“If it’s possible to attain wisdom, then we should put it to use and not just possess it.” -Cicero

Cicero recognized a critical distinction between useful knowledge and knowledge that was not.  Knowledge can be useless for several reasons.  It can be useless because there’s no conceivable circumstance you’d ever need to know it.  Wombat have cube-shaped poop.  Sea urchins have five teeth.  If you ever find a use for that knowledge, please let me know.  I’m still wondering why my brain elected to retain such useless information.  Maybe to help me illustrate (and disprove) the point I am trying to make here.

Ugh.  Let’s move on.  Information can be useless for another reason.  It can be useless when it is not shared with the people who most need it.  I’d like to tackle that with a view toward alcoholism and addiction.  I believe addicts and alcoholics share a bond with other addicts and alcoholics, even when one addict is in recovery and the other is not.  Same for alcoholism.  It seems to me there is an identity there established when two people can discuss the disordered and dysfunctional thinking and behavior associated with active addiction.

When I was active in my alcoholism, normal drinkers and non-drinkers couldn’t relate to me.  They could tell me I was taking things too far and that they were worried about me, but they didn’t understand the process that happened in my body and mind when I would take a drink.  They didn’t understand the euphoria I would have when I procured my alcohol and the elation I would feel when I started to drink it.  They didn’t understand that as the intoxicating effects of the alcohol became more pronounced, everything in my body told me “more, more, more!”  They didn’t understand how I could wake up the next day and be so eager to repeat this process.  Other alcoholics did, though.

When I first started talking to other alcoholics, it was eye-opening to have an honest, candid conversation about my relationship with alcohol.  Here were other people who had felt the same way I did about alcohol.  They loved it.  They loved it even when they hated it.  They drank when they wanted to.  They drank even when they didn’t want to.  They drank for all sorts of reasons.  They drank for no reason at all.  They could talk to me about their experiences with alcohol and it didn’t come across as judgmental.  I wasn’t being told I was immoral or weak.  I was told I had developed a phenomenon of craving of alcohol coupled with an obsession about it.  The closest medical terminology offered was “allergy.”  I didn’t worry so much about whether this fit medical definitions of “disease” or “allergy” so much as I was impressed that these people were happy to tell me about their experiences with alcoholism and how they overcame their addiction to become sober and live in joyful recovery.  

Active addiction and alcoholism is a hell most people will never experience and cannot understand.  And that’s a good thing.  Far too many, do though.  One of the only bits of good news about alcoholism and addiction is that people do recover and those people hold the essential key to helping other addicts and alcoholics recover.  It’s the biggest positive I can take away from the pain and misery I experienced with alcoholism that I can speak to alcoholics in a way that might reach them.  I can’t change the past, but I can make the best of it.  The best thing I can do with my experience with addiction is to offer hope through my example there is a way out.  It’s a blessing and it’s a burden.

I have spent a lot of time lately on Reddit.com’s subreddit r/stopdrinking.  If one is so inclined, one can go there and sort the posts by the most recent and see that every few minutes, someone is posting there about relapsing, or seeking guidance on how to get through the first day of sobriety.  The need for outreach is so strong it is hard to ignore.  All the while, people are dying.  If it’s not acute alcoholism, then it can be any number of health issues related to it.  Add in alcohol-related accidents, particularly motor vehicle accidents and you have a swelling mass of death, destruction, and misery being inflicted on communities and families around the world each and every day.  Right now, someone is suffering.  Right now, someone is dying.  This is a call to action for all of us who speak the language and have walked the path of recovery.  We cannot let that knowledge be useless or in vain.  Our ability to reach the addicts and alcoholics of the world should not be relegated to the trivium of cubed poop and urchin teeth.  It should be used as it was on us—to save our fellows from the gaping maw of addiction.  That is how I will use what I know.  Dear Reader, how will you use what you know?