Recovery is as competitive as Alcoholism; don’t play into it

1:33 pm

So much science news. So many scientists, and science journalists, all vying for that same small slice of the pie. It might even come a close second to “addiction and recovery”–all the blogs, the books, the memoirs, the “solutions.”

So much noise. Mind officially blown. No fucking wonder I drank.

Is it just me, or are we totally off track on WHAT causes addiction and WHY? It’s not always about acute trauma.

Competition. Ego-worship. Winning and me, me and winning. Just because you get sober and “win” a newfound grace, doesn’t mean you’re out of the matrix. It seems apparent to me when I see just how many people are still seeking to acquire things, places, trips, experiences, states of being–after they get sober. I mean, working the steps is a form of mastery, and isn’t that striving for mastery a form of ego enhancement? It’s like getting an A+ on your homework assignment; are you doing it for you, and more importantly, what does it allow you to acquire? The ego remains. In my HUMBLE (and irritated) opinion, unless we address this, which unfortunately seems to thread through every area and endeavor, whether “altruistic” or not and whether recovery-related or not–and stop feeding into it–true healing is never going to be possible.

I sense that recovery, for many people, is as competitive as anything else. And, I see a society ideal–ours–of competition, of winning, of having and acquiring more than others as being one large root of dis-ease. I’m barely able to, but when I extract my own self from this reality that I’ve been socialized to think is OK, well, it’s a bitter smack in the face.

I almost want (need) to withdraw from the noise, and all the shaming and blaming and theories; all the pathologizing of human nature–in order to maintain my sobriety. I get angry, and I get sad, and I get jealous. Why do we pathologize these things in “recovery?” More importantly, why do I get the sense that there are so many people looking to acquire the opposite of these things?

Example: Facebook. To me, Facebook seems to feed off our worst–but innate–human traits: the tendency to compare, the tendency to want to have what others have in order to acquire a sense of completeness, or to feel good about ourselves. To feel SAFE. The fact that membership on the ‘Book is so prevalent illustrates how pervasive these tendencies actually are.

Another example: To hustle to publish a piece before (or instead of) someone else? To me, that’s also about fear: if you get the story, you get to subdue that fear of “losing,” and you get to build your ego. What if there was no byline, would you still write the piece?

Gah. I’m either going to have to accept that I’m just not that competitive, or, learn how to deal with my competitive nature better. Get off Facebook. Restrict the “recovery” work. Focus on what interests me in the science news, but don’t invest more than a disposable amount of self-validation from this work. At the end of the day, I am happiest–most sure of my growing sense of peace in the cosmos (the order of things, my own life and death, literally)–when I am not thinking about either my defects or my strengths. Neither matter. What matters is that I am here, for however long, and there is nothing to gain, no one to beat, no ego or defect to ponder, no right recovery to make.

Tags: alcoholic, alcoholism, binge drinking, competition, drinking, ego, psychology, recovery, science journalism, science news, sober, sobriety, wine, winning, women, work