Dear MAGA-hat wearing student,

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Dear MAGA hat wearing student,

Wine, Weed, and Dry January: A Therapist's Eye View

First, I know I am supposed to be cool with weed.  Is seems like so many people - from 16 years old to 70 smoke or take edibles these days.  And like you, I often hear, "it's better than alcohol."

Yes, I know I'm supposed to 'be cool' with weed.  But something isn't sitting right with me.

I don't think it has to do with weed itself.  As I observe it, weed is probably no worse or better than alcohol (though illegal where I live).  I think it's the messaging increasingly being sold to us about substances - how to be social, how to have fun, and the 'harmlessness' of numbing out. 

I am no teetotaler, but, since it's 'dry January', a lot of us are looking at substances in our lives - what are our habits?  What are our problems?  What is too much?  Is there a right amount?


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Writing about substance use is difficult because it can sound so preachy and self-righteous.  So before I go any further, I will share a time when I did not use alcohol with mindfulness:

When my son was 13 months old, my sister got married in New York City.  My husband, my son and I flew on an airplane, which was REALLY something I was dreading.  I can't describe adequately my anxiety and dread because he was prone to ear infections (my son, not my then-husband), and had been a pretty terrible sleeper for the first year of his life.  I was a worrying, first time mom, with a baby who didn't yet walk, screamed louder than I've ever heard a baby scream before or since, and who was not going to like flying.

And yes, he got an ear infection on the plane ride to my sister's wedding.

It was with both increased anxiety and also relief that we left him with a babysitter to attend the rehearsal dinner.  I was pretty skinny because I never slept.  I hadn't had much alcohol in almost two years.  And I was sort of ready to cut loose.  I needed to relax.

Externally, I knew this weekend was about my sister and her marriage and husband.  Internally, I was on the edge of something, but didn't know what and didn't talk with anyone enough to have any perspective about.

At the rehearsal dinner, the waiters refilled our wine glasses every time we took a sip.  By 9pm, I was sloppy drunk and making crazy affirmations after every toast.  "Mmmmm-hmmmm!" I agreed with loud gusto, as if I were at a gospel service.  My sister looked at my husband and mouthed, "Get her out of here."

I rode in the back of a cab through Manhattan - a thirty one year old woman - with my mom and husband.  I barfed all night and basically blacked out.  I was painfully hung over for my sister's wedding.  It was horrible.  And I will never get that day back.  I will never get the chance to be a great, supportive, cheerleading, caregiving maid of honor for my sister again.  That sucks. 


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I don't specialize in addiction recovery, but I've had the privilege of working with several people over the years who have been in recovery (sober) for some time and are working on other issues.  One of the many things I like so much about these clients, is that when you take alcohol or weed or other drugs off the table entirely, you often get a really fresh perspective on parts of life that many of us don't even question.

I remember a few years ago when a client who has been sober for a number of years was not yet married, but dating around.  She wondered how she would feel going out with a particular guy, since he was not in a recovery program.  He'd asked her out and she wondered if she'd feel uncomfortable with his friends and how she would be able to recognize if he were a problem drinker or a social drinker or how to distinguish these two things.  Ultimately, she decided to give the date a try - they were going to a sports event and meeting up with friends afterward.

When she walked into our next appointment, her eyes were wide.  "Did you know that most people drink alcoholically???" she asked me.  She went on to tell me that she'd socialized with other sober people for so long that she had no idea how pervasive it is to drink until buzzed or drunk, to drink and keep on drinking all night.  She'd imagined that most adults outgrew drinking excessively and that it was just alcoholics who didn't stop.

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When I'm working with people who suspect they might have a substance problem, none of them are stumbling, homeless, losing their jobs, or otherwise in a category you might outwardly look at and say, "Jeez, they need to get sober."  They are moms and students and business men.  They are 50, they are 21, they are 30, they are 75.  Mostly, they want to control their substance use, but are pretty hopeful that they won't have to quit altogether.  I don't think they are different from many, many people I know.

There are a few themes that people primarily talk about with me when concerned about their substance use:

• Will I be fun or have fun without it?
• Not drinking does not fit in with my social circles.  How will I explain this to others, including my family, who are all hefty drinkers. (Annie Grace says, in her interesting book, "This Naked Mind", that alcohol is the only drug that you have to explain to others why you are NOT indulging in.
• Drinking/smoking/taking pills has become a habit.  I don't think I'm addicted, but I find stopping the habit very difficult.
• I am so anxious and alcohol or weed helps me deal with my anxiety, but it also seems to make me more anxious eventually
• I know if I weren't buzzed after work, I'd be more engaged with my family or fight less with my family, but I also enjoy the feeling of the buzz

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I asked one of my colleagues, a 68 year old woman,  a number of years back, about what drinking was like when she was in college.  "Oh yeah," she said.  "People drank in college.  I think the difference is that no one wanted to look drunk, Especially if you were a woman.  You wanted to look cool and sophisticated and like you had it under control.  Now, kids take pictures of each other puking and post it on social media.  Or passed out.  That's very different."

