My father Tommy at Quissett Beach sometime in the 1960’s before alcohol entirely consumed him.

Note: Consult with professionals about the specifics of your family member’s addictions before deciding on an intervention. The information below is intended as a general guide.

This post originally appeared back in 2024. Given the influx of new readers, many haven’t seen it. Its appearance is timely as we head into summer, father’s day and family gatherings.

One of the most commonly asked questions I field is how should family members deal with relatives with addictions. I always get a little nervous answering because the stakes are high and there is almost never an easy answer that neatly resolves the problem. Each family is different, each addict/alcoholic is different and the experience level of each family varies.

My father was a chronic alcoholic who never achieved lasting sobriety. His addiction cost him his marriage, his ability to function as a gifted writer and ultimately his health and then his life. He died at fifty-six looking like a man in his eighties. Our family tried everything we could think of to get him to stop drinking to no avail. This experience was frustrating, deeply saddening and destructive, but it did give me empathy for other families with similar struggles.

There is a ton of advisory information out there and various terms are often bandied about, including enabling (behavior by the family that unwittingly supports the addiction) dysfunctional family (a family where there’s abuse, deep unhappiness and blame is rampant) or codependence (family members are enmeshed and over-involved with one another). I try to stay away from pigeon-holing people although these conditions are not rare in addicted homes. The problem with using these terms is that people feel judged at a time when compassion is integral.

One of the first things I encourage is for family members to develop and use a narrative that is simple, repeatable and uniform from all family members to the addict/alcoholic. Those with addictions can be masters of divide and conquer so family members must be on the same page. I encourage family members to be calm and even-handed whenever possible. The narrative should be something along the lines of “I love you, but I don’t love your addictions. I am afraid for your safety and health and the family has been struggling with your behavior. I know that you can do better. We will support anything you’ll do to recover but we can’t invest in your addiction.”

As a recovering addict/alcoholic I can say with certainty that I never responded well to being shamed, yelled at or having my addiction thrown in my face. When people indicated their caring first, then their concern in an even-handed manner, it got through and helped me to see that my addictions affected others. Addicts/alcoholics are sensitive to being stigmatized. Compassion with firm boundaries is our best bet to help them.

In addition to the words, it’s integral that the family not give cash to the addicted family member. If the family is concerned about some extreme circumstance like the addicted family member getting evicted or the addicted person’s baby going without food or diapers, then pay the landlord directly or get the diapers and food.

Families are often told to throw the addict/alcoholic out. This advice can be especially difficult for some families to hear. Some therapists may be quick to suggest this with the idea that it will expedite the addict/alcoholic’s consequences and impel them to help-seeking mode. This may be true in some cases but in other cases may well put the addict/alcoholic in imminent danger. I like to gather all relevant information from families before making this type of recommendation.

In part-two there will be practical suggestions for dealing with particularly hard cases.

It was over forty years ago and it lasted only a few seconds but I remember it vividly and still feel the positive vibes it generated. I’d just gotten sober, but was getting divorced, was dead broke and lonely. Anyone near me could feel my despair, it was palpable and it enveloped me like some pernicious fog. My using friends had jumped ship not wanting to be around this strange new version of myself. My ex hated me. I couldn’t have felt more alone.

Shuffling down the street I bumped into an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while as he’d moved out of our small Cape Cod village a few years prior. We’d had a lot of fun together before my addictions took root and started to destroy my health and wellbeing. Despite my present depressed state, I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Hey Timmy, it’s great to see you.” He threw his arm around my neck and pulled me in for a warm bro’ hug. “I heard you’ve been going through a lot and I just want to tell you I hope something good happens for you. You deserve it!”

Those three sentences took him only a few seconds to utter but the encouragement at my lowest point helped me to see that despite my struggles and the feeling I was alone with them, there was someone who wanted better for me.

The next couple years were a rock fight: lengthy cravings, a custody battle and the IRS wanting back taxes. When I felt overwhelmed and the idea of returning my old ways started to lure me in

, I’d reflect back on that simple interaction with my old buddy. Maybe I did deserve to have something good happen? If he still cared about me, and wished me well, maybe I could find the strength and resilience to care about myself.

And so, I kept going forward, and eventually good things did start to happen for me. I stayed clean and sober, dug out of debt, worked my way through undergraduate and graduate school and started a career helping others struggling with trauma and addictions. I met a wonderful woman and have had a happy marriage and family life that is still thriving today.

Words are powerful things. My father’s verbal abuse reduced me to a constant state of self-loathing and self-destructiveness. Though he’s been dead for forty-seven years, on my bad days his invective still rattles around my brain. But positive words like the one’s used by my friend can make a huge difference, and the beauty is that they cost nothing but a few moments to tell. If you know someone who is struggling, take a few seconds to encourage them and wish them well. It could make a huge difference.

I was a Good Time Charlie. I prided myself as someone who could drink and drug copiously. I was always at the bar or at the party. Previous interests such as reading, writing, music and athletics were largely let go of. All my attention and resources went to using. My friendships were with people who used like me. Fellow bartenders, drug dealers and others constantly on the lookout for a good time. I was so steeped in the culture of addictions I was blinded to all other aspects of life. There was a veil across my eyes. The tightly knit culture of alcohol and drugs shaped my identity until it started to destroy me. Finally, I summoned the courage to leave it for sobriety.

There were lots of other people like me in our neighborhood. In the core group of kids in our small neighborhood, every single one of us had an alcoholic parent. Some had two. Often when we think of culture, we consider ethnicity or other demographic influences. But what did we learn in our alcoholic homes? Drinking, dysfunction, codependency and all kinds of other alcohol-related behaviors were on full display. We were taught it was necessary and good to self-medicate our pain and anguish, that “holding your liquor” was manly. In some houses, including mine, we learned to vent our frustration with violence and verbal abuse. Everything was shame-based.

I grew up in Woods Hole, a small village on Cape Cod. It’s known as the world class home of science. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Marine Biological Laboratory exist there and Woods Hole is the gateway to Martha’s Vineyard by ferry with the Steamship Authority. It’s a summer resort but a tougher place to be in the winter time. Affordable housing is challenging to find and jobs become sparse. The culture there is described as “bohemian” or as one wag phrased it, Woods Hole “is a coastal, sandy Greenwich Village.” When I was coming of age in the 60’s and 70’s, booze and various drugs abounded and profuse use continued into the 1980’s and beyond. We thought the drugging and drinking lifestyle was cool. We wanted to live differently than nine to five regular saps. We prided ourselves on being anti-authoritarian.

For a while it was great fun, laughter, wild times and a life on the edge. I would be lying if I said it was all bad. But my relationship with alcohol and drugs became deeper and more desperate when my father died (from alcoholism) when I was twenty-three and I inherited a fair amount of money. Now I could get use and drink just as much as I wanted to. There was no one around me to suggest a more prudent path. In fact, my drinking and drugging buddies encouraged my worst impulses and I lacked the agency to fend them off. “Let’s get fucked up!” And indeed, we did.

I started to black out when drinking and my impaired behavior was abhorrent. I’d wake up cut, battered and bruised in some strange place with no idea what happened to me or how I ended up there. I often felt deeply ashamed of my aggressive, obnoxious behavior under the influence. Then, I started to freebase cocaine, a drug I loved rapaciously from the very first hit. Once I started to use it, I couldn’t put it down. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, I didn’t want to. My “posse” didn’t want me to either. Once I started free-basing it took me about a year to run through the money. I was destroying myself and my resources but had no idea how to stop. Everything went up in smoke. I wound up denuded in a shit-pile: broke and in debt to the IRS, divorced and worst of all, without dignity and self-respect.

In despair I decided I wanted something different for my life, something better. I came to see that the culture I was immersed in was poisonous for me. I wanted out. So, I disavowed the alcohol and drugs which necessitated I not be around my friends when they were using or drinking which was most of the time. I told them, “I love you guys but I can’t be around you if you’re drinking or free-basing.” The said they understood but looked at me like I had six heads.

Turning away from something as immersive as addictions is no small feat and those still in the culture couldn’t really understand. Some even interpreted it as a betrayal. Some just plain misunderstood, as one guy said, “Once you get straightened out, we can get together and get fucked up again,” like taking a little break would relieve me of my looming, entrenched problems. I found myself very much alone as I transitioned out of addictive culture to….a sober one.

For a while, I was as lonely as I’d ever felt which is saying something. But I wanted to grow up and I wanted to find a way to like and maybe even love myself and I knew this was impossible as an addict/alcoholic. So, I kept my own counsel and sought help. I found a culture where sobriety is celebrated. I attended self-help and group therapy and found like-minded souls there. My new friends understood I needed to protect my emotional, physical and spiritual health. This was a healthy culture.

If you are trying to get or stay sober know that some in your circle may not understand. Don’t be afraid to act in your own best interest, no matter what others may think. There is a recovering community that will support you. Find it.

Know that getting clean and sober is the most worthwhile thing you can do. It will enable you to stabilize your emotions, health and finances. It will bring relationships that matter and that have your best interests at heart. It will allow you to become the person you were meant to be. What could be better than that?

