People in Recovery are Better than Us - A Guide for Normies

As this AI generated picture shows, people in recovery like hugging - even ChatGPT gets it.

Here's 8 reasons why people who stopped using are just damn good people.

After working for almost 20 years in courts, community, and then the treatment industry with people in recovery, I am convinced that people in recovery are better than us.  And by "us" I mean the folks that don't suffer from substance or alcohol use disorders. Our "us" is who the folks in recovery might call "normies."

Don't let the tattoos and vapes fool you. Folks in recovery are better than you and me.  Here's why.

1)  They're honest.  Working program, whether AA or NA or Celebrate Recovery, or All Recovery, or whatever worked for that person, equates staying sober with honesty.  You have to tell the truth, all the time, to everyone, especially yourself.  A lie is a small step to relapse. 

2)  They live in community.  There's a saying that the opposite of addiction is connection.  Folks in recovery have to trust each other and support each other because no one understands what they have gone through more than another person in recovery.  They help each other and are open to receiving help, with jobs, or kids, meals, transportation, whatever.  And they actually like helping and spending time with each other.

3)  They're trustworthy and dependable.  People in recovery do what they say they're going to do.  They show up to work, church, or meetings.  They don't steal or cheat.  I once had someone complain about a scary group of folks smoking in a parking lot.  I told that person, "they're waiting on a meeting.  You don't have to worry, if someone tried to rob you, it wouldn't be one of them, and you'd have about 10 guys fight them off."  Workers in recovery, studies have shown, miss less work, are more productive, and show up on time more than the average worker not in recovery.  Hire them.  Even if they have felonies.

4)  People in recovery are generous.  They give of their time and talent because most of them have been below the rock bottom, maybe living on the street, broke, homeless, in jail, definitely isolated, with no family or real friends.  Now, even when they might still be rebuilding their lives, they recognize the blessing and give whatever they can like the widow with her mite.  I have never seen guys so willing to clean up trash after a festival, or a church after an event, or to grab donations for a coat drive.

5)  They are open emotionally and give love freely.  If I am talking to a friend who I know is in recovery, I know there is a good chance that the conversation will end with "I love you, bro."  Also, some of the toughest, meanest looking dudes I have ever met, once in recovery, are the biggest criers I have ever seen.  Weddings, pictures, movies, a sunny day, they cry over everything.  They same guys that used to crack heads daily, can still crack your head if they wanted, but will cry over song they heard on the radio, and it's all good.  Got to respect that.

6) They hug, a lot.  Like, a lot.  I have gotten more hugs from people in recovery by far than any other sector of the general population, probably combined.  Men, women, people I prosecuted, people I helped, people I saw at church, or at a rally, or event.  I had a friend in recovery once come at me for a hug, then remembering me to be a "normie" held his fist out for a bump, because, he said "I sense you're not a real hugger."  Folks in recovery are huggers.  I grew up in a quiet, Baptist family.  We didn't talk, share, hug, touch, nothing.  I have gotten used to the hugs.

7)  Family is first, always.  Addiction is isolation.  Coming to the surface after living in an existential black hole, alone, makes folks grateful, protective, and appreciative of their families.  Some of the best, most attentive, supportive parents I know are folks in recovery.   And the renewed relationships with family are the things movies should be made about.  Stories of going to ball games or graduations after not even being allowed to see their kids for years are proof that people can change for the better.

8)  People in recovery have worked on their shit.  You and me, we have baggage.  That baggage can make us cope by buying, working, drinking, having sex, bad relationships, eating too much ice cream, but we never really have to work on the cause of all those coping mechanisms.  Folks in recovery, their coping mechanism almost killed them, and definitely wrecked, or nearly wrecked their lives.  In order to get sober, stay sober, then enter into recovery from drugs and alcohol, they had to recognize their issues, then deal with them.  If they didn't deal with those kid issues, or abuse, or trauma, depression, anxiety, shame, AD/HD, whatever first made trying a drug feel like the best escape in the world, then they'd just be relying on self-discipline.  And if you think self-discipline is enough for us, then think about sticking to a diet around Christmas.  Now, think about instead of pie, the thing you were trying to not use was the one thing that stopped your pain in your entire life, or helped you forget, or helped you feel normal.  I've never eaten anything close to that good, not even Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia.

No, people in recovery are not a monolith and they have problems like the rest of us and fall short of the ideal.  That's why they keep going back to meetings, and working with a sponsor, and have to remind themselves to "do the next right thing".  We are all just human.

But in the day to day, folks in recovery on average, because of their higher standards for themselves, because of their actions, honesty, openness, generosity with time and affection, they're just better than us.  If I had to pick a co-worker, friend, or boss, I'd pick someone in recovery.  And when they say "I love you, bro" and give me a hug, I accept that hug and say "I love you too."

Brian Privett is a lawyer and has worked with community groups and Kentucky Drug Courts for almost 20 years. He is currently General Counsel for a Substance Use Treatment Provider in Kentucky.