I happened across this article in a recent issue of The Guardian:
‘I was peeing blood constantly’: my ketamine hell – and what made me stop
The story is of a type that seemed instantly familiar: young man with troubled childhood ( bad enough that he considered harming himself ), begins experimenting with drugs as a teenager, and is instantly attracted to the escape it brings… but as time passes, his life falls apart and he nearly dies, before eventually finding his way to sobriety.
It’s the sort of story you might hear at any one of thousands of recovery support meetings around the world, in person or online. Except that in this instance, the protagonist then embarks on a career as a professional recovery speaker — traveling his homeland, spreading the message, using himself as an example.
It’s not that the story isn’t moving — it is — just that the format is so well known.
Especially in America, beginning with the Temperance Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most famous of the Temperance “circuit speakers” was Carrie Nation, famed for attacking barrels of liquor with an axe. Apparently she brought little hatchets along to her own lectures, to sell as souvenirs to audience members.
To some extent, this is mirrored in the qualification that speakers offer at 12 step meetings, when they describe the ordeal of active addiction prior to finding hope in recovery. The goal of the qualification isn’t to scare the listener away from drink, however. It’s to establish the speaker’s credibility, based on their ‘lived experience’.
I’ve noticed that some listeners respond to these speakers in unexpected ways. One young AA member explained that he deliberately avoided speaker meetings because the “drunkalogues” triggered in him an awful craving for a drink. Not so for the smaller Step Discussion groups, so he stuck to those.
A friend of mine had a strange experience during a talk she gave at a local high school. Her talk itself was well received by the students, but afterwards one parent approached to complain that her story actually encouraged the kids to experiment with drugs. They’d come away thinking it was okay to smoke pot or use heroin, because if you did get in trouble, you could always go to treatment. And when you came out, be as happy and fulfilled as the speaker.
I suppose he wanted her to scare the kids away from drugs, not give them hope for recovery. He’d have been more comfortable with Carrie Nation.
