Addicts 101: 5 Tips for Earthlings

For most of the past 25 years, I have been actively engaged in an activity called Step 12.  It’s from Alcoholics Anonymous and it reads:

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

This is the way that people who are successfully recovering from addiction pay it forward.  We recognize that a power greater than ourselves has delivered us from a place of total darkness, to a place of ever-increasing light and true happiness.  It is through helping others that we strengthen our resolve and our allegiance to sobriety.  Understanding and practicing this principle is so important to me.  It means keeping my sobriety.

I was in my second year of being clean and sober when I began to realize that I had the ability to actually help people suffering with addiction.  Local church leadership knew that I was a recovering addict and would call on me to visit with people requesting help with addicted loved ones.  I went to homes, hospitals, and jails and shared my experience, faith and hope.  While I was going to school and studying psychotherapy and counseling skills, it was a wonderful revelation that I had at this time that I did not need to be a professional therapist to guide people to recovery.  I became aware that all I needed to do, for my part, was to encourage the person who was suffering to get help and then volunteer to introduce them to the local fellowships.  The first couple of meetings are the most difficult, so I would go with them.

…the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel. –

Narcotics Anonymous

It is my hope that all of my friends who are in recovery will read this post and will be encouraged by what I have said so far about helping others; being a mentor or a sponsor.  Now, as I switch gears, I don’t want to lose my audience with you as I talk more directly to the Earthlings.

Who are the Earthlings?  Earthlings always ask that.  In the great big world there are people who are prone to addiction and others who are not.  Earthlings will often observe an addict’s destructive behavior and ask, “Why does he do that?”

The addict, on the other hand, will observe the Earthling as they suffer their trials without drugs or alcohol and ask, “Why does he do that?”

It’s not a derogatory term. I LOVE THE EARTHLINGS!  Selena is my sweetest friend and she’s an Earthling. Sometimes though, the addicts and the Earthlings simply do not understand one another.  Whenever I can, I like to reach out to the Earthlings, sort of like a diplomat—maybe I’m an Addict Ambassador.

Occasionally someone will come to me about a loved one whose life is spinning out of control due to drug and/or alcohol addiction and want to know about treatment options.  I have some personal beliefs with regards to treatment that I want to share, but remember, it’s just my well-informed opinion.  The advice is free and worth every penny of it.

I have known better than a handful of addicts over the years who began and sustained good recovery with 12 step meetings alone.  I have great admiration for these people because it isn’t easy to carry on with the normal day-to-day of life and, at the same time, immerse yourself into understanding and implementing full-time repentance.  It works for some, but many of us seem to lack some key variable in our personality or the necessary self-discipline to pull it off.  It is for this reason that I always recommend residential treatment when it is possible.

If you are an Earthling, and you are trying to decide the best course of action for your addict, and residential treatment is a consideration, let the following be a guide:

1.  There is not a program, a method, or treatment (like electroshock therapy), that has the success of 12 Step.  Millions of people worldwide have found success with programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and it would have to be the fundamental philosophy of the program that I would choose for someone that I love.

2.  Education is very important.  The more a person understands the physical and mental toll of addiction, the less likely they are to return to it.  The program should teach how addiction works in the body and mind and how it progresses.

3.  Successful recovery means being ever-vigilant.  A good program teaches coping strategies for real life stresses and relapse triggers.

4.  My personal experience as an addict; using alcohol and pills on a daily basis for many years, meant that it took time for me to begin thinking clearly.  Some inpatient programs only run 30 days, and for some that just isn’t enough.  The most effective programs will have more inpatient time and include a period of outpatient treatment along with supervised living.  Not always possible or available, but a person needs to be totally devoted to recovery for a full year.  We always worry about the job or the family and the conflict that there can be, but there is no family or job if the addict fails.

5.  Again, not always available, but very important:  Co-ed inpatient care is not the ideal.  Just like the smoker, who replaces cigarettes with donuts and begins to put on weight after giving up tobacco; the alcoholic/drug addict will often seek to substitute sex/romantic relationships in the absence of chemicals.

So far, in my 25 years of sobriety, I have yet to see 12 Step fail to deliver on its promise.  12 Step is almost flawless.  Almost.  In all fairness I must admit that there is one fatal flaw with regards to 12 Step and it can be frustrating and discouraging, particularly to Earthlings.  It’s only one thing, but it’s huge:  You cannot make an addict start or otherwise, embrace recovery.  You cannot force treatment on an addict against their will.  Addiction is a spiritual disease that requires a spiritual cure, and because that cure is given of God, in the form of repentance, we have to work within His framework.  God will not compel an individual to be sober.  He won’t.  And you can’t.

~Duane Pannell, co-author of 3,000 Miles To Eternity: A True Internet Love Story

Find Someone I Can Love, Too

I’m excited about the release of our book and I tell almost everyone I meet.  It’s a fun thing and most people are awesome in how they can be so happy for the good fortune of a complete stranger.  I believe that some folks wouldn’t care if the title of the book was How to Sort Tupperware, although less likely to buy the book, they’d still be happy for us.  After telling so many people over the past months, I have developed a synopsis that gives a good overview of the story.  It begins something like this:  “My wife and I met on the internet about 15 years ago, when that sort of thing was not nearly as popular as it is today.  I was looking for a bride and she was committed to never marry again.  I had stars in my eyes and she hated men…”

You would be surprised at how many women’s eyes light up when they hear that my dear love once hated men.  It was at this point in my little sales pitch that a woman said to me this week, “Oh, can I ever identify with that!”  She had her hands on her hips and a very self-satisfied smile on her face, but followed with, “Sorry, no offense.”

