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BenBella Books, Inc.
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First e-book edition: January 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawford, Christopher Kennedy, 1955-
What addicts know : 10 lessons from recovery to benefit everyone / by Christopher Kennedy Lawford ; foreword by Drew Pinsky.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-939529-06-0 (trade cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-939529-07-7 (electronic) 1. Addicts—Rehabilitation. 2. Recovering addicts. 3. Substance abuse—Treatment. I. Title.
HV4998.L394 2014
362.29—dc23
2013027441
| Editing by Brian NicolCopy Editing by Francesca Drago | Jacket design by Sarah DombrowskyText design by Neuwirth & Associates, Inc. |
| Proofreading by Jenny Bridges and James Fraleigh | Text composition by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd |
| Cover design by Bradford Foltz | Printed by Bang Printing |
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This book is dedicated to the millions of men and women, both old and young, who live their lives as inspiring examples of the power of recovery.
CONTENTS
Introduction: The “Gifts” of Addiction
LESSON #1: Find Out Who You Are
LESSON #2: Accept Personal Responsibility
LESSON #3: Visualize the Life You Want
LESSON #4: Realign Your Relationships
LESSON #5: Exercise Vigilance
LESSON #6: Cultivate Natural, Healthy Highs
LESSON #7: Transform Pain into Growth
LESSON #8: Practice Service to Others
LESSON #9: Engage with Community
LESSON #10: Maintain a Spiritual Practice
Afterword: Changing One Person at a Time
Appendix: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
People are often curious about why I choose to work with addicts. They seem genuinely surprised by my answer. Instead of saying what they might expect (albeit true) that “I do it out of compassion for these suffering souls,” I usually express a point of view that catches them off guard.
The truth is, I work with addicts because they are some of the most powerful, richest, most human people you could ever meet. And I don’t mean that addicts are necessarily powerful in business or government or rich in terms of material wealth. Most are not. They are rich where it counts most—in character, talent, and life experiences. And perhaps they even excel in relation to something that is more difficult to characterize. Let’s just call it spirit.
Addicts may do bad things while addicted and feel awful about it afterward. They can test anyone’s patience to the max. But once they are solidly in recovery from their addictions, they become incredible survivors and truly wise, because what has happened to them is rather profound.
Though I can give you countless examples of these almost miraculous transformations, let’s focus on just one. When I first met Bob Forrest in the late 1980s, he was an international rock star and a horrific heroin addict. He was hardcore. He measured his life by album releases and the deaths of friends, mostly from substance abuse.
Bob was so out of control, so manic and abusive, that some people would actually hide when he showed up. He appeared with me on a radio show in 1988 and was being his usual crazy, abusive self when we got a call-in from a woman who had a very serious question. I don’t remember the question or her problem, but I recall that Bob suddenly became very focused and gave her some really reasonable advice over the radio airwaves.
“Bob, you’ve got something special in you,” I told him while we were still on the air. “You might make a great therapist one day if you’d just stop being such a freaking drug addict.”
As the years went by, our paths crossed occasionally and I was shocked by his appearance. He was so gaunt it looked like he had AIDS or tuberculosis, and I thought to myself, Oh, man, this guy is going to die soon. There seemed to be no way he would survive his addiction.
Fast-forward ten years. I’m giving a lecture for a musician’s assistance program somewhere in L.A. and I see this familiar-looking guy sitting in the front row. He asks me several provocative, good questions and I keep trying to place him in my mind: Is that Bob Forrest? The man I had given up for dead?
Throughout that presentation I just kept thinking, This couldn’t possibly be Bob Forrest because he is most certainly dead. I felt like I was looking at a ghost.
It turned out that Bob had become this amazing, talented, and flourishing recovery guy. He had been in twenty-four different rehab facilities and finally found sobriety in 1996, when most people in his life had given up on him ever surviving.
As
