Episode 27(Part:3): The Gift of Addiction in Recovery with Steven Crozier

In this episode, Steven Crozier shares insights from his 35+ years in recovery, exploring how addiction can be a transformative gift through personal growth, healing, and the power of community in 12-step programs.

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Podcast Transcript:

Hello world, and welcome to Choices, Books and Gifts, where you always have choices. I'd like to welcome back a guest we had a few weeks ago, Steven Crozier. Hi, Steven. How are you?

Hi, Jay, I'm doing well, man. How are you?

Good, I'm going to read a little bit about Steven.

So you can understand more about what we will talk about. Steven Crozier is an insightful author and speaker with over 35 years of experience in recovery. He has dedicated much of his life to helping others navigate the challenging journey of addiction to recovery. His work focuses on practical wisdom from personal experience and years of engagement in 12-step programs.

Steven is the author of a series of influential pamphlets, which include It's a Selfish Program, amends, apologies, the Myths of Forgiveness, the Gift of Addiction and Emotional Sobriety. Through his writing, Steven emphasizes the power of personal growth, emotional healing, and spiritual transformation in recovery, providing invaluable guidance to those seeking peace and purpose after addiction.

And I've gone through these pamphlets, and they're amazing. And the first one I'm going to go over is the gift of addiction. These can be purchased in my store at 220 East 78th Street (Between 2nd & 3rd Avenues), New York, NY 10075. You can get them online through our website. You can also get them through Amazon using the usual social media to make a purchase. Hence, as I mentioned, Steven has been a guest of us before.

He's done two of the pamphlets already; today, we are doing The Gift of Addiction. If that's okay with you, I will jump right into it. Let's go. All righty. So, number one,

What is the meaning behind the title, The Gift of Addiction.

So what motivated me to write this particular booklet is that I wanted to share, with the recovery community, my experience for all of the hardships that led up to, you know, that that was my life and addiction and for as much hard work and as much of a challenge as it was to get into recovery and stay in recovery, to maintain sobriety, all of those things, my addiction, the fact that I am an addict and that I chose to recover, is, in fact, a gift. It's not a curse. It's not a punishment. It has been a gift in my life, and I believe it can be a gift for anybody who chooses to recover.

I certainly agree with that. It's, you know, once, once you get into the program. This program is undoubtedly a gift. It's given me a life far beyond anything I thought possible. Number two,

Can you explain how addiction, while destructive, can lead to personal transformation and growth?

Well, I think the short answer to that question is that addiction leads us to a point in our lives where we have a life-or-death decision to make, you know, and if we continue on in our addiction, whether it kills us tomorrow or kills us a year or two years or three years or ten years, and now

We are choosing death. You know that it's simple. If we decide to recover, if we choose to find sobriety, to find a higher power to work the steps to and to claim a life in sobriety, we're choosing life. We're choosing to live. And that's a gift in and of itself, just to choose life, to choose to make the most of what has been given to us.

But the further, the further transformation for me is happening. When we work the steps, when we do the things that we need to do to get sober and to stay sober, you know, we get to it; we get to explore the circumstances that led to our addiction. We get to explore our part in kind of maintaining the structure of our addiction. Then we get to work on dismantling that old, broken system and putting in a new one that works for us, keeps us sober and alive, and keeps us moving forward. And that's transformation.

It's a gift that just keeps giving. It certainly is.

How do you help people shift their perspective on addiction from shame to seeing it as a gift? Because so many people feel guilt when they come into the program?

Yeah, I understand. I mean, it's. I think all of us have to go through a period. Where and what?

Looking at our past behaviour with clear eyes. We feel shame. It's not; it's not unnatural or an unhealthy reaction.

I think the trick to accessing the gift that addiction is is to not stay stuck in that shame. It's, and that's absolutely possible. If we work the steps, we can move.

