<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />This thing, this pesky little thing, this thing we know we will have to face sooner or later, will not go away on its own. This thing truly believes it is here for good. This thing is not a passenger tagging along for the ride.

This thing is after one thing: our lives. This thing will not be content to make our lives difficult, though doing that may keep it at bay for a while. This thing exists to destroy us, our families, our hope, and our dreams, and ultimately, it will kill us.

Unless we kill it first.

This thing called addiction finds people most vulnerable to it. It chooses those of us most prone to losing the battle it wages. It senses which of us to attack, and goes to war.

Those of us whose disease is addiction are overwhelmed. Our enemy knows where to strike, how to win, and has every intention to succeed. In its wake are thousands of people who lost the battle; good people who wanted nothing more than a reprieve from the monotony, pain, shame, or guilt that accompanies them.

They ask us why we don’t just stop. The addiction inside of us snickers and grows stronger every time we try and explain to somebody who will never understand why. Our addiction knows the real reason. Our addiction knows that it is our inability to understand why we are killing ourselves that keeps us addicted. It laughs as we try and explain, and make excuses, and search for others like us who have a taste of our reality. Addiction knows that its greatest strength is the unknown, so it offers something comfortable to us; something so tempting we risk everything to obtain it.

Peace and serenity.

How, then, do we the addicted experience this elusive thing without feeding the monster inside of us? We were not born addicted. We didn’t become addicted until we allowed entry to that which poisons us. Deep down, we understand that the power to regain control resides within us, but how do we tap into that power? Knowing that it is there and not taking advantage of it contributes to our decline and makes the addiction stronger. It laughs as we struggle with our own weakness, and grows stronger as we fight ourselves for control of ourselves.

The second an addicted person tells another human being the exact nature of their suffering, the addiction begins to weaken. This simple act of surrender puts our addiction on full alert, and it must use every last ounce of power to survive. It loses focus on us, and we feel a tinge of relief. That little spark begins to grow. The more we let our cat out of the bag, the stronger we become, and the weaker the addiction gets. Coming clean is a powerful step in the direction of sobriety.

The key to experiencing the full power of that first step is finding the right person to confide in. The moment of truth will be diminished if the person you choose to share your secret with is drinking alongside you or getting high with you. And the people we hurt as our disease progressed may not be as willing to listen as we would like.

However, there are people who are passionate about recovery and want to listen. Some of them experienced addiction firsthand, some were exposed to it and deeply moved by it, and others simply know that their true calling is to help others who need somebody who devotes much of their life to learning everything they can about addiction and how best to treat it.

There is an intimacy among strangers that is just as powerful, perhaps more so, than the intimacy among close friends or family. I have learned that I am brutally honest about myself and my struggles with people whose lives are not entwined with my own, and I hold back when talking to the people I share my life with. I simply do not want to burden them with my problems or hurt them any more than I already have.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. It helps to talk about it. I truly hope that you make yourself a priority and make the effort to conquer the addictions in your life; they will not simply go away.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/the-most-important-person">The Most Important Person</a></li>
</ul>

Our Inability to Understand Our Addictions Keeps Us Addicted

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />A big part of avoiding sobriety is the fear that we will disappoint everybody who has come to know us as a drinker. We worry that we will let people down, and their opinion of us will not be as glorious as we believe it to be. To continue drinking at the pace we have grown accustomed to, we convince ourselves that our behavior is vital to the survival of the group we have convinced ourselves we belong to.

Seems like we need a lot of convincing!

One of the major things that keeps us drinking is the desire for acceptance. Our belief that we are accepted in the sororities and fraternities of people who drink too much is enough to keep us going. We truly believe that other people actually spend time thinking about us. The truth is, they do not. As soon as we leave their sight, they are on to the next thing that captures their attention. Our presence in their lives lasts only as long as we are present. Once we leave, we are gone from their consciousness.

