Post-Traumatic Pals: How a Rescue Dog Taught Me Faith and Trust in Recovery

On October 10, 2011, I sideswiped a taxi while blind drunk, then sped away into the streets of Manhattan. Police tend to frown upon that; I received a night in jail, a hefty fine and a suspended driver’s license.More importantly, I also received the precious gift of desperation. I was finally scared enough to get sober after years of steadily worsening alcoholism. Despite the disease’s discouraging statistics, I haven't had a drink since.I believe addiction is a takes-one-to-help-one disease. It thrives on degradation and hopelessness and, to combat both, recovery relies upon identifying with others who compulsively drank and drugged before finding an unlikely solution. That solution is one another: a bunch of former fall-down drunks who went from doomed to deliverance, and whose experiences in addiction and sobriety are invaluable to fellow sufferers.My dog, Vector, is a more traditional form of rescue. He is alive by the scarred skin of his mauled-off tail and the saint-like kindness of the Sato Project, an organization that rescues strays from Puerto Rico's infamous Dead Dog Beach.On an island with some 300,000 starved strays, the gaunt 22-pound mutt endured hellish Caribbean heat for about three years, competing with fellow canines for scraps and shelter from searing sun and thunderstorms. In addition to his tail, he's missing a toe and chunks of ear. A deep wound adorns his snout.We have both known pain, fear, hopelessness. We have both had the odds stacked severely against us. Given our histories, Vector and I could each easily be dead.But we're not dead. Nowhere near it. We're here, in my spacious backyard, playing fetch in the grass and sunshine. Just a few years ago, the chances of this coming to pass were so remote they approached impossibility. The combined unlikelihoods that led us to this point make our loving relationship among the greatest miracles of my life.But this is more than a rescue narrative, more than the understandable attractiveness a now-sober drunk feels toward a fellow redemption story, four-legged or otherwise. The bond between Vector and me extends beyond the straightforward rags-to-riches tale of two lost souls spared from the trash heap of existence.Vector doesn't just exemplify my past; he plays an active part in my ongoing recovery. Let’s explore why rescue dogs can be so inspiring to those recovering from alcoholism or addiction.A Faith That WorksWhether it's Alcoholics Anonymous or other reputable group-centric recovery program, a key tenet of overcoming addiction can be finding something greater than yourself that helps keep you physically sober and emotionally sound. Some might call this a higher power; AA, my path because it remains the most robust, accessible organization, would call it a God of one's individual understanding.People who aren't religious, including me, naturally struggle with this. I will never believe in an interventionist deity who, for some arbitrary reason, chose to save me while leaving the drunk on the next barstool to drink himself to death. Recovery requires honesty, and trying to "fake it 'til you make it" with something as fundamental as spirituality is disingenuous and counterproductive. Still, my road would have been smoother had I shared the ironclad faith many of my recovery peers possessed.Vector helped me overcome my spiritual inferiority complex. He did this with a duality that, I believe, only a rescue dog can embody.First, there is his very existence. Given the brutal environment and his diminutive size, it seems impossible that Vector survived three years before being rescued. That island is a doggie death trap; that Vector ran this gauntlet losing only a tail and a toe is living proof that life finds a way. Vector showed me that.Life is so resilient that ascribing to some Essence of the Universe becomes more logic than leap of faith. There are inexplicable microbes under the Antarctic ice shelf. There are blind fish thriving in the lightless ocean depths. And there is Vector, who spent 1,000 days in a war zone and lived to bark about it.But it was Vector's rapid rise from frightened to frolicking that placed this newfound faith into action.Understandably given his past, when I first adopted Vector he was a shaking nervous wreck, too shell-shocked to so much as relieve himself outdoors. He spent hours on end curled up and shaking, my wife and I petting him while whispering gentle encouragement.Two weeks later Vector was a nub-wagging, fetch-playing, full-fledged dog. He had assessed the situation and decided that these new circumstances had real potential. He was safe, fed, sheltered, loved. He was home.Vector's faith – ironically, his faith in me – taught me to stop intellectually fighting recovery and just recover. Group-centric recovery has gotten millions clean and sober. Trust the process and the good people you've met through it, and move forward one day at a time. Vector's uncomplicated spirit showed me I was overcomplicating spirituality.Unaffected vs. DisaffectedAlcoholics and addicts are, by both nature and nurture, an emotionally unstable set. Many of us have concurrent psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety. All of us have fears, insecurities, and trauma that led us to drink and drug to excess and, from there, fueled that excess into obligatory obsession. Our physical addictions are, at their root, mere symptoms of deeper emotional affliction.When we first put away the bottles and baggies, alcoholics and addicts are piles of rubbed-raw nerve endings suddenly robbed of our anesthetics of choice. Early sobriety especially is a period of dangerous hypersensitivity. Had I let my feelings get the better of me, I would have felt my way to a bar.Addiction wants its sufferers discouraged and disaffected. Emotional sobriety comes with patience and practice, and serves to buttress physical sobriety. The less we let life rattle us, the less likely we are to relapse.Vector is Exhibit A for being unaffected – the emotionally mature yin to disaffected’s yang. Blessed with an animal’s amnesia, rescue dogs live in the treasured present rather than the troubled past.Does Vector have some PTSD in the depths of his doggie brain? Absolutely. To this day he doesn’t like other dogs, the result of literally fighting for his life against fellow canines. And he hates being left alone, hinting at potential abandonment in his past.But past that, Vector, like all dogs, is a creature of the current. And his current situation, like mine, is very, very good.I wonder if Vector remembers any of his harrowing history. I'm unsure whether or not I would want him to. I'm not certain which is preferable: a survivor's gratitude for the plenty of today, or the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind.Regardless, Vector is an unknowing teacher in what for us humans is easier said than done: living in the now. This simple message is invaluable to a set of people for whom living in the past can mean succumbing to it.“We’re here now,” his tongue-out doggie smile says, “so whatever remorse or resentment you’re harboring, let it go. Give yourself a break, and give me a treat.”We are post-traumatic pals, two beings back from the brink of the abyss, scarred from the past but no longer scared of the future. Each day, Vector and I walk a little further from our separate hells together, leash in hand.

