Any Old Excuse

Any Old Excuse Will Do

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | October 7, 2019

Adobe Stock Images

The merry-go-round hell of sobriety and relapse traps many in a perpetual fall. Life graciously provides difficulties to excuse the falls and soften the shame; but the recovery that lasts, sheds the excuse, looks addiction head on, and gets off the frightening ride.

A sad cycle in the drug abuse culture keeps victims trapped in a loop of recovery and relapse. We know it well. Many of us have been stuck in this cycle for years or even decades. Many addicts die “with the beautiful song” of life never expressed, never sung, marching endlessly to the heart-breaking ride on the merry-go-round of someday I will escape.

The ill-fated beginning doesn’t matter once you are on the ride. People willingly and unwillingly become addicts. The choice isn’t to be an addiction but simple to use a forbidden substance; some to escape pain, other to express opposition to society, or many for the plain enjoyment to be a part of the carefree, party-loving crowd. But once the choice is made, like a freaking vacuum, we get sucked into a life on the fringes of society. The “Hotel California” where all are invited, but none permitted to leave. We sacrificed life and join the entrapping cycle of addiction: Using, euphoria and (or) escape, talking about recovery, “Clean Time”, discomfort (emotions, challenges, failure), and relapse (back to the beginning).

In hard-core drug circles, outmatched hapless discuss recovery—a popular topic. Recovery is a dim light of hope shining at the far end of a foreboding tunnel. Perhaps, the dream of sobriety creates a small division between the addict’s current failings and a healthy sense of self, infusing energy to the wobbling self-image. Most addicts see themselves different; not like the “righteous dope fiends.”. A small justifying narrative to sooth the fear, an excuse that probably contributes to the continuing dependence and bondage to the unforgiving cycle.

Addiction is a self-supporting force that keeps victims stuck in sameness. The sphere of addiction spins fast, dragging those in recovery back to behaviors and escapes that offer only broken futures.

Recovery is a dim light of hope shining at the far end of a foreboding tunnel.

Detox is painful—physically and emotionally. We are programmed to avoid these painful episodes. Making a choice to feel the muscles aches, the haunting hallucinations, the chills and vomiting isn’t a simple choice. These choices demand iron willpower—something, by-the-way, that takes a beating from the neuronal changes in the addicted brain. Who willingly chooses to suffer? So, the dreadful first step is postponed—until tomorrow.

Making the actual choice to enter a detox center, or “just quit” almost always falls victim to “tomorrowism.” Tomorrow I’ll go to the Sheriff’s office and handle that warrant, tomorrow I will contact the detox program, tomorrow I’ll quit. I can’t today because…. Any old excuse will do.

“Clean time” often is initiated by forced detox—jail time, hospitalization. However, success can come from these forced beginnings. This is okay. Any force can initiate change, giving traction to longer sustained efforts.

When it's time to choose, any old excuse will do. My girlfriend needs me; others don’t care, I need to clean my car. The staff was rude. The problem is we can always find something else to do, something to complain about, or something that interferes with the well-meaning plans, keeping them forever a day or week away, dangling in no-where land to boost our image but not to beginning the change. There’s never a shortage of reasons for putting something off for a later day.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer puts in plainly, “The only thing an excuse gives you is an option out of the life that you’d like to live.” (Dyer, 2009). But the dagger that plunges into our resolve to change is unconscious interference. We organize escape plans with built in excuses to soften the impact when we fail. Planning fail almost always ensures it inevitability.

Programs and intense monitoring are distasteful because they force compliance. We prefer the self-administered plan—the ones discussed repeatedly during conversations with friends stuck in the same dreadful cycle: “I’m going to start methadone but continue to chip until they increase the dosage.” “I’m going to cop ‘bupe’ on the street while I get clean.” We create fanciful plans, ignore the science of recovery, and kindly leave the door wide open for relapse, giving us freedom to escape as soon as we are challenged.

Effective recovery is an extended commitment to work through several stages of adjustments. A successful move from the dark cycle of addiction requires a completely different sequence of action, moving from hopeful talk, to proven action, then to detox, followed by assistance to attain psychological stability and healthy social connections, eventually leading to a well-adjusted life of resilience and continued growth. Our self devised plans gloss over the difficulties of re-integrating into life, especially back into societies that typically are more suspicious of our recovery than welcoming.

Life is a formidable foe. Jumping right back into the fray after missing years or even decades of development isn’t simple. When sober, we may remember why we ran, forced to confront old emotions, unresolved traumas, and fearful survival demands. The complexity of living sober, isn’t resolved. These encounters with life set the stage for relapse. Here, in the panic of real life problems, any old excuse will do. When your NA chapter rejects your clean time because you chose the methadone maintenance path, or a manager’s bias is expressed through unfairness, or an arrested on a warrant, lingering from your previous chaotic life, or whatever, the setback becomes a sufficient excuse, and you begin to chip (just to cope) or dive back into full blown relapse.

I spoke with a kid in obvious distress, wailing in pain, sitting on a bus bench, hopeless, distraught and high. “I’m a failure.” He continued, “I wasted a year of clean time.” With encouragement and compassion, we spoke at length and I took him home. A year of clean time is never lost. Many things can happen during a year that contribute to well-being and long-term sobriety. We regain balance, build healthy connections, and adopt new coping skills. We can define a relapse as a disastrous failure, using the relapse as an excuse; or a temporary setback that provides a wealth of pertinent information to assist us on our continuing journey of recovery.

Awareness of excuses invites better methods of response. A more educated approach. Our dreamy hopes of sobriety can become reality. We can successfully achieve these dreams, discovering the beauty of the sober life, free from that hurtful cycle that has kept us in bondage.