As a therapist I sometimes run into a client type that places the onus for their emotional and mental health solely on me. “You, fix me,” they indicate. Passivity is a set up for failure, because words alone don’t lead to change. Consistent action is integral. Change is difficult. It may be painful and it’s almost always challenging. Change is elusive and requires consistent effort to overcome inevitable obstacles, deal with temporary failure and expected regression under stress. Therapy is effective when clients combine session insights with practical action in their outside lives.

Some people reject therapy because they fear it will expose some glaring, shameful fault within them, or upset the apple cart of benign belief they have about themselves or their family of origin. Of course, there is an aspect of facing one’s self in therapy and this is scary. It’s often true that we put an overly beneficial gloss on how we were parented and we may learn in therapy that our experiences growing up were

less than optimal.

Coaches, teachers and mentors of any kind can point to the areas where we need improvement but if we don’t do the active work, nothing changes and we get the same undesirable results. The most effective therapist can’t help a client unwilling to do the work outside their sessions. A passive approach gains nothing.

Years ago, I was broken by my addictions and trauma. I was in despair and woefully depressed, I found a therapist whose expertise was addictions and addicted family systems. She gently but firmly encouraged me to look at my self-destructive bent, my victim mentality and to come to terms with my father’s abuse. Change didn’t happen overnight, but eventually I was able to turn my life around. Not without a ton of hard work though. Yes, I had suffered various kinds of abuse but my perspective as a victim prevented me from finding solutions to my problems: addiction, low self-esteem, depression and poor mental and physical health.

My therapist facilitated the work and pointed the way forward. She was honest with me about my faults but at the same time was highly empathetic. She held me accountable, but, in her presence, I always felt cared for. I trusted her absolutely. She pointed the way forward and I did my best to commit not just to the therapy itself but also to the work I needed to do in my outside life. This included going to self-help groups, changing my friendships from co-dependency and substance-related to sober and supportive. I started to exercise daily, eat healthy food and get adequate sleep. There were times I felt defeated. I had to go through a nasty divorce, custody issues and the IRS came for back taxes. At times I felt defeated. Eventually, with repeated daily effort, things got better and I found success.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) makes much of the importance of being an “informed patient.” Consider this definition: “An informed patient is an empowered, active participant in their healthcare who understands their condition, treatment options, risks, benefits, and alternatives.”

Clients should have an idea of their goals heading into therapy. Good mental health involves living temperately or giving up addictions to nicotine, alcohol and/or drugs. Doing those things means applying yourself on a daily basis. To be emotionally healthy requires similar disciplines as well as an understanding of the obstacles you may be struggling with and the willingness to discuss them in therapy.

If you are considering therapy, try to develop some specific goals for your time there and consider the following checklist:

1. Research your problem(s) so that you are informed about what it will take to get better. What type of therapy and therapist can best ameliorate your problem?

2. Seek a therapist who has the credentials and expertise you need to apply to your particular goals and needed areas for growth.

3. Determine what progress will

look like in three to six months.

4. What specific skills do you want to learn, e.g. communication, problem solving, improved mental health etc.

5. In your initial consultation ask the therapist how they would approach your problem, what would a typical session be like and would homework be employed. How would they evaluate your progress.

You should feel accepted and safe in the therapist’s presence and they should be able to suggest a specific plan for treatment that will enable you to grow and change. Remember that you can’t be magically fixed, but with support and capable facilitation and your commitment to action, you can grow and change. Come hell or high water, fair weather or storms, take what you learn and commit. Eventually you’ll succeed!

For help in developing a successful mindset, the link below:

As a clinician treating people with addictions, I’m often called on to recommend the right pathway to recovery. Questions abound: inpatient or outpatient treatment, partial hospitalization programs, Intensive Outpatient Programs, sober living, therapy or self-help groups, the Steps. What is the best way for someone to recover? Given the variability of addictions and the people that have them, there is no one right way. Or as Bruce Lee might say, the right way is the one that works.

In my years in recovery, I have encountered people who have strong opinions about how others should recover. These views can take an almost fundamentalist stance that other pathways to recovery somehow don’t count, are defined to fail or are of poor quality. These views are often based on the believer globalizing his experience as useable to all, an all-too-common mistake. I’ve written about this before (see link below).

In the early stages of my career, I worked in a very busy detox. People were in various stages of disrepair from their addictions to various substances. Their treatment stays varied according to their insurance coverage which in some cases was grossly inadequate to their needs. We called it the “spin dry.” A guy with advanced alcoholism would get a three-day detox as mandated by insurance, then discharged. In this instance it was often true (but not always) that for people struggling with addictions, detox only was inadequate for lasting recovery. A spin-dry led to a revolving door of treatment, followed by relapse then back to treatment again, and so on. I tried to determine people’s readiness for recovery. I was often wrong, some people seeming well-prepared relapsed quickly, others appearing ill-prepared had success.

I can make an anecdotal observation about people who suffer from addictions that is often, but not always true: In the beginning stages of addressing our disease, we often over-estimate our ability to recover and underestimate the power of addictions. Remember that addictions is a major problem not fixed by minor solutions.

As I learned more about treatment and addictions I continued searching for a winning formula for my clients. My own experiences as an addict/alcoholic trying to get clean and sober informed my work, perhaps too much. My early attempts at sobriety were half-hearted and resulted in multiple relapses. My therapist counseled me to access treatment and self-help groups. In denial, I thought this was too much. Or, as one client said to me, “I feel like I have a cold but everyone is treating me as if I have cancer.” For me it was the other way around.

Eventually, as things in my life came apart, I realized I needed to do more for my recovery, a larger-scale commitment. I went to treatment and after discharge I went to AA and NA on a daily basis for an extended period of time. I got a sponsor, did the steps and went to therapy and group therapy. These programs were instrumental in supporting my recovery. It stood to reason that if it worked for me, it would work my clients. This was THE pathway to recovery, I thought.

But quickly into my new career, I discovered there is no one-right-way for people with addictions. The disease is far too variable from one person to the next. Their motivational levels also varied widely from one client to the next. Some are highly motivated, others barely motivated and some motivated only by some external force, e.g. spouse, court, or boss etc. Some people resist self-help strongly and for understandable reasons, e.g. church-related abuse, atheism etc. I learned I needed to treat people according to these variables and their willingness or lack of willingness to access meaningful support.

It’s clear to me that addictions are a formidable force in our lives, particularly so when they have progressed to the chronic stages. In those instances, clients are best served by making a wholesale commitment to treatment, followed by a structured aftercare plan. Recovery is like others things, the more we put in, the more we are likely to get out.

However, I am experienced enough to know that many people shun traditional pathways. I want to help those people too. For example, it has been traditional in most settings that someone struggling with addictions accept the label “addict” or “alcoholic” as the first step in recovering. Many people struggle with those terms due to the significant societal stigma surrounding addictions. Recently my wife and I attended an outdoor summer party. I was lounging on the deck of a spacious house when I glanced over to see my wife’s face contorted into a look of disgust. In a conversation about addictions a woman shared her opinion that Narcan should not be applied to overdose victims as, “Those people want to die and they never change anyway, so we should just let them.” My wife and I were gob-smacked by this person’s lack of humanity and her unbridled hatred of sufferers.

While I still describe myself as an addict/alcoholic in recovery, and don’t struggle with those terms, I know some people do. They just don’t want to be buttonholed and looked down upon. This is understandable. For the vast majority of people struggling with addictions, we need to accept that we can’t control our drinking and that abstinence is integral to rebuilding our lives safely. Controlled drinking or drugging is a fallacy for those with a dependency.

It has also been espoused that AA and or NA are the only self-help groups of merit and necessary for recovery. While it is true that these groups are often effective in helping their followers stay clean and sober and I count myself as someone who benefited from both AA and NA, there are other choices today that may be a better fit for some. Refuge Recovery takes a Buddhist approach to recovery and is an attractive option for people who don’t want to grapple with “God” or a “Higher Power.” Smart Recovery takes a cognitive behavioral approach to recovery. The idea being that addictions distort our thinking and if we can reframe properly, we can recover.

Though I certainly don’t recommend it, it is true that some people discontinue their use without treatment or self-help groups. It’s important to note that they are the exception and not the rule. These people are often quite strong-willed but also self-reflective. But, for most of us, myself included, we need structure, safety, support and encouragement that treatment and self-help offers. But it is also true that there are many pathways to recovery today and no “one size fits all.” The challenge is to find the right avenue for your recovery. When you do, you will be amazed at the benefits. Recovery is a gift that keeps giving!

To hel people develop a winning mindset for recovery, see the link below!

This piece initially ran in December of 2024. As my audience has grown since then, I wanted to get some more eyes on this piece. I hope you like it!

For much of my adolescence and into adulthood, I viewed myself as a victim. Given that I was the usual receptacle of my father’s rage, I came by the perception honestly. Our differences were settled by kicks, slaps and punches. But I came to prefer his physical abuse to his blistering verbal abuse. “Freddy Fuck Up” was his pet name for me. “Goddamn your eyes” a common curse to the most sensitive parts of my body. It didn’t help that I was sexually abused when just a boy.

