It is my great pleasure to introduce Jim Anders, former advertising copywriter and the author of All Drinking Aside and the blog, AllDrinkingAside.com. Jim has graciously agreed to share the story of his alcohol addiction and the recovery journey he’s taken as today’s Face of Recovery. He first got into recovery in 1996 and then replapsed several times, which is so important to understand, because “relapse is a cardinal feature of addiction.” It does not mean a person doesn’t want recovery badly enough or that treatment failed, rather it means treatment needs to be adjusted. Jim has now been in recovery continuously since 2004, and he welcomes your emails at janderspub@gmail.com. You can follow Jim on Twitter @JimAnders4

Why share?

There is a great deal of confusion, stigma, shame and discrimination surrounding addiction and addiction treatment and recovery. Yet those who have the chronic, often relapsing brain disease of addiction and are in recovery live healthy, productive, engaged lives — the same kinds of lives as people who do not have this disease. But all the words and definitions and explanations in the world are not as powerful as the people themselves. To that end, we are grateful to the people in recovery who have decided to share their experiences. Please meet Jim Anders – Today’s Face of Recovery.

 

How did your addiction start?

I started drinking at 16 and for 30 years my alcoholism progressed from being a few drinks occasionally to daily drinking, nearly daily blackouts and binges becoming the new normal. Like most teens, confused, I remember my father saying that I would be treated as an adult when I started to act like one. Drinking and smoking cigarettes would be a way to act myself into adulthood. My college years included marijuana, LSD, speed, valium and a host of whatever else was available. Alcohol was always available, always legal, always acceptable. What started as a relative trickle turned into a river as the years passed and my momentum increased. Finally, and for well over a decade, my active alcoholism had become a runaway train.

What was the turning point for you – what made you want to get sober?

I never wanted to get sober, Lisa. Ever. Once entrenched in my addiction I could only picture living and dying with a drink in my hand. I like the way I express it in my book: “By the time I had a reason to get sober, reason no longer had anything to do with it.”

What was your initial treatment?

Warnings from friends that I should consider slowing down on my drinking turned into visits to the emergency room several times and then two or three week stays at a detox. Fully, I know what a dry drunk is because after leaving a detox I would invariably pick up almost immediately, meaning hours, not days later.

My first real treatment was a two-week stay at a rehabilitation hospital, which the hospital emergency room had arranged for me. They had tired of my revolving door visits to them after failing so miserably at the detox they had initially sent me to. That was an intense experience after which I stayed sober for an entire year while bar-tending. Each period of sobriety and each relapse contributed to where I’m at today: eleven years clean and sober. Without my initial rehab experience, I doubt I could have remained sober on my own.

Do you do anything differently, today?

Bordering on cliché, my life is completely different today. The only structure I had when drinking was a crumbling edifice maintained solely for the purpose of finding the next drink. Truly, I lived entirely in a bottle of liquor for well over a decade of my thirty year drinking career.

Today, with the exception of a few co-workers, all my friends are in recovery today. My life is a safe haven constructed to maintain sobriety. A good part of that is my involvement in helping others.

I am responsible today. The usual maturing process of a teen becoming an adult I somehow bypassed. In many ways, my last ten years of continuous sobriety have been a continuation of the maturing process of the teen I was before my first drink.

What is your life like, now?

Writing my book has changed my life, Lisa. While working on the final edit of “All Drinking Aside,” I met a retired psychiatric nurse who is also in recovery. Less than a year after publication, we became housemates and I have a home life today. I never had that after my teens until now. Consistently, for thirty years, I would finish my job for the day and spend eight hours on a bar stool before blacking out, passing out and starting the hamster wheel in motion again when my alarm clock blared.

Also, I’m approaching retirement age myself and am coming to terms with growing old, living sober and helping others.

A life in balance. Yes. That would sum it up – a life in balance.

Do you have anything you’d like to share with someone currently struggling with a substance abuse problem or an addiction?

To anyone struggling with substance abuse, I can only repeat what has been drummed into my brain, which is “surrender to win.” I always tried to control my addiction, to make it manageable, and that never worked out before my first sobriety or after many relapses. The only way that I could win over addiction was complete surrender. That sounds horrifying and perhaps impossible for anyone early in recovery. Recovery seems like a punishment at first. But it’s not. There’s nothing that a drink can fix. I no longer miss its absence.

I would say that it gets better, it will get better and there is no other solution.

Do you have anything you’d like to share with family or friends of those who struggle with substance use disorders?

Build a network with others in recovery. Ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Group therapy, recovery meetings, individual counseling, whatever it takes. Do what you must do to remain sober. It’s your life, but it will not be your life if you pick up a drink.

For me to pick up a drink is “suicide on the installment plan.”

What is the best part about your recovery?

The best part for me has been regaining the clarity of mind and endurance of spirit to complete a book which has already proven to be of help to others. Resilience, growth, a million little appreciations that drinking had closed off.

To be fully present, not looking for a drink a foot away or a minute away. Serenity is possible sober. Oh, so much, is impossible in the drink. For me.

A toast to you, Lisa! Thanks for asking me to share. My sobriety is now a little bit on firmer ground. Knowing that you have helped me move forward is a gift.

Thank you so very much, Jim, for sharing your story, and CONGRATULATIONS on 11 years RECOVERY!