We can move beyond shame. But I think a couple of things. One regarding shame. First of all, I think what I pointed out to the sponsor is that I have or, you know, friends in recovery that what counsel and talked with is to be wary of shame becoming an addictive strategy. In other words, if we choose to stay stuck in our shame, we're just generating over and over and over again the kind of pain that we medicated from in our active addiction.

And at some point, we run the risk of going back to those old ways of medicating that pain. So staying stuck in addiction can just be a way that our cunning, baffling, and powerful addiction or staying stuck in shame, sorry can be a way in which our cunning, baffling, and powerful addiction can work its way back into our lives.

Another thing that I point out to people who feel trapped or paralyzed by their shame.

Is that there's that there can be within that shame a bit of a victim mentality, a bit of victimhood, in the circumstances in which they choose to see themselves as trapped?

Victimhood, by definition, is the antithesis of recovery in addiction. We need to claim our claim, place, responsibility, and power. To truly heal in addiction, and all those things are the opposite of victimhood and shame, will lead us there. Shirley is sitting here.

Yeah. You know, you've mentioned two things so far. The one that I identify so much with. First, the shame. You know, when I came in, I just thought I was weaker than everybody else. I felt I had no self-control and things of that nature.

And as I went through recovery, I realized that was the strength that when you wave that white flag and say, okay, you know, enough is enough. That's when you win the war.

You also mentioned something so true to my heart: the steps. You keep saying the steps. I attended meetings, acclimated, and got a home group when I entered the program. But it was not until a sponsor grabbed me and said, Listen, we need to start doing some work here if you want to begin healing. And then, once you heal, you have to start giving it away. So

Thank you for mentioning those steps. They're very important.

Absolutely. My friend, I'm pretty sure I mentioned it probably in one of the earlier podcasts, just because it's one of the themes of my recovery. I believe the 12 steps are a divinely engineered system of transformation and healing.

People who work with diligence, integrity, and persistence will heal.

I agreed.

How has your personal experience shaped your understanding of addiction as a tool for recovery?

You know, I came in. I first came into the rooms of AA back in 1990. I worked the program hard, and I worked pretty well. I think I am over in the United States. I'm clean and sober to this day. However, I graduated after about four years in the program. It was like, I think I got this covered. I guess I'll take it from here. You know, the usual song and dance, you know, and, you know, I went on to claim my life as an average person.

Right? I wanted to be normal, like everybody else. And what that got me was, was a new bottom and a new addiction. About eight years after that. Probably, and just a whole new set of stuff I needed to clean up of, you know, the damage I needed to repair and a whole new set of work that I needed to do.

But it was, I gotta say, this time, the lessons stuck. You know, I still go to meetings regularly. I have sponsor sponsees, work the steps, and do service work. I, you know, show up wherever I can to help other people with addiction. I reach out to my IRA power regularly and, in my recovery, Brothers and sisters.

When you were going through those issues, did you have to go through another 12-step program or just? Oh yeah, man.

Is it Al-Anon? No, no, my friend, it was sex, a lot of Addicts Anonymous. Okay. Yeah, it was another long story, right?

But it was. Yeah. Anyway, a whole new program and, just and. Yes, I started back at step one and worked my way through it. And I actually worked it through again in codependency, you know, just because it was.

Right. But that was, that was, that was an issue. But it's through that work, through that work and every bit of it, every step I took, no matter how many times I worked it, that brought me to the point where I am today. A place of clarity, serenity, purpose, and joy in my life.

Yeah, yeah, I know that I was so codependent. It's so it's. I did some work in Colder and Al-Anon, and it just. It's just who I was. It was very difficult to overcome as equally as difficult as alcohol.

My friend, I think that I truly believe that codependency is at the root of all addiction. I think we are all dependent and that codependency is the breeding ground for addiction because it's such a futile strategy. You know, we can never be satisfied and never get what we're looking for through a codependent approach to life. And that just creates the kind of endless pain that, you know, we end up medicating one way, one way or another.

So yeah, I think once we've addressed the initial issues of our addictions, dependence is the next frontier.