Going through those things at an integral part of my development warped my self-image, and filled me with guilt and shame. I stopped believing in myself early on and felt a keen sense of defectiveness and had no belief in my strengths. The worst part of it was I thought I deserved it, that I brought it all on myself.

And like so many others I started to self-medicate my negative emotions. It was the only thing I knew to ameliorate my anger, sadness, rage and overall despair. Booze, weed, LSD and then later cocaine. Piles of it. As soon as I felt any negative emotion, I blitzed it with alcohol and cocaine. At first it worked at well, with minimal cost and big gains but over time the script flipped to minor gains and major league problems. Broke, divorced and with only a high school diploma at age twenty-eight, self-medication brought me to calamitous ends. All this when at an age when normal people were gaining traction in their careers and personal lives.

Bitterness and wrath overtook me. I raged about my father’s verbal and physical abuse. I deeply resented my ex-wife who was around for the good times and the money, but gone when the going got tough. And then there was my so-called best friend, who borrowed a bunch of money from me then skipped town and abdicated any responsibility for the debt he swore would be repaid. How could these people mistreat me so, I thought? No wonder I became addicted, so would anyone else that had been through what I had. My view point was that I was put upon, snake bitten. My bad days had to do with shit luck. I lacked agency and felt I lacked talent. I was easily defeated and even slight obstacles loomed too large to overcome. I felt a keening need to please others, often at my own expense.

Being a victim meant that things happened to me rather than me making them happen. Being a victim meant feeling sorry for myself and this disempowered me from improving my lot. Being a victim prevented me from taking action, because well, I’d probably fail anyway. The victim mindset was a lamenting, backward looking pattern that prevented me doing the things that would make the present and future better. Being a victim meant being stuck.

Lost and despairing, I finally found my way to therapy in search of answers, to find some way of turning my life around. One of the first things I learned there was the distinction between being victimized and hanging on to the idea of myself as a victim. In others words it was true that I had suffered abuse and it had altered any healthy sense of myself but in order to get well, I needed to understand that I didn’t need to live my life as a victim. The distinction was essential, because if I was a victim I would live out my days with no belief in my abilities to get well, to lift myself out of my morass.

Another place where I started to learn I had agency was in self-help groups such as Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous. There I learned “I am the problem and I am the solution.” In other words, how I deal with my feelings and others is up to me. My problems had solutions and if I applied myself and worked on them diligently, eventually I would have success. The main thing was to commit and be consistent. It may be true that someone would mistreat me, but how I respond is up to me. Now, I don’t give my time to people that are disrespectful or abusive. Not one minute.

Finally, martial arts have been a huge confidence and self-esteem booster. For ten years I applied myself faithfully to boxing and other martial arts. I learned to defend myself and if a situation arises where I need to protect my family or myself from another acting with force, I have developed the ability to do so. I have been taught to avoid violence as much as possible, and it’s absolutely a last resort, but if am attacked or need to defend the people I love, I can do so.

Today, I will not be a victim nor will I allow the people I love to be victimized. Mindset is integral and nobody has to maintain a victim’s mentality. You too can change

For help developing a strong mindset for recovery, download my free e-book:

Judgment and Stigma

During my years in recovery, I’ve been told periodically by other recovering people that I will surely drink again. They know this with certainty because I have apparently divulged some perceived deficiency in my recovery program. It’s too bad the teller says, but my ruin is inevitable. They hate to be the bearer of bad news but they just plain know better. The reasons given are various: I’m not actively going to meetings or I am but they aren’t the right type, or not frequently enough, or I haven’t done the Steps correctly (according to them) or I haven’t accepted God/Christianity in my life fully or in the proper fashion, or some combination of all the aforementioned. I believe this type of judgment doesn’t help and can be downright harmful.

(I’ve written more generally about this in a previous post):

Pushing Others Away

I have been consecutively clean and sober for the last forty-one years. I say this not to impress or to say that I am immune from, or above getting feedback from others about my wellness, but to indicate that I have had success in the recovery realm. Accordingly, I have developed a sturdy veneer and enough confidence in my recovery to shrug off ego-driven judgment. But what about those in early recovery? They may feel pushed away from needed self-help or other recovery communities at a time when support is integral. It’s also possible the feedback causes them to feel that relapse is inevitable.

Ego and Self Aggrandizement

How does judgement of an addict/alcoholic help? As laid out here, at its best it’s a mistaken globalization of assuming that what worked for me will work for all. At its worst it’s self-aggrandizement, a way to place one’s self above others. “I know better than you. I can see what you cannot. You are misguided and are going to fail.” This type of egotism is just what people in recovery don’t need.

Gratitude

To be clear, I owe a huge debt of gratitude for both the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs as they and the people gathered in them were instrumental in providing the support and information that helped me gain and maintain recovery. I am also grateful for a treatment program I entered in 1984, Beech Hill, as well as for my therapist, my AA sponsor, and for the Steps.

Fear

One of my biggest fears IS that I will drink and use again. I fear it because I know without doubt, that I’m utterly powerless to alcohol and cocaine. When I imbibe those substances, they control me and quickly wring all the decent things from my life. When I use it is with a fervid, unyielding ferocity that causes a myopic focus on one thing and one thing only: Using. My life unspools accordingly. Alcohol and drugs for me are destructive. I have no illusions about that.

Nightmares

I have drinking nightmares occasionally. In them I’ve been lying to my clients and my family about my recovery. I have some cocaine in my pocket and a stash of booze somewhere. I just need to get away from my wife who senses something’s wrong with me and asks where I’m going. I lie, telling her some friend needs to see me. “I’ll be back later, don’t worry.” The real plan is to cook up the cocaine and start hitting the bottle. If I can just get away from her! In the dream, I feel the moral dissonance of lying to the person I love. I feel deep guilt and remorse and it’s a familiar leftover feeling from my using days. I hate myself and I hate what I’m doing, “but goddamnit, I need to get high.” Thankfully, I wake up in a very different reality and an enveloping sense of gratitude folds over me. I am clean. I am sober, my recovery is solid and my life joyful.

Empathy and Acceptance

Years ago, before I was clean and sober, I went to see a therapist. I was in despair, broken, deeply depressed and still self-medicating. My sense of self was fractured. Immediately, she sensed my pain and was empathetic. There was no judgement and no stigma in her presence. She was deeply empathetic. Had she not been, I would have never gone back to see her. Instead, I hung in there and week by week she encouraged me to see and find the better aspects of myself. Because she believed in me, encouraged me and cared for me, I learned to believe in myself and I got well.

A Hand Up

We live in rancorous times. People are divided, disparaging and judgmental. Addicts and alcoholics are often stigmatized and judged to be less than. We don’t need negativity from our own. Let’s give a hand up. Nobody knows with certainty whether any addict/alcoholic will drink or use again. No one. Let’s keep the focus on our own recovery and if you know someone who is clean and sober, tell them to keep right on going. Every sober and clean day is a miracle that holds open the possibility of a healthy and meaningful life.

Don’t forget to download (see below) my new E-Book to help people in recovery develop a winning mindset. It’s free!

Revelations

I remember being in rehab and hearing the phrase “addictions are progressive.” This was articulated as a warning about continuing to use. As in it may be bad now but it gets worse over time. I reflected on how this applied to my own use. When I first began drinking, I was rewarded with pleasant, beneficial effects. Alcohol instantly quelled my anxiety, self-loathing and self-consciousness, enabling me to feel comfortable around others. It was nothing short of a revelation. In cost-benefit terms, the benefits were high and the cost low.

A Shifting Calculus

But the way I drank and the way my body interacted with alcohol wasn’t static. I drank more frequently and in increasing amounts. I abused alcohol, became habituated and then addicted. The calculus shifted. The costs of my drinking exceeded the benefits. I behaved aggressively under the influence, scaring my friends and lovers. I became pre-occupied with drinking. Other activities and responsibilities were neglected, my life myopically focused on partying. I started blacking out, waking up in places that were foreign and with no memory of how I ended up there, my body battered from falling and God knows what else. Drinking was now causing major problems while the benefits dissipated.

Inevitable Consequences

With dependence, progression is involved in addictive substances other than alcohol: with opiates, tolerance builds quickly so that the amount that gave you a nice high yesterday is no longer sufficient today. You increase the dose and eventually switch from pills to heroin then from snorting to intravenous use to get a more direct effect from the drug. With cocaine a similar path: snorting today shooting or smoking before long. For those still using, the bad news is addiction doesn’t get better. The idea that we can control our use and stave off consequences is a fiction.

Cleaning Up

Now for the good news. Recovery is progressive too, but trends up. It gets progressively better. This message is essential for people in early recovery. Early recovery can be enormously challenging. However many years a person has been in their addiction, various segments of life have been adversely affected. Chronic addictions to cocaine and alcohol left me broke, in ill health, divorced and hopeless. Typically, it’s consequences that compel us into recovery and these situational problems must be dealt with. We have to clean up the mess created by our addiction.

