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Jun 1 2023
Being sober isn’t a competition

Today, I received my first 1 star review for one of my books on Amazon. Within the review, they stated that my 6 years of sobriety (it’s actually 7 now) was merely a blip, and that I would not be sober until it was at least 60 years. Attitudes like this are incredibly dangerous.

Early sobriety is complicated and messy. At times you are clinging on for hours or even minutes at a time. Setting yourself goals and hoping that you can stumble painfully across the finish line. For me, those early days were spent in a psychiatric ward. One might think that’s a safe place for someone getting sober, but trust me, there isn’t a lot that doesn’t make it’s way past security checks in those places.

Drugs and alcohol were readily available.

I remember celebrating one year of sobriety. A friend and I went to London and saw Lindsay Stirling perform live. It was a huge moment in my life, I had managed to go 365 days without getting drunk or high. Had someone like the aforementioned amazon reviewer spoken to me then, they way they have today, it wouldn’t have gone well.

When someone is getting sober, they need support. It’s likely they have done things they are not proud of, they probably wish that life could be as simple as switching of their emotions with a drink or a pill. Invalidate a person at the wrong time and they might just throw it away.

When you’re a sober addict, you live with the knowledge that your brain will find any excuse to go running back to its addiction. It doesn’t just go away. Anyone claiming it does is lying to you. Telling someone they’re not sober enough is gambling their life. This doesn’t just apply to length of time as a sober person, I have seen people be told they can’t be sober because of medicine they take or the way they have separated themselves from the harms of addiction.

Quite frankly, if you are sober, I don’t care how you do it, I don’t care how long you’ve been doing it; I’m proud of you. Even if sobriety has been an on and off affair; I’m proud of you. Perhaps you’re just thinking about it but haven’t quite started; doesn’t matter, I’m proud of you.

Every time a person makes the decision to heal themselves, the world becomes brighter. We are the cycle breakers. We are the one’s who stand proud and say “this suffering ends here, I choose to live”.

So, people like my Amazon reviewer can take their crappy opinions and keep them to themselves. I am proud of everyone fighting this battle.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
May 21 2023
Autism and addiction: co-existing with a mind that seeks oblivion

The narratives around autism and addiction are both peculiar. Things are the same while appearing different. On the one hand, autism is viewed by wider society as something that happens to a child, as if an unseen force has stolen their humanity. On the other hand, addiction is seen as a moral failing. We are often told that we chose that life.

The one thing they both have in common? People see you as less human than they are.

There are a multitude of reasons for this, but at the core of this experience are the power dynamics within a person’s life. You could be forgiven for believing that the power horizon within and Autistic or addicted person’s life can only be felt in the immediate vicinity, but it stretches much further. Both autism and addiction narratives are controlled and perptuated by governments and media.

The public views us through the information disseminated by those in power.

This makes for an upsetting experience when we are both Autistic and in the throws of addiction. Autistic people are infantilised and mourned as tragedies, but addicts are positioned as hedonistic and selfish. They contradict each other. Most people don’t understand how an Autistic person could become the monstrous embodiment of addiction (and there have been times when I was in active addiction that I was monstrous).

In a study from the University of Cambridge, Autistic people were less likely to report recreational drug use, but nine times more likely to report self-medicating with recreational drugs. Specifically, we were more likely to report using drugs for behaviour management and alleviation of psychologically distressing experiences.

There is a significant link between trauma, addiction, psychological distress, and perceived challenging behaviour. Trauma underlies all of these things. At this point I feel it necessary to highlight that Autistic people are More likely to experience PTSD. I have also explored our relationship with trauma with Tanya Adkin in a wider context here.

The real issue is that addiction professionals tend to lack cultural competency with Autistic people, meaning that they lack the nuanced understanding of the reasons why we use drugs and what that use may look like. This results in an environment where Autistic service users are seen to not engage well or even resist treatment. Rather than consider how to adapt the environment to suit the Autistic person’s needs, we find ourselves left out in the cold.

For me, this meant that once I was a few months sober, I was left with nowhere to turn but twelve-step programmes that really didn’t meet my needs well. I eventually realised that if I was going to stay sober, I had to learn how to do it on my own. Yes, I had supportive friends and family, but no peers to support me from addiction communities.

