Estimated read time: 9 min
When I found out that I was really, truly a sort of garden-variety alcoholic, I began to gravitate toward people like me, and those in long-term recovery. I naturally wanted to be around people who understood what it was like to be me, and I wanted to let everyone in on the secret of my alcoholism. The problem, I discovered on my own, despite being told numerous times, is that those who know what it is like to be me are already in recovery and those who don’t know what it is like will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, and I mean EVER, get it.
If you have been around the recovery community much at all you will hear terms: regular people, normies, permanent cucumbers, and my chosen moniker for non-alcoholics, Earth people. Earth people are the everyday people who drink with impunity, sometimes leave glasses of wine (gasp) at their table in restaurants, or may not have any interest in drinking at all. They tried it, didn’t like it, and moved on–similar to my experience with yellow squash and zucchini.
Earth people come in many different varieties. Some may have a grim view of addiction and loathe addicts and talk of recovery. Who can blame them? It is not their problem. Some Earth people may smile and nod while secretly thinking “oh my god this person is crazy!” Others truly care about alcoholics. They want to help a person grow stronger in recovery or get in recovery more quickly. They may even read up on addiction and think they honestly know what it is like to be one of us. But they don’t. They just don’t. And that can be a problem.
In my experience, Earth people are rather harmless, but they have dropped some much-unneeded knowledge and unheeded advice about how to handle my problems. I have also heard from others who had Earth people friends go to great lengths to get them drunk. And, some Earth people are downright destructive to those in recovery.
Among the things I have heard is a complete lack of understanding of my disease. Yes, addiction is a disease and is recognized as a disease by the ENTIRE medical community as well as everyone I have ever met in recovery. Somehow someway this understanding has completely missed Earth people, perhaps, as I said, because it is not their problem.
I have on more than one occasion been told that now that I’m out of treatment I should be able to drink right. I’m not sure if they meant correctly or if they were just checking to see if I was able to be back on the booze. In either case, the Earth person has no clue what recovery is for me. If I could have ever drank “right,” I wouldn’t be an alcoholic.
No amount of treatment I know of will ever get me to drink right. The only right thing I can do is not drink. Imagine telling a person who has diabetes that now she has been diagnosed, she can go right back to eating candy and chugging sodas. Or telling a cancer patient that he can forgo further doctor’s appointments because now he can be “right.”
Another kind Earth person explained to me that if I had willpower I would not have a drinking problem. Ohhhhh, now I get it. I willed myself into not being able to control my drinking from the time the first drink reaches my stomach. Why didn’t I ever consider just using my willpower to control or stop drinking? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I did that 100 times in tests and trials that no normie could ever imagine, only to discover, that when it comes to this one thing, I have no control at all.
Again, imagine telling a person with a broken leg she just needs to “will” it not to be broken and she will be dancing by the weekend…BULL BUTTER! That is nowhere near how this works.
Another friendly normie (I think friendly, but perhaps diabolical), after being told I was an alcoholic, who was “unable” to drink, offered me a shot of tequila. I guess to see if I could? Or perhaps the number of shots he had consumed by that point made him forget to whom he was offering a shot. I never was sure about that. But a simple “no” solved that problem.
Friends of mine have returned home from treatment to find a six-pack chilling in the fridge left by a normie. Others have been told they should smoke weed because it is not addictive like alcohol. Fortunately, most of my Earth people friends have not been so bold. The topic of drinking rarely comes up at all.
My family is full of Earth people because I am lucky like that. And, they are truly kind, caring and loving, but they, too, just don’t get it. Early on, I was asked if I was sure that I was an alcoholic because they were truly surprised. They should not have been, I did a pretty poor job of hiding being drunk for six months, and at some point, they started hiding their booze when I visited. But perhaps it is a fair question. Even in some literature about addiction, there seems to be a blurry line that one crosses from heavy drinker to alcoholic.
The problem, as I experienced it, was that I began to question whether I was an addict. I started comparing my experiences as a drunk to others who have, shall we say, more colorful pasts, and damn near convinced myself to start drinking again (See our other post about identifying not comparing, for more details). I may have tried it again, but I had a sponsor. And he happened to have a screening test for alcohol use disorder. To see how I scored, check out my blog on how to know if you are one of us.
My family does this other “helpful” Earth people thing. They try not to drink in front of me. I am impressed by the acrobatics it takes to be sitting, relaxing with a drink, reviewing their day, and suddenly leap into action at the sight of my wife and me walking toward the door. I am in a way impressed and in another horrified that my presence drives people to such lengths.
Honestly, it was probably helpful in my first 30 days after treatment, and I should think of it as a loving gesture. But, somedays it just pisses me off, especially if I overhear them explaining to a visitor that they don’t drink in front of me because I CAN’T drink. That’s the word “can’t.” I instantly think, “Well, I will show you!”
(Stay on the lookout for our upcoming blog post about shelving your first thought), I have to do that A LOT. I mean I can drink. I have proven I can drink. Stopping, that’s where I have trouble. But being told I CAN’T drink by an Earth person still boils my blood. But the worst–absolutely without a doubt WORST, thing Earth people can do is prattle on trying to convince me or someone else in recovery that we do not have a disease.
I’m going to try to stay calm and write about this rationally. What you won’t see are all the times I get up from the computer and pace the room to calm back down. It is one thing to sit in your smug ignorance and think whatever your pin-prick brain can possibly string together. But if you open your mouth professing to know that addiction is not a disease, I personally think I ought to get to shove my sweaty post-workout sock in your mouth before you kill someone.
Without any doubt, addiction is a disease.
Some substances, such as alcohol are physically addictive to the point that you can die if you try to quit cold turkey. Saying that an alcoholic or addict just needs to use their willpower to overcome addiction is like telling a diabetic or someone suffering a heart attack to use their willpower to overcome it.
Everyone knows you can’t defeat a heart attack from willpower alone. “Come on tighten up! You chest grabbing wimp.” Of the ideas spat forth in ignorance, I just feel like this one kills too many people. And I was nearly one of them. I could not fathom that I was addicted to alcohol to a point that I needed medical treatment. But, I was.
The fact is, the medical community has known that addiction is a disease for quite some time. Alcoholism was recognized as a disease by the AMA in 1956, and drug addiction followed in 1987. While I would argue that alcoholics were well aware by at least 1935, the wheels of science are not so swift.
Still, understanding that I and others in recovery have a disease that can stay in remission as long as we stay abstinent should be a blessing for Earth people. One disease that can be controlled by mostly recognizing it exists and networking with others in the same lifeboat.
But, at least once a year I run across some nimrod railing away about how I don’t need meetings or treatment. I just need to “man up!” Espousing that if I wasn’t such a wimp I would know that cancer is a disease and I am just weak. I always wonder where such a genius idea could come from that is simply obliterated with one google search.
Each time I want to scrub the rant from existence because somewhere there is an addict in the throes of addiction wishing he or she could “man up” all the way to the grave. And that sends me spinning into a dimension of PISSED OFF that most people can’t imagine. Okay, Deeeeeeppppp Breatthhh.
Honestly, most Earth people are good, caring people, kind of like us, but DUMMMMB when it comes to the one thing we addicts and alcoholics understand better than they ever could. I still have Earth people friends, but I am careful what I say around them about addiction and recovery because…
What Earth people don’t know, might kill me.
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