Understanding this helps when the thought of tackling your addiction presents itself. The only person thinking about you all of the time is you. Even those closest to you have more pressing concerns—namely, themselves. Nobody is going to suffer when you decide to get help, and nobody is going to notice that you’ve dropped out of the party. Just as drinking to excess is a selfish deed, so too is not drinking at all. And there is nothing wrong with selfishness. Taking care of ourselves is the number one priority for all of us. If we are not well, our presence in the lives of others can never be healthy.

As our drinking progresses, the important people in our lives begin to fade away. We replace them with more drink, and for many of us, relatively anonymous people. These people are interchangeable; the only important aspect of our relationship with them is our common love of the effects of alcohol. As time goes on and the disease takes more of our soul, we realize that these people are not that important, but alcohol is.

This revelation was the turning point for me. I had two choices: strengthen my relationship with alcohol, or end it. I spent considerable time on this decision. The fact that I was heavily intoxicated while considering my future likely had a lot to do with the length of time it took for me to decide to seek help! In the end, I made the right choice. It took a while, but once I realized that talking to myself about addiction was akin to having a meeting with an idiot, I was able to think clearly and admit that I needed some outside advice.

There is no shame in deciding to get help. There is a lot of shame in hiding inside a bottle. Nobody can tell you to get on with things; that decision ultimately has to come from within. Nobody cares as much about you as you, and nobody knows more about the extent of your addiction, and more importantly, the strength of your resolve, than you.

So quit talking to yourself and get some help. The most important person in the world is tired of waiting.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/our-inability-to-understand-our-addictions-keeps-us-addicted">Our Inability to Understand Our Addictions Keeps Us Addicted</a></li>
</ul>

The Most Important Person

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />For the life of me, I cannot figure out why it took me so long to tackle my addictions. If I knew then what I know now, I would have made some changes much sooner. It seems so simple, now that I have a lot of sober time under my belt. All I have to do is just not do it.

Simple, right?

Far from it. If it were easy, everybody would just not do it. People with addictive tendencies see a life without drugs or alcohol as an intricate puzzle. We wake up from a drug- and or alcohol-induced state of unconsciousness and expect ourselves to make rational choices about the new day. Even those of us who binge and manage to stay away from whatever ails us for longer periods are plagued with little voices that remain buried only for so long before they grow in volume.

I cannot speak for everyone who has struggled with the overwhelming need to quiet those voices, but the impulse to achieve peace by drinking or drugging is nearly impossible to overcome. So we quiet the chaos by inviting more substances into our system. Days turn to weeks, and weeks turn to months. Before we know it, we’re unable to live our lives on life’s terms. We instead create different terms. We understand what it takes to feel normal, and do what we must to achieve it. Most of us understand that it will end badly, but the promise of even a few moments of peace and serenity is overwhelming.
So we do it again.

The solution that eludes us and seems so obvious to those who do not struggle with addiction is to simply not start. I have repeatedly tried and failed to explain to people that addiction is not a simple matter of willpower. We had no way of knowing that when we took our first drink, smoked our first joint, took our first Vicodin, or did whatever it was that changed our perception from chaos to normalcy that we would end up craving that feeling above all else. We simply did not know that we were the ones who would get addicted.

But addicted we became.

I don’t know if I will ever fully get past my addictive cravings. Substances were the fastest way that I found to feel normal, but they ultimately made things worse. There are strategies that I needed to learn that gave me an alternative to using. “Just not doing it” was actually the easy part. Not wanting to do it turned out to be a little more challenging. That is where the work began, and my sobriety started.

There is a way to live happily without chemically changing the way we feel. When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/our-inability-to-understand-our-addictions-keeps-us-addicted">Our Inability to Understand Our Addictions Keeps Us Addicted</a></li>
</ul>

Getting Started

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />First responders are people first. We think a lot like everybody else, act nearly the same, and have similar dreams and demons. We succumb to the same temptations, and a percentage of us are prone to addiction. But most of us believe that we are above it. We live hard, party hard, and convince ourselves that we are protected because we are the protectors.