On Navigating Uncertainty

I know some people are getting really scared right now. As usual over the past three years, my reaction has been paradoxical to this.Since November 2016, I’ve been checking off my late father’s bucket list and writing a book about it.I was visiting my brother in Massachusetts when he gave it to me. He’d discovered it in a recent move. Of the 60 items, 54 were left. I resolved to finish them all by 2020 (the year my dad wrote he hoped to live until—instead he was killed in 2003 by a distracted driver).I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching since the start of this pandemic to uncover why I might be having this take, and I’ve come up with a few reasons. Decided I ought to write them down because they might help one or a few of you.Disclaimer: I am not a professional life coach or therapist. I’m just a woman on an adventure, learning as she goes along.For the past three years, I’ve lived my life like it’s a story being written, and the bad things that happen make it a better story.When I was laid off from my job in Year Two and still had 40 items left, at first I freaked out. Then my wise cousin in Florida said, “Plot twist!” I realized she was right. Nobody would be interested in the story of someone who kept her cushy life and career all the way through checking off this list. At some point I would have to rely on faith.I relied on the severance I received and paltry freelance jobs for a year, just so I could get the writing done. The idea, after that, was to have my agent sell the writing as a book and I’d get a deal and would be back to my regular salary and even better. Nope, didn’t happen. Even after a year of writing.What did happen: Lots of prayer and lots of freelance jobs. I wouldn’t have wanted this book deal to come so easily. I had to work hard. I had to be sure of myself. And I had to pay my own way, even if it was scary without my steady job (and no plans to apply for a new one—I needed the time to write).By the end of the next year I’d had sometimes six gigs at once and made more money than I’d ever made. (That too will be in my book.)I’ve become desensitized to financial changes of fate now. As long as I have enough to eat and pay rent, I’m OK. Everything else is extra.The lesson: View your life like an interesting story and you’ll be less attached to the results.Disappointments are inevitable—but humans are made to be adaptable.We wouldn’t have dominated as a species so far if this weren’t true. We have evolved to move beyond any hardship.The power of prayer and positive thinking matters more than you think.Try this for a second.Visualize the day you get to be outside, living your normal life again. Feel the air on your face, hear the sounds of the birds in the trees, the warm sun beating against your closed eyes. Some music playing as a car rolls by. Children laughing, a man singing. You are drinking coffee in a cafe. You are walking to your office. You are painting on a hilltop. You are sitting in a stadium. You are enjoying dinner in your favorite restaurant with your favorite person.It’s really important right now that we can focus on images like this. KNOW that you will be there again. FEEL how it will feel when you get there. That way these things have already happened in your mind…it’s now just up to reality to catch up with them.I’ve had to do this numerous times with the most impossible-seeming list items so I wouldn’t be too afraid: talk with a president, speak to a national TV audience, skydive at least once. Hell, even “go to the Super Bowl” was a little scary. The one I’ve pictured the most is the moment I sell my book.One day last summer I saw a green silk floral dress in a shop window and determined it would be what I wore when I sold it. I waited all summer for it to go on sale, and then I bought it. I’ve seen myself in that dress, selling the book, many times.Now I just have to wait for reality to catch up.Your loved ones need your creativity, calm and optimism.I can’t recall one time where my father encouraged me to worry. He was usually subtly teaching my brother and me survival skills. How to tell time on a sun dial. What to do if a bear was chasing us. How to start a fire in the woods. He’d bring up these things apropos of nothing. But I think he was preparing us. He wanted us to feel we could stay calm in an emergency.It’s why we were so good at supporting each other when he died.Not everyone has had this training. If you have, it’s your job to keep them calm right now and tell them what we’re experiencing is an opportunity.View every obstacle as an adventure.Any time something goes wrong with the list, I don’t just think, oh this will be an interesting chapter. I also think, hmm, what am I meant to learn from this? Usually my dad has a way of sending things to me that I needed more than I wanted. Or that I didn’t even know I wanted.Our subconscious wants things without telling us. If we are living our lives openly, we can find fulfillment of them.But this requires letting go of controlling outcomes.I have no idea how this will all turn out now, my project, given that I’m losing three months most likely—or more. Somehow a virtual visit to Vienna or drive in a Corvette seem less thrilling.What I do know is that list items are always checked off exactly the way God and my dad intend them to be….I don’t get a choice in that matter.That’s what’s so awe-inspiring about being human, being a soul in a body. God is around us, pulling the strings, all the time.He’s helping us especially right now. Just wait.Keep your eyes on the prize.When you’ve set a goal for yourself, particularly one with many moving parts—like training for a marathon, working on a large painting, setting up family game night—it’s easier to weather anxiety about the world around you.You have no idea how many times people have tried to talk me out of going on this mission. “It seems impossible,” they said. “Aren’t you worried you can’t do it? What happens then?" they said. “What’s the point of doing this if nobody changes the way they drive?”When you believe in something and work hard to make it happen, you have to be able to drown out that noise.You know who you are and what you need to be happy, or at least you are willing to find out. You MUST go where your heart tells you. The usual distractions of life are now gone. You have no more excuses. Set up a new mission, a new project, one that requires an everyday routine.I promise the fulfillment of it, increment by increment, even if it’s different from what you’d do in your regular life, will keep you happy and sane.Understand that we are all connected and every person’s experience is different. Listen. Appreciate their unique take on things.Most of what has gotten me through this project has been my willingness to revert to a child’s mentality. I have to approach people for lessons in list items all the time: tennis lessons, golf lessons, skydiving lessons. Realizing there are people out there with knowledge to help you is how life is supposed to be.We are not meant to hold all the answers. We are meant to reach out to one another and learn.Blaming people for what’s happening or shaming them to do what’s right isn’t going to do anyone any good. Instead, let’s support and learn from each other.That being said: Wish the best for others. This is no time for schadenfreude.Because we are all made up of the same spiritual material, whenever we wish harm on another or hope the universe punishes them, we are telling the universe that we would like to be punished.If we say, “it’s not fair that so-and-so has this much success, money or happiness or health or good fortune,” the universe instead hears us say, “I don’t want success, money, happiness, health or good fortune,” because we are made of the same divine material as so-and-so.Do you see where I’m going here? If you don’t shine, I don’t shine. Let’s show a little compassion.It’s gotten me through the past two years in particular…when I watched my peers seemingly thrive while making more conventional choices. Part of me envied their seeming security.Instead, wish them well. They are part of you.And that brings me to my final piece of insight:We are living in a world of abundance, not scarcity.I’m sure this is the hardest for anyone to believe right now, but it’s true.When my book didn’t sell on proposal alone (none of it had been written yet), I asked my dad in my head while praying one night, “Why do you want me to do this? It seems too hard! What is the message you hope for me to convey?”And this was what I heard: “Abundance, not scarcity.”I pictured a big apple pie and how my mom would let my brother or me slice it and then the other one choose. We were so competitive, thinking one would get more than the other.Unfortunately this is how a good portion of the world thinks, and it’s not going to work well now. We need to be giving, not taking, with the faith that we WILL be provided for.One of the things I’ve come to discover in these three years of devoting much of my time and energy, giving my all to honor someone, is that the more I give, the more I am just fine. Better than fine. Happy.I’m happier than I’ve ever been.God is an ever-giving presence. No matter what we do, he takes care of us. Because he made us. He loves us unconditionally. You do not have to do anything to earn God’s love.Too often we live our lives by the notion that we must hold on to the fortune we have and only occasionally take a risk to reach for more, hoping whatever we have so far doesn’t spill out.We must be willing to let go of everything to find what it is that is truly meant for us.We’re experiencing a great test of that right now, for everyone.So hold on to each other. Be merciful. Wish the most for each other.We will get through this.