This is ultimately how I ended up doing g the work I do. I had to learn to co-exist with myself, and part of that process was to use my suffering for something positive. I can’t take back the pain and the wrong turns, but I can hone them into something that can make a clear path for others to walk. I can’t undo the past, but I can make sure that others don’t have to struggle the way I did.

I had to become altruistic. It was a difficult process because the addicted mind is focused on one thing, instant gratification, instant relief from the pain of existence. Existence can be so very painful. Through altruism, I had to teach myself that not everything pays off immediately and that the time I spend working towards something good will often be far more gratifying than popping a pill or smoking a pipe.

I still battle with myself from time to time. Addiction doesn’t just disappear. I have moments where my brain tells me to throw it all away, but co-existence has taught me that I don’t have to listen to the self-destructive thoughts. I have learned it’s okay to pause and wait.

Addiction is one hell of a fight, but coming out of the other side of it is a beautiful thing. It doesn’t make us less valuable to the world. It gifts us a determination to achieve our goals that nothing else can. Recovery is not a straight path, and there are times when we feel like turning back. The journey is worth it. The grass is, in fact, greener on the other side; I know, I’m here.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 16 2023
My new book on autism and addiction is now available!

I am really excited to tell you all that I ha e published a new book!

Unusual Medicine: Essays on Autistic identity and drug addiction

This book explores my personal experiences with being Autistic and addicted to drugs and alcohol. It considers my recovery and what was unique about my experiences.

Alongside this, I also bring my professional insights as a person who works with Autistic addicts. I make suggestions on basic changes to services that would make them more accessible, and how we can change societies framing of addiction.

It is currently available on Amazon in most territories, and will also soon be available from some other online retailers.

If you would like purchase a copy, see the buttons below!

UK Amazon Link
US Amazon Link

Also, don’t forget that you can subscribe to my Substack for bonus content!

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 7 2023
The nature of sobriety

Today marked seven years of total sobriety for me. For seven years, I have been drug and alcohol free. While abstinence is not suitable for everyone, I decided, on April 7th, 2016, that the consumption of mind-altering substances was not safe for me.

I will say I have never approached it through the guise of eternity. “Never say never”, as the saying goes. Instead, I have woken up each day with a commitment to remain sober for that one day. During the challenging times, I have committed to hours and minutes. Whichever way I approached it, I have accumulated almost ¾ of a decade.

Addiction is peculiar. So many think that the focus of the addiction is the issue. We are easily fooled into believing that stopping behaviours such as drug use solves the issue. I lament the fact that it is not so simple. The addicted bodymind is more complex than compulsive behaviours.

I am an addict. I hate drugs and what they do to me, but I adore the feeling of being high. The ability to enter oblivion through a pill or a line is an all too attractive concept to me. Even now, closer to ten years sober than to zero, I find my mind craving it. It’s insidious. Little thoughts of the ways I could get away with it. The ways I could covertly enjoy the feeling of not existing.

I am happy with my sober life. I would not trade the life I have now for something so meagre as drug induced euphoria. That doesn’t mean that living in my Autistic, ADHD, and Schizophrenic mind without switching off for years has been easy. At times, I have been exhausted. An exhaustion I can’t put into words.

I am committed each day to just one more day of sobriety. Because each subsequent day of sober existence brings with it the truth of existence;

Life is a gift. It is meant to be used and spent. The bitter and painful lows only make the highs even more beautiful. Every time I survive a new challenge while maintaining my sobriety, I am able to enjoy the good in life in a vividly high definition.

Sobriety to me is a matter of life or death, and I, for one, choose life.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Feb 10 2023
Drug use, addiction, and neuroqueering

I have extensively explored my Autistic relationship with addiction thus far. I have considered and lamented the inappropriate treatment services, the suffering, and rejoiced in the moment that I came out the other side. I have listed numerous reasons that contributed to my active addiction, but what I have not done is really drive home the core point of why I kept coming back to drugs. I need you to know what gave me that drive to persevere with something that could have very well cost me my life.

