People, Places, and Things
Why the 3 P's of Recovery still matter
Until I started volunteering within the Recovery community, I didn't know the “PPT rules” at all. When I heard them, I realized that beyond the 12 Step culture, they actually make sense to reentry as well. As someone on Federal Probation, my entire freedom is tied into how I react to these 3 concepts. Each one can feed off of the other, sometimes in good ways but often in unhealthy ways. People you know like doing meth, you go to the places these people hang out where you know you shouldn't go, because, again the thing they are doing IS METH. What are the chances you are going to end up addicted to Meth? Pretty high. Now take this concept out of drugs to something you might not think about: You graduate college and work in the corporate world. Your bosses emphasize getting clients and good numbers at all costs. You are given corporate paid vacations, luxury retreats, and gifts from clients. Your workplace is face paced and hectic, and everyone seems to get a head by cutting corners and gladhanding upper management. You start noticing that meetings become all about the corporate groupthink and less about your actual skills and talents. You see your boss on Zoom or Slack chats once a week, but he never really knows your life. Work has been reduced to a thing.. YOU are now a thing. How soon until you burn out or start doing unethical and soul-killing actions just to keep your job?
With all this in mind, I think it's critical to take a look at the PPT's of Recovery with a wider lens, injecting what I've learned myself in my own healing process:
PEOPLE:
When I was incarcerated, there were very few people I hung out with regularly, usually because those I didn't hang with were weird, actually psychotic, or actively in a prison gang. This left a few friends, some Christian, some not, who I trusted and related to, one being my Celebrate Recovery sponsor, G. Now that I am home, I am trying to be more social and hilariously this sometimes means having college girls for colleagues who seem to think an old balding guy with a felony is kind of a cool dude (Let me disavow you of that idea, seriously..my coolness factor is very low). Because I have good boundaries, it makes for a funny dynamic rather then a bad one. Boundaries? Yep.. Check.. Got 'em. Because I am on Supervised Release, I can't actively hang out with felons which is also super-funny and ironic because my volunteer colleagues and my “boss” are all felons as well. You couldn't hit a clean rap sheet if it fell from the particle board ceiling in our offices.
This is all to say that WHO you hang out with is almost more important then what you do together. Birds of a feather.. well you know the rest of it.
PLACES:
I remember the first time I had time to visit my old hometown of Milford myself once I had been back and obtained my Driver's License again. I was dropping off resumes as part of a job search and had some time to kill because I wasn't doing anything at that point. I parked down by the train station and walked to the harbor. I had been to that harbor many many times-I fished in it, sailed into and out of it with my Dad, went to the yacht club for the annual “Blessing Of The Fleet” and Oysterfest. The harbor and I have a long history. I stood on the bridge and looked over to the other side, where a park is. My house was just one side street off of the park. I could have easily walked past it to check it out. But..I didn't bother. I have no reason to go back to the place of my shame, my worst experience in my life, the place I was dysfunctional. If you are pining for the good ol days, or to just “buzz the block” again, question why. What binds you to a place you know hurt you and your potential? What demons still lie back there waiting to let you in so they can rob you of your dignity? One of my friends and colleagues is still out hustling on Grand Avenue as I write this. I asked him when I saw him downtown if he was ready to come in. “I'll probably be there Tuesday” has turned into now Friday and he’s still out on the streets. If you know New Haven, then you know that Grand Ave is really only known for 2 things: Getting Drugs and Selling yourself (usually also to get drugs). All I can do is pray he gets himself together this time.
THINGS:
While one day I will get an iPhone, I can say after 10+years of being without one I don't feel that craving that Apple users usually have around their iPhones. I look at my flip phone to check for a text message, or set it as my alarm clock. People sometimes stare when I pull it out of my pocket like it's some holy relic from the 1200’s...Behold, the Sacred Flip of Saint Jesse of New Haven! I don't use social media beyond LinkedIn and Meetup, and I don't understand what on earth TikTok is all about. So many people are addicted to their phones, and more to what they browse and scroll through on them. Phones are things, booze is a thing, drugs are a thing. Having gone completely “dry” since mid February I don't miss booze, but I do find I miss the taste of a good beer every once and a while, so NA Beer like Athletic Brewing has been my fill in. I realize that some people cannot even look at NA Beer without wanting to drink the real thing, so this may not be everyone's cup of tea. The point being, that if we are not careful, Things can control us rather then being things controlled BY US. The distinction matters here.
Consider if you need a radical change but don't be too fundamentalist. You may need to change friends, but you still need people, so don't isolate just because a lot of people may be unhealthy. Find new places to go rather then staying home because you miss the old places and don't want to bother. Watch your relationship to things.. Do you have more “stuff” then you do values? Ouch.. you're in dangerous territory there. Change what you can in sensible ways and you'll be less miserable, more productive, and less likely to pick up your bad habits again.