Can spirituality help a person recover?
In June 2018, I spoke with David Hecht, a writer on spirituality who has been in recovery for more than three decades through a 12-step fellowship. At the time, much of my practice had become care for people with opioid use disorder, and I wanted to hear how he would talk to someone who was just starting out.
Our conversation covered habit, patience, medication, the brain, and the difference between spirituality and religion. This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly.
Why does recovery take so long?
At 2:51, David explained the old advice to go to a meeting every day for the first three months. In his view, it takes a season to change any habit, and over that time a person hears the whole message at least once.
From 7:22, he called drugs a bad model because they work so fast. They alter consciousness, but in his words they do not raise it. Recovery, as he described it, moves slowly and in plateaus.
At 7:50, he compared those flat stretches to a cocoon. Nothing seems to happen for a while, yet looking back, a great deal was changing. Interestingly, he added at 8:22 that other people often see the change in us before we can.
How does a habit become automatic?
At 8:44, David used brushing his teeth as the example of a habit nobody has to think about. You cannot replace a bad habit with nothing, he said. You have to replace it with a good one.
From 9:07, he told a story I still remember. When he was using, his car seemed to drive itself to the dealer’s house. Years later, on nights when he meant to stay home, the same car seemed to drive itself to the recovery house. Still, he warned against autopilot. His first sponsor told him to read the familiar readings as though seeing them for the first time.
Can a person taking medication for opioid dependence work a 12-step program?
At 10:31, I asked whether someone on medication for opioid use disorder, and not impaired by it, could have a sponsor and work the steps. From 10:48, David called it a ticklish issue and gave his own opinion. Narcotics Anonymous (NA), as he practices it, asks for complete abstinence from all drugs, and in his view a substitute medication is not the long-term solution.
He drew a line between that and pain medication for cancer or other severe pain. He also said people on substitute therapies are welcome at meetings, while each group decides who may share.
At 21:41, I raised a concern. A person who has just become stable on medication, and is no longer buying heroin that may contain fentanyl, could be put in danger if someone at a meeting tells them to stop right away. They may need time.
David agreed at 22:01 that the people at meetings are not doctors, and that advice from members is only opinion. He said that carefully controlled medication with a doctor is much better than street drugs. However, he still did not see it as a long-term solution, and at 23:42 he said a doctor who helps a patient come off it over time does that patient a real service.
What did he mean by the sunshine of the spirit?
At 11:15, David quoted someone he once sponsored, who said that drugs came between him and the sunshine of the spirit. In David’s view, any chemical that dulls part of the brain stands like a cloud between a person and a full experience of themselves.
From 16:59, he described the search for an outside fix. In his experience there is no outside fix, only inside repair.
Is there more to recovery than going to meetings?
At 25:50, I asked about ways a newcomer can take part from the first day, such as setting up chairs or making the coffee. David said yes, and that service gets people outside themselves.
At 27:10, he described what a man at one of his early meetings called an eightfold program: meetings, steps, sponsorship, fellowship, reading and writing, prayer and meditation, service, and the telephone. Someone who only attends meetings, he said, uses one part in eight of what is on offer.
At 28:29, he named magical thinking as a trap. The trick, in his words, is that there is no trick, and the secret is that there is no secret. He did not catch recovery by sitting close to his sponsor. It took effort.
Is there a place in the brain for spirituality?
At 34:49, I said that talk of spirituality may scare away people who are new and came to a doctor for help. I mentioned my recent conversation with the psychiatrist Dr. Anna Yusim, who writes about the science of spirituality.
At 35:23, I shared a theory of mine. Perhaps there is a spiritual center in the brain that is walled off from the effects of addiction, so a person can move toward it and find a safer place to stand.
David recalled, at 36:09, brain scans of people at prayer in which the same areas lit up whatever they believed. At 36:42, he said we seem to be wired so that spirituality is possible, though it has to be cultivated. In fact, he knows members who call themselves atheists and still, in his view, live very spiritual lives. At 38:05, he put it simply: spiritual is as spiritual does.
What does it mean to stay conscious?
At 39:34, David shared a set of ABCs. While using, the rule is to always be cool. Early on, it is to stay away from drugs, and later it becomes to always be conscious.
From 39:59, he described a man he sponsored whose eyes would droop whenever a conversation came close to the truth. That man said he felt like going unconscious. So, David learned to come back to a hard subject from another direction.
Why start with a gratitude list?
At 44:58, I compared writing in recovery to keeping a log at the gym or a food diary on a diet. At 45:27, David said a gratitude list has always been his first assignment, the same one his first sponsor gave him. He asks for ten things, and the first item on his own list is gratitude for being free of drugs today.
Of course, not everyone does the assignment. At 47:31, he described cutting it down to three things on an index card. If weeks pass without even that, he said, the person is waiting for someone else to recover for them.
At 49:08, he explained why writing matters. Once something is down on paper, it is hard to take back or forget.