Physicians Fear For Their Families As They Battle Coronavirus With Too Little Armor

Originally published 3/29/2020Dr. Jessica Kiss’ twin girls cry most mornings when she goes to work. They’re 9, old enough to know she could catch the coronavirus from her patients and get so sick she could die.Kiss shares that fear, and worries at least as much about bringing the virus home to her family — especially since she depends on a mask more than a week old to protect her.“I have four small children. I’m always thinking of them,” said the 37-year-old California family physician, who has one daughter with asthma. “But there really is no choice. I took an oath as a doctor to do the right thing.”Kiss’ concerns are mirrored by dozens of physician parents from around the nation in an impassioned letter to Congress begging that the remainder of the relevant personal protective equipment be released from the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal cache of medical supplies, for those on the front lines. They join a growing chorus of American health care workers who say they’re battling the virus with far too little armor as shortages force them to reuse personal protective equipment, known as PPE, or rely on homemade substitutes. Sometimes they must even go without protection altogether.“We are physically bringing home bacteria and viruses,” said Dr. Hala Sabry, an emergency medicine physician outside Los Angeles who founded the Physician Moms Group on Facebook, which has more than 70,000 members. “We need PPE, and we need it now. We actually needed it yesterday.”The danger is clear. A March 21 editorial in The Lancet said 3,300 health care workers were infected with the COVID-19 virus in China as of early March. At least 22 died by the end of February.The virus has also stricken health care workers in the United States. On March 14, the American College of Emergency Physicians announced that two members — one in Washington state and another in New Jersey — were in critical condition with COVID-19.At the private practice outside Los Angeles where Kiss works, three patients have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Tests are pending on 10 others, she said, and they suspect at least 50 more potential cases based on symptoms.Ideally, Kiss said, she’d use a fresh, tight-fitting N95 respirator mask each time she examined a patient. But she has had just one mask since March 16, when she got a box of five for her practice from a physician friend. Someone left a box of them on the friend’s porch, she said.When she encounters a patient with symptoms resembling COVID-19, Kiss said, she wears a face shield over her mask, wiping it down with medical-grade wipes between treating patients.As soon as she gets home from work, she said, she jumps straight into the shower and then launders her scrubs. She knows it could be devastating if she infects her family, even though children generally experience milder symptoms than adults. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, her daughter’s asthma may put the girl at greater risk of a severe form of the disease.Dr. Niran Al-Agba of Bremerton, Washington, said she worries “every single day” about bringing the COVID-19 virus home to her family.“I’ve been hugging them a lot,” the 45-year-old pediatrician said in a phone interview, as she cuddled one of her four children on her lap. “It’s the hardest part of what we’re doing. I could lose my husband. I could lose myself. I could lose my children.”Al-Agba said she first realized she’d need N95 masks and gowns after hearing about a COVID-19 death about 30 miles away in Kirkland last month. She asked her distributor to order them, but they were sold out. In early March, she found one N95 mask among painting gear in a storage facility. She figured she could reuse the mask if she sprayed it down with a little isopropyl alcohol and also protected herself with gloves, goggles and a jacket instead of a gown. So that’s what she did, visiting symptomatic patients in their cars to reduce the risk of spreading the virus in her office and the need for more protective equipment for other staffers.Recently, she began getting donations of such equipment. Someone left two boxes of N95s on her doorstep. Three retired dentists dropped off supplies. Patients brought her dozens of homemade masks. Al-Agba plans to make these supplies last, so she’s continuing to examine patients in cars.In the March 19 letter to Congress, about 50 other physicians described similar experiences and fears for their families, with their names excluded to protect them from possible retaliation from employers. Several described having few or no masks or gowns. Two said their health centers stopped testing for COVID-19 because there is not enough protective gear to keep workers safe. One described buying N95 masks from the Home Depot to distribute to colleagues; another spoke of buying safety glasses from a local construction site.“Healthcare workers around the country continue to risk exposure — some requiring quarantine and others falling ill,” said the letter. “With emergency rooms and hospitals running at and even over capacity, and as the crisis expands, so does the risk to our healthcare workers. And with a shortage of PPE, that risk is even greater.”Besides asking the government to release the entire stockpile of masks and other protective equipment — some of which has already been sent to states — the doctors requested it be replenished with newly manufactured equipment that is steered to health care workers before retail stores.They called on the U.S. Government Accountability Office to investigate the distribution of stockpile supplies and recommended ways to ensure they are distributed as efficiently as possible. They said the current system, which requires requests from local, state and territorial authorities, “may create delays that could cause significant harm to the health and welfare of the general public.”At this point, Sabry said, the federal government should not be keeping any part of the stockpile for a rainy day.“It’s pouring in the United States right now,” she said. “What are they waiting for? How bad does it have to get?”Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Nurturing Your Recovery with Healthy Eating

