Recovery is about stories. Stories of hope, stories of change.
In addiction, the stories we tell about ourselves do not tend to have happy endings. Rarely are we the authors of our own journeys, and if we were to assign ourselves a character, it would not be the hero/ine. More often we see ourselves as the villain, or the victim, or a combination of both. Sadly, in recovery we often continue to tell ourselves stories that keep us stuck. Sit in your average 12-step meeting and you are likely to hear the same story shared over and over again; only the names and places are much different. Sit in them for too long and you may find yourself, as I did, subtly altering your own tale of recovery to fit the dominant narrative: you have a disease that is “doing push-ups” as you speak, getting stronger even as you recover day by day; without the group, without a mysterious Higher Power, you are powerless, defect-ridden, and utterly self-centered. You must call yourself an addict forever, lest you forget.
The justice system will craft another story about you: you are amoral; you need to be punished, given a black mark against your name that will be permanent on any official paperwork about you. In spite of the official narrative that addiction is a “disease,” the underlying tale is one of sin and—maybe, if you are penitent enough—redemption. Even here in the U.K., where laws are less punitive, the stigma of being an addict follows you around like an unfinished sentence.
[For more on this story by Kelly Palmer, go to https://www.thefix.com/why-we-...ries-about-addiction]
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