My Personal Recovery Story

On the trek to Annapurna base camp near Landruk, Nepal

Source: Dan Mager

The blessing lies close to the wound. —African Proverb

It was the third day of my medically managed detox when one of the counselors sat down next to me in the treatment center dining room. Speaking softly, she said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but when you were at _____ agency, you accepted me for a master’s in social work field placement.” It was late 2006, and after using alcohol and other drugs for 35 years (75% of my life to that point) I had finally admitted to the long-denied reality that I was an addict.

Although relapse is all too common for people challenged with addiction it has not been part of my experience in 17+ years, and while I have occasionally made mention of my personal recovery in previous writings for Psychology Today, this is the first post devoted to it.

There is no shortage of autobiographical stories that describe the horrors of addiction, many of which also depict people’s journeys into recovery, and some of these describe those who have gone on to become addiction counselors. My story is a little different in that I was a behavioral health professional, initially as a therapist and subsequently in senior management capacities in a variety of settings, including addiction treatment—before I entered recovery. And I was highly regarded as a practitioner and administrator, until the final devastating 18 months of my active addiction when my life as I knew it started to unravel, a process that picked up momentum like a snowball gaining speed and size as it rolls downhill.

I grew up in a family with caring parents and a range of advantages. There was no horrific or overt abuse, but emotional wounds inflicted by hurtful messages and ongoing criticism created an accumulation of low-level (or “small t”) traumas. After all, "normal" families are families we just don't know that well, and everyone is wounded to varying degrees. These injuries may be visible on the outside but most often they are internal and hidden. And sometimes, people learn to deal with the pain of their wounds, as well as other life stresses, through the use of alcohol and/or other drugs.

My substance use began early and progressed steadily. I started drinking alcohol in sixth grade, added marijuana in seventh grade, pills (barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and opioids) in eighth grade, LSD in tenth grade, cocaine in eleventh grade, and heroin in twelfth grade. Prior to graduating high school, I had used cocaine and heroin intravenously. All the while, I took honors courses, was involved in student government, and participated in competitive sports, including varsity basketball, pouring the foundation of what would become a decades-long practice of effectively living a double life.

I continued to walk this tightrope during college, graduating with honors. And while I stopped using so-called hard drugs prior to graduate school I continued to use alcohol and marijuana daily, not before or during work, but invariably after work and throughout the weekend. In retrospect, even though I took care of the responsibilities of work, home, marriage, and parenting, and rationalized it was “only” beer or wine and pot, I still used addictively insofar as there were preoccupied/obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, and a too self-centered focus on using.

I was a functional addict for many years until I developed a chronic pain condition in the late 1990s—two herniated discs in my lumbar spine—for which I was prescribed opioid pain medications (including fentanyl) that reawakened a predisposition for narcotics that had been in hibernation for over 15 years. My balance on that tightrope began (and continued) to slip as I became a pioneer in the opioid epidemic that enveloped the United States beginning in the early 2000s. Physical pain became my main river of feeling. All other emotions—sadness, fear, anxiety, hurt, guilt, shame, frustration, anger, sadness, depression—were tributaries that ran into it, fed it, and increased its flow and power.

The phenomenon of addiction is known for being “cunning, baffling, and powerful.” It is also exquisitely patient, as well as treacherous and seductive in the ways it attempts to convince those who suffer from it that they don’t have it. Ironically, while my addiction was active, my education and professional experience obstructed my ability to see it for what it was, to admit to it, and seek help despite mounting personal and professional consequences.

Because the process of change is difficult and often uncomfortable, it’s only when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the discomfort and fear of change that people make significant life changes. Ultimately the damage to the most important areas of my life “gifted” me with enough clarity to admit that my addiction was well beyond my ability to control it, and I needed treatment.

There are multiple potential pathways to recovery. Because addiction is a disorder of increasing isolation, the antidote for it is not necessarily abstinence (although for a great many people in recovery, myself included, abstinence is an essential component of their success) but healthy mutually supportive connection—with others, with community. Connection and community are embedded in the structure of 12-step programs. I attended my first 12-step meeting as an assignment for a class in my master’s program in 1986. Twenty years later, at my second meeting, I heard someone with nearly 30 years clean remark, “Recovery won’t open the gates of heaven so you can get in, but it will unlock the gates of hell so you can get out.” And that has been my experience.

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My personal recovery has enriched my professional knowledge, and my professional frame of reference has in turn deepened my understanding of recovery as an ongoing process of learning, growth, and healing. To change how I relate to myself, to others, and to the world is an extraordinary undertaking, requiring no small amount of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual renovation. My chronic pain is a moving target that I address through a combination of holistic, multi-dimensional self-directed and professionally facilitated practices that complement my ongoing 12-step program participation. Staying clean one day at a time through the full spectrum of life’s vicissitudes is a Herculean task, yet many people do it each day.

Life takes its toll on all of us, and everyone—whether or not they struggle with addiction, chronic pain, or any other serious condition—sustains some sort of damage along the way. The rooms of recovery are full of damaged people, some of whom have been abused and traumatized in horrific ways. Recovery provides a pathway to heal from that damage, and to become stronger, just as broken bones can become stronger after they heal than they were prior to injury. It is a warrior’s path that requires strength and courage to traverse. And every step along the way is a step toward grace.

Copyright 2024 Dan Mager, MSW.