Who is David Hecht?
David Hecht is a writer on spirituality and recovery who has spoken at conventions and sponsored many people over more than three decades in a 12-step fellowship. He wrote a series called Spirituality 101 for his local Mensa journal and contributed several essays to my website.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
David’s message was about patience and practice. In his view, change comes slowly, through habits repeated every day, and no outside fix can stand in for the work on the inside. His view of medication for opioid dependence differs from how I practice today, and the next section explains how I approach it.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
For opioid dependence I prescribe buprenorphine, which steadies the body so a person can rebuild their life without the cycle of withdrawal. Visits are monthly, or weekly when needed. Some people stay on it for a long time, and that is a legitimate choice. Others later taper slowly, using the same gradual approach I use for every other medication.
I believe medication for opioid dependence should be available wherever people need it. I prescribe in Florida only.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (56 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life. Welcome to the Rehab Podcast. Today my guest is David Hecht, and thank you, David, for joining me today on the podcast. Just to catch you up with what I’m doing, in the past two years, my medical practice has transformed into being the majority of my patients coming in for addiction treatment, but specifically opioid use disorder. One of the things I did in the beginning when I first started was just for everybody, I would refer them to a psychologist, along with initiating medical treatment, and I would also refer them to go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Some of the patients already had experience, and they were very happy to get that information. And some were not as excited about it. They felt like that wasn’t the right thing for them. And I felt like it was the right thing, and I kind of wanted to help people out and give my patients and people listening some information and what they can do to get started out and why they should get into recovery. And what would you recommend if you were there talking to them?
David Hecht [01:49] Well, as you know, I’m a recovering addict. I’ve been in a 12-step fellowship for 33 years and clean for 33 years and about a month and a half. And, you know, never belittle whatever amount of clean time you have. The thing about NA or any other 12-step fellowship is that it’s not the only path to recovery. It’s just the most appropriate one. It seems as though there are some people who just have a drug problem and then there’s addicts and a drug problem can be solved by abstinence but addiction has to be seen holistically and it’s more than just stop using and get on with it’s repairing one’s entire way of thinking and one’s entire way of being. You can’t replace a bad habit with nothing. You have to replace it with a good habit. And that’s why, for instance, in the meetings they say go to 90 meetings in 90 days. It’s because it takes a season, you know, to change any habit. And a season is three months. So that’s the primary reason for the 90 meetings in 90 days. But it’s not the only reason. It seems that over a 90-day period, one has heard the whole message of recovery in at least one iteration or in at least one form. And if you keep coming back after that, you’ll hear the same message, but you’ll hear it with new ears. You’ll hear it with a new understanding or with a broadened sense of what addiction means and what recovery means. That’s why we keep telling people to keep coming back, because you don’t get it just by hearing the steps or just by hearing the program. You get it by immersing yourself in the program. And it’s a very gradual process. The big problem I see with drugs is that drugs are a bad model. They work very fast. You know, there used to be this ad on TV, fast, fast, fast relief. And drugs alter consciousness but they don’t really raise consciousness because you go up and you have to come back down to really raise consciousness requires a changing of one’s inner senses one’s inner self and you get that through some kind of spiritual program or through meditation or prayer or other kinds of spiritual practice or through other forms of deep understanding. I like to call it the University of Recovery because it’s a whole education. It isn’t just one thing. And I have great respect for other forms of recovery. You know, I have seen people stay clean just with what they call medicine, religion, and psychiatry, but that doesn’t work for most addicts. They’re not bad and they’re not wrong. They’re just insufficient. That’s why they’re part of a good program of recovery, but they’re not the whole answer. Whereas a whole package of recovery seems to include a 12-step program for most people. Like I said, it’s not the only path to recovery, but it seems to be tailor-made for addicts. It seems to be designed especially for us. And it’s not that we can’t find other ways to recover it’s just that one seems to be the one that works most efficiently you know people use the expression the easier softer way and that just usually means that addicts want to slide through recovery without really making an effort but in my opinion a 12-step program is the easier softer way It’s easier than trying to do it yourself or trying to figure it out with psychiatry or to pray yourself well. There’s a passage in the NA Basic text which says that we’ve seen many members float out the doors on a cloud of religious zeal. And I call that religious addiction. You know, there’s all kinds of substitute addictions and religion is certainly one of them. And it’s not that religion is bad per se it’s that there are certain religions that say well you’re saved now so you’re not an addict anymore which is just what, I don’t know