Recovery Nation

I am starting a new thread, so that I don't highjack MrsW's "what can I expect" thread ... I will start by repasting coachMel's words ...



I appreciate and concur with coachMel's Linguistic Sensitivities


What is a better word to use instead of "addict" when referring to the person with the addiction? I propose referring to the person as "the addicted". It is more associated with the actions than the being, and it is delightfully ambiguous regarding whether the person is currently addicted or was in the past addicted. So let me paraphrase coachMel's words (please, if I may...)



My head is swirling with thoughts and insights and clarity and questions about so many ideas in this discussion ... but I'd like to first open the floor to all who ponder ... What man is truly there when we separate the man from the addiction?

Minerva

What man is truly there when we separate the man from the addiction?

A human being. Male or female – doesn’t matter, but a human being just like you or I.
A person with thoughts, feelings and emotions – albeit different from our own, but there just the same.
A person who wants to be loved, just like you and I.
Someone who has been the way they are for so long, that they know no other way of being.
Someone who, I believe truly does not want to be an addict.

I feel that all of the above is what can make it so very difficult for many partners to move on when their SO does not choose recovery. Because we can see that there is a person there. And we hope. Hope that this person will someday ALSO be able to see themselves without their addiction.

I have not seen my ex-bf for about 8 months now. It was only about 3 months ago that I was really able to see the man that he is – the man that he could be – the man separate from the addiction. And I have been able to forgive him.

I don’t know if I would have ever gotten to that place if we had stayed together – even if he had chosen recovery. Because, as Nellie said a while ago, time is very valuable for me as well . I am 55 and decided that I did not have the desire to stand by him through recovery and all that it entails. That is not how I want to live the next 20 to 40 years of my life. (1 of my grandmothers lived til 95 – it’s in the genes, so I’m staying positive!)

Anyway, I think I got off subject there for a bit. When the addiction is taken away, there is a person there, just like you and I. I think that the key to being able to see that person is having our own vision, knowing our values and our boundaries and being able to detach – that’s the biggy. To detach with love.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for starting this Minerva! I love all of your posts by the way – you have such a beautiful, heartfelt way of expressing yourself.

_________________
"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion." - Eckhart Tolle A New Earth

I fully agree with everything written so far - particularly the definition of 'addicted' rather than an addict. My SO started his recovery with 14months of 12-step guidance and, as a result, found it very difficult to believe that he could be 'cured'.

My question is - once you start to see the man behind the addicition, how many of you have found that, however lovely they may be, they're not the man that you were attracted to? (My SO - now that he's able to expand his view of the situation - is a perfectly lovely man but is just not my type. But how to be sure of this, and how to tell him, when he's doing so well? No answer required to this second question - just sharing.)

I'm glad I read this post before responding to Mel. I mentioned months ago the idea of using person first language buried in some thread somewhere. I work within the disability community and have a son with autism and person first language has been embraced by the community and those that serve them (at least those of recently trained :-) ).

Person first language is simply that.....a person with an addiction is how I would say it in this situation. It does some taking getting used to at first but I have consistently referred to my son as a child/boy/student with autism because he is obviously so much more than that.

One thin I have learned about person first language is if you are 'in the club' so to speak and have autism, I am not going to shutter if you refer to yourself as an autistic. Does that make sense? Because they are an individual and have a right to define themselves how they wish. I feel the same with a person with an addiction. If they want to call themselves an addict and define themselves that way, that is their right. Whether that is healthy or not is really up to them to decide. I do of course agree with separating their addiction from their identity but that still is their choice.

I know it's a little more to type but simply typing "person with an addiction" is so much cleaner in my mind than addict. Even PWA would be more clear than SA. Or 'my partner with an addiction'....more to type but only a couple of word more than 'my addicted partner.'

I don't know. I find it hard to look at my own husband as more than his addictions but he must be. Because if I am not defined by what has happened to me, he doesn't have to be defined by what he has done. We are each so much more than that. So my mind wanders now into thinking about people that have committed heinous crimes against humanity and wonder if I can see their humanity behind what they have done.

