Most alcoholics will regularly go out with the absolute intention and firm belief that they’ll only drink two or three beers. Yet ten drinks later they’re staggering home, despite the fact that they never planned to get smashed.
I don’t think I ever meant to get wasted, apart from on two occasions. One was the day I got married and the other was the day my daughter was born (strangely, on neither occasion did I really get that drunk). But there were plenty of times when I’d go to the pub, bump into somebody I knew, and use that as an excuse to go off on a huge drinking binge.
A lot of heavy drinkers will relate to this, if they’re honest. The night begins so well, and you fully intend to take it easy. But inevitably, almost before you notice it, one drink has become four and four soon becomes a blur. That quick drink after work unexpectedly turns into a late-night session.
I know people who are constantly late for family gatherings – and also regularly miss important business meetings – because they never seem able to leave the pub on time. They curse themselves for it afterwards, yet it keeps on happening. That first drink might be great, and the second and third ones are wonderful, but by the end of the night they’ve had way too many. Occasionally, they might manage to stay on the straight and narrow, but sooner or later they slip back into their old ways.
Interestingly, this urge to consume more isn’t confined to alcoholics. It affects everybody from time to time, regardless of age or background. For example, how often have you sat on the sofa to relax with a guilty treat – a bar of chocolate, say, or one of your favourite cookies? You fully intend to enjoy it, but at the same time you’re determined not to make a pig of yourself. You’re adamant that you’ll just have a small portion: surely that won’t do any harm? The first bite is delicious:
Mmm… it’s so tasty. Maybe another bite won’t hurt? Oh, go on then, just one more.
Before you know it, you’ve polished off the whole lot and you’re left wondering how your good intentions vanished like a wisp of smoke. Does this sound familiar? Well, we’ve probably all experienced similar moments.
For most people this sort of behaviour is probably the exception rather than the rule, and it doesn’t adversely affect the quality of their everyday life. But for addicts it’s very different, because it becomes a compulsion that they simply can’t control. Whenever I picked up a drink, I couldn’t predict the outcome of events – apart from the fact that more often than not, things would end in chaos. I didn’t mean to get drunk; it just happened.
Similarly, someone who’s addicted to sex probably doesn’t wake up with the intention of sleeping around, but during the course of the day they find themselves in a situation where they feel unable to resist the urge. If, in the morning, you ask them: ‘Are you planning to watch pornography today, or maybe have a one night stand this evening?’ they’ll say ‘No’ – and they fully believe they’re telling the truth.
These weird behaviours exist in lots of different areas of our lives. These days, my favourite addictive substance is sugar. I can go to a restaurant intending to order a balanced meal, because I’m determined to eat wholesome and healthy food, and things will start off well. But then the waiter tempts me with a sugary dessert, and without thinking about it, I accept. Then, on the way home, I’ll buy a bar of chocolate. This may sound harmless, but in fact it’s an addictive process.
Addiction can be summed up by one word: MORE! We are powerless to resist MORE food, MORE sex, MORE shopping, MORE Facebook, MORE booze or MORE drugs.
There are many, many people who are addicted to sugar, and believe it or not, it can be just as deadly as drugs or alcohol. I’ve known of people who can sit alone in a room and binge on plastic grocery bags full of sweets until they’re physically sick. Addicts always want more, and they have no idea why.
When someone comes to me for an assessment, I often know what their problem is before they’ve even opened their mouth – and they’ll almost certainly be in denial about their predicament. Usually, a suffering addict is incapable of uttering a single truthful statement about their habit, so I simply ask them how I can help.
I take everything they say with a pinch of salt, and then I ask them what their partner or their boss would say about their problem. That’s often when things start to get uncomfortable. People typically end up in rehab because they’ve suffered a nasty consequence of their habit. Perhaps they’ve been caught being unfaithful to their partner, or they’ve lost their job, or they’ve done something silly with someone in a toilet, or crashed their car and knocked someone over.
Most addicts I’ve met are good people who wouldn’t dream of doing such things under normal circumstances. Yet when they’re under the influence of sex, alcohol, sugar or cocaine – it doesn’t really matter which – they’ll do things that are very bad for their own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of others.
