, and it has led to a real sense of inner contentment. Press play to watch the video – you will find the podcast of this edition below.

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Note – I’ve used up my storage limit for the podcast, and I can’t really afford to upgrade. I’m going to begin removing some of the earlier episodes.

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How to Deal with Enlightened Beings

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I don’t know anyone personally who claims to be enlightened, but I’ve certainly come across plenty of written accounts of people who say they are awake to the ultimate truth. My reaction to such claims is always one of skepticism. I won’t just dismiss what they have to say outright, but it puts my bullshit radar on high alert.

I believe that there is ultimate truth out there, but I’m not convinced that any human has ever experienced this truth– I’m not even sure if it is possible for a human to experience it directly. I can never be sure, but my gut reaction is that people who claim to be enlightened are either deluded or lying.

The Problem with Enlightenment

I can’t understand how anyone who can claim to be 100% certain about anything, but this is what enlightened people are claiming. They believe that they have seen the truth and that anything other than this is a lie. By this admission, the person is saying that they were once deluded but now they are free of delusion. What I don’t get is why these people never seem to consider the possibility that they have left one delusion only to enter a more convincing delusion. If the universe has fooled these people once, why can’t the universe fool them again? I suppose the fact that these guys are so utterly convinced may mean that they have seen the truth, or it could mean that they are more trapped in delusion than they ever were. How can the rest of us tell which of these scenarios is the right one?

It could be that enlightenment is a clever trap. The person who has achieved this state may have spent years working towards it. They have then taking the huge step of proclaiming to the world that they see the truth that nobody else around them can see. If the person later begins to question this realisation, how likely are they to publicly admit that they were wrong? How likely are they to tell their students that it has been a case of the blind leading the blind? My guess is that the majority of them would never admit to such doubts, even to themselves, and this is why enlightenment could be a clever trap. Admitting that you have awakened to the delusion of reality means you are a spiritual warrior, but to admit that you have awoken to the delusion of your enlightenment is a bit embarrassing – not even worth considering.

The thing is that it is way too easy for people to claim enlightenment – especially for the non-duality crowd. All you have to do is learn a few buzz words, and speak in very vague terms about what you have experienced – the vaguer the better it seems. If anyone questions your enlightenment, there is no need to provide any proof because there is no proof. We don’t have a quality control watchdog for enlightened beings. Again, I’m not saying that these people are all frauds, but there is no way for me to tell if they are or not.

How to Deal with Enlightened Beings

In a recent post I discussed my enjoyment of the books of Jed McKenna. He does claim to be enlightened, but I don’t take this claim too seriously. There is just no way for me to tell, but I’d be surprised if it turns out that he is enlightened. I see Jed as a type of spiritual entertainer (I believe Alan Watts invented this term to describe himself), and so I take everything he says with a pinch of salt. One of the most powerful lesson he provides is that we need to keep pushing further – for me this means an endless battle against my beliefs – I fear that by claiming enlightenment, Jed has ignored his own advice, but who knows. I like his books but not because I believe he is enlightened.

It could well be that I’m the idiot for not throwing myself at the feet of the local enlightened guru. That is just not the path that I choose to follow. I’m convinced that all the answers I need will find there way to me – and these answers are as likley to come from the local som tam seller, as they are from a spiritual master. I’m interested in what the enlightened people have to say, but I no longer approach these people looking for answers or in the hope that they can fix me. The best they have to offer me is their words, but if words were all that were needed, we’d all live a perfect life already.

Jed McKenna’s Theory of Everything: The Enlightened Perspective

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“A real guru, if there is one, frees you from himself”

U.G. Krishnamurti

I wouldn’t say that I’m a huge fan of U.G. Krishnamurti, but I certainly agree with his opinion on spiritual teachers. I once believed that it was my desire to pick away at things until they fell apart that was my greatest liability, but it has now become my greatest asset. My extreme skepticism (not to be confused with modern skepticism which is all about defending things that can’t be proven as real) has led me closer to the truth by showing me that all beliefs are flawed. I’ve put enough spiritual teachers (and their beliefs) up on pedestals only to later crucify them that I now see this as my job in life – my prime directive is to rid myself of bullshit. The only spiritual teacher around today that I haven’t yet been able to completely dismiss is Jed McKenna – probably because he does not claim to be a spiritual teacher, and I did say “yet”.

Jed McKenna Might Be Full of Bullshit

I would not be surprised to find out that Jed McKenna is completely full of the brown stuff. The fact that he has released another book after saying he was done with this work, following the publication of his trilogy, is suspicious – even if this new book is a fantastic read. So he might not only be full of bullshit, but also greedy for more money and attention. It also makes me suspicious that it has taken him so many words to say something so simple. Yeah, I would say that Jed McKenna might definitely be full of bullshit, but it is very, very convincing bullshit, and I can’t really fault him. What I’m saying here is that it would not matter one jot how much bullshit he is full of because it’s not going to take anything away from the truth he is pointing at.