about you but my disease of addiction wants to hear that and I’m not cured I am however well treated there is treatment for addiction there doesn’t seem to be a cure for it’s possible to be in remission for very long periods of time I’ve been in remission from active addiction for 33 years and I know people who have been from over 50 years so recovery is not only possible but if we follow the suggestions and directions then it’s inevitable the problem is of course that just like most addicts We want shortcuts, you know, fast, fast, fast relief. And as I started by saying, drugs are a bad model because they work so fast. Whereas recovery is a very gradual process and we raise ourselves up in plateaus, you know. And one of the problems I’ve seen over time is that a lot of addicts reach a plateau where they don’t seem to be changing for a while. And they seem like nothing as much is happening. And what they don’t realize is that it’s like a cocoon. You know, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. We’ve got to go through certain periods of rest where we digest what we’re becoming and where we become something different. And when we look back on it, we realize that there was actually a great deal of change going on. We just couldn’t see it. I’ve also realized that over time other people see the changes in me that I can’t and I see the changes in them that they can’t we’re mirrors to each other and so it’s a really gradual process of accommodating ourselves to a new way of life like I said, learning a new habit and I’m a great believer in the sheer force of habit you know habit is what we do automatically so that for example I’m in the habit of brushing my teeth I don’t have to think about it I just do it’s become an automatic process whereas you know I don’t have to think do I go up and down now or do I go sideways similarly I’m in the habit of practicing recovery going to meetings I like to say that when I was using, there were times when I said to myself, well, I’ve used enough this week and I really should go home and rest. And I’ve worked hard today and I’ll just go home. And before I knew it, the car had driven itself to the dealer’s house, you know. But, and while I was there, sure enough, I ended up buying some drugs. But similarly, there were times in clean time, especially early clean time when I was still working, that I would say, well, I’ve been to enough meetings this week and I’ve been practicing a good program. I’ll just go home tonight. And before I knew it, the car had driven itself to the recovery house. And I said, well, as long as I’m here, I might as well go to a meeting. It’s a habit and it becomes so ingrained that after a while it becomes more or less automatic and I’m not saying to just go on autopilot because I don’t think that’s a good habit to be in. My first sponsor always said don’t memorize the readings. Read them as though you’re seeing it for the first time. But it’s not an autopilot it’s a process of becoming habitually recovering rather than a using addict. And that really takes practice.
Dr. Mark Leeds [10:31] Is it possible that a person could be on medication for opioid use disorder and have a sponsor and work the steps? I mean, assuming they’re following the directions, they’re not in any way impaired by their medication, could a person work the program in that state?
David Hecht [10:48] It’s a ticklish issue, and I can only state my opinion, and that is that NA is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. And I work that program that way, and some people don’t. I’ve known some people who think they can have a drink every now and then, but I don’t really want the program they have. And that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, it’s just much harder. I had a sponsee once who used to use the expression, drugs came between me and the sunshine of the spirit and it’s almost as though a cloud of some kind comes between one and a full understanding or appreciation of recovery and of self-awareness you could say that any chemical that anesthetizes part of the brain comes between oneself and a full experience of oneself. It seems as though the drugs that we addicts like the most are the anesthetizing kind. Interestingly, what alcohol and opiates and cocaine have in common, even though cocaine is a stimulant, is that they’re all anesthetics. You know, lacking any other anesthetic, they used to give you a lot of liquor to prepare you for operations before other forms of anesthesia was available. It’s hard to fully understand and appreciate the program of recovery the way NA experiences it if you’re still using some kind of a substitute addictive drug. We don’t say that people can’t share if they’re smokers, but in my opinion, sooner or later you have to give that up too because addiction is addiction is addiction. And being addicted to a substitute medication to me is not the long-term solution. Now, there’s a difference between substitute therapy meant to wean you off drugs and the use of pain medication for people who are in long-term treatment for cancer or other kinds of high pain conditions. And we don’t hold really that against people. Everyone’s welcome to attend a meeting and there are closed meetings that are for addicts only and I think that people who are on substitute therapies, they’re addicts too and they’d be welcome at such meetings in my opinion. But it is up to each individual group to determine who can share because the rule is in most groups if you’ve used today, just listen and get with someone after the meeting which I think is fair, it’s not like an exclusion, you’re not kept away from people and you’re not kept from sharing with anybody it’s just that the meetings are for sharing the message of recovery and when people are clouded from the sunshine of the spirit so to speak, it’s hard for them to share a message of recovery it may not be impossible, but it’s hard it’s like having two hands tied behind your back if you’re on that substitute