No doubt about it.

What are the first steps someone can take to view their addiction as an opportunity for change?

I would say, first of all, let go of any vestiges of victimhood in your life, any story that you have that you're that you were the hopeless victim of whatever the circumstances were that led you into addiction, and whatever, you know, whatever became of you as an active addict, let go of that victim mentality because the victim mentality will cripple you in terms of your transformation.

Second, let go of any idea that you should or could do this alone. Do this by yourself. Embrace the idea of community. Embrace the idea that that help is needed. And that is available. And you need to ask for it, and you need to make yourself available to it. And any idea, any idea that you're, you're alone. You know, I was one of my just deadly illusions when I was in recovery was that I was, like, fatally unique. Terminally ill is how I was, is how I characterized it. Like nobody had ever done all the things that I had done.

Nobody was as bad as I was. Nobody. And therefore, nobody could help me.

So, embracing this idea that we are one of many, that there are people out there who have been where we've been and have gotten to where we want to get to and who can help us and who want to help us if we ask for that help and make ourselves available to the work that needs to be done to get where they are today.

Yeah, that change is so important. I remember when I first came in, and I was very concerned about changing, and the fellow that first approached me said, you know, how's life working for you right now? And he says, maybe, we need some changing in your life, you know, and, you know, as per the question, change is good because when we get sober, the change is so much better than where we were, at least for me.

How does embracing addiction as a gift impact long-term recovery and spiritual growth?

I think what it's done for me, I'll just speak. I'll speak for me personally. When I was able to see the gift that my addiction was, it just shifted my whole perspective on recovery day. It shifted. It brought me a sense of joy, a sense of purpose, and a sense of perspective that I,

That I could never have when I just thought that recovery from addiction was a job; you know, it was just this drudgery that I had to do in order not to, you know, suffer the way I suffered when I was in addiction. Yeah. You know, to see it as a gift, to recognize that I've been led here by my higher power to live a life of purpose and freedom and joy, just makes the work so much easier and makes it so much more enjoyable and rewarding to share that with other people and spread this message of recovery.

So, viewing it as a gift was a total game-changer.

Yeah. You know, once again, all I do is identify with what you have to say because, you know, that spiritual growth with, you know, spirit you, you, you find this growth, and that's the gift, you know? And that's part of why I came to see my higher power. I mean, I let go of this old idea that I had from my old religious upbringing that God is the punishing parent. God is the judgmental, you know, lousy dad kind of thing. And realize that, in fact, I had a higher power, which was all loving, all patient, all-powerful, and who had given me all of these circumstances in my life to lead me to this point, you know. It made all the suffering make so much more sense and made it seem like, you know, not a burden but a gift. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.

How does the mindset help people confront the painful consequences of addiction?

Right, right. Well, the way it worked for me was. By the time I got to my eighth and ninth steps, especially in this most recent time that I worked the process, I was well into recovery.

My sponsor took his time. He was very patient, and that really worked for me. So I'd probably been working the steps for 18 months or more before I got to the eighth and ninth steps, where we take accountability for the damage we've done and do what we can to clean up the wreckage of our past. I began I was beginning to see that these steps were not they weren't just they weren't just hard work.

They weren't just, you know, a punishment that I was having to endure. But in fact, they were a carefully engineered and created series of, you know, exercises that were leading me to greater and greater freedom.

One of the things that I needed to be free from was the burden of the shame and the guilt and the sadness and the regret, the remorse for all of the things that I did when I was in active addiction, all of the ways that I treated people that I would never treat, and when I saw that I was being allowed to make amends for those behaviours to clean up, to take accountability for them and to heal some of the damage that had been done.

I embrace that wholeheartedly now. And it was beautiful. It was transformative for me. A life-changing event.

I hear you. Can you discuss the role of vulnerability in transforming from addiction into a gift from addiction to a gift?

Absolutely. In my mind, it's one of how we can reframe our way of looking at ourselves and the world to put ourselves in a place to accept this gift.