With everything happening in the world, it can be easy to forget that nutrition is a vital part of getting and staying healthy and strengthening your immune system. Healthy eating is important for everyone, but particularly for people in recovery. While active addiction can deplete your body, nutritious eating can provide you with the strength you need to heal.“Focusing on nutrition is extremely important for anyone in recovery,” says Sarah Hooff, a certified holistic nutritionist and certified sports nutrition coach, who works at Sunshine Coast Health Centre, a rehab in British Columbia, Canada. “A balanced diet will help replenish depleted nutrients, heal the body, restore energy and improve overall mood and emotional well-being.”Scientists are increasingly making the connection between gut health and mental health. Properly nourishing your microbiome — the bacteria that live in your gut and keep you healthy — starts with eating well, including plenty of fiber found in fruits and vegetables.“I always share with clients that 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut and 50% of dopamine is as well,” Hooff says. “These two neurotransmitters are needed for regulating our moods. If we want to feel well we need to eat well.”Many people, especially in early recovery, are battling health ailments ranging from high blood pressure to malnutrition to depression. Eating wholesome foods can help combat all of these.“It's a pretty serious picture yet proper nutrition can aid in all these areas,” Hooff says. “I've been extremely fortunate enough to work at Sunshine Coast Health Centre, and watching what regular, wholesome and freshly prepared meals can do for one’s health in a matter of a couple weeks is quite miraculous to say the least.”Despite the importance of healthy eating, learning nutrition can be difficult when you’re already focusing on the day-to-day challenges of staying sober. Hooff says it’s important to approach nutrition from a place of joy and happiness. Have fun exploring healthy eating, rather than thinking of it as a chore.“We need to add more of the things that make us happy,” Hooff says. “Most of the people I see have a desire to see themselves active and enjoying a healthy social life again, and free from the heaviness that took most people suffering with an addiction by surprise.”Having fun with nutrition is one way to move toward that goal. Here are Hooff’s steps for getting started:Start slowly. Don’t worry about setting yourself strict parameters around what you should and shouldn’t eat. Instead, take time to explore healthy, nutrient-rich foods in a variety of colors. “Don't get too focused on too many rules and strategies,” Hooff says. “Wholesome, balanced vibrant foods consumed regularly throughout the day really is the best strategy for optimal health.”Ditch the good/bad dichotomy. The diet industry has people programmed to think of food as “good” or “bad.” However, in the real world the benefits of food aren’t that black and white. A homemade cookie might not be good for your body, per se, but it can certainly feed your soul. So, follow your intuition when it comes to what you eat, and appreciate the choices you have. “I don't really think of foods as good or bad but as a blessing,” Hooff says.Focus on fiber. Remember the importance of gut bacteria? Well, those helpful microbes love to snack on fiber. Fruits and vegetables are the best sources of fiber, but when comparing packaged foods, choosing the one with more fiber is a good guiding principal, Hoof says.Eat breakfast. Many people in active addiction skip breakfast. Eating a healthy breakfast — even as simple as a whole-wheat toast with peanut butter or avocado — is a great way to set your intention for healthy eating throughout the rest of the day. Eating breakfast might feel odd at first, but soon it will become a part of your routine, Hooff says.Get moving. Exercise is just as important as good nutrition. Find time to incorporate movement — even a simple walk — into your day. “Exercise will help improve appetite and nutrient absorption, create new neural pathways in the brain as well as increase overall energy,” Hooff says.Like many things in early recovery, learning to eat nutritiously will have a learning curve.“It'll take some time to restore some of these areas, but if one can start providing the nutrients that have been needed as soon as possible, one starts to feel better and can build on that progress with so much more confidence,” Hooff says.Remember, it’s important to have fun along the way!“I'm of the mindset that it's much easier to replace a harmful habit when we have something to look forward to,” she says. Here’s a favorite treat to try:Raspberry Chocolate Layer Pudding“Chia seeds sure are one of Nature's sweetest gifts,” Hooff says. “I often make this one at workshops and it's definitely is a crowd pleaser!”Chocolate Layer1 small banana1 tbsp. cocoa3 tsp chia seeds1/2 cp waterPlace ingredients in blender, mix until smooth. Divide into 2 servings and rinse blender for next part.Berry Layer1 cup raspberries1 small banana1/2 cup water5 tsp chia seedsPlace ingredients into blender and mix until smooth. Pour over chocolate layer and let set.If using a dollop of coconut cream, mix up a batch while the pudding is setting. You can now also pick some up in the grocery store where you would find regular whipped cream. Top with cream and lastly chocolate shavings for a finishing touch! Optional: Add a touch of maple syrup for additional sweetness. Or, substitute avocado and a date or two for banana. Learn more at www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca or reach Sunshine Coast Health Center at (866) 487-9010 or by email at info@schc.ca.