Coping with Feelings

The other problem I had to face in early recovery was how to deal with my shame, slef-loathing, anger, depression and anxiety without self-medicating. Those uncomfortable feelings are what compelled me to use to begin with. For any addict or alcoholic this is an essential question. Substances give us instant relief and gratification. Life does not. How do we get comfortable with being uncomfortable?

Don’t Quit-Never Quit

The good news is that if we’re patient, willing to support ourselves then recovery will ultimately provide us with a life worth living. In my early days, I remember telling my therapist, “Since I’ve gotten sober, the IRS has come after me, I’ve gotten divorced and lost custody. My life is getting worse!” But the authority of her experience and was calming, encouraging and supportive. She kept telling me to stay with it, things will get better. She was right.

The first six months were a struggle, Cravings, anxiety, depression, Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (https://serenityparkrecovery.com/blog/post-acute-withdrawal-syndrome) and the wreckage from my addictive past created a constellation of problems that seemed overwhelming. But I supported myself in self-help groups and avoided situations where I could be triggered into using. I built relationships with other people in recovery.

Better Days

My head started to clear, my health improved and by the end of my first year, my moods stabilized. I also became confident that as long as my life remained structured, and I kept myself safe, I could continue to stay clean and sober. Hope replaced despair. In the ensuing years, I went back to school, paid off the IRS and restarted my athletic life, running, skipping rope and boxing.

Most importantly, I met my wife and together we realized my greatest ambition of having a healthy family life. I reveled in being a good husband and father. Together we worked hard and found financial security.

The Person You Can Be

Sobriety has provided me with a wonderful life. Having come through the challenges of my earlier years has provided me with a solid beam of gratitude that has not diminished over the four decades of my recovery. If you are still in the throes of addiction, know that a better life awaits you. If you are battling hard in early recovery, trust that you are headed in the right direction. Things will get better. Be patient, be steadfast and give yourself time to realize the benefits of your recovery. Become the person you were meant to be. The person you can be!

This essay explores the tension I wrestled with between anonymity regarding my trauma and addiction, and why I ultimately decided to openly tell my story. I understand this is a personal decision and other sufferers may have very good reasons to not share their stories with others.

Generational Trauma and Addictions

My father was a chronic alcoholic full of rage, sneering and belittling. His verbal abuse left my self-esteem mangled. Early on, and for many years I felt a distended shame about his frequent public drunkenness. Our family kept his bloody self-destructiveness secret in our small Cape Cod village. What if people really knew what was going on in our home? What would they say? Early on, I swore I’d never be like him.

I was a young boy when I was sexually abused by an older kid. I vowed to never tell anyone. To tell someone was to make it real. So, I buried it, deep down, my dark shameful secret. Had I done something to deserve what happened? Despite my innocence, I felt another slab of guilt and remorse.

Losing Control

Like many other trauma sufferers, I started self-medicating at a young age. It was the only way I knew to help myself feel better. At first, drinking and drugging was fun and effective in banishing my profound depression and anxiety. But before long I lost control over my use.

What was social and fun turned into days-long binges I was powerless to stop. My use progressed and problems associated with it cropped up and deepened. I lied, cheated and stole to excuse and feed my addictions despite knowing it was wrong to do those things. At my worst, I’d do just about anything to keep drinking and getting high. Friends, family and lovers saw that they mattered less and using mattered more. My relationships frayed and some broke clean away.

And then there was the behavior under the influence. I’d black out and could be violent and/or verbally abusive toward others or handsy and ugly in how I treated women. I’d wake up horrified by my behavior then would start using again to deal with my shame. This put in motion the classic addictive cycle: self-medication causes pain which provokes more self-medication and then more pain again, and on and on.

A Chilling Moment

Finally, one drunken morning at the end of a day’s long binge I blew up at my first wife, hurling a jar of mustard at the wall scattering glass and yellow muck everywhere, my daughter bursting into gasping sobs. I walked into the hall I glanced into a mirror and there he was, my father looking right back at me, angry and unhinged. I felt a deep chill knowing that I’d become just like him. Not long afterwards, I sought treatment and bit by bit started the process of letting go of my secrets.

Those People

Crashing and burning in a small town gets people talking, but judgment and stigma don’t help anyone. The words “drunk” or “junkie’ conjure highly unflattering images. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the remark, “Those people don’t ever change.” These types of remarks are usually based on a person’s singular experience of a family member who got addicted and struggled to get clean. Addiction is no doubt destructive and painful for the people around an addict as I know too well, but it serves nobody to paint everyone with addictions with one broad, judgmental brush. Many people suffering with trauma and addictions can and do change. At first, I was terrified to discuss all the painful traumatic memories of my past. What would people think?

Years after I got clean and sober, I ran into an old girlfriend who’d broken up with me years before because I drank too much. She felt I had little to offer in my early twenties and she was right. One day I saw her in line at a store. I hadn’t seen her in years and approached her saying, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you I’ve been sober for eight years. I smiled wanting her to know that I was trying to make something of myself at last. She looked at me and said, “You? Yeah, sure,” then turned her back on me. As far as some people are concerned, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

When I first got sober, I was circumspect about who I told about my trauma and addictions. For one thing, my confidence was low that I could continue to beat back my addictions. I didn’t want to sing loudly about being sober only to relapse and have to yet again come to terms with my damaged self.

The Importance of Anonymity

I was indoctrinated in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, where anonymity is a guiding principle and integral to newcomers who need privacy and understanding. Who you see there is not to be shared with anyone outside the room. To perpetuate themselves, AA and NA must protect the identities of their memberships. Not doing so would be greatly discouraging to potential and present members. Inside the halls I made sure to maintain the confidentiality of everyone I saw there. But I started to think more about how I wanted to manage talking about my trauma and addictions outside the halls. It is after all, my story.

Telling the Whole Story

As my sobriety continued though it seemed as if I was leaving out too much when people asked about my life. My father’s alcoholism and untreated trauma gave rise to my own. I was deeply immersed in the drinking and using life. I was a bartender, drug dealer, user and a drinker. Alcohol and drugs shaped my attitude and behavior for many years. I was steeped in a culture of addictions without being aware of it. Many people in my using days wrote me off or scoffed at my insatiable appetite to self-medicate. How could I be of service to other sufferers?

Getting clean and sober was the most important undertaking in my life. At first It took a Herculean effort; it was a rock fight between the part of me that wanted to restore my self-respect and dignity and the old life of drug deals and drunken days and nights. I am eternally grateful for my recovery. To leave my trauma and recovery aside, was to erase too much of my story. Over time, I came to see my recovery as something to be proud of and my experience of it was wholly positive, allowing me to build a career, regain financial stability and to effectively manage my physical and emotional health. And, my greatest ambition to have a healthy family life has been realized. I owe all this to my recovery.

I decided to share my story when there was a chance that the person or people hearing my it might benefit. I grew up in a community where alcoholism and drug addiction were common and the rates were high. If people could see that recovery was possible and desirable , maybe I could help grow the recovery community.

Spread the Word-Recovery is Possible!

To be anonymous or to speak openly about trauma and addictions is a personal decision. I honor whatever people feel comfortable with. My decision to be open about my story and the things I’ve been through is so that others can take heart, and know that recovery is possible and beneficial. Help is available. “Those people” really can change and make a difference. Spread the word!

After my first year of recovery was complete, my head began to clear and my depression abated. My therapist floated the idea of going back to school. The suggestion flooded me with a familiar anxiety. School had always vexed me. Yet, despite being in recovery, I was still tending bar, not the recommended thing for a sober person but the only career avenue that could help me stay financially afloat. I was stuck doing something I’d grown to hate and felt diminished by.

School? Egads!

When I was younger, I’d tried college twice and dropped out. School made me feel stupid, confirming my status as a “fuck-up.” If I didn’t understand something right away, I’d flood with anger. Why persist against the inevitable? My therapist saw more in me than I saw in myself. She was perceptive and honest and if she believed in me, maybe I should believe in myself? I could use my success in sobriety as a blueprint and apply that to college. Had I not persisted in recovery despite major obstacles and challenges? If I could recover, maybe I could get my bachelor’s degree with the same level of investment.

Opening the Door

I knew that a degree would open doors to a career. So, I vowed to do three things: 1. Show up. Every day. No more bagging out of class. Consistency will win the day. 2. Sit up front. Listen and focus. 3. Take part in a discussion or ask a question in each class every day. I started community college, made it through two years then transferred to a four-year school.

Maintaining Commitment

I recall one challenging course with a professor with unyielding standards. My first paper came back covered in red ink and with a large, circled D-. In the past the grade would have defeated me. Instead, I dug in and took the criticism to heart. I worked harder, sharpened my writing and was eventually able to consistently get high grades from this demanding professor. My writing elevated.

Success

“Freddy Fuck Up” graduated summa cum laude and the following year started in a Master’s program, graduating three years later. I say this not to beat my chest but to convey that as someone who assumed his own stupidity due to fractured self-esteem, I was able to succeed by commitment, discipline and perseverance.