Because, you know, my addiction, and from what I've seen is sitting in the rooms, all of our addictions live in secrecy and live in isolation. And they live behind this story that you couldn't love me if you knew who I was. And I have to create a personality and a front to be acceptable and ultimately lovable to you.

And that's the opposite of vulnerability, that, you know, that's the exact opposite of being authentic, open and vulnerable, and what I learned in recovery and what I try to share with the people that I work with in recovery,

I had this story that, if you knew me, you couldn't love me. It has got to go.

Because the only way I can be known and loved is to be seen. The only way that I can truly heal is to hold all of me out into the light, to be vulnerable, to risk that vulnerability, to hold all of me out into the light and experience that miracle of acceptance and unconditional love that's available to us in the rooms, you know, from our brothers and sisters in recovery and from our higher power, and vulnerability is the only path to that.

Absolutely. Love it.

How can people in early recovery begin to see the positive changes that stem from addiction?

I think one way to do that is to, you know, your will after you've worked your first step, you've done you, you know, you've done a first step story. You can look like you know what it was like, what happened, what it was like, and what it's like now. Once you've taken some inventory of what your life was like, make a list of what it is that you want in recovery.

Make a list of what you want in this new and sober life. The reasons for that. You want to stay sober. You know, better relationship with your family, better relationship with your children, better, you know, a better job, performance at work, you know, more friends, whatever it is, make that list, keep it somewhere handy, and review it as often as you need to.

And what's going to happen is, day by day by day, you're going to see you're going to check more of those boxes, and you're going to see more and more the benefits that are coming to you as a result of your choice to stay sober, as a result of your choice to do the work that it takes to heal from this disease and to create a life where your sobriety is first and foremost and everything that flows out of that is, becomes the benefits of this work.

Yeah. I sometimes couldn't see it when I first came through the doors. But the people in my program saw it. And they say, you know, the changes in you are unbelievable. And it was so good to hear. And I know they were being honest, and sometimes I didn't see it, but they did.

So yeah. So that's why we have a community to recover. Absolutely. That's why you have to have that community.

How does addiction teach humility and self-awareness?

I'm going to do the self-awareness piece first and the second.

First of all, we see through the process of the steps that we're led through, the searching and fearless moral inventory of our fourth step, the sharing of that inventory, and our fifth step, the work on our character defects in the sixth and seventh steps.

All of those are self-awareness exercises. They are exercises this first. But looking back at our past with clear eyes, with sober eyes, and seeing the series of events that led us into our addiction—this series of events that occurred when we were in our addiction—the patterns that were there, the beliefs that fuel that behaviour, you know, so we have that's one level of self-awareness.

And then in the sixth and seventh steps, as we examine our character defects and become willing to have God remove those character defects, we become, we get to another level of self-awareness, which is, you know, these are the things in my life that are standing in my way of being the kind of person that I want to be, and living the happy, joyous, and free life that is my birthright as a child of God, you know?

And it's only self. Only with self-awareness can we begin to see those things and then start to take the steps to move beyond them. So yeah, to me, that's self-awareness. Yeah. Humility in that same process—working with a higher power and aligning ourselves with that higher power's will—makes us aware of who we truly are.

More and more, we get an idea of who we indeed are. The best definition of humility I've ever heard, which I hold in my heart, is humility—genuinely knowing your place. Truly, truly knowing your place. As a human being, I fit into the whole structure of reality.

And once I have an idea where I truly fit in, man, there's nothing more humbling than the recognition of where I am on the scale of things, you know, not this grandiose, overblown, you know, egotistical blowhard that I had to create to prop up my addiction. But just a child of God, you know, not all-powerful, not seeing dependent on the love and the care of a power greater than myself to get what I truly want.

That's. Yeah. Yeah, I know when I was going through this step myself, I didn't think I could change some of the things that came up. You know, I talked to my sponsor. I say, I've been doing this for so many years, and it's just become who I am. And she says, Well, you know, you can change.

