boredom, drink, and the green shoots of recovery

A client of mine called Mark spoke very eloquently yesterday about giving up his drinking. He described the boredom that comes with giving up an addiction and I asked him what advice he would give to others going through what he was going through. He said the boredom was important, that people had latent characteristics, skills and strengths that they buried so deeply through perpetual substance use that only a period of sustained nothingness gave time for these characteristics re-emerge. He explained that after a while the emergent skills you have on a day to day basis become in and of themselves exhilarating as you watch them grow from inside you.

This was borne out only a few days earlier when I had been quite pushy with another client of mine who is still drinking to come and sit at an outdoor cafe with me and chat over a cup of tea. It was slow progress but after a while Steve was really enjoying himself (we talked a lot about football). Ironically, Mark walked by as we were chatting and Steve, a friend of his and ex-drinking buddy, shouted out to Mark: 'Look Mark! I'm drinking tea!' With a purity of joy that surpirsed even me. I understand now that Steve was exhilarated by the simplest skill of actually sitting and talking over a cuppa. What is a daily occurance for me was something he hadn't done for years and had believed himself now incapable.

I pushed Mark to come up with an analogy (a useful conversational gambit - lateral thinking and all that) and between us we decided that it was like having a garden patch over-run with weeds, wildly growing in every direction. When you finally take control, and clear out the weeds and you plant some seeds, you have, for a while, nothing to look at but a boring plot of earth, just some mud. It's easy to wish the weeds were back because at least they were lively. But with patience comes small shoots, pushing through the mud. And watching these small shoots grow is exhilarating. We decided the difference was that weeds are the product of external forces and these shoots, soon becoming plants in their own right are yours, the product of your own toil - and even when they are tiny they matter a great deal.

It's a nice analogy, and as per the mandate of this blog where I'm trying to note down the learning from the day to day encounters we have in this very special field we work in, I thought I'd share it. Soon I won't be working with Mark anymore and I thought I should give him a mention - he's said some excellent things.