Breaking Through

I discovered that you can break the chains others shackle you with. Great books, art, businesses and athletic achievements are created through persistence, resilience and discipline: by striving despite rejection and initial failure. If there’s something you want, reach within and find the better aspects of your being.

Use the following list to help you achieve your goals:

1. Develop clear, concrete goals. Make sure they’re yours, not designed to please others. Internal motivation is one key to success.

2. Break goals into small, measurable steps with timelines. Track progress, celebrate small wins and revise plans as needed.

3. Establish daily routines. Energy and outcomes will vary; progress is often a jagged line, not linear.

4. Don’t be afraid to start small then gradually increase. Small wins build momentum and confidence.

5. Consider setbacks as data. Become comfortable with obstacles. It’s part of learning and growth. Don’t stare at the goal and lament that you’re not there. Look back to the beginning and see your progress. You’re getting there. Keep going!

6. Maintain awareness of how you respond to failure. Is your inner dialogue negative, self-effacing or defeatist? If so, confront those thoughts with self-encouragement and a positive attitude.

7. Engage with others who are trying similar goals or who have already succeeded. They can encourage, mentor and cheer you on. They’ll also help you avoid reinventing the wheel.

8. Avoid negative people who don’t support you. Negativity undermines you; support lifts you up.

9. Remember to practice good self-care. Adequate sleep, good diet and exercise help us to reach the upper levels of our potential and with consistent application will poise us for success.

10. You only fail when you give up. Don’t give up! Show up even when you’re struggling. Eventually you’ll succeed!

Whittled to a Nub

When I was younger trauma stripped me of the ability to believe in myself. Constant verbal abuse ground my self-esteem to the nub. I always assumed I’d fail at even the simplest tasks. My father’s pet name for me was “Freddy Fuck Up.” Consequently, I lacked “frustration tolerance.” Small setbacks or reversals overwhelmed me and led to self-doubt and anger. Usually, I’d quit before making a good faith effort.

I lacked perseverance, the ability to see things through. Perseverance is defined as: “steadfastly continuing in faith, and good works despite trials, difficulty, or opposition leading to character development.” I certainly was not “steadfast.” I didn’t understand that failure is a completely normal phenomenon in the process of learning and should be expected.

Anyone who has had success will tell you that initially they were met with rejection, opposition and botched early attempts. They maintained their focus, commitment and discipline, and allowed themselves to learn from their mistakes. They stuck with it and overcame. Persistence and resilience enabled success.

Swirling Down the Drain

When I was twenty-eight, I woke one morning with a pounding hangover and was horrified by my drunken behavior in front of family and friends at my daughter’s christening. My life had been detonated by my untreated trauma and addictions. I was broke, soon to be divorced and had no viable career other than tending bar, something I loved when younger but had grown tired of. I’d lost my self-respect and dignity and had no answers to how to lead a healthy life.

Accepting Help and Becoming a Finisher

I finally accepted I needed help. This realization was the beginning of developing a mindset that would lead me to a better life. I recognized that as constituted, I lacked answers and would need to get out of my comfort zone to get them. It was counter-intuitive to open up about my problems to a stranger, but I was desperate. I began therapy and learned that trauma was the engine driving my need to self-medicate. This enabled me to develop self-compassion instead of self-loathing. I learned that as long as my addictions continued unabated I would not, could not have a decent life. I went to an inpatient treatment program and for the first time, in a long time, I finished. When I got home, I invested myself completely in recovery.

Initially, I wasn’t confident I could stay clean and sober. Growing up in an alcoholic home, spending my time dealing and using drugs with others similarly inclined was all I knew. My therapist encouraged me to attend meetings daily, therapy and group therapy weekly and to dedicate my time to activities related to my recovery. Despite monstrous cravings, deep depression and spikes of anxiety I stayed clean. My therapist praised my efforts and encouraged me forward. She was my champion and I wanted to live up to her expectations. It felt strange for someone to see good in me. Although the first year was a pitched battle, after that the clouds parted and confidence grew. I’d persevered and for the first time felt pride in my accomplishment.

If I could manage to stay clean and sober, what other challenges could I tackle? What other elements did I need to live a healthy and meaningful life?

In Part Two I discuss other challenges I took on to improve my life and I offer practical tips to help readers to develop resilience and perseverance in their own lives.

Rape and sexual assault exist on a spectrum. In this essay, I speak from both personal experience as a survivor and as a clinician who has guided many clients through recovery. I’ll discuss legal definitions, the gray areas between consent and harm, the difference between single-incident and complex trauma, and the importance of accessible, trauma-informed treatment as well as the importance of not stigmatizing sufferers and widening access to needed care.

Most legal definitions of rape involve “non-consensual sexual penetration” and lack of consent by the victim, though these definitions vary from one jurisdiction to the next and at the state and federal level. Sexual assault also applies to such things as drugging a victim, or involving a child sexually. Having read these definitions and understanding them, one is still left with a lot of gray areas including: ongoing coercion, power dynamics, and the ability, or lack of ability to consent. There is a spectrum of behavior that at the more benign but still harmful end is unwanted sexual advances or touching. At the other end is repeated violent rape and assault.

From a clinical perspective, how violent and how sustained rape and abuse are will determine the depth and breadth of traumatic symptomology and how rigidly entrenched Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) becomes. From a personal and treatment perspective these differences matter. Trauma responses range from acute stress reactions to complex, long-term syndromes. Single episode assault is still traumatic but usually not as deeply as repeated episodes. Multiple episode rape/assault or assault coupled with other trauma often provokes complex PTSD with a wider and more entrenched symptom profile. Addictions often accompany trauma as sufferers tend to self-medicate their symptoms. Of course, violence adds a deeper layer of trauma to any sexual assault.

My wife suffered from sexual abuse and first divulged it in group therapy. Her abuse occurred at age thirteen while spending a lot of time with a married, thirty-something year old man. He showered her with attention which she acknowledges she liked given her estrangement from her father. The perpetrator once held a faux wedding ceremony with her, offering a ring to signify their union. He did not penetrate her but did caress her developing breasts and between her legs while she was on a sleepover. The man’s wife was on the other side of the bed. When my wife divulged this in group, another assault victim cried out, “you were raped!” She never felt, and does not feel today that what happened to her rose to the level of rape. She feels minimal affect and was able to resolve her trauma in therapy. She understood that what the man did was wrong and from that night forward made sure to never again sleep at his house. But she adds that for a young female growing up in the city, men not respecting women’s bodies was run of the mill. Grabs, pinches and unwanted caresses were frequent in her experience when she was younger.

When I was a boy, I was sexually abused or assaulted by another boy a year older. He pulled down my pants and underpants and penetrated me anally. I did not consent to what he did and had no real conception of sexuality or power dynamics at that point in my short life. It’s important to note that my perpetrator was himself being perpetrated by an older man. Freighted with guilt and shame I made a decision to never tell a soul about what happened. My clinical profile, along with this sexual abuse was greatly complicated by my father’s physical and verbal abuse

.

For more than two decades it was my dirty little secret. Years later, sitting in group therapy where I was fighting off a major addictions problem, a young woman opened up about episodes of sexual assault during childhood. Her words, “I was sexually abused” seemed to fly from her lips and smack me on the forehead. When she was done, I blurted out, “it happened to me too.” To divulge my abuse was completely unplanned, the decision coming from a part of me that had just started to exist; a truth telling part that wanted to be emotionally healthy. A part of me tired of holding all the secrets of my abuse. From my therapist and my fellow group mates, I got the support, direction and understanding I needed to come to terms with the complexity of my trauma.

More on the severe end of the spectrum of trauma-related sexual assault/rape are two examples from my days as a clinician (names and identifying characteristics changed for confidentiality). One person was episodically raped by a man putting the barrel of gun in the mouth of his “lover” for sexual turn on, power and control. I recall the client shaking like a leaf as they recounted their trauma.

Another man I counseled was violently raped by a priest when quite young. He had blocked out the worst of it but was left with an extreme startle response to even moderate, unexpected noise. A door closing or a shout from outside our therapy office would provoke him to lurch out of his seat with his arms spasmodically shooting up involuntarily.

It’s worth mentioning that both individuals battled chronic addictions as they had understandably self-medicated the pronounced symptomology of their Complex PTSD. I encountered both of these individuals in a short-term detox. Neither of them was receiving the kind of long term, trauma-informed, co-occurring wrap around services they needed. It was like slapping a small band-aid on a gaping wound.

To better serve rape and sexual assault survivors, we need to increase funding for trauma-informed care and expand integrated treatment for co-occurring disorders. We need to provide universal screening for trauma in clinical settings, including both behavioral health and primary care physician’s offices. We should practice safety planning, informed consent and culturally sensitive care. And, in our communities, encourage survivor-led support, peer mentoring and invest in public education to reduce stigma.

Both my wife and I were fortunate to find treatment for our trauma and have been able to forge happy, meaningful lives. This is not true for everybody who struggles with trauma. Society must find ways to judge trauma sufferers less and break down obstacles to treatment more. We’d all be better off for it.