medication now I would make this caveat as well while an addict who is using medication for pain is certainly still a member that doesn’t mean that I think they should be doing service I believe that somebody who is on strong drugs for pain should give up sensitive service positions and by sensitive I mean like being a treasurer, being a group secretary being an area chair being a sponsor the problem is that once again one is not speaking from a position of being totally clean, of being completely abstinent from all drugs. And yes, NA does make a distinction between drugs. I’m on several medicines for various conditions, none of which are mood or mind-altering drugs. You know, I’ve had open-heart surgery, I have atrial fibrillation, I have kidney disease. I’m 68 years old almost, and if you live long enough, some stuff will happen but that’s not the same thing we don’t tell people who are on for instance medication for diabetes that they should get off that it’s just that stuff that’ll get you high that’s the problem and we all know what that is the problem with any substitute drugs is that the more you take the more it hides you from the sunshine of the spirit just like any other mood and mind altering drugs. And there are some people who refuse to take even to your coffee. That process of offering a coffee pot at meetings goes way back to the idea that if people are nodding out or whatever, that at least they’ll be awake if they have a cup of coffee in them, and they’ll hear the message of recovery. But the message of recovery, it can be watered down, but it can’t really be changed. And that is that there is no safe obsession or compulsion or intoxication for an addict. My problem isn’t drugs per se because I haven’t been a drug addict for 33 years. But you take the drugs out of a drug addict and you still have an addict. And the addict mentality still looks for an outside fix And in my experience, there is no outside fix. There’s inside repair. But anything outside of us that we look to fix us is just going to become another substitute addiction. And we’re going to ride that puppy all the way down the hill. The tendency is to become addicted all over again to some other experience. And that can be gambling addiction or sex addiction or work addiction or, you know, they call shopaholics or vacuumaholics for some people who can’t stop cleaning or can’t stop shopping. There’s all kinds of other things. Romance addiction is a very big one. It’s even worse than sex addiction. And the problem is that we keep looking for something outside us to fix us. We keep looking for some experience that will be a peak experience that will make us no longer have to look at ourselves and deal with ourselves and repair ourselves on the inside that’s why gradually getting to a point of complete abstinence seems to be indispensable to a program of recovery now there’s other fellowships besides NA that don’t require complete abstinence from all drugs and if one is really uncomfortable with the NA way I think that it makes sense to try those fellowships at least for a while if you really can’t practice complete abstinence then maybe that’s the path I don’t recommend it because I don’t think that they’re really tailor made for addicts and like I said, if we look for some kind of exception or exclusion you know, well, it’s just pot or it’s just alcohol or it’s just tranquilizers or painkillers or whatever it is. If we’re just saying it’s only that, the likelihood of it becoming a new focus for addiction, even if it hadn’t been our old drug of choice, is very high. I think that’s the difference between somebody who’s just has a drug problem and who is actually an addict. There is no safe substitute addiction for an addict. And like I said, my problem isn’t drugs per se, because it hasn’t been for 33 years. It’s intoxication. If I’m looking to be intoxicated or to stifle the pain of everyday life through some kind of artificial substitute modality, whether it’s behavioral or chemical, I’m in trouble all over again. Now, your mileage may vary. It’s different for different addicts. But in my experience, the path of recovery requires a base of complete abstinence. That’s where we start. Some programs don’t get there until the 12th step, where you practice principles in all your affairs. But in NA, it’s from the very start. And I endorse that point of view. I think that makes the whole path of recovery much, much easier. It’s like swimming through glue to try to recover while still on drugs. It may not be impossible, but it’s very, very hard.
Dr. Mark Leeds [20:32] What you said about other fellowships, for example, there’s an interesting story I read in a book recently where apparently the founder of AA met with the founder of the methadone maintenance program. The two of them got together and bill the founder of aa said to vincent you know dr vincent dole he said you know methadone works so well for the opioid addicts I wish you could develop something like that for the alcoholics so they could you know come in and work their steps and you know not have this obsession all the time for alcohol so I guess that’s a different philosophy of recovery and I have had some patients tell me they’re more comfortable going to AA because many groups and meetings and people, and they can sometimes get a sponsor who has no problem with them being on replacement medication for the time being. So like you said, it is possible they could look for a different fellowship that has a different point of view on that. And I still think it’s dangerous if someone goes to a meeting that maybe they just started medication, and that medication is keeping them from going out and using heroin, which may be poisoned with something like fentanyl or carfentanil, and they’re stable on medication in their first weeks, and they go to a meeting and someone says, you need to stop that medication right away, that can be dangerous also. Maybe they need time to get themselves ready for that.