I was undiagnosed Autistic for the first 26 years and 7 months of my life. I know that many, if not most of you, will understand the isolation and alienation that comes with such an existence. It seemed as though everywhere I turned, I was met with condemnation and assertions of my inadequacy. It extended far beyond bullying. It was more than abuse. The world taught me that who I was, the very essence of me, was only as valuable as my ability to assimilate into the culture of my local environments.

I had never wished to enter into the culture of normality. I felt that my lack of desire to fit in reduced me to a non-person. In a world where I could be anything, I would give anything to not be me. My fluid identity was more akin to vapour at this point than it was to any tangible form. Society constructs our sense of Self through our interactions with the environment. My environment rejected me like a gangrenous limb.

Perhaps then you can start to see where the twisted beauty of drugs seeped into my life. Not only could I alter my perception of the environment, but I could also alter the way those in my environment perceived me. Different drugs allowed me to put on and take off identities like clothes. They allowed me to explore the inner workings of my mind. I could manifest the Self in whatever way I saw fit.

Much like the sculptor trying to free the art from its marble prison, I was able to shed the constraints of human thought. Drugs allowed me to rewire my bodymind. I was no longer the necrotic manifestation of the universe, but instead the explorer. I was attempting to neuroqueer without even knowing it.

Sadly, this lifestyle was not sustainable. In order to explore the fluidity of one’s identity, it is necessary to be at some level of peace with your Self. At least in my experience. My attempt to neuroqueer my way to peace was fundamentally flawed. I wanted to subvert myself, not normative attitudes. I was trying to diverge into neurotypical performance.

Perhaps that is why I kept returning despite the dangers. Neurotypicality was a performance that I could never manage. What is it they say about try8ng the same thing over and over and the definition of insanity?

The irony in this story is that at almost seven years of tee total sobriety, I can now see that my journey through that time has actually made assimilation not just less possible; The thought is abhorrent to me. For my safety now, I steer clear of “recreational drug use”. My days as a self-confessed psychonaut are over, and quite honestly? I’m okay with that.

Some people falsely believe that addiction is an illness. Personally, I believe that given the right environmental ingredients, it becomes an inevitability. For me, addiction has been a necessary evil. It was necessary for me to deconstruct the Self that had been built on the rotten foundation of subjugation and childhood trauma. That deconstruction allowed me to make space for the infinite possibilities that lay within my neurology.

The world needs us to regularly deconstruct that which society has built. It’s often a violent and painful process, but necessary as we explore what it means to be neurodivergent. Perhaps more so, what it means to be human.

If I could ask one thing of you, dear reader, it is this; when you see a person suffering, do not offer them vague pity and generic platitudes. Offer them your hand to place a new foundation, upon which all can stand to explore the fluid nature of human identity.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Jul 20 2022
Addiction doesn’t strip us of our humanity

Trigger Warning: This article contains discussion of addiction, death, metaphors around death, dehumanisation, and mistreatment.

What defines us as a human?

Is it rhetorical ability? Emotional experiences? Perhaps the tools we use?

I would argue that one of the defining characteristics of our humanity is our ability to to recognise humanity in others, or perhaps more specifically, our ability to deny the humanity of others. Thanks to years of colonialism, warfare, and eurocentric beliefs, we have developed a strange sort of morality. This morality is what we use to ordain or deny a person or object as human/human-adjacent.

Unfortunately, when you are an addict, human-adjacent would be a big step up in how the world sees you. For as long as we have existed, we have been ignored, spoken over, driven out of our homes, and killed. This because contemporary spins on normative morality posit that to be an addict, is to be a monster. We are beyond help and reason.

We are what you fear your children will become.

The truth is that all judgements on addiction come from a place of moral relativism. Addiction is only seen as a moral failing because of cultural attitudes towards the behaviour associated with addiction. Fundamentally, it is seen as a moral failing, rather than a response to trauma and unmet support needs. If we could move society to a more “trauma-informed” culture, it is likely that attitudes towards addiction would alter quite significantly.

This isn’t to say that addiction doesn’t represent a risk to others. As addicts, we find ourselves doing things we never imagined or wanted ourselves doing. The lengths that one might go to in that desperation can lead to some truly awful consequences. To put it another way; we still have to take ownership of our shitty behaviour, whatever the reason. However, we also require some level of compassion. Compassion can go a long way one the journey to recovery.

