Probably every addict familiar with the internet has seen, read or participated in a recovery forum. I’ve commented on a few. I have to say that a lot of the time what I read there doesn’t represent recovery.

What is recovering from addiction? The word recovery, when used regarding alcohol and drug addiction comes from the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program. Before that there were cures, abstinence, visits to asylums, hospitals and jails. The idea of a system, or program of recovery, was either religious or….well, I don’t know of any other.

There were some good doctors looking into biochemical causes and trying things like Orthomolecular Medicine but there was no “popular” treatment facilities that I’m aware of. I say popular, or well known, as in AA or the addiction treatment community of today. Today everybody knows there is something called alcoholism and that there is a problem with drug addiction. Everybody knows there are places people can go and get treatment. Is this the same as recovery?

Are treatment and recovery the same things? The word recovered was used in the beginning of the AA Big Book in this way “We are a group of people who have recovered from alcoholism” (paraphrased). The first step says “We admitted we were alcoholic that our lives had become unmanageable”. There seems to be a lot of confusion about recovery and what it means.

If you are a recovered alcoholic or drug addict what have you recovered? What I always do when I’m trying to figure out the meaning of something is find out what the words used actually mean. If you look at the word recover and had never run into it before you’d think it meant to re-cover like redoing a cover, or cover something that got uncovered. If we think about both these examples couldn’t we replace recover with restore?

If we look at the definitions below we’ll find that we could very well use restore in place of recover.

Main Entry: re·cov·er
Pronunciation: \ri-?k?-v?r\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): re·cov·ered; re·cov·er·ing \-?k?-v?-ri?, -?k?v-ri?\
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French recoverer, from Latin recuperare, from re- + *caperare, from Latin capere to take — more at heave
Date: 14th century
transitive verb
1 : to get back : regain
2 a : to bring back to normal position or condition b archaic : rescue
3 a : to make up for b : to gain by legal process
4 archaic : reach
5 : to find or identify again
6 a : to obtain from an ore, a waste product, or a by-product b : to save from loss and restore to usefulness : reclaim
intransitive verb
1 : to regain a normal position or condition (as of health)

Now here is the Etymology (origin):

c.1300, “to regain consciousness,” from Anglo-Fr. rekeverer (late 13c.), O.Fr. recovrer, from L. recuperare “to recover” (see recuperation). Meaning “to regain health or strength” is from early 14c.; sense of “to get (anything) back” is first attested mid-14c.

Looking at all the above what is it I recovered as a recovered alcoholic and heroin addict? A good example of recovering from a condition could be demonstrated with a cold or the flu. We’ve all recovered from having a cold or some other run of the mill illness. Once we recovered what changed? How did you know you’d recovered? Wasn’t it the lack of symptoms?

You weren’t feverish, weak, coughing and so on. You knew, you’d recovered. Did that mean you were immune to catching a cold or the flu next year? If we think about recovering from addiction this way then when have we recovered? What are the symptoms of addiction?

The main important symptom of any addiction is the compulsion to continue using. I was watching this show with someone the other day and the main character was alcoholic. He knew he was alcoholic and he’d recently started drinking again. We watched as things in his life weren’t what he’d like them to be and we knew that he knew that drinking might just make it worse. He knew that drinking was part of the whole cycle of trouble. So here’s the scene: He goes in the bar, sits at the bar and the bartender brings his usual and sets it in front of him. He’s looking at it…knowing what he knows.

I turned to the person I was watching with and said what do you think? She shakes her head and says, “He won’t drink it”. I said, “yeah he will”.

Since the writers had some knowledge about alcoholism, possibly first hand experience, he picked it up and drank it.

The other person in the room with me, the non-alcoholic, didn’t get it. It seemed ridiculous. The guy was pretty sharp, had a prestigious job, had to use his head to keep his job and solve problems. For him to pick up a drink….she was right…it’s just ridiculous.

I said “He’ll drink it…” because I know about the compulsion. The truth is we all know about compulsions. Here’s a common one – worry. You see somebody is preoccupied and you ask what’s going on, what’s wrong? They say that someone is going through something or hasn’t called etc. and they’re worried about them. Or they have to talk to somebody, a boss, a client, and they think something bad might happen. Why don’t they stop thinking about it? It’s a compulsion. Can they stop? Yes. Will they? They might if worrying threatens them sufficiently.