David Hecht [22:01] I think any newcomer has to be told we’re not doctors in 12-step fellowship. There may be doctors who attend 12-step fellowships, but those who give advice are giving only their opinion. And I’ve heard when I was new, people use such silly languages, oh, diabetic medication, you’ve got to get off that. Well, that’s absurd. You may be condemning somebody to death. And as far as replacement therapy I understand that there is at least one new fellowship for people who are on that and that they may be comfortable in that kind of environment that it’s you know that there’s any number of reiterations of the 12 step philosophy in various forms you know whether it’s for overeating or gambling or there’s a marijuana anonymous and a cocaine anonymous. Most members of NA consider them half measures because addiction is a much bigger subject than just a specific habit or a specific chemical. And while I do believe that, and I agree with you, that carefully controlled medication with a doctor is much better than taking street drugs, it’s still not a long-term solution for the disease of addiction, which is, as I said, a much bigger subject than just a specific drug habit. If over a period of time, a doctor can help their patient and be weaned off that substitute medication, then that’s doing them a real service. And, you know, we’ll patiently wait. We’re not going anywhere the fellowship of recovery is broad and it accepts all comers it’s just not everyone can speak for recovery and those who do usually practice the principles of the program they’re part of so it’s not that I condemn anybody it’s just you know If you join a club, you sort of subscribe to their rules, if you know what I mean. And it’s not that people won’t be welcome to attend. It’s just that not only will they not feel a part of, but others will know the difference. You know, as I say, it takes one to know one. And we certainly do know addicts because we’ve all been one. And we like to say still are. But it’s a process of becoming realer, becoming less and less dependent on any crutch or any kind of substitution that hides us from who we are and keeps us from being who we are. And realizing ourselves as beloved children of God rather than as hope to die dope fiends. You know, the only problem I see with substitute medication is that it perpetuates the dependency, the drug dependency. I realize that people tend to be clearer on it and less nodding out and less caught up in a criminal lifestyle. But at some critical point, to really complete one’s recovery, one has to get past that too.
Dr. Mark Leeds [25:50] As far as finding maybe a transition from one to the other, rather than going abruptly to suddenly stopping medication and maybe not getting started on a program, there are things a person can do. For example, like you said, a person can go to a meeting and sit in the meeting and listen, which is a good thing to do anyway. I mean, it’s not necessarily the best thing to sit in a meeting and just start talking right away. A person can go listen. They can read literature. And is it correct there’s some service that a person can do with no clean time for example setting up the chairs in the room helping clean up maybe making the coffee
David Hecht [26:27] Sure those are the opening level service positions and you don’t need any clean time to do those things there are even some committees where they say you can serve if you have no clean time I don’t recommend it because one will still feel like one is on the outside looking in but it’s certainly a good idea to be of service in some way I don’t think that people really feel part of unless they’re doing some kind of service because it gets us outside of ourselves and helping others when I was pretty new probably about a year and a half or two years clean there was this guy who used to come to a meeting I attended who had some time and he said that he learned somewhere that there’s an eightfold program of recovery. I guess they got the idea from the eightfold path of yoga. But he said there was eight aspects to a completely balanced program. Meetings, steps, sponsorship, fellowship, reading and writing, prayer and meditation, service and the 800 pound telephone and all that means is that if we only go to meetings then we’re only availing ourselves of one eighth of what the program has to offer if we do all of those things or most of those things we’ll have a really robust program of recovery so even if people are still dependent on other medications if they participate in the fellowship, if they read the literature, if they do reading and writing, and if they pray and meditate, and if they try to be of service and help other people, I think they’ll fit much more into a feeling of belonging and a feeling of commitment to recovery than if they merely attend meetings. Part of the problem with addicts I think more than most other adults is magical thinking and along with that because you know we have this magical experience of drugs which altered our consciousness fast of course raising consciousness as I said before is different than altering consciousness but the magical thinking means that we tend to think that there’s some kind of a trick or secret to recovery. And the trick is that there is no trick and the secret is that there is no secret. It’s a process. If we don’t do the footwork and if we don’t make the effort, you know, I don’t, I did not catch recovery by infection by sitting close to my sponsor. You know, it’s not a contagious process. It’s a process of becoming and of learning and of growing. I think in the process of practicing a program, we learn the purpose and meaning of life. I think there’s three purposes in life. To learn and to grow is one. And to love and to share is two. And to enjoy and to celebrate is three. And the meaning is that we discover ourselves is that we find out who we really are is that we become at one with ourselves and with the universe that’s the meaning of why we’re here and it’s a spiritual as much as it is an intellectual or a mental or psychological process I don’t think that the elements of that can be separated that’s why we’re taught that a 12 step program is a spiritual program it isn’t a spiritual part of the program it is a spiritual program and that doesn’t mean that people have to have a theology they just have to hold to a series of spiritual principles that are more than just a set of rules but a guide for being not just a guide for living but also a guide for being part of the problem again is that the addict mind doesn’t sleep it’s when I was a kid my first addiction was cartoons and