We are not. Far from it.

I’m not much of a statistics guy, but I pay attention to the people in my life. The ones who are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, and ER staff are a lot more like me than the people who work outside my world. We lean toward the daring side of human nature. Maybe it is because of the things we experience. We expose ourselves to tragedy, expecting to avoid it in our own lives. We see the worst, and we are expected to act the best. We are the people society puts on a pedestal.

Until we fall. Then we are not frail human beings. We are disgraces to the uniform, the profession, the human race, and civilization. Our frailty is exposed, our friends turn their backs, the press has a field day, and social media is merciless.

We are sorely mistaken if we think that we will be given special consideration if we make a mistake while under the influence. <a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/prescription-drugs/prescription-drug-use-among-nurses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A nurse who steals pain medication</a> is not looked upon the same way as a wife who helps herself to her husband’s back medicine. An off-duty firefighter who is charged with a DUI is front-page news rather than a police report. An off-duty police officer involved in an altercation while intoxicated is judged harshly.

Nobody cares that we are people struggling with addiction making bad choices. There is no kindness and understanding when we fail. It's just a jury of our peers, and their verdict is guilty as charged.

Recognizing our problem as something we can treat before we lose everything is essential. I know that the games we play to avoid getting well are nearly impossible to overcome, but overcome them we must. Ruining our reputation, relationships, and career because we didn’t know how to get better is truly tragic, and avoidable.

Alcoholism and drug addiction are lonely diseases. Even when we are in the company of other addicted people, we are essentially a crowd of lonely people. We will not get away with it and be the 90-year-old person surrounded by loving friends and family telling colorful stories. We will die miserably. I’ve seen it, over and over again.

We didn’t magically acquire the tools to be first responders—we had to learn how. We will not magically get over our addictions, either. We need to find a way. We need to plan. We need to implement that plan, and we need to do it now, <em>before</em> something happens, rather than after.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/getting-started">Getting Started</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/our-inability-to-understand-our-addictions-keeps-us-addicted">Our Inability to Understand Our Addictions Keeps Us Addicted</a></li>
</ul>

We Are Not Immune

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />I tried to put my phone down for a day last week. One day. Twenty-four hours. I failed.

I thought I could do it. I honestly believed that all I had to do was put it in another room, not charge it, hide it, or leave it in my pocket and forget about it.

I despise being addicted. For too long, I was a slave to substances. Every day I promised myself that today was the day that I wouldn’t drink, smoke, whatever. And every night I passed out after failing again.

But this? It’s a phone! How hard can it be? I am a seasoned recovered person after all. I know the tricks, I know how to stay clean and sober, and I am living proof that the most pathetic among us can succeed.

The problem was that I knew after my 24-hour period of abstinence I could get back on the phone. It made the quest less than the life-and-death situation that drug and alcohol addiction was. To successfully maintain sobriety I had to approach addiction as all or nothing. There could be no slips. There will never be a celebratory toast at my daughter’s wedding or a beer at the graduation party. There is never just one. One is too many, and a hundred is not enough. That is the way it is, and that is how I live.

I am an addict. I change addictions like I change my socks. The list of things that I am addicted to is lengthy and always changing. When I got rid of one substance, I picked up or increased use of another. Within a week of my last drink I was addicted to ice cream. I’m still addicted to writing.

It is important to understand how to navigate a world of temptation. Something seemingly benign can cause undue harm if the impulse to do it is uncontrollable. Checking my phone for messages a thousand times a day has me worried. I have to figure out a way to better manage myself and correct a habit that is becoming problematic.

Recovery is an ongoing process. I will tell anybody who is interested about my 18 years of sobriety, my journey to recovery, and my 25 years of misery that became legendary. It is not as often that I tell them that my obsession with writing a book nearly cost me my marriage, or that I check my email dozens of times a day. Social media is a constant burden. I write things hoping for a reaction, and if there are not enough shares, likes, retweets, or comments I actually feel depressed. How I managed to get myself addicted to other people’s reactions to me is a mystery, but there it is.

