Self-Recovering From Child Abuse

Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - dr.bomb

Sometimes you just have to be blunt. I usually am because I lack tact. After my friendless experiences within a Synanon-based facility for five years of my childhood I lost most of my trust in doctors and psychiatrists. My social skills were nonexistent. With my continuing adventures incognito within the recovery group movement and its business arm, the addiction treatment industry, I don't trust any of them any more. Finally, after performing some research on the other end of the social services fraud known as "special education" I realize that the whole practice deserves nothing less that swift abolition. It's outright quackery which causes more harm than good.

Are there such people as ignorant parents? Parents who would rather go for appearances rather that substance? Is it possible that systemic abuses can occur from both ends, from the social services system and the family unit, which can wreak havoc on a human being? I was in the middle of that and as my mind is clear I can finally put the pieces together. With no more addiction to worry about I can hear what is actually going on in the world around me. Sometimes, if I'm in the right place at the right time, I get lucky and wind up with some bonus pieces.

Secrets. I can't stand secrets. The worst secrets are the ones which you find out about not from a face-to-face talk but as someone who is right there, listening at the right moment, when the parties involved are not aware of someone who is listening in and paying complete attention to what's going on. You're invisible, out of sight and out of mind, to them. Then the pieces fall into place as they carelessly talk and argue, revealing those untold secrets which you never realized existed. Such pieces make old parts of the developing picture take on completely different meanings and kicks you right where it hurts the most. It's when the truth hits you.

I can remember about the trauma I endured and getting wasted, fully toasted outside of my other life of uncertainty and pain. Feeling high. Feeling mellow and good. Just a few beers and you find that you can have it control your emotions as you reach that warm "home zone" where everything just seems to be in perfect harmony. But then you feel it slipping away so you stoke up the fire some more by nourishing yourself on that nectar. You then could care less about anything else in your life to the point that you decide to do stupid things against your better judgment. Such as driving home while intoxicated or posing disheveled in front of a camera. Doesn't matter. No one will find out.

Yeah. Right.

I can understand how addiction can manifest itself in the midst of child abuse. When compared to the sheer terror of being in situations ranging from psychological deprivation to the pure torture of abuse and bodily harm itself the only thing a human being needs is relief from the suffering. For the lack of perceived choices, some people inadvertently find that pleasure within recreational drug use. Sometimes it is as innocent as drinking a beer to relax before going to bed and discovering the real reason why people drink: The pleasure! And, given the right context of situations, that pleasure is mistakenly perceived as the goal of life itself. Just the ignorance of the cultural context mixed with a heaping dose of desperation. And I was desperate and wound up wanting more and more.

Is problem drinking and drug using a genetic defect passed on from family to siblings? Again, no. There is no disease at all. No genetic predisposition. It's more politically correct than honest to say that an entire family is diseased rather than just ignorantly stupid. I got my idea to drink from my family but there was nothing pathogenic within me which compelled me to drink. I simply tried it and really liked it. And there is no sin in wanting to and winding up feeling good. There's also the matter of the so-called "war" on some drugs which had the side effect of legitimizing drunkenness. Thus, for families who believe that nonsense, sometimes idiotic choices are made.

If there's anything I took from my family which really locked me into that cycle of addiction it would be how uncommunicative my family truly was and the nonsensical ideas in my head at the time. I knew from experience that I couldn't get any decent advice from my dad. It was always vague without any detail as to how to perform a task. My mom did what she could to keep a happy face on everything, nevermind the fact that it was all lies. During those heady Reagan/Bush years of the 80's two pieces of stupidly dangerous parental advice echo in my head in retrospect now:

• From my dad: "I'd rather have my son drinking than on drugs." Obviously, alcohol is a recreational drug so the stupidity is quite evident there. Nevermind the fact that I was technically a minor, under the age of 18, at the time he said that. So I used that to justify my drinking.
  

• From my mom: "Nobody has to know about what happened to you." This is in the context of the physical and psychological abuse I suffered at Craig House-Technoma (now renamed, insultingly, to Craig Academy). It is the ABSOLUTELY WORST advice to tell a child and something either child abusers or abused spouses tell kids. My mom never abused me, though: She was abused.

