also their attempt to attain some kind of greater consciousness. Unfortunately, using addictive substances to get there leads to a dead end.
Once in recovery, most people begin to explore who they really are, or who they really want to be, in order to solidify and sustain their recovery. You want to get rid of the triggers and the underlying causes and conditions that made you behave the way you did. That can be a thorny challenge for anyone, addict or not. “Most of what we do from childhood on is reacting to what happens to us,” author and magazine journalist David Sheff explained to me. “We develop coping mechanisms and that takes us further away from who we are.”
As you get deeper into recovery, you eventually feel compelled to ask, “What have I been doing with my life? I’ve lived a lie. I’ve lived in reaction my whole life. So who the hell am I?”
These questions are useful for non-addicts as well, of course. They are universal, but they take on a heightened sense of urgency among people dealing with recovery issues.
An important part of the Who Am I self-examination is reassessing the opinions and attitudes that underlay your decisionmaking. In my case, I had to ask myself questions like, What color couch do I like? I know this sounds trivial, but it’s an example of a question that ultimately becomes revealing. People would ask me, “Do you like this couch?” And I would answer, “I don’t know. Do you like it? Because if you like it, maybe I do, too.” I didn’t know enough about myself to even know what color couch I liked.
Developing self-awareness is about realizing something as basic as I don’t even know what color couch I like. Some people might just leave it up to a professional or a friend to tell them what kind of couch they should like. Developing self-awareness is about realizing you don’t even know something as basic about yourself as the colors you prefer.
Self-awareness is about a lot more than just having opinions. Opinions matter because you can latch onto them without necessarily having any visceral connections to them. An opinion is one thing, how you feel about something is entirely different. Addicts live in their heads most of the time. Recovery is about moving from your head to your heart. Self-awareness facilitates that.
If you like a couch because a parent liked it, or you saw it in a movie once, or the person you were dating at the time thought it was a cool couch, then you like that couch for superficial reasons. Recovery involves a deeper investigation into what really makes you tick. Do you like that couch just because you want to be a people pleaser? Once you get closer to your authentic self, you may realize you actually hate that damn couch and you aren’t afraid to say so.
There are many layers to penetrate during recovery, and that’s why it takes so much time. It’s not an easy exploration of “I just want to find out what I really like.” The trajectory of a person’s life often obscures very diabolically who they really are, making self-awareness even more difficult to attain.
I had been so intoxicated and brainwashed by where I came from in life that I accepted a lot of what I wouldn’t dream of accepting today. I came from a place where accomplishment and activity were highly valued, where just sitting around and connecting with someone was not. I came from a family where everything we did had to have a purpose, where there were strong convictions about giving back to society. Later in life, I came to realize much of that family behavior was really about getting recognition. Everybody was more or less out for themselves, as many human beings are, but it was especially magnified in my family.
Is that part of my authentic self? Yes, because that’s where I came from, although I denied that out-for-myself part of my upbringing for many years because it was uncomfortable for me to behave that way. It’s not uncomfortable for me to behave like that today, however. It’s not a particularly attractive quality, but it is part of who I am at my core. Is it a part of my personality or my character that I would like to change? Yes. Just because you discover your authentic self doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good or that you like it or want to preserve it.
I like moving fast. I like sucking the marrow out of life. It’s the family dynamic that I come from. Is it really me? I don’t know, but I’ve accepted it as part of me and I like it. There was this sort of daredevil ethic I grew up with, trying to show who you were as a man. Driving or flying a plane with a broken foot or playing football while you were skiing on a mountain was the kind of stuff that was typical in my family. The more dangerous the stunts you pulled and the more you pushed the envelope, the more attention and admiration you got. That was never who I was, though at the time I wanted to be like that.
When we begin the process of trying to change, it’s often difficult because the behavior instilled in us is so engraved that to do something differently feels wrong. It doesn’t feel good. And addicts are addicted to feeling good. So if we’re not feeling good, many of us just feel, “What the hell do I care?”
LIFE REWARDS AUTHENTICITY
Geoffrey S. Mason knew he needed help when he woke up in the south of France and didn’t know where he was or what he had been doing the night before, although he knew it had something to do with an assignment covering a sporting event for ABC Sports. His increasingly heavy social drinking had stolen his identity and put him on a career treadmill that was undermining his reputation and self-esteem. So finally, in 1983, he checked himself into the Betty Ford Center.
Five years into recovery, Geoffrey had, in his words, “reclaimed my life and my career aspirations,” and was named executive producer of ABC Sports, picking up twenty-six Emmy Awards during his career. “I wouldn’t have had even a remote prayer for getting that job if I hadn’t gotten sober,” he said. “I wouldn’t have had a remote prayer for a successful marriage before getting sober.”
Only by getting in touch with his authentic self while in recovery, stripping away all the layers of self-deceit, was Geoffrey able to master the life skills necessary for a highly successful career and an eventual stable relationship leading to marriage. “Only when the poison in me was out of me could I know myself. There had been nothing real about my life. I was acting with artificiality. I didn’t want to lie anymore. I learned who my true self was and I was okay with myself.”
Most human beings want to feel special. They want to feel like they matter. They want to know that when they walk into a room, people care they are there. Therein is part of the genius of 12-Step programs. When you walk into one of those 12-Step meeting rooms, people really care that you are there and they show it.
When I first joined a 12-Step program, I thought I wanted to quit drinking and doing drugs and be a star like Tom Cruise. It took fifteen years for me to discover the real reason for me being there was to find my authentic self. A lot of people never get there. They are never able to turn their backs on who they are that doesn’t work for them anymore. You gain tremendous freedom when you discard what doesn’t work in your life.
The recovery journey is a long one. You’re going to attain a different level of awareness and see stuff about yourself that you don’t like and want to get rid of. The journey is about getting a clearer picture of your true self—your likes and dislikes, the traits that are genuine and those that are false, and what you will keep versus what needs to be discarded.
Part of finding and accepting the authentic self is getting to a point where you’re not a victim anymore. You make conscious choices about what you want in your life and what you don’t want. You realize, finally, it’s up to you.
The reason why I don’t drink or take drugs today is because I don’t want to lose who I am. I would become less of Chris, and my commitment in recovery is to become more of me, not less. When you become more of you, the universe rewards you—you become happier and more successful, you have better relationships.
I’m