Fortunately, I have the tools to beat this one. I know that the only reason this latest addiction is beating me is because I want to continue torturing myself. There may or may not come a time when I realize that the whole thing is making my life worse, rather than better, and when and if that time comes I will make the necessary moves to put it behind me.

Knowing that makes living with myself a little easier.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/getting-started">Getting Started</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/we-are-not-immune">We Are Not Immune</a></li>
</ul>

Addicted to My Phone? It’s as Real as It Gets

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />I drank because I could. Everybody else did: my parents, my friends, my brother and sisters, the people I worked with, the people on TV. It was as natural as the sunrise and sunset, and as inevitable. Even when everybody else had stopped drinking, or at least slowed down, I drank. Even when it was abundantly clear that I shouldn’t, I drank. Even when I knew that absolutely, without doubt I couldn’t drink, I drank.

The fact that I surrounded myself with people who drank never occurred to me. I never considered the other people, the ones who didn’t. They were not part of any world I could imagine. If you didn’t drink, you went against the natural order of things.

I’ve tried come up with a reason that I gravitated toward people who drank. I've wondered if there was some invisible bond that drew us together, and we only felt comfortable in the company of like-minded people. I've wondered why I avoided those who didn’t drink the way I did. I think it had something to do with a nagging voice in my soul: the voice of reason. I drowned that voice out with alcohol for so long that I could barely hear it, but I certainly felt it.

I knew that I was one of them. One of the unfortunates that shouldn’t drink.

It took years for that voice to grow in volume, and decades before I found the strength to tell myself I wouldn’t drink.

Shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. Three words with vastly different meanings and results.

An alcoholic knows he shouldn’t drink literally from the second the drink passes his lips. We know that anything that feels that good cannot be “that good.” Sadly, we don’t realize that the good feeling that alcohol brings us is pretty much how “normal” people feel without drinking. How could we know; nobody knows how other people feel. We simply assume that everybody feels pretty much the same, and the booze works the same, and everybody feels alive when they have a few, then depressed when they have too many. The mystery was, how and why do they know not to have too many?

Eventually we realize that for whatever reason, we simply can’t drink. It ended badly, every time, without fail. At one time, we could stop the intoxicated train from rolling after a few drinks, but eventually we found that once it left the station, we would drink until we could drink no more. It drove us nuts, and we tried and failed to control it.

But the frustration felt during this time strengthens our resolve. Failing to control something we know we shouldn’t be doing, and realizing we can’t, leads to our salvation.

Wouldn’t it be great if I just didn’t drink today.

Wouldn’t it be great if I lived my life one day at a time.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could stop wasting time and get after it.

Before I knew what was happening, I realized I wouldn’t be drinking today.

There are people who understand how we feel and can make sense of our thoughts. They are passionate about recovery and truly interested in understanding how we got ourselves into their hands. They can get us to believe that a substance-free life is possible.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/addicted-to-my-phone-its-as-real-as-it-gets">Addicted to My Phone? It’s as Real as It Gets</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/we-are-not-immune">We Are Not Immune</a></li>
</ul>

Shouldn’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="left" />It’s the law of the jungle: Groups are stronger than their individual parts. Firefighters are no different. Everything we do, we do together.

The fire scene is the epitome of teamwork. The first in engine company stretches the line, the first in ladder company ventilates, the second in engine company establishes water supply, the second in ladder company opens ceilings and walls, and the third in engine backs up the first.

Everybody is focused on the reason we exist: search and rescue. Even then we work as a team; extricating a person from a burning building takes more than one person. There are grids, patterns, techniques, and protocols to follow—established sectors, sides, and quadrants with communication standards designed to let the incident commander know exactly how we are progressing or that we run the risk of adding to the victim list by becoming them ourselves.

