This is how the disease of addiction works. It takes over a section of your brain, working like a moat around the castle that is your ego. It is the most efficient parasite in the world, especially when well-fed by intoxicating substances. It will have you deeply convinced that defending your disease is defending your life -- the pleasure and passion that make existence worthwhile. You may accept intellectually -- or for the cameras -- that you have a "problem," but that acknowledgment can be the ultimate form of denial. See, I admit it, so I can't really be one of "them." Those dysfunctional addicts, who don't use substances to "enhance" their lives, like me. Of course what you're really thinking -- feeling, really -- is "don't take my candy! I will die without it!"
Yes, that's the ultimate irony. That which is killing you feels like that which is keeping you alive. Armies of intervention mass around the castle, and you perceive them as out to kill you. They will make your life drab, pedestrian, joyless. So to yourself and to the world you paint your insanely bad behavior as some sort of life-affirming "magic."
I was no sitcom star, nor was I wealthy or famous. But I was well-educated, talented, loved by family and friends. I was a long-term survivor of HIV who'd reached the era of wonder drugs so I wasn't going to die after all. But despite these blessings, I could not stop using crystal meth. To support my habit, I sold it. After a first arrest, I tried to stop selling and using, but I'd developed another addiction -- fast cash. So I successfully forged my death certificate (true story) and got out of everything. Six months later, someone pointed out to the police that I was still in the same apartment, still selling. This time I was sentenced to 16 months as a guest of the California Correctional System -- out in 9.
Prison was the only thing that could treat my third addiction -- getting away with things. Despite our differing economic status, I know that I have that in common with Charlie Sheen. Prison was indispensable in teaching the cure for that. Not sobriety -- though that happened -- but the idea that consequences are spiritual principles. You do A, B, and C, and D tends to happen. You sell drugs, you eventually get caught. You trash your hotel rooms and your bosses, you lose your job. That's the way the world works, but if you've successfully managed to sidestep consequences for years you become convinced that the rules that apply to others don't apply to you. Both Charlie and I could point to many examples -- we perceived them as signs pointing the way forward when they really read: "Danger. Bridge Out Ahead."
It hard to be optimistic that Charlie will get off the road in time. His ego has him by the throat, and he may have enough money to fend off a sufficient amount of humility to get sober. He claims, ridiculously, to have cured his addiction with his "mind." Guess what, Charlie. A diseased mind cannot cure itself. The parasite has equal access to every mental, physical, and emotional tool you have. The only element it doesn't have access to is that which is spiritual.
It's no surprise that Sheen's reaction to any mention of AA -- a spiritual program -- is "bye-bye." His vehemence is in direct proportion to the reality that it's got the only decent track record in town. His disease will demonize the one route that might actually lead to getting better. It tells him that under no circumstances should he ever let down the drawbridge to his castle, to be overrun by the well-meaning intent on lobotomizing everything that makes him special.
Charlie Sheen will hit bottom when he stops digging. Until then it's a sorry, cringe-inducing spectacle. His ego is like a helium-filled balloon that drifts above the trees below, convinced it is flying instead of a dead thing that floats. The good news is that there's a seed in that balloon, the spirit of someone who is kind and loving and charming, a man that seeks to serve instead of dominate, make amends instead of justify. When the balloon finally pops and plummets to the earth, the seed has a chance to germinate, to become alive again.
Until then it is pointless to condemn the networks. They are businesses that put on whatever draws ratings, and let's face it, a train wreck makes fascinating TV. It might just be the best thing for him. He thinks he is winning us over with "his side of the story," but he is evidently confusing us with his studio audience. Through the haze of his high, he just might see the horror in our faces and surrender.
Follow Mark Olmsted on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarquisMarq
Robert Leahy, Ph.D.: Inside the Manic Mind
http://bit.ly/addictedtosheen
Thank you for sharing your real life experience. I don't think that those of us who have never walked the path will ever truly understand what you've gone through and what it took to put your life back together. But, you have offered a glimpse into that alien landscape that is terrifying to see.