So I was all alone, just me and my addiction with plenty of booze to fuel that Bastard for fifteen years. Believing that I was damaged in some way it was only much later I realized that only I can end that compulsion. No one else can do it. No meetings. No sponsors. No treatment. Everything else is merely a distraction from the task at hand: Quitting. All of the above nonsense was merely an excuse for that one thing which got me through the tough times yet didn't offer anything in regards to self-reliance and confidence.

It doesn't matter how many trips to the Sprawl*Mart or how many TV's or DVD's or CD's or other things outside of yourself you seek, including God Intoxicant itself, to keep your mind away from the Bastard. And, still searching for a few months for that answer in A.A. meetings, it all came down to an equally ignorant sponsor and me finally taking a stand and facing that Bastard down. I knew who I was and with one word, Eternity, mouthed from my own lips I made my vow as to how long I'd keep standing. It was there when I started questioning that world around me and started trusting in myself until I found myself completely recovered from my alcohol addiction in less than an hour.

With me, up to that point, I valued that pleasure of intoxication more than anything else in life itself for I thought it was life itself. It was only when I decided to quit for good, not a drop more ever again, that I found myself paying closer attention to the world within and around me. But it was that doubt, that goddamned self-doubt instilled within me and fortified by professional know-nothings and materialism, which I had to overcome. I faced that Bastard down, indeed what Jack Trimpey described as the Beast, and saw that it can't do a damn thing to me. I realized that I had a choice: I could continue to cower or fight courageously. And it was within that fight within that I saw how it absorbed the language and dubious knowledge of those simpletons. It mocked and jeered...and I didn't budge.

As I look back I see now that the abuse has been over for decades and yet it is only recently that I've come to terms with it. While I was drinking it served as the perfect excuse after the fact of my own drunken stupidity. Now that I never drink I found that such memories faded and lost their power to provoke me into some stupid behavior. It was when I started viewing them objectively and noticing how, for one minute, I came extremely close to returning back to that Synanon facility to obtain my records only to prove to some shithead lawyer how "defective" I was. I realize now that they are the enemies who have abused me and left some deep scars within me. And none of them care not to realize that truth.

It's the system itself, from cradle to grave, which is corrupt and breeds corruption in its wake as it feeds off of ignorance itself. As long as people remain quiet or pretend that things are okay then things will get worse. And they always get worse until someone does something about it. Abused kids have it the worst since they are abused yet again by professionals ranging from shrinks to brewmasters and bartenders offering some "comfort". The fear, instilled within them by the corrupt system itself, keeps them silent lest they be mocked by their peers. It gets worse when parents place blind trust in the system without any examination of it.

It's only when they realize the truth: Years away from the abuse the abusers are no longer found outside but from inside. That Bastard, that mother lode of self-doubt, fear and uncertainty, needs to be faced down. Unlike the original people who harmed one by abusing their own authority and inflicting damage the Bastard inside can not harm oneself. It can whine, weedle, needle and cajole BUT IT CANNOT HURT YOU! You then realize that the memories of the abuse has become wedded to your addiction and both will cease only when you choose to cease and desist hurting yourself.

I saw my enemy and envisioned my own permanent abstinence as my ultimate revenge. What better way to get back at the people who abused me than to simply never play that game anymore? Heck, they'd LOVE to see me incapacitated in a drunken stupor, oblivious to the world! So I made a decision to NEVER harm myself ever again. I had to love that first person, myself, first. And if I can't love myself then no one else can't. Likewise, if I can't trust myself to do that that then I never want anyone else in the universe to trust me.

In the end, with no shrinks or other idiots in lab coats claiming to be people who can "help", I self-recovered and integrated the experience into my own self. What I realized that I was all right I realized that I possess quit a bit of information against that very system in which millions are slaves. As long as the abused remain quiet then the system will appear pristine. So realize the Bastard within and the abusers who get off on the silence as you abuse yourself instead. Those pricks don't deserve it and you certainly deserve better. Take the power back by trusting yourself and speaking out. You'll be amazed at how liberating it is to do something against them and realizing that sometime down the road someone will listen.

Above everything else, concerning your substance addiction, KNOCK IT OFF!

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