Sadly, compassion doesn’t go all the way. We still need professional input from those who know how to deconstruct the circumstances of addiction, and help the person to rebuild their life. We need to build a life where it is easier not to engage with our addiction. This is made ever more difficult by the defunding of services that work to do such things. Besides that, we need to recognise that heroin, crack, and alcohol, are not the only substances that need attention from services. The world of addiction grows more complicated by the day, especially since the dawn of novel psychoactives.

Considering the future, we need to build a world where it is not necessary to become addicted to survive. A world where if we do become addicted, we are not shunned to the outer edges of our community. We need people to stop acting like addicts choose to be addicts. Addiction knows no boundaries, it can come for anyone.

Deconstructing societal and cultural attitudes will take a long time. Things like decriminalisation are important, but if done badly could actually reinforce moral judgements of substance users. For this reason, we need further longitudinal data looking at other countries that have done such things, seeing where the positives and the pitfalls lie.

It’s vital that we do this work, because moral judgement and “not in my neighbourhood” attitudes are literally killing addicts. The world has blood on its hands, and it doesn’t even realise it.

Addicts deserve their humanity.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
May 2 2022
How the shame cycle barricades us from recovery

They say in life that nothing is certain, but if anything is, then it’s the fact that shame will deny us entry into recovery.

I’m going to consider this from the perspective of addiction recovery, although it applies to recovery from any psychological trauma. I merely choose addiction recovery for this article because it makes the illustration of my point much more simple.

Consider the nature of addiction. A person’s needs are unmet. Due to the trauma that arises from this they seek to escape their pain, and in doing so turn to a path of addiction.

Addiction is seen by society as a moral failing, and so is the behaviour exhibited by those under the influence of their addictions. People are chastised for their addiction which creates shame.

This is a fatal mistake.

Shame is like poison to an addict. Shame in itself creates more trauma from which their is even more need to escape. Which in turn results in further, or even increased engagement with their addiction.

This in turn leads to further chastisement, and thus the cycle perpetuates.

This cycle can, and often does, continue until fatal consequences occur.

In order to help an addict break away from active addiction and enter recovery, we need to remove the shame that comes with addiction.

This takes many forms such as trauma-informed treatment, adequate socioeconomic support with things like housing and finances, and an adequate support network.

It’s not just about being nice to addicts, it’s about putting them in a safe place to rediscover their love and pride for themselves. This applies to more than just addiction.

Shaming addiction and other forms of psychological trauma is an act of violence that can both directly and indirectly kill people by barricading recovery. Until society drops the moral judgements, shame will continue to kill indiscriminately.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 30 2022
The weight of recovery

As many of you know if you have followed this website for a period of time, I am in recovery from addiction and psychosis. I have spoken extensively of my experiences from when these things were in an active state for me, but today I want to zoom in on the experience of recovery.

Recovery.

Aptly named because it is a time when you try to recover your former self, you try to recover a time before all the shit hit the fan. While a hopeful title for such a period of time, it is perhaps the hardest part of the mental health cycle.

When you start to recover, you are left with the pain you may have caused, the guilt, the shame. There are times during recovery when quite honestly it’s quite difficult to love yourself. You are left with the questions that may never be fully answered.

It is a lonely time that can weigh on your mind a great deal.

What if the damage done is irreparable? How can people trust me again? Am I worthy of the love I have received?

While the burden can be shared with others in the recovery community appropriate to you, the burden is ultimately yours. We are the ones who have to decide to make a difference, which in the case of things like addiction and psychosis can be incredibly challenging; how can I decide to get help at a time when I don’t understand how ill I am?

For many of us, all we have is the wreckage of the life we once hoped for. Taking it’s pieces and trying to rebuild.

But hope is not lost. Because we can find ourselves again. While we carry the scars of our former battles, they stand testament to our victory over the immense pain and suffering that befell us. The people that love us are there, we just have to shine a light in the dark, whatever that may look like in our life.

Please don’t lose hope. You can find yourself. You can recover what wad lost.

