Restoration

Tuesday, July 30, 2013:

Restoration of our mental and spiritual health is in direct proportion to our recognized need for help and our willingness to work for recovery. Dishonesty, brain damage, indifference, and reservations are the only limitations to our recovery.

Little Red Book, p. 77

&

It hadn’t occurred to me that my excessive drinking and drug abuse caused brain damage. I knew I had, on more than one occasion, sustained blows to the head severe enough to lose consciousness. But drug and alcohol abuse? Brain damage, really? Isn't that a bit melodramatic of a diagnosis? Regardless of my opinion, untreated, brain damage, caused by all of the above, affects the way I think… and the way I think I think. 

            Depression is but one of the symptoms of brain injury. There are several more that confound us as we begin the process of recovery. To think of alcoholism and drug abuse as a treatable disease of the brain isn’t an excuse for our drinking. After long term abuse neurologists know that the brain is damaged for some of us in areas that affects our judgment in ways that are hard for us to discern.

Whether or not we were biochemically predisposed towards addictive behavior doesn’t matter by the time our lives have careened out of control to the degree that we realize we need help and seek treatment. However, we balk at treating the damage we have done to our brains even though very few of us would resist going to a doctor to seek medical solutions for anything from a common cold to a broken leg. 

          Moralists tell us to buck-up; that we don’t have a disease; that it is a matter of choice; that calling it a disease is a cop-out. More often than not the addict also thinks of addiction in moralistic terms and tries time and time again to break away from the prison of chemical abuse by manning-up. Failure along these lines can drive us to a demoralizing resignation to our demise and guilt that leads some to suicide. The fact is that I need to treat the damage I have done to myself in medical, as well as spiritual, terms. To ignore one or the other is the path to frustration and guilt with serious consequences.

4,420