Addicts in high places

Our brain says jump. We say, 'How high?'

What is it about former addicts and skydiving? At meetings, whenever we talk about getting a hobby to distract us from, you know, smoking crack, someone always mentions jumping out of an airplane.

Look up. On any given day, countless recovering addicts are hurtling toward the Earth at 200 kilometres per hour.

But isn't that rush exactly what we're trying to re-train our chronically over-fucked brains not to crave? You probably already know this, but crack cocaine triggers the release of dopamine in the brain. And dopamine is the brain’s ‘feel-good’ chemical. It helps with learning, concentration and even sleep. Crack sets the dopamine dial to 11. Basically, as addicts, we fuck our brains senseless. Then we roll over, load our pipe and do it all over again.

I’d be willing to bet falling from the atmosphere, and imagining you might become a human pancake before pulling the parachute, delivers a similar blast of feel-goodery.

Honestly, this isn’t the kind of high I’m looking for. In fact, I'm looking to settle down my dopamine levels. Not rile them up. These days, I’m working to find awe and wonder in everyday moments. You know, like reading, staring at pretty moons, and looking at pictures of my dog. Normal people stuff. I know that's a tall order. Especially in early recovery, when the brain — accustomed to having lightning bolts hurled at it — has to settle for binge-watching the criminally underrated British comedy, 'The Thick of It'.

Let's face it. Nothing will ever kick the barn doors off of those dopamine receptors like a virgin blast of crack cocaine.

People say sex comes close. And maybe skydiving. The thing is I'll never have that much sex — at least not without becoming the kind of human being my mother doesn't want to cuddle with. And skydiving, while on my bucket list, is more expensive than crack and kind of a massive fuck you to the environment.

More importantly, it just keeps feeding the addict's need for speed — which, in this case, is terminal velocity. Emphasis on terminal.

What happens on rainy days when you can't get your high-flying fix? Do you jones for it as miserably as I did when I used to wait, in abject misery, for my dealer to show up?

Sure, you'll say that jumping out of a plane doesn't take a blowtorch to every facet of your life like crack does. And you'd be right.

You might also take up that annoyingly popular mantra: In order to grow, you need to get out of your comfort zone. And you'd be wrong.

Ordinary life does a fine job all on its own of making us uncomfortable. From the moment we wake up in the morning, we're wading through countless micro-abrasions. Doubly so for the recovering addict.

Just about every one of those moments is an opportunity to learn and grow. You just need to learn how to look for it. Even boredom teaches us restraint. It settles the mind and deprograms us from the — let's face it — very crack-ish tendency to jump from one high to another. Literally.

And what happens when that thrill fades as it inevitably must? (Unless you really did smoke crack down to your final brain cell.) Maybe you’ll have milked every last drop of dopamine from that beleaguered brain. Maybe you’ll never find joy in a simple starry night ever again.

I'm not looking for an alternative to crack. I'm looking to lower the bar for what brings me delight. Not raise it by 14,000 feet.

Besides, life doles out discomfort generously enough. So whenever possible, I choose comfort.

I choose 'The Thick of It'.