Jed McKenna’s Theory of Everything

I read Jed’s TOE yesterday. I bought it for Kindle, and I was initially disappointed to find that it is a relatively short book – a slim paperback, I think you might call it. After reading it though, I have to admit that he probably made a good decision to keep the word count down because what he has to say would lose its power by adding fluff. It took me about six hours to read, and it only cost $7 (including the Amazon penalty tax for not living in America), so I can’t complain.

I posted on here before about one of Jed’s other books – Spiritual Enlightenment: the Damdest Thing. The first time I read this work it all sounded kind of revolutionary and almost sacrilegious, but I went back and read it again a few years later and by then most of what he was saying sounded obvious to me. I’d reached many of the same conclusions as him, but it had nothing to do with me becoming enlightened – it was more about me running out of things to believe. With this new book, there was this strange sense of déjà-vu as so much of his thinking mirrored my own.

Jed is dismissive of all belief systems – including science. I share his concerns, and in my own experience it is the believing in things that are untrue that leads to all kinds of suffering including addiction. I don’t understand how anyone can claim to be searching for truth when they begin with assumptions that can never be shown as true. I fully agree with Jed that science and religion are basically the same at a fundamental level. This is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

All scientific claims should be prefaced with a disclaimer. That seems like a scientific-y thing to do. A standard disclaimer would probably suffice in most cases:

Warning:

The scientific findings contained herein are based on the uncritical acceptance of consensus reality as true reality, and must therefore be viewed in the same light as mythology, folklore, superstition, and religion.





The Beliefs of Jed McKenna

Jed is convinced that consciousness exists, but the universe doesn’t. He provides some nifty arguments for why this is the case. I strongly believe that he is right, but it is a belief for me – I don’t know with 100% certainty that all that exists is consciousness, and the rest is just like a dream – so I have to remain an agnostic believer.

I’m not sure that Jed’s TOE accomplishes much, but who said that the truth has to accomplish anything? As far as I can see, Jed’s TOE provides far more than the vast majority of spiritual books out there, so it is worth it for that alone. I hope this book sells well for Jed – even if he is full of bullshit, he deserves every cent.

The Fear of Getting Sober

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I can see now, that one of the main reasons for why it took me so long to become sober was fear. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of what was going to happen to me – it was the fear of what I would be like as a sober person. My job as a habitual drunk gave me the perfect alibi for being a failure in life. I knew that if I became sober and continued to fail, there would be no excuse anymore – I’d be exposed, and that terrified me.

Addiction is a the Best Scapegoat Ever

During my years of being a drunk, I blamed all of my defects and failings in life on just one thing. I honestly believed that I would have been tremendously successful at anything I put my mind to if it wasn’t for my little problem with the drink. I imagined that there was this huge well of potential inside of me just waiting to be tapped – the only think preventing this happening was that I’d been cursed with a disease called alcoholism. It meant that I could sit in bars all day and try convince anyone who would listen that ‘I could have been a contender if it wasn’t for the booze holding me back’. It was sort of like enjoying some of the pleasure of being a winner without ever having to do anything.

For a long time, I honestly believed that somebody else was going to come along and spot my potential. These people would walk into a pub where I just happened to be drinking, and they would somehow notice that I had all this untapped talent that they could exploit. I would be headhunted to join an indie band that was going places or to write a bestselling book. It’s embarrassing now, but I really did used to think that way. If a stranger had walked up to me in a pub and said that she/he recognized me as a math genius or an enlightened being, I would have had no problem believing them. I’d no problem with estimating my talent inside of drunken fantasies; it was testing my potential in real life that scared the shit out of me.

Facing the Fear

I knew that if I gave up alcohol, I would no longer have that excuse for being a failure. There would be no more “if only”- I’d be taking full responsibility for my own situation and my own future. Instead of being able to fantasize about all my hidden potential, I would have to face challenges that would test me and this meant risking failure. To be honest, it didn’t sound like an appealing proposition to me – better to believe that you could have been a winner than to know that you are a loser.

I faced this fear, and the most wonderful things began to happen. I let go of the excuse of addiction, and I put my abilities to the test. I soon found out that there was no Stephen King or Kurt Cobain just waiting to be set free, but I found something far more precious than this – I had the potential to be the best me possible. Over time, I found out that it was okay to fail at things and that by admitting that I’d no talent for something, it did not mean that I was a failure or a bad person.

I no longer have to fantasize about my hidden potential. I’m happy as I am, and I no longer need any excuses for being a failure – because I’m not a failure. I’m not waiting for anyone to come along and fix me because there is nothing to be fixed. I’ve dug right down to discover my real potential, and it turns out that I’m just a normal guy – isn’t that wonderful?

Letting Go is the Key to Life

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In this podcast and video, I discuss the approach to life that has helped me the most. I’ve found that letting go is the key to success and inner peace. Press play to watch the video. The podcast of this episode is below.

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