It’s usually only when the consequences of their addiction become unbearable that an addict seeks help. That moment might come when their spouse threatens to leave them, or when their boss tells them they’re fired. It might come when they end up in the Accident and Emergency department at the hospital, or when a police officer wakes them up in a cell and asks, ‘Do you know what you did last night?’
One addict told me that, for him, an average weekend’s recreation involved five or six grams of cocaine, several bottles of champagne and two prostitutes. He’d retire to a hotel bedroom, where he’d remain from Friday night until Monday morning. Afterwards, he’d attempt to go to work as if nothing had happened. It was killing him, and I could see that just by looking at him.
His story is extreme, but his problem has elements that are common to all forms of addiction. It wasn’t a high blood alcohol level that made him behave like that, nor was it the effect of the cocaine on his brain chemistry, or the rush of endorphins from the sleazy sex. The cause was something much deeper, and that something is what this book is about.
My own way of falling into addiction came when, as a teenager, I was feeling low and isolated. One day, I turned up early to meet someone in a pub and I ordered a pint of beer. By the time the person I was meeting arrived, I was on my second pint and it felt like a Saturn V rocket had just taken off in my head!
Suddenly the whole world was in high definition. And I could talk and make people laugh, and do all sorts of things. The anxiety and trepidation I’d been feeling on a daily basis just dissolved in the time it took to tip the beer down my throat.
But unfortunately, that’s not all the alcohol dissolved. Having a drink to feel good eventually became needing a drink just to feel okay. A compulsion to drink more and more soon kicked in big time. I drank to celebrate and to commiserate. I drank when I was feeling up because I wanted to get even higher, and I drank when I was down because it was the only way I knew how to cope.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the reason I was doing this was because of the effect it had on my feelings.
The way that addiction affects our emotions is similar in all types of addictive behaviour – whether you’re a gambler chasing the thrill of a big win or a shopaholic seeking the feeling of happiness you get from buying a nice new pair of shoes.
At the time we may think this behaviour is harmless – after all, it’s natural to want to feel the best we can, so why shouldn’t we indulge moderately in things that give us a little lift now and then?
In my case, the problem was that it led me into a complete meltdown. The word ‘moderation’ didn’t exist in my vocabulary. Something within me led me to keep on drinking, even when the consequences stopped being positive and became extremely negative. I boozed constantly until I was eventually arrested for violent behaviour and sent to a psychiatric hospital.
When you’re driven away in handcuffs in an ambulance, as I was, it should tell you that it’s time to make a few lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, when it happened to me, I couldn’t understand this, because I’d driven myself insane. I’d lost control of my actions. Why else would I have drunk vodka for breakfast every day, and repeatedly got smashed out of my head, regardless of the chaos it caused? Addiction is a loss of control. This is a common factor, regardless of what it is that we’re addicted to.
Our media almost universally portrays addicts as people who are physically dependent on drugs or booze through their own feckless choices. But in fact, an addict actually has no choice, because their alcohol or drug abuse is really just a symptom of a very complex emotional condition that robs them of any control.
This can surface in lots of different ways, and as a result, people can become addicted to all sorts of things: exercise, gambling, overeating, anger outbursts, computer games… In fact, when I use the word ‘addict’, I generally mean it to include somebody who has an addictive nature (even though they may never have taken illegal drugs).
This is because, as we’ll see later in the book, I believe we can become addicted to almost anything with the power to alter our moods. Very few people are completely immune to this effect – all of us exist somewhere on the addictive spectrum – but for most of the population it doesn’t cause serious problems.
However, for a sizable proportion of the population – perhaps as much as 10 per cent – addiction has the potential to become a serious affliction. These are the people I call ‘addicts’, even if they may not currently be in the throes of an active addiction. Instead, the condition might be dormant within them, and it makes them extremely susceptible to addictive processes.