Just my thoughts after person first language being drilled into me during grad school until it became a habit. I have to say with that though, it was always great fun to catch a professor or supervisor not using it, as they weren't trained that way and still slipped from time to time.

_________________

"What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

<<<sigh>>> I think I said some time back that I could not see the man beyond the addiction but I have realized that is not true. I do not believe I would have tried yet again with my partner if I did not believe the things he said about himself, the things that sounded like recovery, that things that indicated to me that recovery was possible. Unfortunately I have reason to believe his words were only words. I do believe he has learned to "manage" his urges to use porn but I have not seen the evidence of emotional maturity that would provide a firm foundation for recovery and a quality relationship. The addiction might not be active but the basis for that addiction appears to be an integral part of the way he attempts to control his life as well as the life of his intimate partner.

My dearest medusa,
Hmmm. I think I had better post today as a partner and not as a mentor. Thank you so very much for bringing up this oh so important and oh so disturbing topic. I find that my thinking on this subject is very different today than 3 or 4 years ago. I wonder where I’ll be in another 3 or 4 years. Hmmm.



Today I think that whether or not one should try to separate the man from the addiction is an extremely complex and personal question. For some, this can be helpful, healthy, and entirely appropriate. For others, sadly, I think this can only prolong the pain and the healing from this trauma. And that, my dearest medusa is a tragedy for everyone.

When I first started my journey with c, I fell in love with a man who appeared TO EVERYONE to be kind, caring, considerate, loving, understanding, SAFE, honest, and open. He appeared to be a man who would always have my back and he did have my back in many, many ways throughout the years. He appeared to be a feminist and delighted in pointing out my many accomplishments in traditionally male endeavors. Fast forward to the horrendous discovery of his porn addiction and I still saw him as he had always appeared to me. Only now I also saw him as a man with an addiction. I had no trouble at all separating the man I knew and loved from the addiction. Perhaps that was because of my own history as a recovered alcoholic.

I thought the man I loved was the real man and the addiction was a problem we would conquer together. Sadly, today I have had to accept that the opposite was the reality in c’s case. In his case, the real man is the addict. Sigh. With all my personal and professional experience with active, recovering, and recovered alcoholics and addicts (not sa or pa prior to d-day) this was extremely difficult for me to accept. And yet, much as I wish it could be different this is his reality. I now realize that the man I loved was only a façade. It was the man c wanted to be. It was the man he could have been. It may have even been the man he saw himself as, such is the power of denial. But it was not the real man. Today there are precious few remnants of the façade of the wonderful man I loved so very much. Precious few.

Sigh. How could that be? In c’s case, I think both time and the content of the porn he was getting off to made the change. Tragically, I think this is true for many of the men we love(d). As best I can determine his pornography addiction covers 40+ years. Anything that we do consistently and regularly becomes a part of us. Healthy people have many parts. When we practice anything long enough and allow it to become the most important part of our lives, we become that part. Perhaps we are able to put on a face for the world, sometimes for decades. Perhaps not. When we put addiction of any kind ahead of all the other wonderful “parts” of life, the addiction becomes the real man or woman.

I believe in c’s case, that when he became involved in internet pornography, the transformation became complete in a very short time. As I am sure most of you are aware, there is nothing remotely healthy about internet porn. In very short order, c became the man who preferred jerking off to the abuse of women over anything and everything else in his life. After discovery, the façade of the “good guy” began to melt in front of my eyes. While attempting abstinence, appeasement, and counseling, the real man emerged. It was an ugly and tragic reality. What I thought was a small “part”; a tough but surmountable problem, turned out to be the biggest part of the man I loved. For all practical purposes, once the secret was out, the man I loved disappeared. For all practical purposes, that man is dead and gone. The man that exists today truly is the dirty old man we all want to protect our world from. Giving up on the man and the relationship was, by far, the most painful experience of my life.



