My first college
visit, Elmhurst College. A three and a half hour drive from home that made for
an early morning to get on the road. It was 8AM and we had a long trip ahead of
us, my mom dad and I, like always dad took the wheel, but something just wasn’t
quite right that morning. I didn’t let the disturbing feeling bother me and
within no time we were on the highway and I was lying down to sleep the rest of
the way. I put my headphones in to listen to music, lay my head on my pillow
and covered up with my favorite blue, green and white striped blanket. I didn’t
make it through the first song before hearing us go over the rumble strips 3
times. I sat up, saw that my mom was close to sleep in the front seat and also
saw that our car was swerving all over the road. My dad was drunk and it was
8AM on a Saturday.
This incident
happened about a year and a half ago, although my father has been an alcoholic
for 3 years, that day was the first I’d ever been aware of it. Because of the
relationship I have with my alcoholic father, I’ve gotten to know addiction, and
have a relationship with it all from witnessing it day in and day out. My dad
swerving off the road was a swerve in my life, one that has had a lasting
impact. Change is among us every second of every day and from witnessing
alcoholism first hand I’ve come to notice similarities between change itself
and addiction. Clearly addicts are people that are afraid of change, for if
they weren’t it would be a lot easier to come clean. You’re probably wondering,
what those similarities are? But what
I wonder is what does it take to overcome fear of change? To overcome
addiction? Is it the same? My dad is still an alcoholic and still afraid of
change. What does it take? To get to my answers though, we must first answer
yours.
The first thing
about both change and addiction is that you can’t hide from them. Although
people try to think that they always stay the same and that addicts like to
think that they couldn’t possibly be addicts, people are constantly at change
and symptoms are unavoidable in an addict. In Charles Darwin book, “On Natural
Selection,” he shows us how oblivious to change we are through nature. “We
behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of
food; we do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round
us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.”
(Darwin 1). Darwin is explaining that even though we don’t recognize that
animals have to eat other animals to stay alive doesn’t mean that it doesn’t
happen. Think about the meat you eat, how someone had to kill the animal in
order to satisfy your hunger. Also think about how what you are eating is
making your body change to what you’ve just fed it. Just because we don’t think
about something or realize the small things doesn’t mean we aren’t at change.
Addicts like to believe they aren’t addicts but in the case of my father, he
can’t hide from the shakes he gets. When his body needs alcohol, has been
deprived of it for too long, his body craves it and the only way it knows how
to get the addicts attention is to make the addict shaky. The addict returns to
normal only when it receives what it craves. My dad stops shaking when he has
alcohol, its that simple. Humans in general and addicts deny and avoid change
but the reality of it is, change happens every second of every day and
addiction lies within, both are uncontrollable and both never let up.
The next
similarity between change and addiction is that it is feared. People are afraid
of change just like addicts are afraid of getting clean and why? because an
unknown exists. In Temple Grandin’s piece “A Cow’s Eye View: Connecting with
Animals”, she relates cows simple fears to autistic people’s fears. She says in
the piece that, “Animals, like people, want to see where they are going,”
(Grandin 143). This shows that people don’t like to be ‘in the dark’. If people
don’t get to see where they are going they become afraid. She also says, “keep
everything the same helped her avoid some of the terrible fear.” (Grandin 144).
Which also tells us that humans avoid change so they don’t have to be afraid.
And even though she is talking about cows and autism, it applies to all humans.
Cows and autistic people are afraid of little things, but the fear they have is
the same as the fear we have toward the bigger changes in life. Autistic people
and cows may be afraid of a misplaced item whereas people without this disorder
are afraid of changes in things such as new environments. Addicts, also, like
people who aren’t addicts, are afraid to come clean. There is something within
them that got them to addiction that they are afraid of which led them to
addiction in the first place. Although I am unsure, I believe my dad’s
traumatizing middle ages and recent disconnection with his family led him to
addiction but either way it is something he doesn’t talk about and has found
drinking to push the fear away, by not changing his habits he doesn’t have to
deal with the fear. And his fear is driven by the unknown emotions and physical
pain he might encounter in getting clean. People, cows, autistic people,
addicts, they all try and stay in the normal routine to avoid the fear and
unknown change may bring. No matter if the change is as simple as a misplaced
item or as scary as your emotions from you traumatizing past they are all
changes, which are avoided.
One of the
similarities that often get overlooked in both change and addiction is how it
affects others around us. As individual’s change people close to that
individual have to adjust to that change. Kafka in his piece, “The
Metamorphosis” gives us a good example of this. Even though this is a fictional
story about a man who turns into an insect it shows how his metamorphosis
affects his family. There is a point in the story where the father gets so
upset at the bug, which is his son for, in the moment, moving too slowly that
he starts chucking apples at him. “An apple thrown without much force grazed
Gregor’s back and glanced off harmlessly. But another following immediately
landed right on his back and sank in,” (Kafka 122). The father had gotten so
upset and got caught up in the moment that he forgot that the insect was his
son. He hurt his son and didn’t realize it until he hurt him. People are
affected by changes in others lives. Whether good or bad, permanent or
temporary change it doesn’t matter, others always have to adjust and change to
the change in other individual’s lives. In addicts, the most affected one’s are
the people the addicts are directly in contact with, which mostly are family.
With my dad’s alcoholism, I have found myself ‘chucking apples’ at my dad and
hurting him with words sometimes forgetting that he’s my father. His alcoholism
doesn’t just affect him, addict’s addiction doesn’t just affect them and changes
in people’s lives don’t just affect the individual changing. We may change
individually but change doesn’t happen alone.
The final, most
important and questioned similarity is the fact that we need to embrace change.
No matter a good change or a bad change if we embrace it we can gain growth and
deeper understanding. Because Temple Grandin was able to embrace her autism she
was able to grow to a place of understanding and deeper knowledge. So much in
fact that she used it to help cows become more comfortable and better behaved
through the slaughtering process. Because Darwin embraced the horrors of nature
and because the father eventually ends up embracing the difference in his son
they are able to grow and better understand. Darwin gains a deeper
understanding of the world he now shares and the father gains an understanding
for his son that allows his son to die peacefully. Because I have come to
accept my fathers addiction I’ve been able to better understand it, come to
know it. The real question of it all is though, what does/did it take for
people like Grandin, Darwin, Kafka, recovering addicts and I to get to this
place of understanding and what will it take for people like suffering addicts,
like my dad to get to where we stand? Will we ever be able to pin point the
answer on what makes change bearable to some when others run at the mere smell
of it?
The only thing I
do know is that addiction is one in the same as change and maybe its because
addiction is a state of feared change, but from all I’ve experienced and
witnessed addiction and change are feared things some people can’t overcome.
Darwin says, “Its not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but
those who can best manage change” and maybe that’s it. Maybe addicts and people
afraid of change are the ones trying to be the biggest, fastest, strongest, and
smartest, maybe they are the one’s society has got rapped around its finger.
Maybe recovered addicts and fearless change seekers are the people that realize
that there is more to life than what others think about you, that the goal in
life isn’t to impress other but to simply impress yourself…maybe.
Work Cited
Darwin,
Charles. On Natural Selection. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2005. 1.
Print.
Grandin,
Temple. A Cow's Eye View: Connecting with Animals. 1996. 143, 144.
Print.
Kafka, F. The
Complete Stories. New York, NY: Schoken Books, 1996. 122. Print.
