Incremental Change

 December 12, 2021

24 Hour Sober Medallion. My sobriety date is July 27, 1999. This maybe 2 or 3 months after I'd moved from Toronto, to London in search of happiness. I was offered a medallion at my first meeting. I refused it, I was very full of myself, believing that I didn't need tokens to lean on. Plus I wasn't convinced that I was an addict. Yes absolutely I had been brought up in an out of control addicts home, yes clearly my thinking differed wildly from others. Yes I'd come home from work and sometimes stay drunk from the moment I got home to, eight hours before I had to go back to work. But my behaviour varied widely, that was the exception, not the norm. This though more than anything defined me, I was scared stupid that every drink, every toke, would hook me, and turn me into a carbon copy of either of my parents.

So there I was, sitting in an AA meeting, watching this pretty blonde receive her umpteenth 24-hour sober medallion.   

I had been going to meetings for a couple of months at that point and was only beginning to get it. She was frustrated with herself and was begging God for help to stay sober. I giggled to myself about that—God? He didn’t exist. And if he did, I thought, he was a complete ass.

After the meeting, I went for coffee with a guy who had been an MP with the RCAF (Royal Canadian Armed Forces), and from this fella, I learned a new definition of God.

I unloaded on him about my feelings toward God and how I was really struggling with the idea of God as a higher power. He looked me straight in the eye—and kind of pissed me off. His comments, though not unkind, blew the lid off something I had been struggling with for more than a dozen years.

When I was around ten or eleven, a neighborhood kid—who had a reputation as a clean-cut, do-what-he’s-told type—once said about both my brother and me that we were out of control and had no discipline. At the time, that statement was meaningless to us. What right did he—or anyone, for that matter—have to sit in judgment about how we lived our lives?

In retrospect, though, our entire family had been out of control, and the whole neighborhood had noticed.

Not surprisingly, this behavior in me had been easily spotted by the former military cop. He said to me, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to start living my life with G.O.D.—Good Ordered Discipline.

My immediate reaction should have been to tell him to go fuck himself. But the thing of it was—I knew he was right. And that pissed me off even more.

I owe that guy a great deal of gratitude. By learning about this serious shortcoming in my behavior, all of a sudden AA’s program—and its Twelve Steps—made a whole lot more sense to me.

It was at this point that I began to understand I had spent the previous 25 years in survival mode, and that, out of necessity, anything went. Under “normal” circumstances, there should have been absolutely no reason for a 13-year-old kid to be 50 or more kilometers from home on his bike—simply to avoid any chance of running into the kids, or my brother, who bullied me.

During the winter, I would cut class and ride the subway until it closed, then take the all-night buses just to avoid being at home. A lot of the trouble I got into during these adventures was a direct result of the rage I was filled with because of what took place at home. I lashed out at every opportunity. I had opportunities to join gangs, but I thought they were bullshit—and the people who joined them were weaklings, without an ounce of self-respect or the balls to say no.

The following 9 points describe what it’s like to live in survival mode:

1. You are doing everything you can just to get through the day.

2. You focus all your energy on the next 24 hours—you can’t even think about tomorrow, let alone next week.

3. You can only consider one task at a time. Everything feels urgent.

4. You feel utterly alone and helpless. You’re convinced that only you can do the job right—and that you must.

5. You push others away without thinking, because you don’t have the time or energy to deal with them.

6. You don’t eat properly, sleep is a foreign concept, and your stress level feels like it could snap at any moment.

7. You rush around like crazy but never feel caught up.

8. You can’t remember the last time you laughed or enjoyed a day.

9. All you can do is react to whatever arises.

The following can help enormously:

Be willing to let go. Pare life down to the basics. Remind yourself: We survived, and at that time, that was the goal. Start with what you can do right now. When things begin to come together, slowly add to it—one step at a time.

Put succinctly, survival mode involves adaptive physiological changes in the body that help us respond to stressors. When we experience stress, a cascade of hormonal and physiological responses prepares us to fight, flee, or freeze (Harvard Health Publishing, 2018).

But when we’re “surviving” too long, the effects become clear. Research shows that chronic stress and continuous exposure to stress hormones can be harmful (Hormone Health Network, 2018). Sometimes, our body overreacts to everyday stressors—treating a “rabbit” as if it’s a “bear.”

Frequent stress responses and chronic exposure to these hormones can take a toll on the body, affect our emotional health, strain relationships, lead to medical issues, and increase the risk of anxiety and depression (Harvard, 2018; Hormone Health Network, 2018). So what does this mean, and how do we cope better—how do we move from surviving to truly living?

When under stress, it can be tempting to stay in survival mode—riding the waves like a roller coaster and white-knuckling our way through. But there are ways to help ourselves:

THE BASICS

1. Connect with yourself
   Survival mode often involves disconnection—even dissociation. Reconnecting is key. Ask yourself: “What do I need?” When we’re in survival mode, we often overlook our basic needs. What is your body telling you? Are you tired? Hungry? What are your emotions saying—are you scared, angry, sad? Take a moment to check in so that you can respond intentionally rather than automatically.

2. Connect with others
   Seek support from friends, loved ones, a therapist, or safe people who can help you reconnect—with yourself and others. These relationships help us gain perspective, find stability, and shift from surviving to living.

3. Exercise
   Cardiovascular exercise is a well-known way to help the body manage stress and regulate the hormones involved in stress responses.

4. Be kind to yourself
   Don’t shame yourself. You didn’t ask to be stuck in survival mode. Our bodies are adaptive machines—and sometimes they adapt to unhealthy environments when they have no better options. Breaking the cycle takes time and patience.

It’s important to understand that for some—especially those with histories of complex trauma—survival mode becomes an automatic response. It may feel like the only way to be. While there’s beauty in our bodies’ ability to adapt, chronic stress or trauma can rewire the nervous system to make that stress response our “normal.”

Rewiring and healing take time, especially if survival mode began in childhood. Regardless of what put us in this state—or how long we’ve been stuck in it—we can learn to help our bodies and minds distinguish the “bears” from the “rabbits” and, over time, learn how to live again, instead of merely survive.