Dear Mel, there was a time when I agreed absolutely with this model. sigh. Today, I have mixed feelings. It is yet another one of those questions I wonder what I'll think in a few more years. Today, I still think that we shouldn't objectify anyone under any circumstances. No matter how hard we try, I don't think we can ever completely extinquish the divine light of our core humanity. Having said that, I do think we have to say to addicts, "yes, there IS something terribly wrong with you and it's past time for you to fix it. It's time for you to find and relight the fire of your humanity." I believe that there is a time for compassion and understanding, but there is also a time for harsh realities to be given to the addict.

It’s been some time since I’ve shared so much of my personal tragedy and my ex’s tragedy. I do so today because it is, in fact, so terribly commonplace in the world of pornography addiction. Time and time and time again I read, hear, or see the same story being played out with the same heartbreaking consequences. Over and over I have watched as women struggle through their own healing and the recovery (or lack of) efforts of their partners. Sometimes the addict recovers, sometimes not. What I see, most often though, is that even when the addict ‘recovers’ he is not the man his partner thought he was. Sometimes there are remnants or glimmers of that man, but not the man the partner expected to get. I watch as women spend years healing, supporting, doing the relationship work, and waiting for the man she loved to re emerge only to be horribly disappointed. Sounds cynical I know. I truly wish I could say otherwise.

As a woman I want to hold every other woman facing this in my heart. I do what I can to support other women. I work on projects to raise awareness and educate others. I do what I can to help.

For me, part of helping is to figuratively put up a big sign that says BE VERY CAREFUL. Get an education. Look at your own unique personal situation and the one you love very carefully. Take the time to assess your reality. Even the very best advice in the world doesn’t fit each and every partner, addict, or relationship. For some, separating the addiction from the man is the best possible action. For some, the man you thought he was is still in there somewhere. Hopefully, that man will prevail. For others, it only creates a situation where we hope for things that will never happen, thus prolonging our own healing and trauma.

As always, I think the best advice is to listen to your gut. Give yourself the gift of time and patience so that you can truly hear what your gut is trying to tell you.
Nellie, can you tell I used word today?

My partner is claiming "recovery" while he carries around the same emotional baggage he had with the addiction. I suspect that I love the mask he wears, the one that most everyone else sees. One of the things that helped to convince me to try again with him was the way that others responded to him - as if there were absolutely nothing amiss - and I began to doubt my perceptions. And now a couple of months later I realize that even if he is not currently using porn he is continuing to either excuse or deny his questionable behavior, control most communication between us and tell me what*I* think and feel, at the same time that he insists that if only *I* would do this, this and this our relationship would be just fine. I guess it would be "fine". For him. And eventually I would cease to exist for him. And eventually I might even cease to exist for myself.

my dear seethesky,



dear heart, please don't allow this to happen. you are far too valuable. love and nurture yourself. recognize all that is unique and special about you and care for it. don't forget your compassion, strength, openess, and generosity which you have shown us. know that you are worth all the work it takes to create a new life full of joy, peace, and happiness.

seethesky, I agree with deservesmore above....don't let that happen. It can feel hard to untangle ourselves from our partner and their addiction but it is possible, one tangle at a time.

_________________

"What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

Deservesmore, that was a very heart felt, thought provoking post above. I appreciate your clarity and I think you bring up a lot of thoughts and feelings that others have.

I believe I understand you here - that a partner can hang on to hope longer than necessary, hoping the 'real man' comes out of the dark. I think though, that is a separate issue from separating the man from the addiction. If for example, I can clearly see my husband is acting from his addiction or immaturity, I feel more clear about boundaries, less susceptible to manipulation. I guess if he appears like a whiny, bratty, selfish kid, I am more likely to respond accordingly. That doesn't mean I believe his core identity is how he is acting though. I believe strongly, that we can all lose a sense of our basic humanity for a variety of reasons but losing that sense does not mean our basic humanity is actually lost, just that I have clouded it over by something.

I would say that what he appeared to be whether that is good or bad or in between is also not who he is at his core. Appearances are just that, appearances, not necessarily grounded in anything real.


I think for me, one of the biggest blows was realizing what we had, who he was, was not real. But even if an person with an addiction allows their personality and life to be completely fused with their addiction, that is still not who they are at their core. They weren't born an addict, so in my mind, no one can be an addict in their core. But I do understand the acceptance you came to with your partner. I came to a similar place with my first husband shortly before he died. He had given his life over completely and allowed himself to be swallowed up by his addictions. It was very sad.

