Recovery & Stigma

This past weekend, I sat in a swanky hotel lobby in lower Manhattan, waiting for five friends to come down from the meeting room where one of our event's keynote sessions had just concluded. Women were descending into the lobby in groups, pairs, or alone. They were happily chatting, punctuating their sentences with laughter. They were in their twenties, all the way up into their golden years. Dressed in suits, yoga pants, and everything in-between. They were, on the whole, gorgeous. Any observer oblivious to our reason for being there would have assumed it was a health and fitness conference of some sort. I suppose it was, if you really think about it. We weren't learning new workout methods or sampling the latest supplements, but our work was indeed all about profound, long-term wellness - the kind that outlives the latest fitness trends and whose only membership requirement is willingness. I thought, as I gazed out at these women, my sisters in recovery, this is the hottest ticket in town, and any smart people who want to meet a woman with depth, faith, wisdom- should be sitting in this lobby right now. (Seriously - if you are on the market, stay tuned to the next #SheRecovers conference!).

Of course, unless you are yourself in recovery, you may not know that someone who is actively working on their sobriety (not to be confused with merely abstaining from their addictive behavior or substance) is such a good catch. Stigma is real, and I got to experience if first-hand a couple of weeks ago. I was running errands and an acquaintance came over to me to chat. At some point, she told me she was really angry with me when she heard I was in recovery from alcohol, because I had "put her daughter in danger" when she was in my presence. I was shocked by her assumptions, and angered, especially because she did not seem interested in hearing the truth (to be fair, she wasn't mean, she just wasn't interested in listening). I thought of this unpleasant interaction as I experienced this past weekend's gathering with 500 other women who were dedicating themselves to figuring out what led to their seeking solace in a bottle, a pill, disordered eating, abusive relationships, while doing the hard work it takes to avoid making the same mistakes. As I marveled on the wisdom I heard and saw and felt from these women, some of whom have become cherished friends over the past year, I thought about that misguided woman who probably was voicing the fear felt and lies believed by those who are not in recovery. I thought, gosh, if only more people knew how important these voices in this room are, not only to help others struggling with addiction, but indeed, to help this insane world that is only becoming more and more imbalanced and disconnected. If only more of us were in a position to come forward and show our faces, and live our recovery out loud! How f-ed up is it that so many of us are afraid to come forward?!

About 25 of us went for a run at 6:30am on Saturday, before the conference resumed. Yes, 6:30am on a Saturday. In NYC, party capital of the world. I point this out because if you are holding any stigma, I want you to ask yourself, if you were in a swanky hotel for 3 days in NYC, would you be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30am on Saturday, when your conference doesn't begin till 10am? Sober is badass. In fact, I kind of hate the word sober, because it sounds so... sober, as in serious, subdued, "showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy or emotion." As our colorful, blinking (Heroes in Recovery had donated bracelets with blinking lights for our run), smiley, and eventually, sweaty group made our way along the Hudson River, the only thing sober about our jovial tribe was our livers and other alcohol-and-other-drug-free organs. As I would be several times throughout the weekend, I was struck by the thought that if I had know that this was what living the sober life looked and felt like, I may not have postponed it for so long! While I may not have hit any shocking rock bottom, in fact I probably drank about as much as you do, if all your alcohol-glorifying Facebook posts reflect your attitudes toward alcohol and its ability to enhance celebration, soften the edge, escape the ugh - I definitely feared that aspiring for long-term sobriety would pretty much sentence me to a life of prudish, unremarkable, convent-worthy behavior. Gosh, I couldn't have been more wrong. At some point I thought of Karl Marx's statement that religion is the opiate of the masses, and thought how today, alcohol is the opiate of the masses! What a privilege, and so much fun, it is to be a part of this community that one day at a time, is choosing to live in a way that is thoughtful, mindful, conscious. To move through the world awake.

The thing is, I can't blame that woman for her assumptions about me. Just like I can't blame myself for having made assumptions about what sobriety would be like. We don't see enough examples, or hear from enough people, of what exactly recovery looks like. The wonder. The camaraderie. The fun and laughter. The glow. The courage and strength. THE CONNECTION. The freedom. The authenticity! Most of us are only privy to the examples of dis-ease, and how it manifests itself, with usually only the extreme examples making their way into the public eye. It has often struck me how absurd it is that very often, addictive behavior happens openly, especially if it involves alcohol, a socially-sanctioned drug, but once we cross over to sobriety and recovery, we hide in basements and private chat rooms. No wonder most people don't have a fucking clue about two very important points: 1) you don't have to be a hopeless drunk in order to decide that alcohol is stupid and needs to be questioned and 2) choosing sobriety and working on recovery is an incredibly powerful, empowering thing to do, for yourself and for the world at large. It's the most badass thing you can do. Don't get me wrong - it often isn't nearly as pretty as the women on the stage or in the audience of She Recovers NYC. The recovery journey often feels - and probably looks - just as awful as mile 20 of a marathon. But that's a good thing, because it means we are no longer running from stuff or denying it. The only way to get to the glory of the "I did it!" Is to keep going, one foot, breath, day at a time. And holy crap it's worth it.

Here are some of the nuggets I got from our keynote speakers:

"Sobriety is no bullshit... To people not in recovery it means not drinking, but it's actually much more than that. It's figuring out who we were before the world told us who we were supposed to be."
- Glennon Melton Doyle

"Anything that I use to escape a perceived intolerable reality, is something that can turn into addiction."
- Nikki Myers

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. It's in the story I make up about the event."
- Nikki Myers

"I drank to feel the way other people look."
- Elizabeth Vargas

"We should be grateful for all the situations that make us uncomfortable, for without them we wouldn't know what needs to be healed."
- Gabby Bernstein

"Say nice things to yourself, because you're the only one listening."
- Gabby Bernstein

"Suffering gives you x-ray vision into the suffering of other people."
- Marianne Williamson

"This will pass one day, and I will embrace this pain because of the person I will be because of having gone through it."
- Marianne Williamson

"If you desensitize yourself to your own suffering, you desensitize yourself to others' suffering - and then the whole world suffers."
- Marianne Williamson

"It's a process, but at some point it becomes spewing. At one point it's 'allowing our feelings,' but at some point it becomes self-indulgence."
- Marianne Williamson

"The psyche has an immune system just like the body. And grief is the bulwark."
- Marianne Williamson

"We are so concerned about the chemicals in our gut, but not the ones we are putting in our brain."
- Marianne Williamson

If you are wondering if sobriety is something you should explore, perhaps start by asking yourself, why not? Sometimes one of the biggest obstacles standing between us and what we need to do for our health and happiness, is actually stigma. The assumptions we have about something we really don't know much about, which causes fear. For example, since I began my recovery journey, I have learned that the only thing that all of us in recovery have in common, is the fact that we were engaging in behavior that gave us a shameful, sinking feeling. The actual quantity or frequency was irrelevant - for some of us it was daily, for others monthly. For some, it was gallons, for others, occasional glasses. But if we could have some way to measure the sinking in our souls, we were pretty much in the same tank of ugh - or headed that way. If this is striking a chord with you, listen to it. That is your truth speaking. Follow it, or at least notice it. And if you want to explore any of this, please reach out to me. You don't have to do this alone.