RESOURCE LIST:

For survivors seeking help:

• Immediate crisis: If you are in danger or have recently experienced violence, contact your local emergency number.

• National hotlines (examples; update with your country):

• United States: National Sexual Assault Hotline — 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). Website: rainn.org

• United Kingdom: National Domestic Abuse Hotline — 0808 2000 247. Website: wearepossible.org.uk

• Canada: Canadian Centre for Child Protection 1-800-892-3333; if in immediate danger, call 911.

• Local crisis lines and campus resources: List the relevant numbers for your country or region, including sexual violence crisis lines, campus counseling centers, and urgent care options.

  Finding trauma-informed care:

• Look for therapists who identify as trauma-informed and who have training in PTSD/Complex PTSD, EMDR, CPT, or other evidence-based approaches.

• Integrated care options: co-occurring disorders support (substance use, mood disorders) with trauma-informed care.

• Accessibility considerations: bilingual services, culturally competent care, sliding-scale fees, telehealth options.

• Evidence-based therapies and approaches

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• CBT for PTSD (Cognitive Processing Therapy)

• CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy)

• IOP/OP trauma-focused programs and translation of services into community settings

Self-Compassion

If you have trauma one essential first step to dealing with anger is to have self-compassion. Self-forgiveness is essential to spiritual growth and to recovery. You deserve a better life. You don’t deserve what happened to you. Understanding this was my first step to health and a happier life. I was not a “piece of shit.” I didn’t deserve to be abused and I needed to stop blaming myself!

Accountability

The next step is accountability. Your trauma isn’t your fault, but your anger is something you must learn to be responsible for. Awareness of how your anger affects others is essential to progress—and you can develop better ways of responding.

Self-Care

Part of self-compassion is to practice disciplined self-care. With untreated trauma we don’t believe in the importance of treating ourselves well. Not doing so decreases self-esteem and increases anger. Another step to regulate my anger was to take better care of myself. If I’m getting sufficient sleep, eating well and getting enough exercise, then I am likely to present the best version of myself. If I’m tired, haven’t worked out for a while and am eating poorly then I’m prone to losing my temper.

Self-Check-Ins

We can also monitor anger on a 0–10 continuum: 0 = completely calm, 10 = dysregulated. When I sleep well, eat regularly, and exercise, my number tends to stay lower. Fatigue, junk food and inactivity push it into the danger zone. Regular self-check-ins help catch and contain anger before it becomes difficult to control. Do self-check ins throughout the day, say three to five times, first thing in the morning, mid-morning noon and so on.

Emotional Regulation

If at some point you find your irritability spiking up from the lower end of the zero to ten scale then take corrective action. Take a break from whatever is irritating you and do some square breathing: inhale through your nose for a count of six seconds, hold for four seconds, then exhale around eight seconds, emptying your lungs. Repeat four times or more if necessary. Listen to a calming song or take a quick, brisk walk. Then return and re-engage. Remember, taking responsibility for, and effectively managing your anger will help you to get a permanent handle on it.

Stress Management

Stress is often unavoidable, but you can reduce its impact. Build routines that support calm: a consistent bedtime, a short evening wind-down, and time for activities that replenish you (a walk, reading, journaling). I used to sleep until the last possible moment then rush out the door late for work, already irritated and stressed. Now I aim for adequate sleep with quiet mornings, and time to start the day in a constructive frame of mind. Remember, progress is a collection of small, steady habits.

Managing Resentment

Another key to better managing our anger is to stop “reinforcing our resentments.” Learning to do this was a big factor in helping me to controlling my anger better. Most of us form our resentment based on our expectations and judgement of others. Interrupting the cycle of resentful thinking leads us to resolving the conflict we have with others. When they don’t meet our expectations, anger rises. We ruminate with accusatory thoughts like, “how could they do that!?.” It’s beneficial to consider why they’ve reacted as they did. Learn what the other person’s perspective is, then seek compromise and resolution. The more you practice this, the better you’ll get at it and the more quickly you’ll let go of your anger.

Steer Clear of Disrespectful People

I avoid negative, disrespectful people. Disrespect hits the scars left from my father. I don’t keep people who are disrespectful in my life as a general strategy. I’ve also learned to walk away from negative, disrespectful people I encounter haphazardly. Negativity is a poison I can’t afford to drink as despite my best intentions, being around negative people tends to make me negative too. Life is too short to spend in a negative mindset.

Some Hills Aren’t Worth Dying On

It’s always worthwhile to ask yourself whether a conflict is worth fighting over. Some hills are worth dying on, other squabbles are decidedly not. A stray dish left in the sink, a dirty towel on the floor can be annoying but neither is worth a big blow up. Sometimes walking away is the easiest and most sensible thing to do.

Don’t Drink the Poison

A helpful way to think of anger and resentment is the old saw, “being angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die.” Or envision a crown of thorns encircling your head. As your anger rises, your head expands and the thorns sink deeper in. Learning to better manage our anger helps us to live more happily, to enjoy ourselves and other people. The better we manage it the better we feel. Anger can be managed with a committed and thoughtful approach. Less anger means a happier, healthier life!

Please seek professional support when anger feels unmanageable, if you are overly aggressive, harming others, have persistent mood disorders, or trauma symptoms that overwhelm you.

Some helpful links below:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

PTSD Screening Form
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire
Information about Trauma-informed Care

Even at a young age I felt the force of my anger and how it set me apart from others. I observed other sons interact with their fathers and I saw they were loved and supported. As a result, they held a calm, patient completeness I marveled at. My father seemed to relish my mistakes as an opportunity to belittle me and aggrandize himself.

I suffered the consequences even when young. I lost my temper during a friendly sand lot baseball game at another kid’s birthday party when my team started to lose. I stomped about then let loose a torrent of “fucks.” The following year, my brother was invited to the party and I was not. I made myself conspicuous when the birthday boy’s father picked up my brother hoping against hope that I’d be included. I watched the car full of happy kids drive off without me and felt defective and less than, moping around the house by myself. It was the first time, but certainly not the last that my rage left me marginalized on misfit island. Trust me, it’s a lonely place to be.

It wasn’t hard to see where my anger originated if you were looking. Was anybody looking? My father bedeviled by demons I’ve only learned a few sketchy details about was almost always sodden by copious amounts of alcohol and barbiturates, and launched a constant barrage of verbal abuse my way. “Nice job Freddy Fuck-up! “Goddamn your eyes!” “Get your fat, fucking head out of the way,” and on and on and on, my self-esteem steadily whittled to a threadbare wisp.

His rage often turned violent. A stiff backhand slap to my cheek. Sometimes punches. I willed myself to be invisible to him, but often failed. Waiting for it in a trembling heap felt worse than the actual thing. He had a penchant for chasing me with swift, ass-numbing kicks. If I made it to the downstairs door, he didn’t deem it worth his while to chase me beyond there and I could go to my room and try to put myself back together again.

Inanimate objects were often the focus of his dys-regulation. When I was ten, he hurled our small Sony TV through the window and down the back door stairs. His rage casting an anxious pall over the house, all of us waiting for the next explosion and whatever damage it would bring. I found myself, ducking, cringing and constantly on edge for what was coming for me directly or due to the unfortunate consequence of being in his blast radius.

One day when I was fifteen, he launched into a sustained rage that lasted hours after my mother finally left him. He tore up everything in the house. Paintings and pictures, shattered glass, torn photographs, everything ripped off the walls, the entire stereo system heaped into the burning fireplace. Me and my friend arrived at the tail end and found him sitting in the middle of the living room on the floor, with cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and a tower of his wedding dishes between his legs as he flung them one by one like frisbees against the wall. From the perimeter, I started to walk in and my friend put a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder saying, “you can’t go in there, you’re coming to my house.” I stayed there for a month, in a safe, blissful peace. I’ll never forget this kindness.

At the same time as he was destroying our family, himself and my self-esteem, he worked the outside community like a seasoned politician. Young people thought he was cool, irreverent and anti-authoritarian. He’d buy your drink, lend you some dough or even put you up if you needed. He was anti-war, pro-American Indian and didn’t shy away from the use of most any substance, all of which endeared him to 1960’s-1970’s Cape Cod.

Though he’s been dead for forty-six years people still come up to me to sing his praises. “You’re Dad was so cool! What great guy!” They’re gob-smacked when my face naturally falls into a “how can you believe that grimace.” The aphorism “street angel, house devil” aptly fit the old man.

Where did all this leave me? As a kid the only strokes I got from him were for my athletics. So, I became uber-competitive, unable to tone it down because if I didn’t win, then I really was Freddy Fuck up and had nothing to offer him. I was also the sorest of losers because if I lost, I didn’t just lose, I was a loser.

In school I hated rules, the crowds of kids and the authority of teachers spiked my anxiety. If I didn’t understand something immediately, I flooded with anxiety and anger, my lack of understanding and patience became stolid opposition. My teachers, having no idea of what was going on at home found me oppositional, disruptive or just plain incapable. I didn’t just get F’s, I was an F.