During my work as a therapist at the Priory Hospital North London, I encouraged everybody on the recovery programme to call themselves an ‘addict’, rather than an ‘alcoholic’ or a ‘compulsive eater’. This is because it’s not the type of addiction that matters so much – the important thing is the effect it has on our feelings. Here’s a typical addiction story:
Imagine that you’re starting down the path to drinking too much. If you’re lucky someone says, ‘Don’t you think you should cut down on your booze a little?’ Maybe they say this before the stage when your habit becomes out-and-out alcoholism. Perhaps you’re just at the start of a process in which you use drink to improve the way you feel. You might think to yourself, It’s true, I do drink a lot. Perhaps I should cut down?
Now what can happen next is that whatever was causing you to drink will probably start to surface in other ways. Without further thought you might say to yourself, Ah, I know what I need to do. I need to stop drinking, so I’ll go to the gym instead. And before you know it, you’re over-exercising in an intensive bid to get the perfect body.
What you’re actually doing now is continuing to try to make yourself feel better, only in a different way. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up becoming obsessed with going to the gym, and become addicted to excessive exercise.
As we’ll see later, one reason why the medical profession finds it so hard to diagnose and treat addiction is because doctors routinely confuse physical dependency on drugs or alcohol with what I call ‘true addiction’ – which is something that’s caused by psychological and emotional factors.
Of course, physical dependency on a substance can be very dangerous, but in the main I regard it as a symptom of addiction, rather than a cause. If you habitually use something like alcohol or nicotine, your body builds up a physical dependency on it in order to function. When you withdraw from the substance it can cause physical cravings and severe medical complications, but these can be alleviated with treatment.
However, the underlying emotional issue that caused the physical dependency is still likely to be present – and sooner or later it will come bubbling back to the surface like sulphur in an acidic lake. This is the nature of true addiction: it exists in our mind and in our emotions. Being hooked on substances (like drugs or alcohol) and being addicted to behavioural processes (such as overeating or overwork) are the same thing. They’re our attempts to change the way we feel.
It’s interesting to note that almost all the literature published by Alcoholics Anonymous refers to alcoholism as a ‘spiritual’ illness rather than a physical one. It’s very hard to define what spiritual means. It doesn’t necessarily mean religious: it refers to something more abstract that exists somewhere in our psychology as human beings.
The implications of this are enormous because it means the medical profession is looking for a cure for addiction in the wrong place. The mainstream medical approach to treating addiction (with the notable exception of most leading private clinics) is to concentrate on breaking physical dependency, but this alone cannot solve the underlying problem.
We know that addiction can kill. We know it can ruin the lives of addicts and those around them. We know that it destroys relationships with family and friends, and that it eats away at the very soul of an individual, wrecking their hopes and dreams.
So, it might surprise you to learn that I consider addiction to be a very special gift. This is because, during almost two decades of working as a therapist in treatment centres – patching up the carnage and misery caused by patients’ destructive abuse of drink and drugs – I’ve never met an addict who isn’t kind and generous once they’re in recovery.
I’ve found that the overwhelming majority of addicts are extremely caring of other people. They’re very sensitive and loving, and when they’re sober they make good friends who are reliable and dependable. They’re also capable of great creativity, and many go on to rebuild their lives through acts of charity and kindness.
I’ve seen addicts give up highly paid careers to become poets or artists. I know of one person who quit a highly lucrative job in order to work as a volunteer in a war zone, driving medical supplies to injured civilians.
When they’re not under the influence of their addiction, far from being selfish and thoughtless towards their fellow human beings, the majority of addicts are extremely sensitive towards others. And this sensitivity can be a great gift.
So, what is it that makes addicts behave in a destructive way when they’re in the grip of their demons? Well, I believe that whatever we’re addicted to, the answer is the same: there’s an underlying part of our nature that causes us to want to alter our feelings.
The next time you’re on the sofa and are tempted to reach for that extra chocolate cookie, ask yourself this question: does the feeling inside you that’s making you yearn for more mean that you have an addictive nature? We’ll discover the answer together over the following pages.
It’s possible to become hooked on anything that has the power to change our moods. Whatever it is we’re addicted to, the process involved is the same. The question is: what causes this universal lack of self-control?