I respectfully disagree. Yes this is destructive. Yes this is unhealthy. But I don't agree that even in the worst cases, the addiction becomes the real man because I don't believe at their core that that is even possible. ......I say that and think of my step-father who even after being convicted of child molestation, continued in his severe addiction, moving from place to place, leaving behind a lucrative career... I can't say I ever knew who he was at his core, but I know there is a human being under all the things he has done to others and himself. Because ultimately, a person who fuses their identity with their addiction is the greatest loser in all of this because they have turned their own back on who they are and chosen to let an addiction run their life.


A key part of this for me has been that I felt duped through it all. The man I thought I knew was a mere facade. He didn't disappear....he only existed as part of an addiction. Not to say that I felt everything we had was a sham (I did question that for quite some time though)....no, but I started to be able to separate out what was real and what was just part of the game.

Your pain is palatable and I am sorry you had to go through such an awful experience. I have never felt the same kind of extremes as I have with healing from this.

I believe that compassion, understanding, boundaries and consequences can all happen at the same time. I still struggle with resentment over the idea that I have to inspire any sort of action on the part of my husband. But recently I realized that if sticking up for my values had the incidental benefit of showing my husband compassion by placing limits on how he can treat me, then okay I decided I was willing to accept that. I really have not liked the idea of somehow trying to make a full grown man act like an adult, so have really resisted the idea of consequences. But am softening. Whether he respects me or not, well doubtful, but I am stuck here for now so might as give it a try.

I see this but think it is just a biproduct of being in a relationship with a person with an addiction. There is most certainly the possibility that one or the other won't want to continue the relationship once each is healthy and healed.

Absolutely agree!


I think separating the man from the addiction is different than recognizing whether the man is working towards health or still actively addicted. Pulling the wool over our eyes and seeing what we want to see helps no one. But to me that is different from recognizing their humanity at their core, whether they recover or not, whether we stay with them or not. That part of them is the part, to me, that is separate from their addiction and has little to do with whether I can truly see if he is sincere or not (in my case he isn't sadly).

Deservesmores thank you for sharing so much of your story and your own heart today.

_________________

"What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

Just want you to know that I am still thinking about this topic. It can be very specific to ourselves, our Hs, our situation - or in more general terms relative to all. Specifics can be hard because the SA does't know who he is for quite some time - at least mine didn't. It was easy for me to identify certain traits early on in my lessons: his work ethic, which was alway his most important value based on childhood teachings, his creative side, his passive agressive traits, his sense of humor, his shyness, etc. However, as we have both gone through the throes of recovery and healing, we are each changed. We are not the people we once were. I think we are both figuring that out. What I miss the most is the ease we once had. So far we haven't figured out how to reclaim that. I recently had a light bulb moment regarding an experience that happened a year ago. We were at a memorial service and seated at a food table with total strangers. My H was able to engage in a lively, almost flirtatious conversation with the woman across the table who was in her forties, not a cute young thing, just a nice woman. I felt left out. It was insensitive on his part. We talked about it later. Just recently, though, I identified my feelings more clearly. I was envious of his ease with her and their light-hearted conversation. They were enjoying each other's company without having to work at it.
We have moments of laughter and fun, but the ease we once had is gone. We are changed people. My values continue to shift in terms of priorities, my vision evolves. My joy is key for me, finding comfort and joy in little things in my life keeps me balanced - but not always.

So....I will give this more thought. I know many of us here on this forum have wondered if our entire marriage was real, based on fraud, without merit. We question so many precious memories. I have come to accept that my memories are my own and real to me. Going forward presents a different challenge. I will get back....it's been a tough few days and I need to let my mind/heart rest for a while.
That's it for now.

Nellie James

Medusa, I like your option of “the addicted” as I have been trying to use “the person with the addiction” and it’s just far too verbose, especially when I tend to have a difficult time with being succinct as it is!

This is interesting as it implies that what you were attracted to were the qualities that were symptomatic of the addiction.... food for thought, not a judgment.