My temper felt uncontrollable. It overwhelmed me and when I expressed it by yelling, fighting or smashing things, people withdrew, fearing my response and not understanding the depth of it or why I was so troubled. Once I calmed down, I felt a looming, onerous sense of guilt and shame. I was behaving exactly like the old man. There wasn’t anything worse than that.

Predictably I started to self-medicate all my “negative affect states.” Anger yes, but also a torrent of shame, self-loathing, depression and anxiety. For a while, alcohol provided sweet release and calmness as well as an increased ability to connect with others socially, but ultimately, as I saw with the old man, when you go to that well too often, the consequences start to pile up and become dire. As my alcoholism progressed, it laid bare the deleterious aspects of my personality and my insecure woundedness.

At twenty-eight, my life broken by alcohol and drugs I reached the conclusion that I needed help. I decided I didn’t want to self-destruct like the old man did. I wanted to put down the booze and drugs for good. When I did, I had to face myself and learn to deal with my feelings. How could I stay sober and deal with my anger, anxiety, depression and shame? In part two I’ll share how I’ve learned to better cope with my anger and how you can too!

PS/ I’ve spent more than four decades in recovery and over thirty years as a therapist. Through all those years, one lesson has come up over and over again: Mindset matters greatly!

I recently released a new mini-ebook—Developing a Mindset for Recovery—that puts that idea front and center.

It’s written for anyone considering recovery, anyone early in the process, and clinicians who want something simple and clear to use with clients.

You can get it for FREE when you subscribe to From Wreckage to Recovery (or for $3 on Gumroad).

I hope it’s helpful. And I’m grateful to everyone who has supported this work.

—Tim

Hi everyone,

I’m excited to share something new with you.

I just released a short, practical e-book called Developing a Mindset for Recovery, and I want all current subscribers to have it for free.

This guide draws on my forty-one years in recovery and over three decades of clinical experience. It’s written for people in early recovery, those contemplating change, and clinicians who want a simple resource to use with clients. My aim was to create something clear, accessible, and genuinely helpful—something I wish I’d had when I was starting out.

If you find it useful, feel free to pass the link along or encourage others to subscribe. New subscribers will receive it automatically in their welcome email.

As always, thank you for being part of this community. I’m grateful for you.

Warmly,
Tim

Already a subscriber? Download your free copy here.
New here? Subscribe and receive a copy automatically in your welcome email.
Want to support my work? You can purchase a copy on Gumroad for just $3.

Thirteen years on inpatient addictions units taught me a tremendous amount about addictions. I started in a detox where for six years we dealt with the ravages of addiction daily. We encountered just about everything: jaundice, esophageal varices and collapsed veins as well as cocaine psychosis, deep depression and substance-induced paranoid delusions. Day by day, we did our best to sell recovery to people badly in need of it. We warned patients that continuing to use would likely destroy their health, finances, relationships and careers. Addictions are life-threatening and nothing has brought that home more than opioid overdose deaths. Addictions to most substances, sooner or later will destroy your health, your finances, your relationships and your career. I know this not just as a clinician, but as someone who lived it. These losses motivated me to reach for a better life.

But I remember something crucial when I first accessed treatment. I felt hopeless and stripped of my dignity and self-respect. I felt stigmatized and without value. I desperately needed an infusion of hope as does every person battling addiction. I encourage you to think of the benefits of recovery and how your life will improve with it. Isn’t it more motivating to think of the benefits of recovery?

Consider that recovery will enable you to become the best version of yourself. The opportunity to be the person you were meant to be before addiction invaded your existence. Think of your addictive self as only reaching the cellar of your potential. Recovery will enable you to reach the ceiling, the very utmost. While addictions foster dependence on the substance as well as on other people, recovery fosters independence, both emotional and financial.

It is important to understand the perils of continuing to use, but I started to feel that our message was too negative, even if true. Our clients, already dealing with stigma, shame and decimated self-esteem due to the destructiveness of their addictions, needed a more positive message. Recovery isn’t merely abstinence; it’s a reinvention of life across four integral areas I’ve experienced in my own life, my practice and in countless recoveries: health, finances, relationships, and character.

Health

By end of my addictions, my health was precarious. I hated the way I looked, I was twenty-five pounds overweight, possessed a pasty, toxic-looking pallor and wheezed every time I climbed up a single flight of stairs. I was previously athletic but was now sedentary, smoking two packs of cigarettes, drinking and smoking cocaine daily. I hadn’t seen a doctor or a dentist in several years, my remaining teeth were in poor shape and at times a source of severe pain. I dreaded I’d done lasting damage to myself.

Recovery ended my self-destructive habits and presented the opportunity regain my health. I started with small but more healthy routines: regular meals, better sleep habits and exercise. I committed to medical and dental care. Bit by bit, my oral health improved. I started exercising regularly, my weight came down and before long, I quit smoking and lost my persistent hacking cough. I loved waking up without my head feeling bashed and the persistent nausea of hangovers. Decades later I still wake up with abundant energy, a positive mindset and excitement for the day ahead.

Finances

Financial stability was another casualty of my addiction. Cocaine completely detonated my resources and plunged me into around $20,000 in debt. Additionally, when I was about two years sober the IRS came after me for back taxes I hadn’t bothered to pay. For years, I lived paycheck to paycheck and was perpetually anxious about money. The breakthrough didn’t come immediately but it came. Recovery enabled me to go back to school, start a career and become financially stable and then comfortable and secure. It can do the same for you. Be patient, stick to your recovery and start to utilize your full potential. Eventually your finances will come around.

Relationships

The wake of my addictions is littered with relationships destroyed because I put alcohol and drugs first. I was good at finding love but could not keep it. I can’t think of any of my relationships that weren’t adversely affected by my addictions. Because I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. Because my invaded value system and insatiable desire to use made me manipulative, dishonest and wildly irresponsible. In recovery I rebuilt most of my damaged relationships and forged new ones that last. Today, I can bring the full measure of the best version of myself to all the people I love. I am honest and can keep my word, a thing I pride myself on.

Hope

The thousands of people I’ve known and treated who have gotten into recovery, not a single one has regretted it. As they rebuild their lives and commit to abstinence, they realize the many benefits. Recovery has given me a life I could not have imagined forty-one years ago. It’s not just about avoiding harm; it’s about choosing a future where health, independence, and meaningful connections are within reach for anyone willing to take that first step and stick with it. The life you’re seeking is here. But you to take it. Every day I marvel at the life I have and am immensely grateful for it. You can be too!

Speaking generally, people with co-occurring substance use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder require treatment sufficient to meet the complexity of their disorders. Sufferers and their families need to know that treatment works and can restore the committed patient to a healthy and happy life. The challenge is to determine what treatment is needed and how to access it. A good first step is to have the client evaluated by a clinician with expertise in co-occurring disorders. This could be a therapist or social worker, psychiatrist and some primary care physicians who may be well-versed in mental health and addictions.

Someone with a substance use disorder will in all likelihood require detoxification and then trauma-informed rehabilitation. Depending on the severity of the substance use disorder and the PTSD this care will need to delivered on an inpatient basis.

When I got clean and sober back in 1984, treatment systems were very different. For one they were sharply “bifurcated,” meaning that addictions and mental health treatments were split and separated. Nowadays they are more integrated as it has been determined, correctly I think, that treating the conditions at the same time and recognizing they are interrelated leads to better outcomes. The way it worked for me was a 30-day substance abuse treatment program, then resuming outpatient care with my therapist. In those days there was no such thing as: “trauma informed care.” Trauma informed care provides a framework for agencies and clinicians to best treat trauma. (See resources below for more information)

I was extremely fortunate to have found my therapist. My trauma and addictions had reduced me to a point of profound despair. She was the most empathetic, patient and non-judgmental person I’ve ever known. Had she been any less so, I doubt I’d have stayed in therapy. Over time, I came to trust her absolutely and this trust and acceptance enabled me to open up and share what had happened to me. She affirmed the pain I’d been through and provided insight into how I’d been affected. She affirmed my better qualities and encouraged me to see them in myself. Over time, I reoriented my viewpoint from that of a victim to one of a person with his own agency. I healed. So, with the right therapist and your own commitment to getting well, you can too!

The other solution was to reconfigure my paradigm of what a healthy relationship was. As I progressed in recovery and in therapy I became aware of what to look for in others and to build the skills necessary to maintain relationships. In the past, I could find love, but I could not keep it.

My work in therapy enabled me to develop the necessary skills to find the right mate and stay married for thirty-two years and counting. Which brings me to another solution for people struggling with trauma: love. At first blush this may sound hokey but it’s true. To be accepted, valued and loved as I am has made all the difference. This is true in my marriage and the friendships I’ve maintained over the years. I am no longer satisfied with pleasing others at my own expense. I see that relationships, though they come with conflict, must be value added overall. If not then it makes no sense to persevere in them.

To summarize: treatment whether in or outpatient should be safe, patient, non-judgmental and encouraging. Patients with co-occurring disorders may need detox before admission to an integrated program that can treat simultaneously the addictions and PTSD. Individual sufferers need to be committed and patient knowing that complex PTSD does not remit overnight. Medications may or may not be useful tools. For patients with severe trauma and addictions long-term residential treatment with wrap around services is sensible.