Learning to Adult in Recovery

I’m 50 years old and 7 years sober and I’m still terrible and completely freaked out by adulting. This is not something I’m proud of. I make jokes about it like “I’m a Jew” or “I’m a woman” to explain away my ignorance of electronics and mechanics. (I recently killed my computer’s battery by keeping it plugged in 24/7 and didn’t have my oil changed for 2 years.) But, let’s be honest, that’s racist and sexist and absolute bullshit. Truth is, I spent half my life battling drug addiction and mental illness and was pretty much absent for that learning curve that included taxes, car maintenance, building your credit, budgeting, and relationship skills. So basically at 50 I’m learning stuff that I should have learned at 25. I’ve also been coddled, apart from the drug addiction and mental illness. I went from my father handling everything to my ex-husband handling everything. When that marriage tanked and I ended up in treatment and sober living for the umpteenth time, my best friend stepped in and started handling everything. I’m still on her phone plan and my car is still in her name because when I got divorced and relapsed, I had the worst credit on the planet. Having good credit wasn’t something I had ever worried about and not something that anyone had ever taught me. To be blunt, people were concerned with keeping me alive because I had been trying to kill myself for years with drugs and suicide attempts. Credit scores don't seem super important when your kid/friend/wife can’t keep a needle out of her arm or a knife away from her wrists.But with aging and ill parents and no partner, the reality of my lack of life skills is more evident than ever. Per usual, I try to make it funny as I beg my friend to help me with my taxes, saying “Hey I have other skills like making a soda bottle into a crack bong or hitting a rolling vein.” However, at seven years sober and hitting middle age, is that really an excuse anymore? Here’s the truth: Your car doesn’t care. The IRS doesn’t care. Nobody really cares why you can’t do basic life shit. At my age, it’s just kind of pathetic.I’ll be honest, part of it is fear. It’s unfamiliar. Thanks to the classic addict mentality, I’m afraid of responsibility. The unknown is scary. I don’t want to learn this stuff. I’m lazy. I want to be taken care of. Still. It’s gross, I know.I’ve been fired from every job I’ve ever had except for an editing one I held for six years that I recently quit to pursue a bunch of freelance stuff. The only reason that job was remotely viable was because I got to work from home in my holey sweatpants and my boss loved my irreverent, inappropriate attitude. Nobody else would have put up with it. Despite a book and speaking gigs and my podcast whoredom, I’m still not fully self-supporting. And sure, I’ve managed to stay afloat but some of that is my weird ability to manipulate people into taking care of me, mostly men. It used to be based on my brokenness or them wanting to fuck me. Now it’s that I’m seen as the Golden Goose, the next new whatever. It’s not ideal but considering it was my survival technique for 20 plus years, I have to cut myself a little slack.I dress like a 22-year-old stoner skater girl in ripped up vintage t-shirts and cords and weird suede booties. That’s fine and attracts many men in their 30’s who are fooled by my faux weird youthfulness, but it’s not so good when I’m booked to speak at a conference or a fundraiser. That’s when terror steps in. I’ve managed to cobble together a vintage style that seems to fly but you’ll find me dead before you’ll see me in a blazer. I can’t really cook either. I never learned mostly because I couldn’t be less interested. Again, I make some corny joke that the only thing I can cook is dope. But again, how long into sobriety or middle age is that really funny or appropriate?I will give myself some props. I have health insurance because I have to--thanks to my epilepsy. And even my cat has health insurance. I am my mom’s social security payee and handle all her bills but that’s solely because it was forced upon me as her only child when she developed dementia. So yeah, I can man up--or woman up, I should say--when it’s necessary.We’ve all heard the saying that when you get sober you’re the mental age of when you started using. I’m not sure if I agree with that; I see stunted growth in myself and also in others that started to use later in life.Drugs and alcohol hinder the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, reasoning, and critical thinking. If those parts are shut down by addiction, well obviously you aren’t going to acquire the skills to navigate life. We learn by making mistakes, but addicts tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, slow to learn or gain any new perspective.Just to check my science, I asked Dr. Howard Wetsman. “Well, that is the current party line, but I think whether we’re using or not, having low dopamine self-centers us so we are prone to making those impulsive self-centered mistakes again and again. As dopamine is necessary for long term potentiation (memory), we may not actually learn as well or as permanently as others. I don’t know if there’s enough evidence to say either way, but we all have to just do the best we can day to day.”Thankfully, I’m not too proud to ask for help, and luckily, people in the program and friends are happy to offer it.

The Engine of Myself: Interview with Poet Hala Alyan

Of the many lines which have stayed with me after reading Hala Alyan’s book The 29th Year, one of my favorites is, “I have held the engine of myself against my own ear and, dear miracle, I recognized the song.” Perhaps because I’m currently twenty-nine, I found Hala’s acts of reflection so honest and piercing that the book lies on my table like a footprint in the earth. Like something has passed through here, heavy and fast.In some ways, every poem made after (during) survival is about survival, whether this truth is spoken directly or as undercurrent. The 29th Year does a little of both while Hala traces the mosaic of her identity and how it’s shelled her experience of remaining brilliantly alive, despite the world and despite her own actions.This book follows up the 2017 release of Salt Houses, a novel which narrates a middle-class Palestinian family, one generation after another, and as they migrate across countries. That novel was widely acclaimed and included in the Best of 2017 list compiled by NPR.The 29th Year, which came out in early 2019, similarly engages what it means to be Palestinian, but also Woman, Wife, Dreamer, Fighter, Drinker, plus so much more. This parapet of poems introspects backwards from the point of transition between emerging adulthood and the full unalloyed thing. Simultaneously, much of the collection is devoted to registering the timeline of getting sober, shaped like a metal spring, with all its behavioral switchbacks.Another piece of language from The 29th Year that stays with me is “How a wound becomes a heart.” The collection represents a thrilling extension to the poetics of recovery, and the relationship between them and The Twelve Steps. There are many parts of this conversation I want to tattoo on the inside of my eyelids to reread every night. I’m still thinking about intention ever since I did a workshop with Vincent Toro last summer at DreamYard in the Bronx. Can you tell me some of the important intentions of your new book?Wait, did you say intention or tension?IN-tention [laughs]. Although we can talk about tension if you want. [Laughs] Oh, IN-tention. The Twenty-Ninth Year was driven by experience, and particularly a concentrated time when I started feeling a lot of essential crises about where I was in my life. I was finishing my training to be a psychologist and I was sort of entering the world in a number of ways. This all happened in my 29th year, literally.For several months I was having a lot of vivid and intense dreams and feeling almost assaulted by memory. It felt like my mind was cycling back. On a physiological level, I had so much cortisol--that’s the unromantic explanation. I was in a state of panic. But then being a poet [laughs] I