But if you sought God out, you would. He can and would change you. She says, Don't. This is beyond you. You have to bring it to your higher power. And that stuff worked—that worked—that I changed.

How does the gift of addiction relate to the concept of surrender in 12-step programs?

I would say the way that it relates is that it's not available to us. It's not until we are willing to surrender that we won't be able to see the gift. We're not going to be able to truly to truly receive the gift. If we are, if we're doing if we're working a program of recovery reluctantly or out of obligation or for somebody else or, you know, for anything, anything other than I am doing this because I have recognized that I need to turn my will over to a power greater than myself until we make it until we make that step, we're not truly going to get all of the benefits of recovery. Choice is critical in this process; choosing to recover is one of our greatest lessons. I think in recovery, to learn the value of choice and the value of putting our whole free will behind our desire to heal from addiction. That is the path to enjoying all the gifts that addiction can offer or recovery from addiction can offer.

Yeah, all surrender and acceptance. Those are huge. When it comes to sobriety, how can people with a substance use disorder use their experiences to help others in their recovery community?

You know, this is how it works. Yeah, this is how it works. Is it one addict telling another person with a substance use disorder I've been where you've been. I've experienced what you're experiencing. This is how I got through it. And this is what I got as a result of it. You know.

Again, back to that thing of when the guy was in active addiction, the terminally unique, terminally hip dude, you know, who wasn't like anybody else, who was on a journey like no other, and nobody can understand me.

And nobody had ever done the things I've done or been as bad as I've been. All of that stuff kept me blind to the reality of my addiction.

You know, to come into a room of people who have been where I've been and gotten through it and are so much better off are at the place that I want to get to was part of the change for me, part of the huge transformation in this, and I today I pay that forward.

I passed a law the way it was passed along to me. And honestly, Jay, I don't think I don't think anybody but other addicts can look another person with a substance use disorder in the eye and say, I know what you're talking about. I've been there, and this is how I got through it. This. Yeah, this is this is the secret. I can't hear that from somebody who hasn't been where I've been.

I think that's why the program works so well. You know, it works so well because, you know, you can have so much identification with someone, and I genuinely believe. Yeah. It's hard. Some people do it, but it's hard to keep it unless you give it away. It really is so essential to give it away and do service.

Yeah.

What challenges do people face when trying to see addiction as a gift, and how can they overcome them? You sort of covered that. But we'll go over a little bit. There might be another thing or two to say about it. What came to me as I was hearing that question is one of the biggest challenges to seeing it as a gift.

Well, there are two, actually. One is the legacy of pain that we bring into that we bring in to our recovery, you know, just whatever the life circumstances, the family of origin stuff, that kind of where our addiction is bred, you know, into our life, life as active addicts when we're just, you know, we're just wrecking balls, you know, for wrecking other people's lives or wrecking our lives.

And, you know, there are a lot of unpleasant memories that get brought into that. And it can be a challenge to look at that and go; that was a gift that I was getting, you know, that, and I think it's essential to take a longer view, you know, sort of a God's eye view of it, and recognize that was a part of our lives.

And it led us to the place that we are now. And without all those things, we couldn't have gotten to where we've gotten now. And one thing I want to say, and one thing that motivated me to write the book, is, you know, we have all these circumstances that lead it to the point where we start working the step when we start or these steps. We start healing, and then we are getting benefits that people who aren't in recovery from addiction don't always get.

They're available to everyone, but not everybody is driven the way we're driven, you know, motivated that we were motivated to take full advantage of those things. So, to me, that's part of the gift of addiction. We're given access and motivation through a series of tools that create lives that can be even better than those of people who haven't been where we've been.

And that healing is part of the gift. Another struggle. The second part of my answer to your question is that the work itself is hard. You know, the work of transformation and living a sober lifestyle is not easy, and it's not for the faint of heart. We have to rewire a lot of old neural patterns.