Yes, I agree. But, the flipside is, at least with addiction, it is not always clear that the person identifies as a person with an addiction, or as an addict. For this reason, it is better to frame it such that it is clear that the person is separate of their addiction. Addiction, historically, was seen as a moral issue. Alcoholism wasn’t included in the DSM until version iii, for that very reason (that it was not deemed a disordered pattern of behaviour, but rather as purely immoral or deviant choice). Some of these outdated attitudes persist, and so, as a health based community, we need to make the distinction as a means of educating. Also, we are not a closed community, either. Any online community that has a public forum should be sensitive to the fact that, while we may all know that one’s core identity is not implied with a term like “addict”, the wider population does not necessarily know this, or know that we know it.



I understand but respectfully disagree. I know that my husband still identifies as an addict. Just last week we were having a discussion where I was making a point about the distinction between being an addict or being a person with an addiction (like saying someone is a jerk, or is acting like a jerk...) and he had this kind of bewildered look on his face, like he was hearing it for the first time, or like he didn’t quite understand (while he does understand, I think, the distinction between being a jerk or acting like one). Anyhow, as long as he doesn’t understand this for himself, he will not break free entirely and there will always be this over-shadowing impediment to his developing self. Sometimes hanging onto labels provides a certain amount of comfort, or security. It provides an excuse for when they lack the motivation or commitment to do the work (well, what do you expect? I’m an addict!). It’s the scapegoat that helps them evade responsibility in the matter of their own lives. My husband has openly admitted this phenomenon to me. He says he hasn’t fully committed and he knows it’s likely because it provides him with an excuse should he make a mistake. I believe that once a person has a healthy perspective about their addiction, that they will naturally begin to separate themselves from their addiction and as a result choose to disidentify from the label.



I don’t think we should confuse cases where the person with addiction chooses addiction over health, with addiction actually being who they are. While I recognize that when someone chooses something for themselves, they are essentially saying "this is who I am" but at the same time, it really isn't the essence of who they are. I am more than my gender, my roles in life, my qualities and attributes. This is my own world-view. Nobody is born with addiction; nobody is born "an addict". We may be born with more or less vulnerability to develop addiction, but addiction requires many factors to converge on and in the individual for the addiction to become expressed. So, in that sense, if the individual make the choice for themselves, they always have the option of choosing health and of dis-identifying from their addiction. Learned behaviour can be unlearned. Even for someone who identifies as an addict, there is still, at the core of who they are, the individual they were before the addiction took up residence. That person, while buried so far beneath the addiction, does still exist. It may take more work for someone like your husband to reconnect to that person, but that person does still exist. Granted there could be some comorbid disorders that contributed to the development of addiction that would also have to be uncovered and treated (such as personality disorders). And, maybe the prognosis isn’t good in such cases (statistically, it isn’t) but we must not confuse such cases as being the reality for all persons with addictions.


We must also consider the source of these stories. Media reports of highly publicized stories are poor sources of reality. The same is true even of the stories we share here... because when we all arrive here we are all in a state of disorientation, we are reactive and we tend to share the worst of what is going on, more than we share any positive. We must remember...this site is for people who are struggling, who have stuff to work through. People who recover generally transition away from the community. Some do stay to give back (thank you to our valued recovery coaches who take on coaching as a way to give back to the community) but they are the rarity. My point is, in the world of the net, and the world of media and even in the world of addiction recovery in clinics and hospitals, and especially in our own lives, we are looking at one-sided results. Maybe I believe too much in human potential, and so perhaps the reality exists somewhere on the continuum between the two.

Be well.

_________________
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. (Epictetus)

Hmmm. A few days ago, my oldest son, who is now 46,wanted to know why I had left his father for my present husband. I heard myself answer: He liked me for who I was; he thought I was smart, creative, out-going, beautiful, funny, hard-working - all the things I never heard from your father (who was a very controlling and verbally abusive in his own way). I gave him a specific example. I explained that our marriage had been broken for a long time before I met ______. I also know that my present H thought I would always want to be the professional woman even when we had a child. He thought he could never take care of me in the manner to which I was accustomed. He had put me in a box based on his own very narrow-minded thinking. He had mis-judged me from the beginning. All this came out in our counseling. In a nutshell, we didn't know each other as well as I thought we did.