It took courage to do that and great determination on your part to take a different path.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-09-08/bay-area/17259704_1_parole-officer-treatment-program-appeals-court
Please tell me what non-12 steps based rehabs are working and are practically free. What's a judge to do to a first offender with no money? Send him to jail at taxpayer cost, or send him where a lot of people get better for a dollar a meeting?
We see the murderous drug wars in Mexico. We're told it's consolidation. I can't help but wonder if that's another way of saying that the business is shrinking. Now, consider the timing -- pretty much in sync with the financial meltdown. Personally, I don't think that the bottom tiers of earners have had enough money for years to support an illegal drug industry. It's highly likely that it has been the top earners. Indeed, where have we seen that swagger, that deliciously fast money, that stupendous ego, that stupidity masquerading as brilliance? [drum roll] The financial industry!
We come here to Huffington to say that we can't believe how stupid the investment bankers seemed to be, to say that even Uncle Alfred and Grandpa Jack saw that things were about to blow while Lehman and Bear Sterns and Citi and BofA and UBS and Goldman and JP Morgan couldn't. Well, maybe they actually were as stupid and egotistical and in denial as they seemed to be -- maybe they were high on drugs. Gee, I wonder if some of our Congressmen could be?
One of the reasons the guys I was in prison with always went back to drugs dealing is because it was the only way to adequately support their families. They'd try McDonalds, and couldn't even afford diapers. But the money they made was rarely spent in way that would visibly impact poverty -- like home renovations, or college educations, because invariably addiction and prison would perforate incomes.
But if it weren't for the illegitimate economy, this country would have exploded by now. Billions circulate that appear on no balance sheets or economic forecasts.
That said, it pales next to the financial theft of the ruling class, but they do that in plain sight.
I know of very few members of the program who even go to Church, and many atheists who who have stayed sober for many years within its rooms. You don't know what you're talking about.
"AA sprang from The Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement modeled on first-century ********Christianity*******" (emphasis mine)
"AA's program is an inheritor of Counter-Enlightenment philosophy. AA shares the view that acceptance of one's inherent limitations is critical to finding one's proper place among other humans and *********GOD*******" (emphasis mine)
Here's but one criticism (of many) of the program:
"The Journal of Addiction Nursing reported that 50% of the women that participated in a survey (55 in all) experienced 13-stepping behavior from others (members who approach new members for dates or sex).
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous
You might be interested in reading this, before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about:
"THE GOD CONCEPT IN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS" By Rev. George A. Little, D.D.
*****The non-alcoholic who started the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in Canada******
source: http://www.barefootsworld.net/aagodconcept.html
"Surrender to the Higher Power" indeed. Note that as soon as you start to use the word 'spiritual', you're talking religion, AFAIC. As an atheist, any attempt to make me follow anything "spiritual", goes against my "religion" and offends me. Any attempt to talk to me about "God", whether it's the "God" of Abraham, the "God" you think lives in my belly, or any generic "universal" God, offends me. And don't get me started on "surrendering to a higher power"....
"Most of those who have succeeded in the Alcoholics Anonymous program attribute their success to the ***spiritual nature*** of the Twelve Steps. These are the ones who thank ****God*** for their release from addiction slavery. ****They know their release was beyond their ability**** because they often sought their self-healing by will power. The testimonies of those who have "made the program" always give credit for their success to their "Higher Power," who usually is called *****God***** as seen in Step Five.
******http://www.alcoholics-annonymous.org/********
d
Most people would be very surprised to find out how many atheists are in the program. Living along spiritual lines merely means practicing principles of love and service to the best of your ability. Surely, "kindness" is a higher power we can all agree on?
As Camus said: "I'd rather spend my life as if there were a God, only to find out when I was dead there wasn't; than to spend my life as if there weren't, only to find out when I died that there was."
otoh, atheism is a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby--good to know that there is room for self definition, a universal rather than specific understanding.
d