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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
Feb 26 2023
CAMHS nearly killed me, and it’s not okay.

I don’t talk about my childhood much. Partly because I don’t want to upset my readers, but also because it is not my story alone to tell. The people who did so much harm to me as a child also caused harm to others that I love immensely. A sad part of my life is that as a result of the harm done to me, I made choices in my life that hurt those people I loved. I don’t blame myself, but I also haven’t quite reach the point where I can release myself from the sense that I need to make reparations.

Something that I think is really important to talk about however, is the way I was failed by professionals who very well could have turned my life around. I am happy with my life now, but I do wonder what it might have looked like had I not been left to drown by a service that was meant to be my saviour. That service was the UK’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

The worst part isn’t even that they ignored my mother’s pleas to assess me for autism. It’s not the time that they tried to put me on Ritalin after a five minute conversation. It’s the way they were nearly complicit in my surrender to the suffering that I experienced. I’m a suicide survivor, and CAMHS didn’t care.

I came to them, beaten and bruised, I laid before them my trauma, my pain, my isolation, my disdain for every aspect of myself. I told them that I couldn’t cope, that I was scared to wake up each day. I told them things about my past that I can’t bring myself to say publicly, even to this day. I was met with silence. Cold, uncaring silence. They did nothing. They labelled me a school refuser. They still refused to assess me for autism.

Is it any wonder then that I found solace in the steel trap of drugs and alcohol? What can one do in the face of unending suffering than desperately scramble to drown out the noise. The noise was inescapable. The voices in my head would scream at me daily. I was paranoid and distrustful of everyone, even those that I loved dearly. CAMHS allowed my psychological wellbeing to deteriorate to the point that I could no longer cope with existing. I resigned myself to an early grave.

Some might ask why this is relevant, I am a man in his thirties, surely this was a long time ago?

No.

This is still happening. Everyday, thousands upon thousands of families are forced to watch on as CAMHS allow their children to suffer. If you want to know why so many Autistic people die by suicide, start by taking a look at this (dis)service. CAMHS are complicit in an untold number of deaths. Each data point in those statistics represents a story untold. A future unrealised. With each child lost by the negligence of those meant to help them, our future becomes a little bit darker.

I am happy today, but it hurts. It hurts to know that my child and millions like them do not have this service in a good working order should they need it. I want a world that protects my child and seeks to heal wounds and change worlds. It’s the least they can do for our precious children.

My name is David, and I’m a CAMHS survivor.

Please help us change children’s lives by signing this petition.

David Gray-Hammond 10 Comments
May 18 2022
Autistic Substance Use Survey 2022

Below is a survey on Autistic people and substance use. The aim is to collate data anonymously on the use of drugs and alcohol in the Autistic community, and use that data to write a report that will be published on this website.

The hope is that these insights may help Autistic people better advocate for themselves with regard to this topic.

None of the questions are mandatory, but the more that you can answer, the more data we will have to look at.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Apr 7 2022
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.

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
Sep 26 2021
Autistic people and the social model of addiction

For the better part of a century now, addiction has been treated largely as a matter of criminal justice, with some focus on medical treatment. Unfortunately this approach leaves a considerable amount out of the discussion. Addiction is a complex matter, with a lot of it coming down to socio-economic issues. As an Autistic addict, I am keenly aware of the social issues that contributed to my addiction, and that is what I hope to discuss in this post.

Why do people become addicted to things? Scientifically, it is because certain activities provide a reward response in the brain, and essentially this is what people become addicted to. The development of that addiction, in my opinion, tends to be dictated by a set of falling dominoes that create an environment for such a thing to happen.

The first point to consider is this; I have never met an addict who was not struggling with some kind of mental health concern, typically it is trauma related. Okay, honestly? It’s always trauma related (in my experience). So we have to think about the environment that traumatised the individual. We know that certain groups face more challenges when it comes to meeting the needs of themselves and their children.

This is often painted as a moral failing, but truthfully it is a systemic failure on the part of a society that demonises and punishes people for living in poverty, after putting people into poverty in the first place. Even now, in 2021, huge swathes of the population rely on food banks and other social welfare to survive. Could this problem be mitigated by the system? Absolutely. Sadly, the people in charge of that system tend not to do anything about that.

We also have to consider that for Autistic people, they are much more likely to experience violence and bullying at the hands of their peers and family. Continuous mistreatment by peers and family members can create a perfect storm for the development of trauma related mental health concerns, and subsequent dependence on addictive behaviours.

Autistic people live in a social context that forever tells them that who they are is wrong. For me this amounted to wishing that I could exchange my social identity for one that could better assimilate. That new identity was one of a drug user, a person who regularly went out partying, and revelled in the hedonism of the culture he was trying to assimilate into. However, this soon was not enough.

To keep my mental health at bay, I needed access to appropriate treatment for my mental health concerns. Unfortunately, Autistic people have considerably less access to mental health services because of the prevailing belief that mental health issues are “part of the territory” of autism. This is obviously a mistruth, but it is a prevalent belief.

Without access to mental health services, my substance use began to spiral as I sought stronger and stronger relief from my suffering.

This leads neatly into the next part of the social context of addiction; crisis-driven intervention.

Western society in particular, will only intervene and provide support when a person is deep in crisis. For Autistic people this can mean that we are ignored for years, because we don’t present like a neurotypical person when in crisis. These types of interventions literally kill people, and I suspect that if more effort was made to identify Autistic addicts before they died, this particular intersection would be discussed a lot more.

We also have to consider that society as a whole is not designed for Autistic people. Even the simplest of tasks can lead to burnout and anxiety, driving people towards emotional outlets that could ultimately lead to addiction.

