The War on Recovery
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” – Lao-Tzu
I don’t believe 2,500 years ago when Chinese master Lao Tzu wrote this verse that he could predict that someone called a blogger, from the future, would correlate his teachings into an article called The Blunt and Brutal Honest Truth about Drug Rehab Centers but that is the beauty of his verses from the Tao Te Ching, they seem to apply to everything.
The blunt and brutal honest truth about drug rehab centers is simply that, addiction is paradoxical, and man in his attempt to understand it, tries to name it, categorize it, brand it, and determine a definitive way.
Our pursuit to name it, label it, and claim it, is what makes addiction so slippery. Addiction is like holding water in your open hands. It’s elusive and it easily slips away, and this is why this paradoxical verse applies so well. Addiction is both the named and the nameless and drug rehab centers, really are just the earth under the stars. The micro to the macro.
The Named
In drug rehab centers, you will hear about the disease model, bio-psycho social models, neuro-science, family reinforced behaviour traps like co-dependency and enabling and you will hear about spirituality and to let go and let God, but which is it? How does this all help one recovery from substance abuse?
The 12 steps and the AA/NA disease model of recovery has helped millions of alcoholics and addicts lead a healthy and prosperous life in sobriety. It has helped save millions of lives and is the most evidence based results for recovery from addiction than any model of recovery since the dawn of man and his battle with substance but now new thinking has emerged.
People like Professor of Psychology; Bruce K. Alexander who theorizes that addiction is caused by people being torn from family, culture, and traditional spirituality which has led to an unrelenting pressure towards individualism and competition, dislocating them from social life.
This has spawned a new movement by Ted Speaker Jonathan Hari who says the opposite of addiction is not sobriety but rather is human connection. You can see his Ted Talk below;
Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong
Or what about downtown eastside of Vancouver Dr. Gabor Mate. His book; In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts talk about pain and environment being the leading cause of addiction and to recover one must discover the root cause of the pain.
All of these names and their theories, right or wrong, are simply a pursuit to name. Does the ability to understand and intellectualize these names, models, beliefs and systems really help a person recover and what is true recovery? Is sobriety the truth for recovery or is it just another name?
The Nameless
Trying to understand addiction through names is a desire, a wanting to know the mystery of addiction will reveal evidence but it will not reveal the mystery itself.
The nameless therefore I cannot name or explain but to provide some guidance through the paradoxical, it begins in silence.
Our monkey brains are so active. Neurons fire on all cylinders trying to solve this complex problem.
Our thoughts, our desire to name addiction is a can of worms that never seems to end. It is a connection of dots, with an endless supply of dots.
But the true answer can only be found in between these dots, in the gap between these thoughts.
Our world, as Dr. Wayne Dyer puts it produces abundant examples of this paradoxical process. Wayne Dyer explains it like gardening. Desiring those luscious homegrown tomatoes or spring daffodils to grow is different that allowing them to grow but what really happens. We allow them to grow.
Wayne says to think of things in life that involve wanting and how they differ from allowing. Wanting to go to sleep rather than going to sleep. Wanting to diet rather than dieting. Wanting to love rather than loving.
In the world of addiction and drug rehab centers we want to recovery and be sober but what really happens when someone recovers from addiction is they allow themselves to recover.
The War on Recovery
The blunt and brutal honest truth about drug rehab centers is that no one person or place holds the key.
The war on drugs has now become the war on recovery because, just like religion, man always knows best and beliefs are powerful and dangerous things that create division, conflict, and control. Man is trying to name and claim in the name of recovery but I warn, this is a rabbit hole we have fallen down before. It does not lead the way out.
The blunt truth is a drug rehab center simply offers a reprieve in a safe environment with other like minded people, and with professionals who act as guides to help a person try and find connection and understanding through a very complex and paradoxical problem.
Now this can sound bleak, especially for families who are racing around the internet, trying to find the best drug rehab center for their loved one. Conducting extensive research and due diligence and asking questions about the differences between government subsidized drug rehab and private drug rehab and horseback riding versus a swimming pool and how many hours of therapy will my loved one receive and what’s the guarantee my loved one will recover at all and should i spend $5,000 or $50,000 on addiction treatment for my loved one? Bollocks! The reality is, all of the above may work but it also may not work.
The blunt and brutal honest truth is that the government doesn’t have the key, Doctors don’t have the key, counsellors don’t have the key, specific therapies don’t have the key, only you do.
And once you allow yourself to recover then you can follow the guides in the drug rehab center you have chosen, and it will coalesce and it will become a beautiful thing – your life, which is a process of desiring and allowing and is a combination of both, the named and the nameless.
Namaste!
The Blunt and Brutal Honest Truth about Drug Rehab Centers ©
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