On Forty Years of Recovery
On this day I have 40th years of recovery. No mood-altering drugs or alcohol in 40 years. I added tobacco recovery five years later and went from 3 packs a day to clearer lungs and better circulation. What I have gained over these four decades was well beyond my wildest dreams at the beginning. I just wanted a normal life that did not fall apart every day. That was my bridge to far in addiction. Recovery has yielded to me far more than that. Recovery has made me a become a better version of myself than I would have been without going through addiction and emerging out the other side. It has also been a “we” thing. There were so many people who helped me along the way. My journey has been shaped and supported by so many people. This occurred from my first day in recovery. They gave me hope. People made me feel welcome and that I belonged. I could contribute. I started to consider not what I was giving up but what I was gaining.
What propelled me into recovery? There was a precipitating arrest and a lot of shame and pain but underneath was the realization I had never fully tried to apply myself and what a pathetic realization that was. Out of that came a quiet “what if….” voice. I had the insight in the moment that no failure was final unless you give up. I began to see a path back to a life worth living. I recall these thoughts on my very first day of recovery when I resolved to try and find out what would happen if I gave it everything I had. I keep listening to that inner voice and not the “F it” voice that had ruled my life before then. Motivation for recovery was grounded in hope for more instead of simple avoidance of pain.
Regarding the graphic at the top of this post. It seemed perfect for a reflection on my anniversary of four decades of continuous recovery. It seemed like a timely moment to share it. It is from a study conducted by John Kelly, Ph.D, M. Claire Greene, Ph.D., and Brandon G. Bergman, Ph.D. They published a landmark study in 2018 titled Beyond Abstinence: Changes in Indices of Quality of Life with Time in Recovery in a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Adults. It was a cross-sectional study, participants were surveyed once and reported how long ago they had resolved their AOD problem. One does not need to be a researcher to see the beauty in this graph. It depicts recovery indices by years since problem resolution.
These researchers found that improvements in well-being, including psychological distress, can continue well beyond the early years. This study is important because it challenges the assumption that recovery is only about stopping substance use. It highlights the importance of understanding recovery as a long-term process involving improved health, happiness, and quality of life. This should be blown up to poster size and put in every recovery and treatment center in the country.
Early on, I dodged death and found I had a life worth living. I suspect that many people who have an existential crisis revaluate life and find new priorities. Now, I am living at the far right side of that graph. I concur with the findings. Life is great. My recovery indices have improved dramatically over the years, and my level of psychological distress has decreased. In the study, they measured psychological distress using a six-item measure of psychological symptoms. The six symptoms assessed were: nervousness, hopelessness, restlessness or feeling fidgety, depression, feeling that everything was an effort, feeling worthless. I don’t have these things these days to any degree beyond fleeting. This is not to say that my life is free of stress and challenge, As a person in recovery it has needed routine tending to ensure I can retain and continue to build that life. In this way, for me recovery is a process and not a destination.
I have faced a lot of challenges in recovery. Almost nothing has come easy, but that is also the hidden gift. Real effort is what generates value. Coasting through life reduces the capacity to grow. I have learned that challenges always hold hidden benefits. To paraphrase the Stones, I do not always get what I want but I get what I need. The truth about adapting to challenges and moving forward is you gain new skills and insights. Along the way has come a community of people like me. My tribe. A sense of purpose and a belief based on experience that come what may I can endure a lot. I will prevail and most likely flourish if I just keep moving forward. As Winston Churchill once said, if you are going through hell, keep going.
Part of my pathway to recovery involved publicly funded treatment. I needed help and I got it, paid for with tax dollars. What the general public should know is that supporting services for addiction recovery makes sense. If we use a pathology only lens, considering what we save in respect to reduced crime, costs of accidents, health challenges and lost productivity. The evidence is that we save around $11 for every $1 spent. But this is only half the story. People in recovery are more than twice as likely to be civically engaged and often flourish in ways that result in better lives for us, for our families and the communities we live in. In short, if we want stronger communities we should invest in recovery.
Life is defined by what you do for others. I want to thank all the people who helped me along the way. Some may read this. Many have passed on. Those who are no longer around live on in within me and all the people they helped along their paths. Some of those who advocated for the services I walked into as a young person I never even met. am profoundly grateful for what they did for me. I try to pay it forward, a recovery value I hold dear. I have spent two thirds of my life in recovery. Will I celebrate 80 years in recovery? I don’t know the answer, but today the thing I do know is that I am meeting my mission in life.
For a guy who did not expect to live beyond thirty, all this is a bonus round.
Thank you, community.
William Stauffer
Source
Best, D., Albertson, K., Irving, J., Lightowlers, C., Mama-Rudd, A., & Chaggar, A. (2015). The UK life in recovery survey 2015: The first national UK survey of addiction recovery experiences. https://shura.shu.ac.uk/12200/1/FINAL%20UK%20Life%20in%20Recovery%20Survey%202015%20report.pdf
Kelly JF, Greene MC, Bergman BG. Beyond Abstinence: Changes in Indices of Quality of Life with Time in Recovery in a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Adults. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2018 Apr;42(4):770-780. doi: 10.1111/acer.13604. Epub 2018 Feb 23. PMID: 29473966; PMCID: PMC5880708. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5880708/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2023, July 26). California Drug and Alcohol Treatment Assessment (CALDATA-1991-1993) [Data set]. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/california-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-assessment-caldata-1991-1993
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