I used to love the Mickey Mouse cartoons when Pluto had a little devil dog on one shoulder and a little angel dog on the other shoulder it’s a great old pattern about the inner voices that talk to us and that try to convince us or persuade us, there’s a little voice of addiction in the back of my head still to this very day. You take the drugs out of a drug addict, you still have an addict. And what I learned over time by practicing a program was to recognize that voice for what it is before it has the chance to persuade me to do something self-destructive. Because my understanding is that addiction is a deep self-destructive urge. You know, it’s a lot of other things too, but it’s also a deep self-destructive urge. And if I’m not careful, it can convince me to do something that will harm myself. Whether it’s isolation, or dwelling in fear and resentment, or looking for some kind of outside fix. Oh, if I win the lotto this week, that’ll be the answer to all my problems. Whatever it might be that I think is the single solution to all my problems. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of sponsors tell their sponsees, you know, don’t start any major life changes or new relationships in your first six months. Clean. That’s because it’s so easy for those to form substitute addictions. And one defocuses from the process of recovery and puts all one’s emphasis on trying to save that relationship or that major life change, whether it’s a new job or a new house or whatever it might be. It’s a good idea to settle in recovery first and become really comfortable in our own skin and the new role of being a recovering addict rather than using one. At any given time, addicts can go back to using. I’ve known addicts with multiple decades clean who went back out. And it’s a tragedy when it happens and we do welcome them back when they come back. But, you know, there’s no immunity from addiction. And that’s why complete abstinence doesn’t just mean from intoxicating chemicals. It’s also from intoxicating thinking. You know, the idea that I can go way out of myself. That’s why religious addiction can be dangerous as well. And it’s important. I’m a great believer that the goal of recovery is balance in all things. A little of everything, but nothing too much. And that with the single exception of intoxicating drugs because I already used enough of those for two lifetimes the idea of balance means learning and knowing when enough is enough that’s what I meant about the little voice in the back of my head that wants me to go to extremes that wants me to go too far that wants me to not know when enough is enough and it’s basically a self-destructive urge because when I go too far I get off balance and it’s important for my sanity my serenity, my peace of mind and my respect for myself that I stay in balance
Dr. Mark Leeds [34:49] Spirituality may scare away some people that are new to this and they go to a doctor for help and I might start talking about spirituality. And I did recently interview a psychiatrist and author, Dr. Yusim, who she uses spirituality in her practice and talks about the science of spirituality and how it does have a place in the practice of medicine. And like you said, it’s not religion. Being spiritual doesn’t mean you have to believe in a certain God or maybe you don’t have to believe in anything supernatural. And I have a theory that maybe there’s a spiritual center and some physiological structure in the brain responsible for spirituality. And fortunately, it happens to be walled off or protected from the effects of addiction. And so we have to make use of a different part of our brain to survive. The addiction can use all of our brain against us. And the smarter and more creative you are, the more difficult it is because all the powers of your intellect are being used against you. But the spiritual part of your brain or of your mind is off limits so if you if you move over more to that side you’re you know maybe safe from the effects of addiction and have a chance to stay clean
David Hecht [36:03] It’s interesting you say that because I remember seeing a study that when they did MRIs of people who were praying that certain parts of the brain predictably lit up. And it didn’t matter what they believed in or what kind of beliefs they had, that just the act of prayer to whatever was out there, whatever they were praying to outside of themselves, seemed to light up certain parts of the brain that were very distinct. And it seems as though we are spirituality ready. You know, they used to have TVs that were cable ready. We seem to be wired in such a way that makes spirituality possible if we seek it. But it doesn’t seem to happen automatically. You have to want it and you have to cultivate it. People can go through life never cultivating or even turning it off by saying, well, there’s nothing there. My mother was very spiritual. My dad was the opposite. He had some early experiences that soured him on religion, and so he turned his back on spirituality too. Interestingly, when he went with my mother to various psychic experiences or lectures, he kept getting picked out of the audience, oh, you’re a natural healer, which surprised him terribly. And it happened like five or six times and it wasn’t like they were talking to each other he was just radiating this energy that they picked up on and you know I know a couple of members of the fellowship who are about atheists but in my opinion they’re very spiritual because they’re loving and caring and they do service and they practice principles in all their affairs and to me that’s what counts. Spirituality, spiritual is as spiritual does. See, it’s not a question of what you believe, but of what you do. My third sponsor used to have an expression, if you want to find recovery, go to hell and make a left. You know, we’ve been through hell, and there was an expression I heard years ago that religion is for people who are afraid of hell and spirituality is for people who’ve already been there. So it doesn’t take a set of theological beliefs to make people spiritual. It takes a certain kind of commitment and a certain kind of self-exploration of whatever the inner universe has in common with the outer universe that’ll help us make a link between ourselves and others and ourselves in the universe and that doesn’t come by wishing or by some kind of magical thinking or like I said by contagion we don’t catch spirituality any more than we catch recovery you’ve talked before about the abcs the using addict the abc is always be cool and to the beginning addict in recovery it’s always be clean and as recovery