When patients have been in recovery for a while, there often comes a moment when they want to put it all behind them. “Doc,” patients will say, “I want to get off this medication. I just want to move on with my life.”
It’s an understandable desire. Addiction isn’t something most of us feel proud of, and it often comes with shame, regret, and a deep wish that it had never been part of our story. Staying on medication, going to meetings, continuing the work of recovery—it can feel like a constant reminder of a time or a part of ourselves that we’d rather forget.
If we imagine addiction as a monster, the instinct is to kill it. We want to conquer it, to chop its head off. Then, we’ll either stand over it triumphantly, having vanquished it, or bury it and pretend it never was. But addiction isn’t something we kill– it doesn't go away, even if it does go to sleep. It remains part of us, even if we wish it didn’t.
If addiction is a monster that can be battled but not be killed, then the only option we have is to battle it forever, to remain always on guard and ever-vigilant. That is exhausting. Constantly being on guard, always being alert, forever being ready to fight is a pretty lousy way to live life.
What if, instead of killing the monster, we learned to kiss it? What if instead of battling this part of ourselves, we learned to embrace it and accept it? Acknowledging that it lives within us is not the same as giving it free rein, but perhaps much of the monster’s power comes from the intensity of the struggle. Make peace with the monster, and watch its power evaporate.
Not everyone reaches the stage of making peace, but moving towards peace might be a better road to travel than always walking toward battle. Many people fight the monster daily. But I’d argue that recovery requires integration rather than suppression. Growth is about making peace with the version of ourselves that struggled, was hurt, and did awful things, rather pretending addiction never happened.
The parts of ourselves we’re least proud of, where we feel the most vulnerable, are also the ones that carry the most potential for transformation. We usually grow most where we suffer most. Not everyone suffers with addiction, but we all suffer. Not everyone’s monster is a compulsion towards a chemical, but all of us have something.
This is one of the reasons helping people through their recovery is so compelling– in so many ways, addiction is a stand-in for the most difficult parts of the human condition. We all have things we regret, urges we try to outrun, parts of ourselves we wish were different, and stories we would rewrite. The difference is often one of degree, not kind.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with the downsides of ambition—a trait that, on the surface, is praised and rewarded. But ambition has a long and painful shadow– chronic dissatisfaction, difficulty being content, and for me an almost pathological inability to fully take in blessings that are almost too numerous to count. Objectively, it's an embarrassingly good life, but it does not frequently feel that way.
This is not a part of myself I am proud of, and I often find myself wishing it were otherwise. When it becomes too big of a problem, I find myself wanting to grab that part of myself and drown it. To force it into gratitude through sheer will and repetition. Turns out, that’s about as effective as trying to kill the monster of addiction through willpower. We can’t force internal peace by willing unruly parts of ourselves into submission.
My challenge has been to try and accept that, for now at least, it's a part of me. Perhaps it will fade over time, or my relationship with it will change. Maybe I’ll give it a name. Georgio?
We don’t grow by pretending that reality is other than it is; we grow by learning how to live with the whole. Our struggles, our shadows, and our shame are part of the same story as our triumphs and our successes. We can lean into the dark parts and let them teach us, but doing that requires courage.
Peace doesn’t come from domination. When we stop fighting, we often find that the monster is less menacing than we imagined—and sometimes, even trying to help in its own broken way. Maybe, like Georgio, it has a funny name. If we can hold our flaws with the same tenderness we offer to others in their worst moments, we might open the door to something greater than self-control: self-acceptance. We usually think strength is about force. But some of the strongest people I know are those who’ve stopped fighting, and turned instead towards trying to make peace.
Cheers,
Doc
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