My dad is a great guy and has always been a good father. He’s also been a big drinker as far back as I can remember. It never really concerned us much, to be honest, but he’s older now and the drinking is taking him away from us. We can all see it. We’re all worried. I’ve talked with my mom and brother about it, and, together, we asked our dad to cut back. He did for a week or so, but now he drinks like he always did. We read your book, “No More Letting Go,” which helped us understand that alcoholics lose the ability to choose and they push away help. That is exactly what we are living. I love my dad. I want to help him with dignity and respect. What road should we take forward?

It’s hard to believe that nearly a year has passed since Covid was declared a pandemic and our national sequestration was imposed as a new way of life. For nearly everyone, the natural order of things shifted dramatically, and in ways that have impacted our behaviors, our thoughts, our emotions, and our physical and mental health. Each of us has come to understand that many of our old, patterned connections to the experiences of our lives has been upended and we’ve had to find ways to adapt. This has been a formidable challenge even for those who are mentally and emotionally stable.

Consider now, the experience of those who have lost their way with drugs and/or alcohol. This piece is written to reframe their experiences to be viewed through the conceptual window of connection and disconnection. In his TED Talk entitled “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong”, author and journalist Johann Hari concluded that “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety; the opposite of addiction is connection”. With those words, and his observations related to research experiments and clinical data, Hari helped synthesize a new conceptual focus on both the problem and the solution; which has been echoed and expanded on by an impressive list of mental health luminaries including Bessel van der Kolk, Dan Siegel, Mathew Lieberman, Brené Brown, and many, many others.

In the foreword to Oliver Morgan’s excellent book Addiction, Attachment, Trauma, and Recovery, American psychologist Louis Cosolino writes “Research in attachment and social neuroscience support Dr Morgan’s belief that “Disconnection is intolerable for human beings. From deep within our evolutionary past, it signals an extreme threat to our survival.” We do anything to avoid the dread of separation: from staying in abusive relationships, to sacrificing all we have worked for by medicating the terror. We all strive for embeddedness, and when this fails we look for substitutes – whatever form they may take. The problem with substitutes for love and connection is that there is never enough” (~Louis Cozolino, PhD)

Beneath the over-arching Covid-related experience of disconnection is this other, more pernicious disconnection common to addicts and alcoholics: from others (relationships), from themselves (somatic/bodily, psychic/mentally, emotionally), from their environments (Nature, passions, activities, routines), and from anything that resembles a spiritual connection (transpersonal/God, or ‘a Power greater than themselves’, which for many, could also be Nature). These levels of disconnection are well-documented and well-known to anyone whose lives have been touched by addictions. Addicts and alcoholics are notorious for withdrawing from friends, family, hobbies, passions, activities of daily living, and many other patterned behaviors. They resort to keeping secrets, telling lies, emotional outbursts, unpredictable behaviors, impulse control problems, etc, etc. They become disconnected…

Now, consider being inside that personal sense of isolation and despair that addiction brings, and then imagine having no place to go for in-person help. Think about it: where does anyone with a substance abuse or dependence problem go for help in our current lockdown reality? While local rehabs like Maplegrove and Brighton are in operation and accepting new patients (with up to a 2-week wait list), they’re only operating at 50% capacity, and the experience involves being masked and distanced at all times. Also, they’re either not allowing non-patients in for their AA/NA mtgs (Brighton), or limiting their mtgs to 1-4 non-patients to come in to speak twice per week (Maplegrove).

What, you may ask, is so important about in-person meetings? It’s about connection, and this is far from a new concept. Studies of indigenous cultures throughout history and around the world reveal the power of the group in healing and connection. The healing appeal of recovery groups of any type are the components of mutual support and empathic connection; what researcher William White called “the kinship of common suffering”.

Since the advent of AA in 1939, there’s been an evolution of many different types of support groups: SMART recovery, Refuge Recovery, Dharma Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), Moderation Management, Women for Sobriety, Rational Recovery, and others. But the greatest offerings of locally-available meetings have been found in AA or NA (Narcotics Anonymous), based on the 12-Step model.

According to my resources in AA Area 33, in-person mtgs are down to between 5-15% availability, depending on the area, and in their place are now Zoom mtgs, which are listed on the AA Area 33 website (link listed below); and on the NA Metro Detroit website (link listed below), or by invitation and word-of-mouth via those that have decided to start their own meetings (not listed on any centralized AA or NA websites). Similarly, there are multiple in-state and out-of-state listings of online meetings like In The Rooms Global Recovery Community, The Token Shop Online AA Meetings, Secular AA meetings, Recovery Dharma Online, and Virtual NA.

One very recent development has been the emergence of an app called Meeting Guide (Apple or Android), which users can download from the AA Area 33 website (link listed below), and through which the user’s GPS coordinates will automatically locate and list all in-person and online meetings in their area.

On the east side (Grosse Pointes and St Clair Shores area) there are only a small handful of meetings that still offer in-person attendance. The two best ways to find meetings that are still open are: AA Area 33 website meeting directory and search engine: https://aa-semi.org/meetings

And downloading the free Meeting Guide app located at the top of the Area 33 meeting directory.

For quick reference on the east side, here are four meetings that still offer face-to-face connection (with masks):

• New Friends, at True Light Baptist Church, 24036 Greater Mack Ave, 48080
• Bottom of the Deck Men’s Group, at Lakeshore Presbyterian Church, 27801 East Jefferson Ave, 48080
• Noontide (Vernier/I94) is held at Redeemer Methodist Church, 20633 Vernier Rd, 48225
• The former Lucy’s Group, now held at Life of Purpose Christian Church, 20880 10 Mi, 48080

And finally, a word about the importance of some different kinds of connection for addicts and alcoholics in early recovery:

It’s vitally important for them (and all of us) to maintain a daily routine that incorporates movement (especially walking), sleep rituals, and healthy nutrition. Lack of movement, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition will degrade anyone’s life experience, but for the substance dependent they can lead to depression, hopelessness, emotional volatility, and a return to self destructive urges and behaviors.

Also, creativity, expressive arts (writing, music, dance, etc), hobbies, passions of all types can be a proverbial port in the storm.

Lastly, the practice of abdominal breathing, and meditation both provide systemic and neurobiological calming effects in the effort of desensitizing and re-conditioning the body towards a healthier baseline. In a keynote speech on trauma treatment given 2 years ago, internationally renowned trauma educator and trainer Bessel van der Kolk, MD, observed: “Isn’t it interesting that the cutting edge of clinical mental health for trauma treatment is a 5,000 yr-old Hindu technique called yoga, and a 2,500 yr-old Buddhist technique called mindful meditation. Both of these body-based techniques are instrumental in re-connection with self in a compassionate and healing way.

Resources:

• AA Area 33 Virtual Meeting Directory + Meeting Guide app download
  
• NA Metropolitan Detroit Meeting Directory
  

Thad Galvin, LMSW is the founder of Calm Safe Place, LLC, a Grosse Pointe-based therapy practice designed to address attachment-based trauma and encourage patients to connect with their whole selves and the world around them in ways that provide meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.