develops it’s always be conscious because over time we come to realize that we want to go to sleep one of my sponsees used to say when we were just starting out and we would be talking on the phone or in person and getting a little too close to the truth and his eyes would droop and he’d say, I feel like I want to go unconscious. And it was an amazing degree of self-awareness that he realized that he was, there was a part of him that wanted to shut this off, to turn this off, to not get too close to the truth, to avoid dealing. And we would come back at it from another direction because it was important to deal with this stuff. But spiritual wakefulness means I’m ready for anything that wants to come at me, whether it’s from the inside or from the outside. It’s a kind of vigilance. And one thinks of the vigil that a guard in a guard tower used to have to do. He had to stay awake and he had to protect the people behind the fortifications. In a similar way, I have to stay spiritually awake because there are parts, maybe not outside so much these days, but inside that want to attack me and want to hurt me. And it can happen outside as well. There’s people who don’t like me, you know, like anybody else. Anybody who wants universal approval is kidding themselves I’ve done a lot of speaking at conventions and I’m prepared to lose 20% of an audience and if I change my message I just lose a different 20% I think that’s inevitable so it’s best to just be true to myself and share from my own heart and from my own understanding and there’s some people who will say snide or cruel things to me and if I go unconscious, I’ll allow that to really pierce me and make me feel angry or ashamed or vindictive, God forbid and I can’t afford the luxury of those kind of thoughts so it’s important for me to stay conscious no matter what and when I do I realize it’s not about me it’s about them a person who has to strike out at me it’s about their hurt feelings it’s about their feelings of pain and inadequacy and shame and negativity that makes them want to put somebody else down or cut somebody else down to size I just happen to be a handy target because I have a big mouth you know but it’s important when one stays conscious to remember it’s not always about me in fact it’s usually not about me when other people are talking I can take what they say to heart because we all have so many things in common there’s common human experience and there’s common experience among addicts but a lot of the time they’re just sharing their own experience and it may have nothing to do with me even if they’re targeting me and that is a kind of self-protection because I can’t afford to go into a hypnotic state and hypnosis doesn’t mean you go into a trance it just means you become highly suggestible it’s important that a certain part of me maintains critical thinking becoming self-aware and raising one’s spiritual self-awareness does not mean losing critical thinking in fact I believe that rationality and spirituality go hand in hand that’s one of the reasons why I practice a spiritual not religious program because if you really buy the whole package of any religion, you’re supposed to put to sleep certain critical thoughts because some aspects of almost every religion are kind of absurd. And even the leaders of those religions will sometimes admit that. You know, and I’m just not willing to buy the whole package of any one of them. Although I like them all, I learn from them all, I respect them all, with a few exceptions. And I don’t begrudge anybody their desire to be religious. I just begrudge religion without spirituality because it makes people smug. And even that can hide you from the sunshine of the spirit.
Dr. Mark Leeds [44:58] Right. Something that might help a person to become more conscious and aware. I know that writing helps, you know, someone, you know, who’s working out, you know, to have better success and working out, you keep a log of your exercises. Someone on a diet is going to do better if they write down their foods and calories or points. Now you’ve recommended to your, I believe you said to your sponsees that you start them out by having them keep a written daily list of a gratitude list of things that they’re grateful for?
David Hecht [45:27] Well, that’s the very first assignment. It was my first sponsor’s first assignment to me. And it’s always been my first assignment to sponsees. What are you grateful for? Animal, vegetable, mineral? Doesn’t matter what. Just don’t pad the list. You don’t have to list each of your friends. Just say, I’m grateful for my friends or I’m grateful for my family. The idea of a gratitude list is not to, you know, become a sob story of oh thank you everybody and it’s not just to list everything in your life because I don’t think you can be grateful for everything in your life I’m not really grateful for being an old man now I accept it, I’m grateful that I can accept it I heard some people say that they’re grateful that they’re an addict and I’ve never been grateful to be an addict, I’m grateful that I know I’m an addict so that I can take certain precautions and that I don’t fall into active addiction or into addictive behaviors or thinking. But to me, the number one thing on my gratitude list is I’m grateful to be clean today. And that’s because if I wasn’t clean, I wouldn’t have the gratitude for all the other things on my gratitude list. And that’s the only hint I give sponsees. You know, if you’re grateful to be clean, then that makes everything else possible. And I don’t think being grateful for God can even come before that because, you know, God has a great sense of humor, he’s understanding, and he’s not going to hold that against you. So I tell sponsees, come up with 10 things you’re grateful for and then call me and we’ll talk about them. And then keep the list open and we’ll, you know, keep adding. My last gratitude list had 120 things on it’s also a kind of test. If after a week they haven’t come up with a list of 10 things, I say, okay, just get a three by five card and list three things you’re grateful for. I’m sure you can do that. And if after two or three weeks have passed and they haven’t even done that, it’s clear that they’re waiting for magic to happen. It’s magical thinking. They don’t want to really make an effort on their own behalf for their own recovery. They want somebody to recover for them. And they don’t want to make any real effort. Either laziness is deeply ingrained or addiction is so deeply ingrained that there’s a resistance against working a program of recovery. And I won’t even move on to the first step