AmÉe LaTour is a writer for nonprofits and lover of words and human beings. Recovery City is screening at film festivals and at events around the country.
BRATTLEBORO-I'm grateful to Turning Point and Community Substance Use Response for hosting a recent screening of Recovery City, a documentary that features women rebuilding their lives and becoming forces for hope in Worcester, Massachusetts.
As the film tells their stories, it shows that recovery is both possible and hard to start and to sustain. First-person perspectives on this topic root our understanding in reality, and this film offers a valuable variety of them.
One moment struck a chord that I want to let ring out here: an encounter on the street between recovery coach Rebecca and Blanca, a woman making moves toward treatment.
Rebecca showed Blanca a picture of her friend in early recovery, looking transformed and radiant. Blanca burst into tears, overwhelmed by an apparent mix of joy for her friend and wishes for herself.
"That's where I want to be," she cried.
I'm grateful that Blanca showed the world her desire for a better life and the work she was doing to get there. I felt her words in my bones because, while my story is different from hers, I've felt that desire for a better life, too.
* * *
I want to talk about this because I've heard people say that people with addictions don't care about anything but getting high. I get it - from the outside, you see a person using despite the obvious harm it does. You don't see what it's giving them that they might not have gotten anywhere else.
So it's easy to attribute their behavior to bad priorities or a lack of values. This thinking is also one more thing that keeps us from being there for each other.
Even from within the experience of addiction, I was baffled by my own behavior. I was disciplined in my work and studies, and I loved the people in my life deeply. I knew I could do more in the world and be better to the people I loved if I stopped living in a cycle of erratic behavior, hangover depletion, and panicked missions to piece together the night before. But I kept doing the same thing.
As much as by my own behavior, I was baffled by people whose lives didn't revolve around intoxication. Their reality was about as concrete to me as life on the moon.
I had no vivid memory of feeling OK in my own skin without alcohol, and I doubted I'd ever feel that. It's not so shocking that I didn't forgo the only thing that made me feel OK for the sake of a nebulous, seemingly far-fetched future.
I didn't come to this self-understanding alone - my recovery coach at Turning Point helped me see my behavior didn't come from a lack of priorities or values. And since shame wasn't making it easier to loosen my grip on the thing that made me feel OK, this understanding was crucial.
So was hope.
My recovery coach connected me with group support, where I met people in recovery, including some who, like me, once thought that wasn't possible for them.
We hear a lot about the role of "rock bottom" moments in spurring recovery, and things did get bad before the familiar became as terrifying as the unknown for me. But something needed to tip the scales, and hope for a better future helped.
I wasn't in a place to consider abstinence at first. My support group encouraged me to try a break from alcohol. I started having some sober nights (luckily without physical withdrawals that would have required supervised detox, with its logistical and bureaucratic challenges).
After many sober nights - and drunken crises in between - I took the "Dryuary" leap: a one-month sober stretch. That first taste of life on the moon was the start of my long-term recovery.
(Note: I encourage anyone pursuing recovery to seek out knowledgeable support to safely guide them in decreasing or stopping use based on their specific situation.)
* * *
I'm in long-term recovery because of many right things at the right times: respect and understanding, hope, being met where I was at, peer support, my aspirations, ongoing mental health care, and luck.
Each of us can create more "right things" for those around us, based on my experience (which I believe is relevant though it did not involve panhandling or homelessness) and some insights from the discussion panel that followed the Recovery City screening.
While policy and structural changes are needed - easier access to treatment, for one - here's what you and I can do in daily life:
• Avoid words like "junkie" that reinforce shame and create artificial distance between people.
• Acknowledge people who are struggling: nod, smile, or say "hello."
• Say "no" kindly when you can't or don't want to give someone something they ask for.
• Carry food or water around for others, or offer to pick some up from the store.
• Open ourselves to first-person perspectives through resources like Recovery City, especially if we're feeling angry or at a loss.
• Donate to or volunteer at recovery centers like Turning Point.
• Donate to or volunteer at other organizations meeting people where they're at, like the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont.
• Carry Narcan (a safe, easy-to-use overdose reversal medication that saves lives).
* * *
I think you're contributing to a better world if you do any one of those things. I also know they won't be easy for some people.
It's scary to expose yourself to things that could shake up your beliefs. And it's hard to risk the pain of recognizing in "those people" the aspirations, dignity, and struggle you respect in those you love.
But when you do so, you can see the world with clear eyes and experience connection with those you share it with.
I'm asking people to do the hard thing because recovery is harder, and we can create better conditions for better lives.
* * *
If you're struggling with addiction and interested in having a conversation about it, please consider reaching out to Turning Point: turningpointwc.org.
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