Although life may be different to how it was before, I promise it can be a beautiful thing. Choose to carry the weight of recovery, and emerge a stronger you.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Jan 22 2022
On the harsh reality of addiction recovery

My years of active addiction account for a lot of the suffering that myself, my friends, and my family experienced. The very fact that I am alive right now is some sort of miracle, yet to be explained by science. I remember trying to picture what recovery would look like, it was difficult to imagine.

I am the sort of Autistic person that some might reductively call a “black and white thinker”. For me, things fall into good or bad, and when I can not easily categorise things, I fall apart.

It’s no surprise then that my brain told me that once I escaped the horrors of active addiction, life would be sunshine and good times. I think, perhaps, this is a trap that many addicts fall into. Unsurprisingly, it is an inaccurate, and frankly dangerous assumption to make.

Recovery is not all positive, because life is not all positive. Truthfully, I have faced some intense suffering and struggles since achieving sobriety.

I was privileged in the support that I had around me for those times, there are a number of people without whom, I could not have remained sober up to this point.

This is where recovery gets dangerous.

If you are not privileged enough to have that support, it is easy to fall back into active addiction. Our minds constantly seek oblivion, and will use any excuse to pull the trigger. The unhappy realisation that bad stuff still happens when you are sober is one hell of a reason to pull that trigger.

This, truthfully, is why I have written this post. If you are embarking on a journey towards sobriety, you need to be prepared for the good and the bad that life brings. You need to know that when the shit hits the fan, you don’t have to throw your sobriety into the fuck-it bucket.

I have watched too many good people lose their lives in recovery. Autistic people are already disadvantaged by a system that simply does not care for our existence. It is my hope that my fellow Autistic addicts will read this and be prepared.

Sobriety is not easy. Life is not easy. I spend a lot of my time wishing I could turn down the difficulty settings on my life.

Sobriety is worth it, you are worth it. You can have a happier life, regardless of the bullshit. Your suffering is not your fault.

When life hands you lemons, squirt lemon juice in its eye; stay alive, even if it’s out of spite.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Jan 14 2022
Autistic community, identity, and the sense of self

During my years of active addiction, I had no concept of who I was beyond being a drug and alcohol user. For this reason, I felt trapped into my substance use, unable to escape the horror that I was habitually inflicting upon myself. I finally found sobriety, but was clinging on desperately.

That’s when it happened.

A team of neurodevelopmental psychologists conducted an extensive assessment and told me I was Autistic. I will admit that to begin with I didn’t know what to make of it. Was this the reason for my suffering? Could I make the memory of my darker years disappear if it were removed?

I won’t say I am ashamed, I was suffering, but I’m not proud to admit that there was a time when I may well have taken a “cure” had it been scientifically tested and offered to me.

Then I found a community.

This community was a strange place, because I no longer felt like an outsider. The experiences they described and the feelings they expressed were like the sweetest song lyrics, gently soothing my Autistic soul. These people knew me. They were me. I was no longer adrift in the world.

That community was the Autistic community.

I was learning more and more every day. I can’t mark the exact moment when it happened, but suddenly I had a real identity. As my engagement with that community grew, so too did my sense of self.

No longer was I David the drug user. I was David the writer, David the advocate, David the activist.

Presenter, host, speaker, consultant, trainer. The list simply grew.

I saw the imperfections of the community and felt it to be a beautiful melody. They were as imperfect as me, and they did not hide it. They seemed more human to me than those who had called me an alien.

This community. This beautiful, imperfect community, had saved my life. So now my work commenced to return the favour. I looked around and realised that the suffering I had once experienced, that all of us had experienced, had nothing to do with my Autistic mind. The problem was a cruel and indifferent society.

I set out to help my neurokin, one person at a time.

Thus, a new David had emerged from the ashes of his former life. Finding the Autistic community didn’t just give me a new identity, it fundamentally altered my sense of self. It gave me purpose and focus where before there had been none.

I can never be sure of whether or not my debt to this community has been repaid. Not that I particularly care. I adore this community, and will fight for it for as long as I draw breath.

Thanks to this community, I know myself, and that is a thing that is priceless.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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