Destigmatizing Part 2

What I'm really talking about when I write 'destigmatizing' is destigmatizing myself. As far as alcoholism goes, I really don't care if someone thinks I'm 'less than' for experiencing it. Of course, being sober helps with that. I'm not ashamed that I go to recovery support meetings to get and to give support, and I'm no longer ashamed that I don't stay sober on my own. I have accepted that this is the way it is, and it works. So destigmatizing is really about acceptance - not someone else's, but my own.

I mentioned in the last post that alcoholism continues whether or not I drink. Abstinence from alcohol and other mood altering drugs is only the start of recovery. In the end, abstinence is what other people look for in the alcoholic. Most people don't have a shit to give if the alcoholic is happy with his/her life and him/herself while not drinking - people just want the guy/gal to stop drinking so that they are no longer a menace to themselves and others. Those of us in real recovery from alcoholism know that because of the damage done to our psyches and our souls by active alcoholism, there's a lot more for us to do than just stop drinking. By the time a person experiencing alcoholism makes it to recovery, his/her mind has been warped to the extent that it needs retraining for the individual to live sober without going crazy. And the effects of alcoholism never really go away, they can only be effectively managed. The symptoms of alcoholism that I manage are selfishness, self-pity, self-obsession, resentment, obsession, and fear. There are other symptoms as well, but those are the biggies.

Alcoholism and depression share some symptoms.  For me, the shared symptoms are self-pity, self-obsession, and fear. For these symptoms, my program of recovery from alcoholism manages these symptoms. However, there are other symptoms that need to be managed as well, or the depression comes back, and life becomes so painful that I drink again. The additional symptoms for me are a constant feeling of being not good enough, a sense of separation from all of life, the inability to enjoy life, self-sabotaging behaviors and attitudes, a general dislike of myself, a desire to escape life, and a desire to die.
Before I accepted that I am experiencing the dis-ease of alcoholism, it felt as though alcoholism was me. Today I can separate myself from that dis-ease; there was a time in my life when I couldn't. And when I am experiencing the symptoms of depression, it is difficult to see that they are symptoms, and not me. The dislike of me, the self-hatred and the desire to die are not me, they are symptoms that something about me needs attention.
So one of my goals is to accept and understand that I am first and foremost a human being and a child of God, and that nothing in me or about me detracts from that status. When there is stuff going on with me, it's stuff to deal with, not reasons for giving up on life. And I have been given the tools to deal with that stuff; it's up to me to implement them, and I am not alone in my experience.
And if I need to question why I have to deal with this 'stuff' (alcoholism and depression), perhaps I can remember that because of it, in my recoveries my life is much richer than it ever would have been otherwise.

Namasté,

Ken