If recovery were as group-oriented as firefighting, far fewer of us would be suffering. As group-centric as firefighters are, the over-drinking firefighter often finds themselves isolated. It is not because the group does not want to help—rather the person struggling with the addiction does not want to admit that they have a problem. Often, they do not want to stop their addiction and will not ask for help until a crisis occurs. Even then, the tendency of the group is to wait and see. Everybody screws up once in a while—that’s life. The person needing help is given enough rope, and it is up to them to use it to pull themselves up or be tied to their addiction.

Being alone in a group is no way to be a firefighter. Ignoring a fellow firefighter’s silent screams for help is not what the calling is about. We are in this together. We go in together, we come out together. We will not leave anybody behind—unless their drinking makes us uncomfortable. Then it’s every man for himself.

We need to get better at recognizing, addressing, and offering solutions to our peers. We can no longer take the wait-and-see approach. We all know how quickly a small fire becomes a large one. Addiction is similar; once the problem manifests, it will grow unabated until some force greater than the problem stops it.

We are that force. We are greater than addiction. Though addiction is a problem of the individual, the solution can be found within the group. Without exposing our colleague to ridicule, scorn, and possible disciplinary action, we can develop an action plan that can and will help, and may even save one of our own’s life. A group consensus that recognizes addiction, does not judge, allows room for different circumstances, and exists to improve the life of one of us is the beginning. From understanding grows action. The proper action need not be some abstract thing better left to the professionals. The group does not have to be the entire department, division, or station, either. It can be as small as 2 people: the person struggling and another person who recognizes the struggle and has the resources to combat it.

Even though the first plan seldom survives first contact, no firefighter would go in without it. Our original plan often needs replacement when we run into obstacles, but without the first plan we remain stuck in place, waiting for something to happen. Knowing that we have additional resources committed to the firefight allows us to put plan A into action, even when those resources are nothing more than the distant wail of a siren. We know that help is on the way, and we can get on with things and do our job.

Battling addiction is a fight that we can win, one victim at a time. Those sirens we hear in the distance when the fire is out of control give us the confidence to mask up, force the door, and begin. There are sirens of a different sort wailing, unheard by anybody else, but loud and clear in the addicted firefighter’s mind. He just needs to know that they are not figments of his imagination, and that he can depend on backup to turn his fight from impossible to something that can and will be overcome.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/shouldnt-couldnt-wouldnt">Shouldn’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/addicted-to-my-phone-its-as-real-as-it-gets">Addicted to My Phone? It’s as Real as It Gets</a></li>
</ul>

Alone in a Group Is No Way to Fight a Fire (or Addiction)

Beginning the process of recovery is the hard part. The rest comes naturally. If you make the effort to get rid of what you are addicted to, you’ll find your mind experiences significant changes. You’ll discover that all the loss and deprivation, the feelings of being left out and isolated, weren’t worth it. These negative thoughts are what I like to call “stinking thinking.”

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962 alignright" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="" width="249" height="212" />
<h2>Bad Thoughts, Bad Outcomes</h2>
When it comes to dwelling on things, nobody tops the addict. We dwell on how miserable we are because we can’t kick our habit, and then we dwell on how awful things will be when we do kick our habit. When we manage to get sober, we dwell on whether it will be our last time clean. Or if we even want it to last.

If it is true, and I believe that it is, that our thoughts influence our emotions, and if it is our emotions that cause us the pain, guilt, boredom, and anxiety that lead us to pursue addictive behaviors, then it stands to reason that thinking positively will affect how we feel. And if how we feel leads us to a more sober, manageable lifestyle, why on earth would we allow our stinking thoughts space in our head in the first place!

I have learned—with the help of people who overcame addiction—that I create the thought process that leads me to happiness or despair. When I learned how to use my propensity for dwelling as a self-awareness tool, I was able to recognize how my thoughts made me feel. I experimented, and sure enough, I could drive myself to drink just by thinking negatively. But I also learned how to think myself out of what I once believed was a runaway train of thought headed for certain disaster, and I managed to consistently change direction.
<h2>Regaining Control</h2>
It is comforting to know that I have more control over my impulses than I ever imagined. Knowing that I am able to steer my thoughts toward that which will lead me toward a better place gives me the conviction to do so. It takes practice; our thoughts want to run wild. But intervene we must, and with practice, it becomes second nature.