I fell in love with the man who gave me what I thought I needed and had been missing for twenty years. I believed my H then and I believe what I felt and saw then is/was real. What I didn't recognize was the huge hole he had in him and his need to be seen as the "good guy," which was the image that came from the distorted "mirrors" around him and he believed it, used it, and thought that was who he was and had to be in order to be good enough. He also accepted all the other distortions: geeky, awkward, not handsome, not an athlete, not a bad boy, fearful, the list goes on. He searched outside himself for what he felt he didn't have. And he had put me in a box to fit this. He had objectified me from the beginning in many ways. I didn't see it then. I see it now. Yet, I still feel we had a true love based on intimacy, shared interests, and values even though those values were on shakey ground.

In the beginning, I saw and loved the "good guy," who was also smart, funny, sensitive, shy, stubborn, hard working who seemed to be authentic, but wasn't - the "good guy" was the image he projected to the world in order to fit in - from childhood on. He has told me that he always knew something was wrong with him, he just didn't know what. His reality was based on who he thought he was. He had accepted what others thought he was and used it, built on it. Now he is figuring who he really is, how he feels, what he believes, how he wants to live his life - which takes enormous awareness on his part. So, for me, after separating the man from the addiction, I find someone who is a work in progress. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out in terms of the real man at the core who came into this world with no baggage as we all did. We came into this world completely innocent with no concept of good, bad, beauty, ugliness, kindness, cruelty, sexuality, victimization - we came in without any baggage, but we learned a whole lot from the people around us.

I see and expedrience traits in my H that I still like and some I adore and some I could do without. Based on my own vision and values, I have to sort it out. What can I live with. What can't I live with. We are both in progress. He is still learning to feel, be sensitive to me, to understand and accept himself and me. I have my boundaries in place and he's aware of what they are. He knows me well enough to know that when I'm done, I'm done.

Thanks for the opportunity to gather my thought on this. My love to you all.

Nellie James

Coach Mel always enjoy your thoughtful posts.
Yes, it is cumbersome to use person first language, but calling a person "the addicted" is similar to calling them "the heart attack in room 12" or "the drunk" etc..... It's still identifying them with their condition without acknowledging their person-hood. It's still reducing a person with complexities to an addiction. I would suggest that if it is important to separate the person from the addiction, it's important enough to type a few words/say a few more words. I do know that at times it's very cumbersome, like saying "my husband with a sexual addiction" rather than saying "my SA husband." And there are times when it seems almost wrong like when I was writing a paper in college I was trying to talk about "typically developing children" with "children with developmental disabilities". It was then I realized it's okay to place good adjectives in front of the "person" but when it comes to disorders they need to follow the "person". So I decided that as long as the description includes an acknowledgement of their humanity, I would state it however it made sense. And this rather verbose paragraph finally leads me to say - saying 'the addicted person' would be better than simply reducing them to 'the addicted' in my humble opinion as it still acknowledges that any person is more than any condition they may have, whether that is an addiction or something else.


Yes I think we agree. What I was trying to say is that a person with an addiction has a right to use simpler language and refer to their addiction how they want. It's back to the simpler language like saying SA or 'the addicted'. In the autism community, it's interesting as some adults with autism have embraced the term Autistic or "Autists" as a statement and I respect that even thought I won't call someone autistic.

Again I would encourage the use of "person first language" or at least "person included language" when talking about people with an addiction. SA can very easily turn into PWA in my mind. Just food for thought and no way is perfect as we are limited here by language and typed language at that. Person first language just tries to get at the idea that a person is always more than what problems they may have. But we can't go around writing things like: limitless soul with an addiction who is also middle aged, artistic, hard working, funny, dedicated father....etc.....

_________________

"What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

I am bumping this up for all the newbies who are starting out on this journey. I feel this is an important thread in many ways as each of the responses illustrates.

Nellie James