Is overcoming change the same as overcoming addiction?

          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.