If we learn how to keep our thoughts centered on what is best for us, we have a very good chance of remaining in recovery for as long as we choose. Like many who struggle with addiction, I take sobriety one day at a time even after nearly two decades in recovery. It’s easier for me to accomplish that goal if I maintain good, healthy thinking.

Thanks to some people who understood the mechanics of addiction as well as the highly personal thought processes that feed it, I was able to learn and believe that proper thinking will lead to a life beyond my wildest dreams.

_____

&nbsp;

More from Michael Morse:
<p class="jsx-2085040210">"<a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/alone-in-a-group-is-no-way-to-fight-a-fire-or-addiction">Alone in a Group Is No Way to Fight a Fire (or Addiction)</a>"</p>
<p class="jsx-2085040210">"<a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/shouldnt-couldnt-wouldnt">Shouldn’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t</a>"</p>
<p class="jsx-2085040210">"<a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/addicted-to-my-phone-its-as-real-as-it-gets">Addicted to My Phone? It’s as Real as It Gets</a>"</p>

Dwelling on It

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Captain Michael Morse, retired, Providence Fire Department" width="249" height="212" align="right" />
<h2>What We Think</h2>
It’s a hard life we live as first responders, and hard people are required to live it. We convince ourselves that it is perfectly acceptable to cover our wounds with false bravado, and drink ourselves to stupidity every night, because that is what tough people do. We don’t burden others with our problems; we internalize them and make them go away, along with our hopes, dreams, and humanity.

Who besides us knows what it takes to survive this life with our dignity, optimism, and sanity intact? We have every right to seek escape from the harsh reality we experience. We see things that most people cannot imagine, and we are expected to perform day after day, week after week, and year after year. It’s no wonder so many of us seek solace through alcohol, pain meds, and illegal drugs.

“Whatever works” is our battle cry as we meander through our lives with a chip on our shoulder, waiting for some poor soul to question our sanity.
<h2>What We Forget</h2>
Nobody expects us to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. The duty we’ve imposed on ourselves silently kills far too many first responders. Carrying the responsibility for everybody else is too heavy a burden, and nobody does anybody any good with that kind of baggage. We cannot live up to our own expectations. We will fail, somewhere, somehow, and will have to face our own shortcomings as firefighters, EMTs, police officers, and human beings.

But it is not in our nature to let the people we love down. Those people depend on us to be there, to take charge, and to lead the way. We have set the bar so high that success is unattainable. Our moments of clarity—when everything goes the way we planned—are few. Most days we simply do our job with little fanfare and no drama. What we have forgotten is that we are only human, with the same faults, weaknesses, and fears as everyone else. We break, but nobody but us sees the signs of wear. We suffer, but do so in silence. We drink, because we do not know how else to cope with our frailty.
<h2>What We Need</h2>
[quote]There are people who know how we feel, and they understand how we got to that level of frustration.[/quote]

Everybody responds to life in their own way. But what I have learned is that we all need support.

When cracks developed in my foundation, I closed the doors to my mind, built walls around my emotions, and erected an elaborate defense system to keep everybody out. The walls stayed strong, but the person behind them grew weaker. He became angry, bitter, and resentful. Resentment is a terrible way to deal with the world; it’s like drinking poison in an effort to hurt everybody else.

My walls were built with a steady supply of my drug of choice: alcohol. Beer was good, whiskey was better, and vodka was the best. My threshold for hiding the pain was at about a dozen stiff drinks or 15 or so cold ones.
<h2>Nothing Could Get In</h2>
Thinking about the sentiment that was nearly my undoing makes me almost as crazy as I was when I used alcohol to get through my self-imposed life. I kept the pain out, but by doing so kept the joy out, too. I blocked sadness, and in doing so ruined my chances of finding happiness. I numbed any feelings of despair or loneliness and yet managed to be alone and despondent.