was like, what’s the story here? I did a lot of excavation and a lot of organizing and re-ordering of my understanding of who I was and how I got here.Hm. So there was tension too. I can never tell these stories accurately because I’m always going to be editorializing. In the end the collection was a surrendering to that, being like, “Ok, I can’t know for sure what was accurate, so I have to tell it the way I’m experiencing it right now.” The intention was setting that record. I’m the type of person who is programmed to resist. To resist things that are difficult. To resist comfort. This was the first time I had a lot of practice at accepting.Let’s talk about addiction. Lately, I’ve been seeing things through the lenses of social work and public health so I’m going to approach this question from those places, but I think this approach will open up more tactile conversation. What are some risk factors for addiction that are unique to Palestinians, of course, acknowledging experience varies across diaspora and due to other social variables?I speak from diasporic experience. I don’t think there is much research about this, so I’ll speak intuitively and from having conversations with people. There is a sense of dislocation and missing something that feels crucial and then filling the loss with whatever you have at your disposal. That could lead people to seek forms of self-soothing that aren’t ideal. I also believe when you belong to an identity that is marginalized and subjected to both literal and rhetorical annihilation you kind of internalize that. You learn to annihilate yourself.There’s a line from “Call Me Prayer,” “In the exile’s suitcase, a carpet of dead grass. Seven persimmons. A dandelion stem skinny as a grenade pin.”I can remember parts of your book where imagery of war was imprinted into descriptions of emotion. I think about that, hearing what you just said about annihilation, and wonder if there is a connection. It’s tough to talk about collectively because it’s the least intentional and the least premeditated connection, but instead one we are most driven by experientially and needing to capture that and put it into language. But one hundred percent afterward when I was reflecting and editing my manuscript. Through more and more conflict and more and more dislocation that becomes your city, your day-to-day. And it makes sense addiction would come from that. A similar question...in the experience of being a woman in this world, what are some of the risk factors for addiction? The answer is similar to the previous position of being Palestinian. Womanhood is an identity that comes with trying to be controlled, trying to be made as small as possible. There’s vitriol, hatred, and violence. Again, I don’t think it’s a long walk from receiving violence from others to committing violence towards the self.I’ve always thought of addiction as a violent act that people endure and live through. So it's a similar thing.What your book does well and thoroughly is chart the lines between womanhood, violence, addiction, marriage, the major points of the web, but also the small ones that fill everything in. Thank you so much for saying that. I struggle with this writing sometimes but experientially and existentially I don’t know how to move through the world without one of those identities missing or not present.In reading this book I thought about the people in recovery who are already poets or who want to be poets. For you, how did The Twelve Steps lend to the writing process or producing the poems. Or--and I will throw this question out there in a different way and you can navigate either however you want--how are The Twelve Steps already poetry, in terms of what they ask you to produce?Oh, I love that. Beautiful. First, a disclaimer. I did not get sober through AA. I isolated myself and didn’t turn to anyone for support. I now look back at it as a violence I inflicted upon myself in my own way. I would do it differently now and look for community. By myself I looked up the steps and interpreted them. I’m not advocating that, but it’s just what I did. Later I thought about the Steps as I was writing the book and going through the intense period of tumultuousness, suffering, anxiety... I asked myself, “Well how did you move through the world when you were getting sober?” The taking stock of what you have. Thinking about what decisions or missteps got you here, retracing them, questioning how we can make amends.The steps can be useful when we think about poetry and poetic device in that there is a certain surrender that comes from making art. There is a certain amends-making that comes from making art. Again you sit down with what you have, you take stock of it, you make sense of it, then you try to create some sort of meaning out of it. I think there’s definitely a simpatico there.I personally had a similar recovery in the sense...just as in addiction, then in recovery, I did a lot of it in isolation--Yes, I know what you mean--So I feel that. There is a spectrum of AA practitioners, with more orthodox folks on one end who believe there is a clear right and wrong way, and then on the other end, people who say, “You can take what you want and leave the rest.”Exactly, exactly.For a while, I also didn’t find traction with AA and The Twelve Steps. It wasn’t for me. But the more I go now I start to feel that regardless if you subscribe to it medically, culturally it’s wicked important to recovery culture--Agreed--Unless you’re in a cave and you never read anything related to recovery, you’re gonna absorb a bit of it. It’s inevitably in the air. It’s so out there. Do you remember when you were getting sober, did you rely on some of the tenets and ideas?The first meeting I ever went to, when I was 19, I remember hearing a speaker say, “Just keep the plug in the jug,” meaning, no matter what happens in your life, no matter how bad it gets, if you remain sober at least you have that. Things would only be that much worse if you’re using. I’ve clung to this throughout sobriety. For a while I didn’t like AA, because I didn’t know how to navigate the spiritual component. But nowadays the more I go to meetings I’m appreciating the little sayings, and appreciating The Twelve Steps as cultural objects you can find healing through, and less like medical instruments. Like less instructional and more metaphorical. I love that.Although, some folks believe in rigorously adhering to the Steps as they’re written in the Big Book and I want to acknowledge how this approach is valid for them. Well...with all that being said, want to look at some of your 12-Step poems? Sure.In your poem “Step One: Admit Powerlessnes,” it seemed like you were drawing a line between two types of powerlessness, the kind that can happen during sexual violence, and then the admission of an inability to control drinking. Again, maybe I’m just thinking like an epidemiologist, but within this poem are there multiple types of powerlessness being associated across time?Yes, and it’s not just powerlessness in terms of sexual violence. At the end of the day, we are powerless in the face of everything we’ve experienced. That does not mean we can’t take back some power in the telling. I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between pain and suffering lately. Pain is what happens to us that is nonnegotiable and suffering is what we do with that pain--Wow--So positioning the pain is what makes us suffer. It’s been on my mind a lot. Whether it’s trauma or addiction it took me a long time to get the powerlessness thing, but in both cases it was the first step towards walking through it and being liberated and being able to tell a different story. So definitely in that poem there is the tension between the two.I feel the ending lines resonate with what you said, “Through the bar window a lightbulb exploded like a white tusk and when the sun finally rose I believed in a different god.”You’re different once you go through it. You’re different when you go through anything big and transformative. There can be a morning, but it’s not always a pleasant or easy process.Alright, howabout “Step Two: Higher Power”? There is the line, “I guess you could say I love the city like I love prickly pears, which is to say not very much, only when I’m starving.” Perhaps I’m projecting because the higher power portion of The Twelve Steps wasn’t something that came easily to me, but the poem seems to be saying, “Alright, I’m not all in on this, but I will accept it right now out of necessity.”