As a society, and as individuals, how do we find compassion and the resources to care for our most afflicted people? It’s to our own betterment to do so. Prevention, early intervention before conditions become chronic and training of frontline workers would help. The bottom line cost of these conditions when untreated is astronomical in dollars, and more importantly in lives adversely affected and lost. We must do better!

After all, nobody escapes this world without trauma.

Resources:

A screening form to assess for PTSD

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/assessment/documents/pcl5_standard_form.pdf

Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire

https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ACE-Questionnaire.pdf

Information about trauma informed care

https://www.traumainformedcare.chcs.org/about-the-trauma-informed-care-implementation-resource-center/

My father in the foreground with the blue button-down shirt shortly before his death at age fifty-six. Me, hungover in the red tee-shirt.

Because we are bound up in our trauma and the guilt, self-loathing and intensity of our anger and other feelings that go along with it, substances often become a balm that we rely on because at first they are so damn effective. What led me to self-medicate was that I was disconnected, alienated and full of distorted information about my self-worth.

And, we have no other method to rely on. Feeling marginalized and unable to ask for help we seek other solutions. I remember my first alcohol-related buzz. Nothing relieved my suffering so readily and completely. I fell in love with the glowing warmth and quick dissipation of my alienation and loss. I didn’t know that alcohol and other substances would create a host of major problems as I became deeply dependent. It’s like a bad relationship we are compelled to despite its destructiveness. We forever persuade ourselves that if we just stick with it, in the end somehow, everything will be fine. This is the path I chose starting in early adolescence. Before I hit twenty, I was an early stage alcoholic and drug addict. I didn’t emerge from the utter destruction of my addictions until I was twenty-eight. The cost: a marriage, temporary custody of my daughter, IRS demanding owed taxes, financial destruction and a trail of broken relationships.

Two other problems face the traumatized addict/alcoholic and confirm their unworthiness: the first is the inevitable loss of self-respect as the user puts the substance ahead of money, job, spouses, children, freedom and health. One sees himself self-sabotaging his life but is terrified to face the trauma and so continues. The other is the stigma of the alcoholic/addict or more commonly known as the “drunk” or “junkie.” Others judge us based on the images those names conjure: the bum in the street who has passed out and pissed himself or the unkempt guy in the alley with a needle hanging out of his arm; the guy who’d do anything for a fix. The judgment comes without compassion for what has driven us to the behavior to begin with.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, 43.7 million people in the United States needed treatment for substance use disorders in 2022 yet only 6.8% of those received it. It is fair to note that these numbers reflect a wide range of reasons including that many alcoholics and addicts simply refuse to access treatment, but just the same that 6.8% is paltry and pitiable. It’s well known and accepted that stigma marginalizes people struggling with mental illness and/or addictions.

Those with substance use disorders often face discrimination in health care settings and stigma reinforces our worthlessness. One example of this is the acronym GOMER which is a sometimes-used hospital code for Get Out of My Emergency Room that refers to people with substance abuse and/or mental health problems. Stigma is a significant societal barrier to wellness.

Part three focuses on what those with addictions and trauma can do to recover.

While I am on my thirty-three-years-delayed honeymoon in Spain, I am re-running a three part series called the Consequences of Trauma. Included today is Part One. Given that my subscriber list has grown over the past year, many will be reading it for the first time.

When I was twenty-eight, I entered treatment and got clean and sober from an advanced addiction to alcohol and cocaine. After coming home, I continued in therapy and while there, bit by bit, revealed various traumatic experiences growing up in an alcoholic home. My father’s bloody self-destructiveness, sneering verbal abuse and offhand physical abuse butchered my self-esteem. Adding to my already outsized shame, when I was seven I was sexually abused. I vowed to never tell anyone. If nobody else knew, what difference did it make? Or so I thought. I carried the over-weighted secret for twenty years and then it spilled out anyway, a burden too onerous to carry anymore.

How does one convey traumatic experiences with a goal of helping others similarly afflicted? Perhaps a starting point is to find an adequate definition. A quick web search produced some ideas: “Complex trauma is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.” Complex trauma in children is often referred to as “developmental trauma,” the point being that healthy development is damaged in the formative years. Another definition noted that childhood complex trauma is “pervasive.” An apt adjective that captures how trauma’s insult to the healthy sense of self is profound.

School was one place where I began to pay the price for my trauma. From the outset, I hated it. It’s crowdedness and noise, its rules and expectations. I interpreted the environment as hostile and a place where I was regularly exposed as defective, less than my fellow students. Most days I was highly anxious there. If I understood something academic immediately then fine, if I didn’t, I’d just shut down convinced that I lacked the intelligence to solve problems. I was perceived as obstreperous thus inviting the wrath of my teachers which only reinforced my sense of inadequacy. Not surprisingly, I did poorly, and felt that adults were only interested in those that achieved more readily.

Emotionally, from childhood to adolescence and on into my late twenties I was depressed, angry, anxious and full of shame. There is a Greek word, alexithymia that translates roughly into “no words for feelings,” or lacking emotional vocabulary. Alexithymia may be a byproduct of trauma and is also prevalent for those growing up in an abusive, alcoholic or drug addicted homes where needs are ignored, discouraged or even beaten down. Early in therapy, I felt as if my jaw was wired shut and it was impossible for me to convey the complex Gordian knot of all my trauma-related emotions. Alexithymia keeps us isolated and fraught with negative thought patterns.

Another problem was that boys of my generation were raised to be stoic, unflappable and impervious to pain. The ideal certainly wasn’t to talk about difficult feelings. We were taught to “shake it off” and keep moving forward, no matter what. To open up and talk about traumatic experience was counterintuitive and doing so was to invite scorn. To my detriment, I pushed on, silently. What does the traumatized, emotionally pent up lacking self-esteem adolescent do? Often they start to self-medicate their “intense negative affect states.” Because trauma goes untreated for the aforementioned reasons, teens continue to self-medicate and over time develop substance use disorders. Several studies have found that substance use disorders developed following trauma exposure in anywhere from 25%–76% of individuals. Risk factors include: chronic stress, childhood trauma and family history of addictions.

In Part Two we see how self-medication of trauma is understandable but leads to an expansion of problematic behavior.

For people in recovery from trauma, emotions are complex, powerful and often arrive unbidden. Sometimes, they come without any identifiable trigger or context. Sadness, for example. It descends like fog as I open my eyes, and I try to use logic to dispel it: You were happy yesterday, and nothing changed since then, so what gives? But there it is and the logic doesn’t often work. Where is the sadness coming from? I suspect childhood trauma. My father’s anger was explosive—lacerating words, kicks and sometimes punches—detonating my self-esteem. Despite the origin of my sadness, what matters is how I deal with it.

He died from alcoholism when I was twenty-three and we had no opportunity to resolve all of the damage resulting from his abusiveness. Even if he had lived, I don’t think he would have been inclined to confront his issues. Consequently, I felt acutely broken, lacked self-esteem and was full of shame. I battled trauma-related depression for years. Given that I was also recovering from addictions, I had to learn to deal with it without self-medicating. Decades later, I’ve developed effective coping skills.

In early recovery the sadness, self-loathing and anger were much more prevalent and powerful than they are now. I did a lot of work in therapy to come to grips with my trauma and how it impacted me and the people around me. Through therapy I developed the skills needed to understand the effects trauma had on me and how to deal with my emotions without self-medicating. Most importantly I came to love myself and believe in my abilities. I can’t say I’ve come to fully forgive my father but I think I better understand him now. Someday I hope to forgive him without condition. I’ll keep trying.

Coping Skills for Sadness

Here are some coping skills I utilize to help deal with sadness: I remind myself that sadness is temporary and I can manage it. Music is a huge comfort. It may seem counterintuitive but when I’m sad I listen to sad songs, not to wallow but because hearing and singing along to the music helps me feel I’m not alone, and I’m comforted.

When sad, solitude often helps. I can avoid the rougher edges of others and thereby spend time consoling myself.

Exercise is one of the more effective antidotes to sadness. I find cardio is one of the quickest avenues to a better mood. A run, high intensity interval training (HIIT) or several rounds on the heavy bag creates a calming, relaxed sensation that usually replaces my sadness.

Reading takes me out of my world, away from my feelings and my problems and is hugely comforting. It’s a form of meditation as my focus on the words and the images they create in my mind help me forget myself as long as I concentrate.

I also greatly value the counsel of my wife. Talking about what I’m feeling lessens the impact of it. A kind word or gentle touch can make a world of difference. In fact, this works the other way as well. Helping someone else struggling always helps me feel better.

Being in recovery from trauma and addictions, I have learned to persevere no matter what. I understand that to gain comfort I must navigate discomfort. I know that recovery is unconditional and there can be no surrender. Eventually feelings pass and I gain resilience, no matter what the day brings.

Trauma Tools & Resources

PTSD Screening Form
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire
Information about Trauma-informed Care