I can't help but think of other ways the norms have changed around drinking (not to mention smoking pot) in the past couple of decades.  Like parenting.  My kids are teenagers now - I think I was an the early cusp of the 'mom so hard' thinking/drinking.  Like, "Being a mom is so tough, we need some wine for the 3pm playdate."  And it continues and it's not just moms.  I noticed this Halloween that many parents carried a to-go cup or sat at the firepit with beer and wine while their kids trick or treated.  I don't remember the parenting drinking being that pervasive in the 1970s, 80s, or even the 90s.   Is it harmless?  Is it communal and fun?  Is it avoidance?  Is it numbing?

And I wonder if this is a 'white person' phenomena.  Is it an upper middle class thing?  What are the economics on a big scale (Marketing?  Reality TV?).  What are the drivers on an individual scale?  (Stress?  Pace of life?  iPhones?)

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Like I said,  I'm not an addictions counselor, but I get to talk with a lot of people on a very deep level for my job, and for that I am so grateful.  I am grateful because I think I get to understand people and I can see patterns and universalities in our experiences.

My number one concern about people and alcohol, weed, or pills is the allure of numbing out.  The way it creates for us and in us, a virtual reality.

I know lots of people with lots of understandable reasons to want to numb out.  That's exactly how I felt as a new mom (the one with the redheaded, highly verbal, army-crawling, ear-ache-y baby.  I wanted to numb out so much, I didn't even know how much. And, I certainly wasn't aware of all the reasons why.

And other people -  people who've lost brothers in terrible accidents. Mothers who've lost babies. Caregivers who give 110% of themselves every day to others.  People who come from families with addiction and mental illness.  I know Type A personalities who DO IT ALL.  I know people who have generalized anxiety and their brains don't seem to rest.  I know regular folks with regular problems who are just trying to get by in this life.

The problem with low grade drugs like alcohol or marijuana is the self-perpetuating ease with which you can maintain a normal life, but remain functional at a lower level.  You still tuck your kids in to bed, but you just don't precisely remember what you talked about.  You still drive home from the trivia night, but you wonder if maybe you shouldn't have.  You still get up for work in the morning, but you definitely need a couple advil for that headache.  Your sister reminds you that you already talked about mom's doctor's appointment, but you realize it was after the work happy hour, so it just didn't stay with you.  You wonder if you and your wife wouldn't bicker at night so often if you didn't split that bottle of wine.

Numbing out is quiet and insidious and in the end, it steals your life from you.

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My work in death and dying shapes everything about the way I look at life.  So knowing what the end of life is like, I ponder much of the time about what makes the living of our lives optimally satisfying.

Interestingly, I also see potential for drug use at the end of life (supervised by a doctor).  There are good results for people in hospice who have fear and anxiety around death, who take medically supervised hallucinogenics.  Most things are not all or nothing.

But in general, I don't think numbing out is good for us.   I don't think we are fully having fun, most of the time, when we are numb.  I don't mean it's never ok to cut loose, or even have such a bad day that you have a couple of beers or glasses of wine.  But, I observe that making a habit of numbing will undermine everything about our lives over time  - our relationships, the quality of our thinking, our own sense of vitality and gratitude.  Numbing will dumb us.  If not today, next week, or next month, next year.

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Many times I will say to clients, "I have a bias.  I have worked with people at the end of life for so long, that I often look at everything from the perspective of, 'When I am 95 years old and on my death bed, will I be happy with the choices I made.  Will I feel satisfied?  Will I have lived the life I wanted and be proud of what I have to show?'"

When I say this, my client will look back at me with a shine in their eyes.  They want this for themselves and they know one type of death or another is out their in their future...the answer to those questions is up to the choices we all make now.

So whether this is a Dry January for you or not, it is my hope that every day you will be awake and alive to life, in all it's imperfection.  If you are fully awake, your life is truly yours.


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Resources:

If you are looking at the place of substance in your life, an interesting new book that was recently recommended to me is This Naked Mind by Annie Grace.

Google Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.

National Institute on Drug Abuse