-- I don’t have a choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.There’s also the line, “This is how a year passes, with hundreds of lies, like that midnight walk in the French countryside dark, my sister giggling nervously, no streetlamp for miles. One footstep after the other, and the only way out ahead.” I’ve considered different interpretations of this. Was faith something you were lying to yourself about in order to help you survive?It’s less about disbelief in faith...There’s a quote I really like, “Trust in god but always tie up your camel.” I have never resonated with the idea you just 100% lay down and give it all over. What I like about the quote is...you can have faith, but do your part. That idea of me walking with my sister at night, having faith the ground wasn’t going to open up and swallow us. We will reach the place we need to go. Faith is deeply important. Even if people don’t put faith in God or a higher power, that’s fine, but having faith in something, even if it’s just yourself, or having faith in other people, or having faith in time. That stuff is so crucial, because that’s what keeps people moving when there’s no indicator that there’s a way out.I feel like I want to say “Wow” every time you answer my questions. Let’s move on to your poem “Step Four: Moral Inventory.” It made me think...all contexts aside, there’s nothing evil with wanting to be beautiful. Of course, it’s wrong to hurt people and it’s unhealthy to hurt ourselves and we shouldn’t necessarily excuse the hurtful actions which might stem from the feeling. But the feeling itself is forgivable. Totally. Wanting things, to be beautiful, to be young, there’s shame attached to it. So being able to own that, and acknowledge that side of yourself that hungers and longs. It’s the same thing with addiction. Being able to look your hunger in the eye is an important step in terms of entering that conversation with yourself, where desire can be negotiated.So “Step Eight: Make Amends ”...Making amends is a process in The Twelve Steps, but the poem for me also spoke outside that. It made me think of how women are pressured to apologize for things, and for taking up space. This poem connects to your interpretation of the earlier one...about having to apologize for wanting, having to apologize for loving, to apologize for eating. Then there is the question...how much is making amends coming from a place that is genuine, versus you’re doing what you’re trained to do? At what point is amends-making another act of violence or self-hatred? This goes back to your first question, about intention. What is the intention behind a behavior? That explains a lot of why we’re doing what we’re doing. There are some amends, quote unquote “apologies” I’ve done because I felt like I was supposed to, not necessarily because I needed to.You’re a practicing clinical psychologist. This is wholeheartedly a book of literature and I couldn’t detect much of your day job in there, at least not explicitly. I wonder how it might be showing up as an undercurrent. Does the overlap of these two lives appear in your book?If there was overlap it wasn’t consciously put here or there like an easter egg. Psychology has taught me to ask better questions, and to be on the lookout for patterns, including false ones, like the false stories we tell ourselves and believe. The book was a work of excavation, or making sense of things, so my background in psychology might have helped in the style of inquiry.The book spans the globe, sometimes on a line-by-line basis, a piece from one landscape stitched to another. “Highway 17 in Texas; we stop to watch buzzards / supping on roadkill porcupine. The mountains are a Persian rug of emerald and brown, wolfish clouds / gathering rain,” is a line from the poem “The Temperance (XIV) Card,” I find your book to be double-headed to the extent it’s focused inwards while at the same time lush with observations. I think of myself and my identity as disparate depending on where I was. I moved and traveled. I was a different person in different places. When I revisit the phases of childhood and adolescence, or college years, with that comes revisiting Beirut, and Oklahoma, revisiting all these different places. My mind drags along with it all the significant places I’ve been to.There are many poems in the book addressed to a “you.” That “you” is constantly changing, from a husband, to an ex-lover, a friend, an enemy, or even the reader. Because it’s a poem, you’re writing it alone, sitting at a table, thinking about what the poem means to you. But it’s like the letters written to someone else are in a small way written to yourself. Even the poem, “Dear Layal,” That’s my cousin. It’s also a letter to myself and the ways I intersect with my cousin. Or things I wish I’d said before. Even if on the surface it’s directed towards her, it’s an exercise taking place internally. Once it’s out in the world people can read it. But until that happens the process of making belongs only to the writer.Well...we’ve reached the end. What’s going on for you in terms of writing right now?Poetry-wise, I’m sort of lying low. I’ve been working on a series of poems based on choose your adventure books, where the reader gets to be involved in the process. That’s been fun. In terms of fiction, I have a second novel coming out with Houghton Mifflin in the next year or so.

"It Only Took One Pill"

The road to Paul Little’s addiction began during a hard day at work. He took one pill to ease a headache, which turned into nine-month habit.“I got up to 20 to 30 Percocets a day,” the former Air Force doctor said. “I was eating them like M&Ms.”Kathy Thomas took opioids for two years until a doctor told her she was being unnecessarily medicated. She still lives with the psychological consequences.“I still don’t think that I have cognitive functioning back where it needs to be,” the former Army program manager said.Ted Flores, who suffered from a pinched nerve and a couple of degenerative discs from a car crash, knows how ordinary people can get hooked on pain pills. As a pharmacy technician, he saw customers who looked like him.“I was one of the many.”In 2018, 47,590 people died of an opioid overdose, and more than 2 million suffer from opioid addiction disorder, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The rising death and addiction toll has followed a decade-long surge in the distribution of prescription opioids — according to federal data, more than 76 billion pills flooded the country from 2006 to 2012.Medical experts say genetics account for about half of the risk of addiction, but mental health issues, violence in the home and access to drugs also contribute. Law enforcement officials blame illegal drug diversion by corrupt doctors and an overabundance of supply sent out by drug companies that fail to properly monitor suspicious orders. The companies blame bad doctors and individuals who abuse their products.Earlier this year, The Washington Post asked readers to share their stories about how opioids have affected their communities. More than 700 people responded. Hundreds wrote about the devastation to their hometowns, their families and themselves. Scores of chronic-pain patients said they needed opioids to live full lives and were concerned about efforts to restrict the supply during what they believed to be a period of hysteria about opioids.Many readers said it was easy to get hooked on the pills, whether they were taken to treat an injury or at a party. Once addiction took hold, the consequences were life-altering.Five people described turning points in their lives — the moments that led them down a trail of dependency and addiction.It started with a car crashLate at night in November 2011, Ted Flores was coming home from running errands in Highland, Ind., when a car T-boned his at an intersection. He was lucky. He was diagnosed with only a pinched nerve and a couple of degenerative discs.He tried physical therapy, but it didn’t take the pain away. Then a doctor gave him a prescription for hydrocodone. The drugs took away his pain and made him feel more energetic and sociable. Even though he was no longer in pain, he went to another doctor to get more opioids, this time oxycodone.