Under the Influence

Recovery can mean more than stopping

For many of us who came into recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous or another 12-step program, the word recovery had a very specific meaning.

Recovery meant recovery from alcoholism. Or addiction. Or compulsive behavior. Or codependence. Or whatever pattern had become destructive enough that we finally needed help.

In AA, recovery meant solving the drink problem. The person who could not safely drink found a way to live without drinking. That was no small thing. For many of us, it was lifesaving.

I have been clean and sober since 1982. I know the value of sobriety. I know the value of meetings, sponsors, service, fellowship, and having somewhere to go when life feels unmanageable. I know what it is to have alcohol removed from my life and to be grateful for that every day.

And I also know this.

Sobriety was not the end of recovery for me.

It was the beginning.

What sobriety gave me

Sobriety gave me a life I could build on.

Before sobriety, alcohol and other mind-altering substances shaped my choices, my relationships, my emotional life, and my sense of what was possible. I lived under the influence of alcohol. I also lived under the influence of people whose lives were shaped by alcohol.

Getting sober interrupted that pattern.

It gave me a chance to live. It gave me a chance to tell the truth. It gave me a chance to become responsible for my behavior. It gave me a chance to stop creating damage in the same familiar ways.

For that, I am deeply grateful.

But after years of sobriety, I was still carrying something I did not understand.

I was no longer drinking. I was no longer using drugs. I was doing many of the things I had been told would help me recover. I went to meetings. I worked steps. I did service work. I sponsored other men. I asked for help. I stayed sober.

From the outside, I looked like someone who was succeeding in recovery.

Inside, I still felt like a mess.

The part of recovery I could not measure

The measurement I understood early in sobriety was simple.

Did I drink today?

That's an important question that still matters for people whose lives are endangered by alcohol or other substances.

But that question did not measure all that was important about recovery.

It did not measure whether I trusted myself. It did not measure whether I could stay present during emotional discomfort. It did not measure whether I could tell the difference between a story I was making up and what was actually happening. It did not measure whether I could be honest without becoming harsh, vulnerable without becoming desperate, or connected without losing myself.

It did not measure whether I felt safe inside my own life.

When sobriety still felt incomplete

For many years, I thought the problem was that I was not working the program well enough. I thought if I found the right sponsor, read the right passage, did a better inventory, prayed with more sincerity, or surrendered more completely, the thing I was missing would finally appear.

I blamed sponsors. I blamed programs. I blamed myself.

The deepest blame landed on me.

I believed I was failing because I still felt anxious, needy, insecure, reactive, disconnected, misunderstood, overwhelmed, and alone. I had accumulated years of sobriety, and still there were moments when I reacted to life as if I were a young child in an adult body.

That was the part I did not know how to explain.

What I was really recovering from

Over time, recovery began to mean something different to me.

I began to see that I was recovering from more than addiction. I was recovering from the impact of the experiences that had shaped me. I was recovering from the beliefs I had absorbed. I was recovering from the ways I had learned to protect myself. I was recovering from the emotional strategies that had once helped me survive and later kept running my life.

The addiction was real.

The pain underneath it was also real.

The survival strategies were real.

The younger versions of me who learned those strategies were real.

And the adult version of me needed a way to understand all of that without turning myself into the problem.

Protection instead of pathology

I began to see that what I had called defects, resistance, selfishness, fear, ego, or lack of surrender could also be understood as protection. Something inside me had been working very hard for a very long time to keep me from being hurt again.

That did not make every behavior acceptable. It made the behavior understandable.

And once it became understandable, it became workable.

Still under the influence

The phrase “under the influence” usually refers to alcohol or drugs.

But long after I stopped living under the influence of alcohol, I was still living under the influence of fear, protection, old beliefs, younger emotional states, and automatic reactions.

A part of me wanted approval.

A part of me expected criticism.

A part of me scanned for rejection.

A part of me tried to stay in control.

A part of me worked hard to be useful so I would not be abandoned.

A part of me became angry before I could feel hurt.

A part of me withdrew before I could be disappointed.

A part of me tried to manage how other people saw me.

These parts had history. They had reasons. They had jobs. They were trying to protect me from pain they remembered clearly, even when I had no conscious awareness of what they were reacting to.

This is what I mean when I say I was still under the influence. I was sober, but I was not yet free.

When protection runs the life

Protection is intelligent. If you have been hurt, abandoned, criticized, shamed, overwhelmed, neglected, or made responsible for things you could not control, some part of your system learns how to protect you.

It may learn to please.

It may learn to perform.

It may learn to disappear.

It may learn to fight.

It may learn to stay busy.

It may learn to anticipate danger.

It may learn to numb.

It may learn to settle.

It may learn to keep your life small enough to feel manageable.

These strategies can help a person survive. They can also become the very patterns that keep life organized around the past.

Sober and still not free

That is why a person can be sober and still feel trapped. A person can be responsible and still feel disconnected. A person can be high-functioning and still feel emotionally young inside. A person can have years of recovery and still feel like fear, anxiety, resentment, sadness, or self-doubt are running the show.

Recovery can continue to unfold in deeper and more meaningful ways.

There is always more room for growth, understanding, and healing.

What I wanted

For many years, I was clearer about what I did not want than what I wanted.

I did not want to feel overwhelmed. I did not want to be so reactive. I did not want to worry so much about what other people thought of me. I did not want fear, anxiety, and depression to feel normal. I did not want to feel disconnected, misunderstood, unappreciated, needy, and alone.

Eventually, that began to turn into something more useful.

I wanted to trust myself.

I wanted to know how to find my way back to clarity when I was confused.

I wanted to have enough internal capacity to feel what I was feeling without being taken over by it.

I wanted to know the difference between facts and the stories my mind created around them.

I wanted honest connection with people I loved.

I wanted to give because I wanted to give, not because I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped.

I wanted to enjoy my own company.

I wanted to live beyond protection and survival.

I wanted access to the part of me that was compassionate, objective, resourced, and essential.

That want list had been there all along, but I could not hear it clearly when all of my attention was focused on what felt wrong.

The deeper meaning of recovery

Recovery, for me, is the gradual restoration of the authentic self.

It is the process of becoming less governed by old fear and more available to present reality. It is the process of developing a trustworthy relationship with the parts of me that learned to protect, manage, defend, hide, perform, please, withdraw, attack, or numb.

It is the process of helping those parts recognize that life is different now.

I am older now.

I have more capacity now.

I have more support now.

I have more choice now.

I have more access to truth now.

I can lead my life now.

That kind of recovery happens through relationship, not force. The protective parts of us relax as they are understood, respected, updated, and relieved of jobs they were never meant to carry forever.

This is the recovery I did not know I was looking for when I first got sober.

The influence can change

Every person lives under some kind of influence.

We can live under the influence of alcohol, drugs, compulsive behavior, unresolved fear, inherited beliefs, old wounds, shame, resentment, approval-seeking, perfectionism, control, avoidance, or survival strategies that once made sense.

We can also begin to live under the influence of something deeper and truer.

Clarity.

Compassion.

Courage.

Capacity.

Self-trust.

Honesty.

Connection.

Becoming available to life

The recovery of the authentic self does not erase the need for sobriety, abstinence, support, accountability, or repair. It gives those things a deeper purpose. The goal is to become available to the life that destructive behavior was blocking, protecting, managing, or replacing.

Sobriety gave me the chance to stop living under the influence of alcohol.

Deeper recovery is giving me the chance to stop living under the influence of fear.

What I am recovering is the authentic self.

What I am recovering from are the burdens I took on while trying to survive.