I’ve recently pulled two books by Phil Harris from my bookshelves and have been re-reading them. I had forgotten what an insightful thinker Phil Harris is. He talks so much sense about the nature of addiction, behavioural change, recovery, treatment, and other matters.
In a blog post last week, I took a quote from his book Empathy for the Devil: How to help people overcome drugs and alcohol problems that emphasised the key importance of focusing on understanding people first and foremost, if we are to help them recover from substance use and associated problems.
This week, I would like to take a long quote from Phil’s 2005 book Drug Induced: Addiction and treatment in perspective (pp. 55-56) in which he talks about people who have become embedded in the culture of addiction—or ‘the shadow society’ as he describes it in his book—through their problematic drug use. I often use the expression ‘culture of addiction’, as described by Bill White.
In the quote below, Phil makes reference to people who change without recourse to treatment. The quote is from a chapter entitled Natural Born Quitters. Phil emphasises that: ‘It is important to widen our focus by exploring drug use in its development and remission, where problematic drug use ceases without recourse to treatment. This is not to dismiss our roles but to illuminate key factors that we must grasp if we are to be more effective in education and treatment.’
Here are Phil Harris’s words, which are well worth reflecting on. [Please note, I’ve broken up some longer paragraphs and added a few commas to facilitate reading online]:
‘The shadow society
Drug addiction can be seen as a form of embeddedness in the shadow sub-culture for those unable to construct a meaningful life within the cultural milieu. We must recognise that once embedded in these problematic groups, separated from the cultural map and becoming increasingly developmentally adrift, the problematic user has greater problems than merely overcoming the ‘wants’ of their biology. Their identity, their meaning and purpose in life, and the force that connects them to other people, is the drug.
Change does not merely imply stopping use, but redefining one’s entire life. It is not just about escaping addiction, but escaping the context that makes addiction meaningful, and catching up with the demands of an institutional life that they may have little or no experience of. We would not expect a 14 year-old to competently meet demands of a 35 year-old. They have neither the skills, the experience or cognitive capacity to do so. But we expect it of the newly drug free individual. And when they fail, we call it the disease.
Once deeply embedded in the shadow society, divorced from the institutions of life, and under increasing external pressures, this lifestyle becomes increasingly untenable to sustain. Problems with health, mental health, criminal justice, family separation, child rearing, self-loathing, exceed a drug’s capacity to sedate.
Alternatively, individuals who seek deep relief from life in isolation for fear of exposure, still disconnect from others. Social sanctions on consumption are negated, time is spent alone in deepening alienation until other aspects of their life are threatened.
Crisis points figure highly in non-treatment seekers’ account of what motivates them to change. This may be the shame of current behaviour or an existential guilt that the individual is not reaching their potential. It can be triggered by mundane events or through hitting ‘rock bottom’.
Hitting rock bottom is the realisation that one now dwells in a personal hell, one which no chemical consumption has the potency to subdue. This realisation can be sparked through quiet reflection when the environmental distractions of the addictive life is turned down, to a profound spiritual reawakening.
While these events can happen in the natural course of use, and indeed happen to non-users, some research suggests they may be initiated by some low previous low dose treatment intervention. What we see here is the addiction provides not only meaning and purpose to the user’s life, but the critical factor in change is again deeply entwined in a breakdown in meaning and the re-evaluation of self-identity. Drug use changes as it becomes increasingly incompatible with the emergent sense of oneself.’
I find the following words from Phil Harris particularly important:
‘We would not expect a 14 year-old to competently meet demands of a 35 year-old. They have neither the skills, the experience or cognitive capacity to do so. But we expect it of the newly drug free individual. And when they fail, we call it the disease.’
In peer-led recovery communities, people who have previously become embedded in the shadow society, or culture of addiction, at a very young age, can learn important skills and develop emotionally in a safe, welcoming, understanding and inspiring environment.