If you ask anybody if they enjoy worrying, if it accomplishes something position, helps with anything, they’ll most likely say no. But they probably won’t stop worrying either. They would attempt to stop worrying if they were convinced worrying would kill them within a year. Once they got started they’d understand compulsion. They’d think, “Wow, I want to quit – but I keep doing it”.

The second step in the 12 step program says, “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”. This passage is the key to understanding “Recovery”. First we see the word restore. Remember we found that we could use restore for recover? That they mean the same thing? So now when I say I’ve recovered from alcoholism and drug addiction you can understand what I’m talking about….right?

I’m not saying I can’t get strung out again. (I could still catch a cold) I’m saying I’ve recovered from the symptoms. I’ve been restored to sanity – where drugs are concerned. I can go to a bar and watch people drink and feel no compulsion to grab one for myself.

What are some of the other symptoms of addiction? The big obvious one I saw was insanity. I guess, for me, the main symptoms of addiction are compulsion and insanity. You might lump them together but that doesn’t really work very well. I know people who I believe have lost the desire – the compulsion – to drink and take drugs but I wouldn’t call them completely sane.

We’ve pretty much got the compulsion thing covered. What could we do to understand the sanity aspect? We could say being restored to sanity, as mentioned in the steps, only refers to the insane compulsion to drink or use. Is that it? It may very well be all they are talking about. In fact for this little essay I think I can leave “insanity” at that.

With that in mind, what does it mean to be in recovery? The reason I wrote this is I was reading an entry on a recovery forum where someone was talking about their troubles in recovery. At the end of 4 pages of posts I find that they are taking a prescription and they think the answer to their immediate problems might be to get the dosage increased.

Later someone added they couldn’t get clean until they got on Zoloft. Then I looked around and someone was recommending Methadone. What I want to say is there are all kinds of prescribed therapies, but therapy (treatment) doesn’t necessarily mean recovery. There are only a few cases where a person “needs” a prescription from a doctor. Very few.

Replacing one addiction with another is not recovery. Drug treatment for drug addicts doesn’t even begin to make sense – once you’ve been restored to sanity. I know a drug addict with a 20 year coin from AA. If you met her on the street all you’d know was she was loaded. There has been no restoration. She still has an overwhelming compulsion to use drugs and she isn’t sane, or honest, enough to admit it to herself. Everyone in the meeting knows she’s loaded. She wants a coin….okay. People talk to her about using drugs – she just gets mad.

All these people quote the option of outside help mentioned in the Big Book. What that has to do with taking drugs I’m not sure. But it doesn’t have to make sense for the drug addict they just want to make it okay.

My point is drug treatment for drug addiction is not recovery. In fact people doing drug therapy can’t even think clearly enough to conceive of recovery or restoration “from” addiction. The idea that drug treatment for drug addiction is “good” was sold to the public by others who profit from dealing the drugs.

That said, I really don’t have a problem with people using drugs to cope with their problems. I understand. I did it for 35 years. I have a problem with calling it recovery. Drug therapy being called recovery is a fairly recent phenomena. It’s solely a for profit idea.

When I’d take Valium or buy Methadone to kick heroin I didn’t confuse it with recovery. It was an attempt at detox and not a very good one. Drug therapy can be sanely referred to as detox. But in all cases, recovery comes after detox, not before or during. First we have to succeed at detox. Successful detox means the drugs, all mood altering, mind altering drugs, are out of our system.

What do we deal with then? Not sleeping, depression, loneliness, remorse, regret, hopelessness, anger, down right craziness, fear of things real and unreal…all that. Dealing with all that stuff is what recovery is about. It’s really hard and hardly anybody gets through it. But one thing is for sure: You can’t even begin to do it when you’re still using drugs.

Here’s what I think about the whole thing: Do whatever you have to do, just call it by it’s real name. I have a problem with people who tell addicts that drug therapy is recovery. I have a problem with doctors, therapists or anyone else who sells this notion to addicts. Why? It could very well kill them. Plus it adds danger and misery for everyone else who these “still addicts” come into contact with.

I guess there is no way I can stop people from selling prescription drugs to addicts or convince addicts not to buy them. I can write this and maybe one or two people who read it might wind up on the recovered side of addiction. That would be good…