Addiction – The Traffic Jam in My Head
Many people don’t understand why alcoholics drink or why addicts use drugs. Sure there are a million reasons for it. Addiction is as individual as your thumbprint, but over the years I keep hearing from more and more people that they somehow can relate to my description of the biggest problem: I could define my addiction as a chronic, permanent traffic jam in all directions in my brain.
My personal jam was either slow or not moving at all or it was a total chaos of thoughts like a Gordian Knot. A Gordian Knot is defined as an intractable problem (disentangling an ‘impossible’ knot) solved easily by cheating or thinking outside the box. In some places they talk about ‘cutting’ the Gordian Knot to solve it. It was called the ‘Alexandrian Solution’ as Alexander the Great cut the knot with a stroke of his sword. My knot or jam seemed to be also not to be untangled by myself. The only ‘cheating’ to solve the problem I knew at this time was to put alcohol or drugs into my body and brain to shut it up and stop the chaos. Recovery today taught me multiple other ways to deal with it.
What do you imagine when you think of a traffic jam? I think of noise, collisions, shouting, boiling systems, idling engines, not going anywhere, suffocation, overwhelmed emotions, no communication, angry people, self-pity, headache, powerless and lack of control. Those where all the symptoms that were in my head at times when I wanted to go to sleep. Does that sound familiar to you? I had to drown it in alcohol, drugs or something to be able to find rest.
I would have loved help from outside (don’t we love the police arriving to solve the traffic jams?), but I was too afraid to ask for it and didn’t know where and how. Asking for help from outside meant to me, that they take my only working weapon against my problems from me: my drugs and alcohol. I did not want to give that away! I had too much fear to live without. Living without that weapon seemed to be impossible for me. I was afraid of all the honking horns and sleepless nights in my head. Therefore I wrongly thought that recovery and sobriety were impossible.
In the treatment center I had real therapy for the first time in my life. I learned things about myself, I learned tools and new ways to fix the traffic jam and open the knot. I learned DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and learned to get those worries and troubles out of my head. I learned through treatment and the 12-step meetings how to live in serenity, balanced at most times and peaceful. Meditation might help many to find a solution to this chaos in the head. I could figure out, all of a sudden, that many of the thoughts in my brain were really not needed up there. I learned to live in the present and be grateful. Car by car, my intersections became clearer. It took a while to clean up that mess, but it was worth it.
Today I live in recovery. I see a peaceful set of roads, well-marked with signs, steady traffic in a friendly environment. Of course there is a little fender bender once in a while and that is okay. I can deal with life today, make a detour in my brain and let the traffic flow by. Negative thoughts don’t have to dominate my day or my night anymore. The hamster in his wheel has stopped running. I am grateful for this peace!
Most of my thoughts were unnecessary worries and anxiety. It turned into panic attacks at times. I had too much fear to leave the comfort zone of my home at some days. I was afraid to drive over a bridge, because already three miles before the bridge my head was creating shocking movies of things that could happen while I am on that bridge. My thoughts hold me prisoner. Today I do not think that way anymore. My recovery let me enjoy the view if I drive over a bridge. My sobriety prevents those horror movies in my head. I am not a prisoner, I am free to move.
If you have overcome those traffic jams, too, please give me a little note under this article. Or do you still need a traffic cop up there? Share it with us. I would love to hear where you are and if you felt similar. If you would like to tell your story of recovery, please do not hesitate to click on the ‘share’ button top right and we are so happy to welcome you here in our group of Heroes in Recovery. Or send it to my email susuegypt@hotmail.com and we can talk about your story before it gets published, in case you don’t feel secure about sharing it. I can help you with writing it as well. Your story could save someone’s life!
If you would like to read my complete story of recovery, please click right here /stories/choices-chances-changes/ and stay tuned for my next blog coming soon!
(I may tell you what I did with the hamster 😉 hah!)
Yours,
Susanne Johnson