We have to discard a lot of old beliefs and habits. And it's hard work. And it can be difficult to see the gift when we have to work hard. But it's there. And as you pointed out, we have brothers and sisters in recovery to point out how much better our lives are and how much better we are.

We have gratitude lists. I'm a big believer in gratitude lists, you know, to just inventory how our lives have improved through all this hard work and to see where the gift really lies, regardless of how hard it's been.

I mean, I totally agree with you. As far as, you know, the gifted and so many other people, as we call them, civilians.

We have legitimate, great tools today, and these are the things you would never teach growing up. You were never taught in school. And I know I certainly didn't learn it from my parents, but I learned it in the program. And to always be able to, you know, reach out to a sponsor or other people in the program, and this is the journey I'm on.

What do you think? Do you think I am doing the right thing or the wrong thing, and to get that feedback? But the gift is we have tools that many people don't. And that's wonderful. All righty.

This is a good one. What role does gratitude play in the recovery process when viewing addiction through this lens?

I mentioned the gratitude list in my fondest gratitude list just a few minutes ago. You know, I think gratitude is a natural byproduct. I think of byproducts as the right word. But the natural result of what we get as a result of our work is almost like a reflex, and we have so much to be grateful for.

You know, we have been given so much in this recovery—so much of what we wanted, what we always wanted, but were unable to achieve because we had this addiction that went in the way of it.

My experience in my own life and the lives of the men and women I've seen in the rooms is that gratitude gets more blessings. We are grateful for our blessings. And the gratitude begets more blessings because we were able to see them. We're able to access and orient ourselves more towards the beauty that's available in our lives. And it's this endless positive feedback loop, so I'm a big fan of gratitude.

Yeah. I mean, I am, too, without gratitude. I don't know what I'd have. And as you say, the more you get, the more you get. And gratitude, you know, for me, was something I didn't have when I wasn't in the program. I didn't have gratitude. I never I, you know, it was always miserable. It was always as if I didn't understand what gratitude was to be happy for those small things.

I'm up, eating, and there's a roof over my head—all those things I am so grateful for. I also love that you said to make a gratitude list, especially if you're feeling down and beating yourself up. That is what you can be grateful for. It always surpasses the negative parts of your life. The gratitude list is always bigger. At least, that's what I have found.

How can someone use the lessons learned from addiction to better their relationships? Do your relationships improve? What happens with all of that?

I think it's one of the huge gifts of our recovery. I believe that I can see it in a couple of ways. One is that we learned what we learned in recovery, what I learned in recovery, and what I've seen others learn in recovery, which is that we are all interconnected. You know, we're not these isolated individuals. We are part of this grand hole. And what I do and say has an impact on you. Do I show up? I love it.

Do I show up unloving and do a show of anger? Do I show up joyful? That stuff has an impact in the ripples out in the same way, you know, the way the people around me show up impacts, you know, my being and how I feel, and it's so clear in the rooms. I mean, it's how, you know, we meet together, we talk with each other, we play volleyball together, and we support each other.

We give each other feedback and share wisdom, experience strength, and hope, and it becomes clearer and clearer the more we do this work that we're all part of this large hole. And for me, that's just changed how I treat people. You know, it's changed. My relationships with people are no longer things to be used for my gratification.

They are parts of a precious whole that I'm also a part of, and I better treat them well if I want to be treated well. If I want the good things I want for myself, I need to. I need to enjoy those things for you. And do those things that I can do to help you achieve.

You know what it is that you're looking for. So, it's had a significant impact on my relationships.

Okay, I have to say, Steven, whenever we get together, it truly is a pleasure. You're a man who works a strong program. You can hear it expressing your gratitude and what you've written here.

You've done a wonderful job. I hope people see or even hear this because your message is vital. Thank you. So, world, we thank you for tuning in. We're always grateful. We hope you learned something today. Something you can take with you.

May God bless you and always look after you.

Have a great day.