She told me a harrowing tale of her divorce and meeting a guy online after her divorce and having to get a restraining order…and for a few moments I hated men too.  Fortunately, the conversation went back to the book and she began asking questions.  A couple of anecdotes later and she was telling me that she might give the online singles thing another chance.  I hope that the next guy she meets is a real prince; for his sake and mine.

This is my hope for 3,000 Miles to Eternity, that the things that Selena and I learned along the way could help other people in their relationships.  Our special circumstances, being so very far away from one another, made us talk about things that were important to us.  I think it’s a shame when someone has had their heart broken so badly that they would forsake the idea of falling in love again to avoid another heartbreak.  Hopefully for some, our story would be inspiration to try again.

Many years ago, when my children were still preteens, I came to the realization that their mother and I were headed toward divorce.  While the marriage was always on the rocks, fueled by addiction and immaturity, there was a period of about 6 years where I really struggled to salvage it and make it work.  It was during this time that I began to preach a little phrase to my kids.  I had looked back at my life and identified a key moment where I had gone wrong and hoped that this short message would help them avoid the same mistake.  I told them that when the time came to find someone to marry that they needed to “Bring home someone that I can love, too.”

Just so you know, I didn’t tell my children that there was anything wrong with their mother, or even try to explain how I came to be the bearer of such wisdom.  I married their mom in defiance of my parents and family who thought that our age difference, among other things, was going to be more than we could overcome.  It was the fear that many parents have for their children; that we would marry and begin to have children AND THEN discover our incompatibility.  Neither of us was more flawed than the other, but we were not a good match and determined not to care what our families thought of it.  As it was, she wasn’t bringing home someone that her parents could love either.

“Bring home someone that I can love too” is a simple little phrase; easy to say and easy to remember.  Easy to do?  Not so much.  Both of my daughters had long-term relationships with boys that I knew were wrong for them.  I spent many long nights worrying about their futures.  My girls might believe otherwise, but I was under a constant state of self-restraint during those years.  It helped that I had Selena in my life at that time.  She would remind me not to get angry or do things that would drive my girls away.  Of course, she couldn’t always stop me before the words would spill out.  Once when we were all visiting, I looked one of these young men right in the eye and said, “I don’t like you.  You’re not good for Mallory, and I don’t see me changing my mind about that.”

The room fell silent, but I didn’t really say anything that we all didn’t already know.  Truth be known, he wasn’t a horrible kid.  In fact, if he would’ve been just a friend of my son’s, I would’ve liked him just fine.  But for my daughter, I couldn’t see it working out and I didn’t ‘love’ him.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  – Proverbs 22:6

It was a long hard ride, but I have been blessed.  Both of my girls eventually came to their senses and married excellent men.  I couldn’t have picked better husbands for them.  My son married a girl that we also love very much.  Was it my preaching?  I don’t know.  They may have done the right thing without my corny little phrase.

What I do know is that a good marriage doesn’t just happen.  It’s hard to make good decisions when your eyes are all glazed over with love and we all need to think about these things before the moment comes.  Some things can be overcome if you prepare yourself.  Marrying someone of a different race, culture, political philosophy, or age can be stressful on a marriage, but not necessarily spell doom if you talk about it and decide how you will cope with the problems that could arise.

A common ambush to marriage is religion.  Especially in your early 20’s, religion can be a real non-issue.  It’s a time of life when some people stray away from the religion that they were raised with, and it doesn’t even seem like an important consideration when two young people start to look toward matrimony.  In a couple of years a baby comes along and all at once the two people who seemingly had no religious inclinations whatsoever, are thinking about christenings, baptisms, and Vacation Bible School.  They want something for their child that is fundamentally important to them in direct opposition to their spouse.  It’s more than just a little sticky situation and worth talking about way before the baby arrives.

I am a very happily married man.  I have wife that my family can love too!  Selena and I have wonderful adventures together and she is perfect for me.

It was not because I was so wise in my search for the perfect bride that I found her.  I really do have to give credit to prayer on this one.  I asked for the ideal wife, and I got her, but under the terms and conditions that would make it all come out right.  We were 3,000 miles apart and, in the beginning, did not believe we would ever meet face to face.  We couldn’t hold hands or kiss; we were forced to talk and get to know each other.  We were vulnerable with one another and honest.  On the day that she said that she loved me, I knew that she loved the real me and vice-versa.

I’ll bet that I have told several hundred people about our book this year.  And like I said earlier, there are many women who can identify with Selena’s man-hating phase.  There are also some crusty old dudes who don’t look like they’ve thought about any kind of romance in a long, long time, but when I tell them a little of the story, regardless of where they are in life, I see the interest.  It is said that the ‘natural man’ is an enemy to God; I believe that the natural man is also an enemy to true love—but the spirit?  The very essence of who we are, our spirit loves romance and true love!

~Duane Pannell, co-author of 3,000 Miles To Eternity: A True Internet Love Story