Search for:
Addiction advocacy and the inspiration paradox: A reflection at 6 years sober

Today I am 6 years sober from addiction. During those six years I have learnt many lessons, but in this reflection I would like to consider something that has played on my mind for the past three years of my advocacy work.

Inspiration.

While not overtly a bad thing, it is often misused to infantilise and minimise the achievements of disabled people while hiding behind a mask of feigned respect. This phenomenon is known as “inspiration porn”.

A good (hypothetical) example of such a thing would be a video of a disabled person doing something completely mundane, like dancing, but they would be dancing with a non-disabled person. The video would centre the non-disabled as some kind of saviour to the disabled person for doing something as basic as treating them like a human being. The implication of the video, albeit in subtext, would be “Look at the amazing things that disabled people can achieve when an abled person rescues them from their shameful existence”.

It’s dehumanising and wrong.

So, addiction advocacy.

As a recovering addict in the public eye, I do what I do because I want to help others overcome similar challenges to my own, and help reduce their suffering. This does in fact require inspiring people. If it weren’t for the sober addict who showed me kindness during my first stretch on a psychiatric ward, I might not have chosen recovery.

The fact that they had turned their life around, and become someone I wanted to look up to was inspiring, and that isn’t a bad thing.

What would be bad would be if people like myself are allowed to become another source of inspiration porn. It’s a difficult line to walk. I want people to have what I have found, not get off on the tragedies that have formed who I am.

Contrary to popular belief, addicts are people. We are not burdens, we don’t deserve our suffering. Regardless of whether or not we are in recovery, we deserve food, housing, health care, support, and kindness.

This is what I want to inspire in people.

So please, don’t look at me and think it’s a miracle that I recovered. My recovery shouldn’t be the inspiration. I was privileged to have a loving and supportive set of family and friends. I had good key workers (although the services they came from were woefully ill-equipped). I was in a place where I was ready to enter recovery.

What I want to inspire in you is the idea that all addicts deserve recovery. I want to inspire you to challenge the systems that keep people like me trapped in a world of suffering.

I want you to know that those with less privilege than myself need us to get in the trenches and help them fight this war.

If that is what I inspire in people, then I am happy with what I am doing. If, however, you look at me and see a walking miracle, then I have not gone far enough.

The tragedies and traumas of my life should not be celebrated. They should be wielded as weapons to dismantle the masters house, and rebuild it into something where we can all coexist and thrive.

Untitled poetry regarding S10k

Written anonymously by a friend

On the 24th august an announcement was made
Alarm bells rang as a friend was disdained

On mainstream media on a pedastool
Research was announced treating us like we are fools

Processing began…. Numb, shutdown, uncertainty
Then came the realisation, this was aimed at me

A direct insult, a direct threat,
to me, my children and those I respect

Anger and tears, meltdowns took over
Tears in the car, crying over and over

I think of my children so innocent and pure. We have to protect then… keep the scientist from the door

Autistic communities are loyal, fierce and strong

We will keep fighting, you won’t silence our song

Neurodiversity and the power of collective activism

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

This quote has echoed around my mind for many years. Much like the Revelation of Sonmi-451 (also from Cloud Atlas), it has been a driving force in the work that I do today.

It’s a simple but powerful concept. How can a single drop change the ocean?

Every drop, makes a minute change to the ocean, when thousands or millions of drops fall on that ocean, it can have a big impact. This is the power of collective activism. Every drop has unique power. We each bring something to the ocean that wasn’t there before.

Is this not the beauty of what the neurodiversity movement is doing? Every drop in this ocean is giving what it can. Some, like me, speak on wider platforms, others make the intricate and targeted changes that people like me don’t have the spoons to do.

Together, we are shifting paradigms. The world is undeniably changed by our existence. We have power, and we have to be respectful with that power. Every single thing we do changes the ocean.

Please don’t ever think that you are not making a difference, have respect for your power in this world. Every part of your existence has changed our world. Society at large is entering a new era, and that is just as much because of the followers as it is the influencers.

I thank everyone of my followers for reading, listening to, and sharing my words. I would have no power to make change without you. You are the reason I can do what I do.

Please never forget how vitally important you are.

Verified by MonsterInsights