An Autistic Addicts Journey

Almost 5 years ago I sat at my computer to write an article about my journey to self-forgiveness, acknowledging that I was no longer that person; I had grown beyond the toxicity of my addicted state and become something new. At the time I was 4 years sober, and excited about a blossoming career helping people who had the same struggles as me. Today I sit at my computer, almost nine years into sobriety. I know now that I am Autistic, ADHD, and Schizophrenic. I know that these things played a role in my addiction to drugs and alcohol. I know that much of the pain I caused came from personal choices, influenced by a mind that was detached from it's own reality.

My Autistic Need For Validation

Many people praise me for my kindness, and ability to engage in open and honest communication in the name of helping people. These days i do my best to be good at these things, but there was once a time when I was not a good person.

Let me be completely honest with you. I was one of those autistics that many considered gifted and intelligent (under those particularly problematic IQ tests at least, anyway). So when I found myself in the world of addiction, it created a perfect storm for me to be a terrible person.

I needed people to know I was different. I wanted people so desperately to see the value in my existence, but my measure of that value was twisted. I had been indoctrinated by a society that measured value in IQ's and profit margins. I felt that all I had to offer was kindness and intelligence, and at the time I felt that those were the things that would carry me to what I perceived as a successful life.

I know now that my value is not in my ability to perform complex thoughts and solve riddles. It's not even in my kindness. In fact, there are many times when I could be much kinder, especially to those I love. My value lay in the fact that I am tenacious and unrelenting. In the same way I stay sober in spite of the urge to not be (and that urge remains with me as I close in on a decade of sobriety). The value I have found is that if I don't get it right the first time, I will try, over and over. My value is that I exist, and I refuse to relent on that existence.

The Autistic Need To Wear Failures As Armour

As an autistic addict, I lied, manipulated, and abused my way through life. Nothing could come between me and the drugs, and if something did, I bulldozed it out of my path. There were no limits to the pain I would cause in the name of my own survival.

I was scared of my past. As an Autistic person who by default was not viewed kindly by the world, the thought of my truth slipping out was a terrifying thing, and to this day, there are things I don't talk about. I wanted to be in control, and one of the ways I did this was by wearing my failures as a shield. If I had already outed myself, then others could not use it against me. In hindsight, it was a performative apology to the world that means nothing without meaningful change.

Today I acknowledge that there are awful things I have done, but I hope that people judge me on the present, and not things I did before learning to do better. I was a problematic person for many years, but I am trying hard every day to be something more, something softer, someone that people can feel safe with. I want my actions today to be the measure of me as a person.

Moving Beyond Survival

Survival.

It's a strange word to me, for me it is reminiscent of a world in which I do not fit. I scraped by while surviving, absent-mindedly damaging the world in doing so.

When I first achieved sobriety, I started becoming very aware of the harm I had done. So aware in fact, that I could barely cope with the guilt. For a good year or two after finding sobriety I was consumed by the horror of my own behaviour. Even now, at over 4 years of sobriety, I feel my insides twist up when I think of the things i have done.

When I look back at these words, I realise how close to oblivion I was. In a sense, I had come a long way in my life. In another way, I was clinging onto the vestiges of who I felt I was. It was like living in the wilderness with only a basic knowledge of how to survive. I was struggling to stay afloat in a tempestuous ocean.

Today I feel that I am somewhat more at peace with the storm. It still rages, and the wilderness has it's dangers, but I feel better equipped to handle the comings and goings of life. There have been a lot of goings. I am no longer just living for me. I live for the ones I love, and I live for the children who look to me as their father. I am no longer my sole concern.

Closing Thoughts

I was not authentic to my autistic self. For so many years I felt as though I had betrayed the ones I loved.

However, in the last year, I have come to a new realisation. The David who did those terrible things in the name of survival, is not the David who exists now. When I achieved sobriety, the old David died, I was reborn into a new life, and like any newborn, I had to experience growing pains.

I realise now that my wish to place distance between my past and myself was a selfish attempt to avoid accountability for the things I had done. I am that person. I am still that person. I have just learned as a person to do better. It is not a weakness for me to admit that I have grown. It is not a weakness to admit that I did wrong.

As I come to the end of this, I am all too aware that in a sense, writing all of this publicly further serves my need for validation. Being neurodivergent has made me feel worthless and broken at times, and my vulnerability is found in my need for people to tell me I am doing a good job. That does not make me weak. It makes me human. A human who needs a lifetime of societies negative attitudes to be flushed out of him.

Sobriety is not a path that is right for everyone. Sobriety is not the only route to recovery and rehabilitation. I do however believe that everyone deserves to be free of addiction, should they be willing and ready. I suspect that in another 5 years I will be critiquing my own words again, but until then, remember that recovery is possible and you are not alone.