An Alternative Narrative...

Addiction as a Driver of Inequality

“Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.”

“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.”

“Those events that once made me feel ashamed and disgraced now allow me to share with others how to become a useful member of the human race.”

-The Big Book of AA

“There’s no explanation needed for poverty. The species began in poverty. So what you really need to know is what are the things that enable some countries, and some groups within countries, to be prosperous.”

-Thomas Sowell

As an addict (in recovery) I can state with certainty that there seems to be far less stigma around the condition than there used to be. It is more often treated as a mental health condition than a moral failing. Like many mental health conditions it is actually both (which is why ‘moral psychology’ is the only strategy which has proven to be somewhat successful in addressing it) but that’s a topic for a different day. There is one area in which addiction is never mentioned, however: on the Left when crime and poverty are discussed addiction is not included in the factors. If it is is, it is vaguely implied that addiction is itself a symptom of capitalism or economic inequality (which, any person who knows something about the condition will tell you it is definitely not). Just as certain schoolkids never doing any homework is a rather too-sensible and unsociological explanation for academic failure, addiction as a personal disorder of decision-making and rewards pursuit strategy simply doesn’t implicate the larger society or institutions enough… so it is ignored. If the narrative was that millions of currently poor and criminally enmeshed people could radically improve their lives and repair their families and ultimately gain generational wealth simply by abstaining and going to meetings and doing service and praying then there would be no (or less of a) need for radical economic levelling or bureaucratic leviathans or ‘de-colonization’. Rather, the fate of each person and each family would be mainly (although not entirely) in the hands of individuals… and the progressive worldview would collapse.

Most families (black, white, brown… ) are very poor when they arrive in the United States. Within a generation they are not. This is not the dynamic we would expect to see in a society with insurmountable ‘systemic’ obstacles. Poverty and crime are less correlated with race or identity group and more correlated with addiction, anti-social behavior, and irresponsibility (which are often the same thing).

The rooms of recovery are still the one place I have yet to hear any social justice rhetoric. I’ve been to hundreds of meetings, with black and white people, young and old, broke and fabulously wealthy, trans and not. Every single person I have ever encountered has told a story of personal accountability and habitual improvement. At the end of the day it is the only kind of story which can really change people’s lives.

I go to detoxes and treatment centers and lockups to hold 12-step meetings. It’s a related program and I usually meet another man (sometimes a woman) who’s in recovery and we go in. One of us chairs and the other shares their story, and then we open up the meeting to the attendees. We pass out key chains to denote lengths of sobriety and literature and we stay afterwards and answer questions. Most of the people in those meetings (>90%) will return to drugs or alcohol or other compulsions. Most of them will do so for years. Their apparent sincerity and the deep regret they feel about what they’ve done is irrelevant: they have a mental illness, and sincerity and motivation are insufficient to bring about the psychic changes necessary to recover. If you want to become a good runner sitting around and wanting to be good at running will do nothing. Motivation is only helpful inasmuch as it compels you to begin building the habits which promote recovery. In this case they are: prayer, meetings, service, sponsorship, amends. I and millions of others can attest that once you begin down the path in an earnest way your life begins to change. The other demands of adulthood (bills, hobbies, relationships) just seem to fall into place. The Left would have you believe that the struggles of the poor in America are symptomatic of the shape and structure of our society. Obesity? Food deserts. Recidivism and anti-social behavior? Disparate sentencing and racial profiling. Destitution? Capitalism. Academic failure? Structural racism in the schools and cultural biases in testing.

I mention the meetings because last month I showed up to speak and the other man was a recovered addict with about 2 years of sobriety. He’d spent 15 years in various jails and prisons for strong-arm robbery and bank takeovers. Now he owns a barbershop and sponsors a homicide detective, himself in early recovery. You hear stories like this all the time. How does the Left account for these common miracles of self-improvement?

I will offer a different vision. Poverty can have many factors and crime many motivations but in a society as wealthy as ours they are usually linked in some way to irresponsibility or anti-social behavior. Addiction is often implicated in both… perhaps most of the time (although of course there are other causes: undocumented status or crushing medical bills or disabilities; yet none of those represents even 1/10th of the magnitude of social effects as addiction). Obesity? Laziness and bad diets. The ‘food deserts’ are often full of Central American and South Asian families buying vegetables and rice and cooking nourishing meals for less money than most people spend on snacks… but that requires some knowledge and planning and work. Recidivism and anti-social behavior? Take any population of young men and remove their fathers entirely and you will end up with a large number of aggressive and impulsive grown boys, the kind of people who would have quickly failed the marshmallow test. Destitution? Partly inflation and low wages… partly spending small fortunes on nonsense and making bad financial decisions over a lifetime; partly idleness and lack of initiative. Academic failure? Many students effectively do no homework and bully and mock the few classmates who do. Please note: this is not a racially salient story. All of these issues are much bigger in absolute terms in the white community and there they have the same causes. The Left would have you believe that when these conditions afflict black Americans it is racism (in some form), and they simply don’t talk about the problems of white America. Just like the power of personal recovery, the social problems in white communities do not serve their narrative so they are disregarded.

Addiction and poverty are not the same thing… but in the West they are closely linked.

Addiction and crime are not the same thing… but in the West they are very closely linked.

The inconvenient truth for many politicians and academics and cultural figures is that people’s troubles are usually mostly of their own making. This is not blaming the victim… for such people are both victims and victimizers, of themselves. This truth is, however, a joyful and bracing realization for the individual. In a country as wealthy and free as the United States still is most people have it within them to develop careers and start families and own houses, but they must make the right decisions. It’s never an easy road. It often requires role modeling and difficult choices and mental healthcare and selfless action, but the rewards are tremendous.

Essentially we have two messages competing in our country: (1) society is to blame for your troubles and we must fix the entire society before you can be happy and (2) you have the power repair the damage in your life given the proper lessons and strategies.

Which one sounds better to you?

“Adversity truly introduces us to ourselves.”

-The Big Book of AA

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