questions, which is make a list of all the things that you’re powerless over, all the things that you’re unmanageable over and all the aspects of your addiction besides a list of your drugs, but also a list of those things that you’ve been addicted to besides drugs. And there’s many other questions as well. I’m very grateful that my first sponsor believed in writing and that we wrote from the very beginning on all the steps, not just on, say, the fourth step or the tenth step or the eighth step list. We wrote on all the steps, and that’s how I worked the program with all sponsees. And I developed a whole series of questions that allowed writing on the steps. It’s a technique. It’s not the only technique of recovery. It just seems to be very self-revelatory. Because once you put things down on paper, in black and white, it’s kind of hard to take it back. If all I do is think about the aspects of my addiction, as I grow uncomfortable or get a little too close to the truth, I want to go unconscious. The addictive part of my brain wants to shut that back down again. And I’ll go into forgetting mode. You know when we used to get high we used to practice oh what were we just talking about and because we were suggestible everybody would forget what we were just talking about well I can’t afford to forget so if I put it down on paper I see it in black and white and I can come back to it and if I can’t look at it now I can look at it later so it turns out to be a highly therapeutic tool because it’s like drawing on a part of the brain that, you know, it’s a free-flowing part that taps into the subconscious. I also suggest don’t try to edit yourself while you’re writing. You can come back and edit later if you want to correct spelling and grammar mistakes and stuff like that. But it’s important to just let it all hang out, let it all flow onto paper if you come back and realize that part of it was lying to yourself you can put brackets around it or you can cross it out if you need to but it’s an exercise it isn’t recovery per se it’s one exercise in recovery we work out recovery in a lot of different ways interpersonally, spiritually, psychologically prayer and meditation there’s a lot of different modalities of recovery and writing is one of them it turns out to be one of the most effective ones
Dr. Mark Leeds [51:09] I want to ask you about writing that you’ve done you’re an author you’ve done a lot of writing and you’re looking to be published you’re looking to publish some of your works
David Hecht [51:22] Part of the problem was a couple of times I had a self-proclaimed literary agent that turned out to be Flakes, and they didn’t know what they were doing. And I really, that’s the first step to being published as a literary agent, and I don’t have one. So if you know somebody, or if you know somebody who knows somebody who’s a good literary agent, I’d welcome it. The problem is, of course, you can’t just submit writing directly to a publishing house. They require literary agents to be their gatekeepers these days. You know, they used to have junior editors for that, but now they require literary agents to do that for them. And yes, I’ve done a lot of writing on spirituality. I’ve done some writing on recovery as well. I used to do a series for the local Mensa journal called Spirituality 101, and I have many dozens of chapters. They were originally articles that could be chapters in a book. And I would be delighted to put those in book form. I’d be very happy to see that bear fruit and I have confidence in my writing because other people who have seen it commented that it was very worthwhile and so it’s not just me spinning my wheels I think I have something to say at the very least I’m a good interpreter I interpret the things I’ve heard and seen in a cogent manner and I would welcome the opportunity to publish at least one book.
Dr. Mark Leeds [53:01] I’ve read a lot of your writing and it’s very accessible, it’s easy to read and very deep, a lot of great information and for the listeners of the podcast, they can actually find some of your work you were nice enough to contribute some articles to drleeds.com, to my website and where else can people find your writing?
David Hecht [53:25] I do have some online sources. I don’t distribute those at present simply because I intend to publish eventually. But you could start with the articles on drleeds.com because I think those are good introductions to recovery. And after that, we’ll see.
Dr. Mark Leeds [53:49] Yeah, and some of what we talked about today is in there, and it’s really great stuff. There’s five essays there. Yeah, and I don’t know if you’ve considered self-publishing. I actually self-published a book, which I started, after you wrote those five articles, I started writing my own blog articles. I finally got up the confidence to write and tried to every day just write like a few hundred words. And, you know, one day I finally just said, you know, let me take all that to put that all together and self-publish a book. So I took a word processor called Scrivener, which has the ability to turn a word processing file into a Kindle e-book. And it kind of made it easy where I could actually organize into separate chapters and move the chapters around. And a really nice program and easy to use. And self-published the book. It doesn’t do the same work as a publisher. Nobody’s promoting it. I think probably less than 10 people have bought it. Someone in Australia bought it. I sell it for 99 cents, so I got 30 cents out of that one. But yeah, for my purposes, it was a way to get my name out there on the Amazon search engine. But yeah, that’s something you might look into. But yeah, if anyone who’s listening, you know, and I know some other guests that have been authors on here, that would be great if a, you know, someone in the publishing world could reach out to you and work with you on that. Because your writing is really great. I would love it to be out there in a book and, you know, see you doing a book tour and, you know, all that sort of thing. That would be excellent.
David Hecht [55:24] Cool. I’m grateful for your support. Thank you.
Dr. Mark Leeds [55:26] You know, I’d love to have you back on as a guest again.
David Hecht [55:28] Sure. I’d be delighted. And I’d be honored.
Dr. Mark Leeds [55:32] Thank you for joining me today on The Rehab Podcast. God bless. Be well. Thank you for joining us today on The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful. If so, please subscribe to The Rehab Podcast and share on social media. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to The Rehab. Thank you.
