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Writer's pictureLisa Auster-Gussman

What is Suffering in Addiction?

Many years ago, when my husband first got sober, he was a regular attendee at a 7:00am recovery meeting at a coffee shop near a park in downtown Minneapolis. He had come from a place of hopeless suffering to a new life because of a spiritual awakening, and he was ready and willing to share that with others. They talked about the suffering alcoholic in the recovery meetings he attended. He remembered it and knew it well.


Several days in a row as he walked into his morning meeting, he noticed a man sitting in a cardboard box in the park, drinking from a bottle. He thought to himself, “This is exactly the type of suffering alcoholic that I can help.” So, one day he went up and knocked on the box and asked the guy if he wanted help.



The guy basically told him to f-off and that he was happy as he was. That day, Kevin learned an important lesson he has since been kind enough to share with me and many other people in recovery. It’s a tough one to digest at first. But that important lesson is as follows: when alcoholics drink, we do not suffer.


You might need to read that again to make sure you read it right. When alcoholics drink, we do not suffer. Often, our family and friends suffer. Those we owe money to suffer. Our employers suffer. Sometimes local businesses and local communities suffer. If we have children, they suffer. We suffer later when we are hung over. And the minute we begin to sober up, we suffer. But, when an alcoholic is drunk or blacked out, they are not suffering. At the very least, they are suffering significantly less than if they were in the exact same circumstances not drunk. And that is a very hard truth to swallow.


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