Autistic people are a socially vulnerable group, not because of a lack of social skills, but because of a system that is not only not designed for us, but actively penalises us for being Autistic. Until that system is fixed, Autistic people will forever be at risk of trauma and subsequent addiction issues.

Is it any wonder we get “hooked” on things that feel rewarding when society is doing its best to oppress us?

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
May 26 2021
Autism, addiction, and my need for control

I have learned a great deal about myself through self-reflection over the last 5 years of sobriety, but one lesson was considerably difficult to learn.

I like to think of myself as a friendly and generally happy and fun person to be around, but the truth is that I need control. I need control over everything. When things in my life are out of my control, I experience a deep-rooted anxiety and panic that can push me into a self-destructive spiral if left unchecked.

This is what made substance use so attractive to me. My life was chaotic and terrifying thanks to my worsening mental health. Substance use gave me control over my feelings and reactions. As an addict, I quickly learned that when things got too much to handle, I could essentially switch myself off.

Not only did it give me control over my emotions, it gave me control 9ver my identity. In previous articles I have spoken about how I was unhappy with my identity, and it’s just as relevant here. I wanted to be someone or something else. Drugs and alcohol gave me that. I was “Dave the Rave”.

I was the guy that by all definitions of the word, should have been dead.

Of course what I failed to see was that I was not controlling my identity, the substances were in fact controlling me. I was not choosing to be David the Addict. It was inescapable.

The final point to consider was that as my mental health deteriorated, so did my routine. My life was chaos. This was horrific to me as an autistic person, which subsequently caused me to deteriorate further. It was a vicious circle that span in perpetuity. Drugs and alcohol actually gave me some semblance of routine. Yet another insidious way that I fooled myself into thinking I was doing okay.

Even now at 5 years sober, I still struggle with my need for control. I catch myself trying to engineer every aspect and every moment of my life. Meditation helps me sit with my experiences, but truthfully the only thing that stops me from manipulating everyone is knowing that it’s wrong. If it was a socially acceptable thing to do, I would absolutely engineer and manipulate everything about my life.

That’s how much I need control over my life.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Apr 12 2021
How can substance use services be more accessible to Autistic clients?

I have written before about the barriers to accessing substance use services when you are both autistic, and an addict; today I’m going to approach from a different angle.

In this post, I will be talking about a few things that such services can do to increase accessibility, improving the quality of treatment that autistic and neurodivergent substance users recieve.

Let’s begin.

One of the first things I always point out, is how difficult it can be to keep track of appointment schedules when you are autistic. Services can improve this by using automated messages several times leading up to an appointment in order to remind the client of the details.

Services can also offer an array of reminders through different mediums so that the client can pick the reminder that will work best for them. It would also be helpful if key workers a medical staff could let clients know what will be discussed in the appointment so that they can prepare themselves for it.

The next one is a personal favourite of mine, and I’m yet to see it implemented.

The waiting room environment in treatment facilities can be overwhelming. Sensory friendly waiting rooms, designed by autistic people, for autistic people, could make a real difference here.

It’s impossible to recieve effective treatment if you are going into an appointment already overwhelmed. Thought should also be given to the appointment environment.

The last two are connected, and vital.

First, staff need to be trained on the difference between a panic attack, and a meltdown, and how to calmly and compassionately de-escalate both. Both of these situations have the potential to completely derail treatment if they are handled inappropriately.

Finally, staff need to recieve regular training on autism and neurodiversity, from Autistic and neurodivergent trainers (bonus points if they are also in recovery from addiction). Many staff in these places only know what medical schools and brief awareness courses teach. Often, they view things through the deficit-based medical model of neurodiversity.

Anyone of these changed could vastly improve accessibility, but all of them together would make a vast difference to the treatment environment. It’s important to note that it would not just benefit autistic clients.

When we improve the environment for autsitic and neurodivergent individuals, it generally improves it for everyone.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Mar 10 2021
Why is the moral model of addiction so prevalent?

As previously discussed, the moral model of addiction, in which addiction is seen as a moral failing, is inadequate for our understanding of addiction and formulating a means to approach it. Despite this, the moral model of addiction remains prolific throughout multiple cultures globally. Why is this?

In my opinion, its prevalence can be brought down to one reason, albeit somewhat complex.

Addiction appears to have a genetic component. This has been supported by some scientific evidence, although it still remains to become theory. One considerable difference between addiction and many other genetic conditions, is that addiction requires an environmental catalyst to emerge.

What do I mean by environmental catalyst? Simply put, one does not become an addict until they begin to engage with the subject of their addiction. In my case, the choice to drink alcohol and take drugs was what triggered my addiction. The question, however, still remains to be answered as to whether or not I would have become addicted to something else in the absence of those things.

This then, is perhaps where the moral model begins to emerge from. Because people make an initial choice to use, that in itself is seen as a moral failing, even though many people are able to use drink and drugs, or gamble, or play video games (etc) with a modicum of safety. This is perhaps the first failing of the moral model.

Where the moral model continues to fail is in what follows. The model in itself illustrates a world in which addiction continues to be a choice. It proposes that addiction is not a public health issue, but instead a wish to live a hedonistic lifestyle. It suggests that we as addicts want to use/drink/gamble/etc to the point that we suffer and cause suffering for others.

All of this emerges out of the concept of choice, a misunderstanding turned wilful ignorance of the addicted condition.

Addiction is not a choice. It is not a matter of hedonism and criminality, it is a matter of trauma and public health. Continuing to allow the moral model to prevail allows addicts around the globe to suffer and die needlessly. We must continue to dismantle the stigma surrounding addiction and to educate people on the truth of this condition.

We must bring an end to the criminalisation of addiction, and we can’t succeed at that until the moral model dies.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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