I needed an intervention, but nobody knew that at the time.

Nobody needs to act the way I did when things grow difficult. There are tried-and-tested ways to do our work without resorting to drastic measures to stay sane. There are people who know how we feel, and they understand how we got to that level of frustration. And better yet, they know how to bring us back to the people we are meant to be, both in and out of uniform.

<strong>More from Michael Morse:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/shouldnt-couldnt-wouldnt">Shouldn’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/alone-in-a-group-is-no-way-to-fight-a-fire-or-addiction">Alone in a Group Is No Way to Fight a Fire (or Addiction)</a></li>
</ul>

Walls of Desperation

I had two choices: addiction or freedom. It took me far too long to decide which path to choose. I had convinced myself that drinking freely, with nobody telling me when I’d had too much, was freedom. Sure, sometimes I overdid it, but that was on me. The freedom to choose whether or not to drink to excess rested squarely on my shoulders. So I did what any self-loathing alcoholic would do: I drank the burden away. With nobody to blame for my behavior but myself, I was free to do whatever I wanted. I had it all, I figured.

<img class="size-full wp-image-34962 alignright" src="https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2016-06-27-at-11.06.16-AM.png" alt="Michael Morse" width="249" height="212" />

As my disease progressed, it became increasingly clear that the freedom to drink excessively was not very liberating.

In response, I did what any self-respecting alcoholic would do: I dug in and drank harder. The more I drank, the more I became a prisoner to my addiction. By refusing to allow other people in on my big secret, I created an impenetrable fortress built on isolation, stubbornness, loneliness, and regret.

And the only thing that alleviated my pain was drinking even more.
<h2>Imprisoned by Alcohol</h2>
Alcohol is a wicked brew; for some, it allows the release of inhibitions, a temporary sense of well-being, and peaceful camaraderie. For people like me, it offered the only sense of tranquility I knew. The only times I felt comfortable in my skin were those magic moments between drinks 3 and 6. When relief from the symptoms of alcoholism came most easily in the form of alcohol, it is no wonder me and millions of people like me suffer in a maze of contradiction every sober moment.

No alcoholic can stop drinking when they feel good. We want to feel better. We want more than enough. We don’t know it while we are active, but the peace we seek is what people without our disease feel the majority of the time. Everybody has moments of isolation, shame, pain, and frustration. But I think people prone to addiction always feel these things, rather than sometimes. The first time I felt “normal” was when I experienced the effects of alcohol. What to me was delicious relief from myself was to others a pleasant intoxicating experience and nothing more. They did not live for the chance to do it again. They did not obsess over ways to get it, to not get caught getting it, to get enough of it, and to eventually keep everybody else from knowing how much of it they were getting.
<h2>Price of Freedom</h2>
Freedom isn’t free. My concept of freedom nearly cost me everything. At the lowest point of my life, I reevaluated what was so freeing about drinking my way, and I had a moment of clarity. The very thing that I believed in so fiercely was killing me, and had been doing so for years. I had to stop drinking. It took me 2 weeks to find the courage, but find it I did. Now, with more 24-hour victories under my belt than I can count, I realize that I would never have found the freedom I now enjoy without facing my worst enemy: myself. I fought fiercely for my sobriety, and I enlisted an army when it became clear that the battle needed to be waged by more than one warrior. Little did I know that all the help I needed was a phone call away.

The battle for sobriety is well worth the effort, and once I learned how to be sober, I stopped fighting myself and felt the serenity to accept the things I could not change, found the courage to change the things I could, and was granted the wisdom to know the difference.

________

Read more from Michael Morse:
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/dwelling-on-it">Dwelling on It</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/56971">Walls of Desperation</a></li>
</ul>

Michael Morse

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