A new fellowship! How many does he do? I feel a bit like the girl from fight club. I suppose I have just embraced the 12 steps. What’s one more going to hurt? In fact, I feel renewed and full of hope. I’m a newcomer again. At step 1 in a new fellowship – Workaholics Anonymous.
I’m an addict, through and through. I knew that when I got introduced to AA over 25 years ago and chose NA because I thought it was a more wholistic of my addiction. Problem is NA is the bottom rung of the ladder; you just can’t get any lower than meth and heroin. And when you stop using you are technically a success as it states quite clearly that all NA offers is freedom from addictive addiction.
This makes the bar very low. In fact I take that back, that’s not a problem, that’s a feature not a bug. Same with AA’s primary purpose of alcohol – being specific about the addiction and focussing on the worst vice, whatever that may be, allows most members to increase the quality of their life by 10X. The problem is when you compare your level of recovery to a bar so low. Again, that’s a strength of the program at the beginning, that’s what you need to do in early recovery.
I didn’t feel like I fitted into NA anymore. Identifying as a few months clean with the world at my feet and very few problems felt somewhat dishonest. I considered myself 20 years clean, but NA had rules around clean time that I respected more than my opinion. It was a cognitive dissonance that I couldn’t get squared and eventually stopped doing NA and did AA and DA.
AA I fit into and I have all the trappings of someone 20 year sober, but I’m a junkie at heart, so there was still that little bit of filtering my story and using the terms alcohol and drinking instead of drugs. Debtors Anonymous (DA) I found really useful and after some time in the program I really felt like I had a handle on my behaviour, emotions, and thinking around money. It is wonderful to feel manageable around money.
Now digging through my addiction to work I have discovered it is actually addiction to activity because I can’t sit still with myself or others for very long. I walk along the beach and watch the Pacific islanders sit there with their big families. They are so good at doing nothing, I think to myself. It is so alien to me watching them so at piece just sitting there.
I was left to my own devices when I was really young and all the adults were always very busy. They seemed to have important things to do and I believed that adults do important things.
As I got a little older, like 5 or 6 I would mimic the adults and try and make my play constructive. I loved boxing so would physically train with my gloves on and then read a sports encyclopedia about boxing history. As I got older, about 10, and became more social and with more friends, I did learn to play, but I would take excessive risks, and was drawn to anything that I was told I wasn’t allowed to do, as normal play was a bit boring for me. I can see now I was spiking my adrenaline.
Now as an adult I feel the same way as the adults of my childhood with my “important” tasks. But when I look below the surface there are things I neglect – mostly intimate time with my family, that I should push up to the top of my priority list.
I also find “normal” activities boring and have engaged in adrenaline spiking activities my whole adult life. At 46 I have given up these “naughty” activities, but I still haven’t adjusted to normal activities so need the 12 step spiritual and social solution.
I do online meetings during the day so I have time with my family in the evening. I have been reaching out to the members in the fellowship from all over the world and have formed connections with about a dozen men. I have one on one meetings online regularly with these men and feel I have really found my home. They are successful men like me with interesting jobs and businesses, but are also as crazy as me and suffer from addiction to work, sex, planning, dreams, and struggle to live in the present.
Red Pill Recovery 