“I didn’t want it to stop,” said Flores, now 30. “Eventually, I started taking a little more than what I was supposed to and would tell myself, ‘I’ll take less next time.’ ”He ran out of pills two weeks into a month-long refill. He would develop flulike symptoms whenever he finished his prescription early.“I had to call sick into work,” he said. “I couldn’t even leave my room.”During this time, Flores got a job as a pharmacy technician at CVS. He said he constantly saw other people like him, coming in to fill prescriptions they didn’t need. Some would wait in their cars in the parking lot before the store opened.Six years after the crash, finally fed up with the cycle of withdrawals, Flores booked an appointment at a Suboxone clinic and got clean.“I bear guilt or the sense I was part of the problem, giving other addicts their medication,” he said. “Seeing recent statistics about how many pills flooded my area, I’m not surprised: I was one of the many.”It started with picking up a prescription for a friendWhen Mary Young had to take pain pills after foot surgery, it felt like a chore.A real estate agent in San Diego, she usually spent 10 hours a day on her feet. One day in 2005, a bone in the ball of her left foot split in half. She was on crutches for three months, reaching four times a day for bottles of oxycodone and Vicodin, which contains hydrocodone.“When I took the last pill of my prescription, I didn’t think anything of it,” said Young, now 45. “If anything, I was happy to be done with it.”Four months later, a friend asked her for a ride to the pharmacy so she could get her Vicodin prescription.“Hearing the word ‘Vicodin,’ I don’t know why but I felt like fireworks erupted in my brain,” Young said.“Yes, but can I have one?” she asked her friend. The friend handed her a small white tablet that Young took home. Sitting in her living room, she swallowed it and soon felt euphoria.“It was a feeling I wanted to chase,” she said. “It only took one pill.”The friend, who wasn’t feeling any relief from her medication, willingly handed over as many as Young asked for. At the height of Young’s addiction, she was siphoning 20 a day from her friend, who suffered from stomach pain.For six years, Young kept getting Vicodin from her friend. She says she could not have functioned without it. When she traveled, she worried about running out. When out with friends, she wouldn’t drink, fearing she could “lose the high.” At night, she would count how many she had, and if it didn’t add up to 20 for the next day, she drove to her friend’s and picked up more.Finally, visiting family in West Des Moines, Iowa, she decided to move home and go to a recovery center. She has been in recovery for nearly a decade.“Sometimes I look back and feel so much shame for lying to my friends and family, keeping my addiction under wraps,” she said. “I used to be so confident, but my self-esteem is now at zero. I’m still working toward building back the trust of my family — as well as my own.”It started with a headachePaul Little’s job as an Air Force physician at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas was a stressful one. It was his first job after completing his residency. He felt he had more patients and paperwork than his experience qualified him for. He was a captain, but he felt his job was one for a major.In 1979, Little was sitting in his office on the base and plagued by a migraine. He knew that he had leftover pain pills from a hernia repair in his desk. He took one. “It was an especially difficult day,” he said.That one day led to a year-long habit. To get more, Little would tell patients that they needed pain-pill prescriptions and then would skim some, he said, taking up to 30 five-milligram Percocets a day. He successfully hid his addiction, continued to treat patients and even won a base-wide award for his work.He eventually realized “this insanity couldn’t go on,” and he confessed to his commanding officer. He was given an other-than-honorable discharge, his medical license was suspended and he went to prison for a year.It took years of sobriety to earn his way back. Once he had, he wanted to do the opposite of prescribing opioids: Little, now 60, he works at a detox center in San Diego and runs a telemedicine Suboxone clinic in West Virginia to help other addicts.It started with a chronic painKathy Thomas had a senior civilian position with the Army, managing a group of nine people who reviewed complex contracts. Shortly before she retired, she was prescribed an array of pain pills in 2012 for a rare, incurable form of neuropathy.After Thomas’s pain from her neuropathy dissipated, doctors left her on the pain pills, furthering her dependency on the drugs. When she went to the Mayo Clinic for a sleep study, a doctor noticed the drugs on her chart.“He said: ‘Oh my God, you have been on all these drugs for two years. What is your pain management doctor’s plan to taper you?’ ” said Thomas, who is now 68 and lives in San Antonio. She said she was not given a plan.Thomas went through group therapy to be weaned off the pills. She said everyone in the room was just like her — their addiction and dependency had crept up on them without them noticing.Even in recovery, Thomas retains symptoms of dependency: She’s developed an eating disorder, gaining 45 pounds. Today she has difficulty remembering what day it is or showing up for doctor appointments.Thomas also compulsively shops. At the peak of it, six boxes a week would appear at her front door. She said she had no recollection of ordering anything.“My husband would hold up a box and ask me what it was, and I had no idea,” she said. “I wasn’t like this. I used to be unstoppable, not just mentally but physically.”Now Thomas spend her days repeating tasks she’s already done because she forgot what she did earlier. “There’s a lot of side effects that go along with using these drugs long term that I don’t see being addressed,” Thomas said. “I don’t think a lot of people think of that.”It started with a soccer injuryIn 2001, when Kayla Leinenweber was 13, after she had wisdom-teeth surgery, her mother doled out her pain medication as prescribed. The pills did not create a problem for her.“I was in a public high school, where most kids — including myself — were experimenting with marijuana and mushrooms, not pills,” she said.However, after transferring to a private school in Alpharetta, Ga., Leinenweber saw her peers snorting cocaine and taking opioids. She went into her parents’ medicine cabinet to steal oxycodone pills after she tore a ligament in her leg playing soccer. The injury prevented her from playing the sport.“I thought my life was over,” she said. “I wasn’t going to college without soccer because I was dumb.”At 15, her school tested her for drugs and she failed. She was sent to an inpatient clinic in Washington state, but sobriety didn’t last.“I was struggling with depression and feelings about my sexual identity,” said Leinenweber, who is now 31 and out as a lesbian. “I was my own harshest critic.”At 22, she got a DUI, her first of two. She lost her driver’s license. She abused heroin. She went to nine treatment facilities. She overdosed three times, twice on heroin and once on Ambien. At the peak of her addiction, she would score up to $200 heroin a day.“For the last few years, I was sick all of the time,” she said.By 2013, Leinenweber was exhausted. She had overdosed again. With her clothes in two trash bags, she couch-surfed until she opened a sober-living home she could live in. Now she lives in Sneads Ferry, N.C., and mentors people on their treatment options.This story was originally published by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit,  nonpartisan newsroom at the American University School of Communication.