Autism & Addiction

Last weekend my husband deleted over 2,300 episodes of Peppa Pig from Sky.  Two days later, Finian locked the sitting room door and un-deleted every fucking one of them.  His fine motor skills aren't great, so he didn't manage to give us the finger.  But I know he wanted to.

We laughed and said "gawd that kid is so addicted".  As I was eating chocolate and opening a bottle of wine.  Irony is a thundering fury-bitch, but she's usually worth listening to.  Hate that.

We tend to use the term 'addicted' loosely..... and I really ought to know better.  As I've talked about before, addiction tore my childhood apart.  It's taken a lot of therapy to help loosen it's grip on me. 

Of course Finian's Peppa Pig love-in is more aligned with the perseveration we see with autism, than with addiction.  So Finian gets a pass.

I can't speak with the same confidence about our weekend rioja and dairy milk, however.

What IS addiction though?  When does a pleasant pass-time become dysfunctional?

When we continue to repeat a behaviour for the rewarding hit, despite it being damaging (physically, socially or mentally), then we have a problem.  The dopamine surge is so overwhelmingly compelling that we are unaware of (or unconsciously deny) the harm we are doing to our bodies, minds, pockets, relationships and careers. We crave it in it's absence.  We surround ourselves with people who collude with our behaviour, and become increasingly disconnected from our own soul. We can be addicts and not even know it.

We can get addicted to anything.

Alcohol.  Prescription drugs.  Sex.  Porn.  Religion.  Instagram Likes.  Shopping.  Street drugs.  Gambling.  Sugar.  Dieting.  Martyrdom.  Peppa fucking Pig.  Cleaning.  Toxic relationships.  Exercise.  Candy Crush (true story).  Self-harming.  Shoes.  Keanu Reeves.

What we're addicted to doesn't really matter.  What's important is what it's shielding us from.

Addiction is seductive because it protects us from pain.

Addiction is soul-destroying because it protects us from pain.

Short-term respite at the expense of long-term wholeness.  

As the cheery Buddhists point out, life is suffering.  Sitting with, and owning, our awfulness is how we re-connect with ourselves.  Finding peace at the other side of  the (admittedly shitty) process is how we rediscover, and love, our true selves.

It's simple, but not easy.

Special needs parents need to be particularly vigilant.  We have plenty of reasons to crave escape.

Beneath the addiction, beneath the grief/shame/anger/whatever you're having yourself, is peace and self-love.  It's totally worth digging for.

Autism & Spells

I'm not normally superstitious.

But you know when you say something and then think "I really wish I hadn't said that" ?  Well, that happened me this morning.

I was having coffee with a friend while our boys were at youth club.  The craic was great.  We had hot coffee, a good laugh, and two autism-free hours.  All good-for-the-soul stuff.

But then I said it.

"You know what, Finian's in great form these days."

I could almost hear the wind die, the earth stop rotating and the planet collectively hold it's breath.  Small creatures dived for cover and birds dropped from the sky.  They looked at each other in disbelief and stuttered "she said what???"  Minor demons stirred from their lairs, rubbed a thousand years sleep from their eyes and whispered "we'll see about that".

Fuck sake, like.

I scanned the coffee shop for a black cat, a pair of magpies, a rabbit's foot..... anything to undo the hex I'd just woven on my son's demeanour.  But Costa was fresh out of spell antidotes.  I couldn't even get them on my points card.  

We almost got away with it, too.  

Fin remained in good form until this evening, when my jinxed words caught up with me.  He indulged in a most impressive meltdown.  I spent over an hour lying on the sofa with him screaming in one ear, and Little  Einsteins screaming in the other.  It's next to impossible to decide which was worse.  

On the surface of it, I was attempting to co-regulate his emotions.  In reality, I was wondering what unspeakable creature invented Dry January (probably one of the minor demons I woke up), and why in the name of Jesus, his mother and all the holy baby lambs I was doing it?   

Anyway, the meltdown has passed, the earth has caught her breath, and the demons are safely tucked back in their satanic little beds (they're cute when they're asleep).  I'm drinking chamomile tea instead of industrial-grade ethanol.  Finian is singing Here Come the Rubber Dubbers in Russian.  The rest of Dry January will be a piece of piss.

"you just can't afford us"

 

 

Autism & Alcohol

In the month of December I drank enough delicious red wine to stun a small (but drop-dead gorgeous) ox.

A bratty part of me wants to brag about this.  However, my internal organs, my sleep patterns and my lack of energy are a bit more grown-up, and have responsibly informed me that I need to stop.  Hate that.

I love red wine, and I want it to remain a fun, enjoyable part of my life.  But there's enough alcoholism in my extended family to award me a pedigree, so it's something I have to keep an eye on.  It's reassuring for me to occasionally step away from the rioja and reframe my relationship with it.  I don't want a divorce from it ...... but the odd trial separation with a bit of reflection thrown in keeps things healthy.   

So I'm doing Dry January.

As ever, a month or so of not drinking is illuminating (even just four days into it).  Already I'm being reminded of some unhealthy triggers that urge me to rip the cork out with my bare teeth and neck it straight from the bottle.  I'm nothing if not classy.

Autism is close enough to alcoholism in the dictionary to be worrying.  I've become aware that when I have a stressful spell with Finian (which is just about every day, give or take) I automatically think "I can manage this.  I'll have a glass of wine tonight and I'll be grand".  So instead of enjoying a relaxing drink at the end of the day, I'm self-medicating so I don't go insane.  What a waste of lovely wine.

Autism is hard, and shushing the chattering monkey in my head is easy with alcohol.  Booze soothes any tendrils of dread in my stomach.  It makes everything seem hilarious.  Eventually it drop kicks me to sleep with great insistence.  

But it's not so funny when I wake up three hours later, anxious, fuzzy-headed and unable to go back to sleep.  With another fun-packed day of autism ahead of me.

So I'm using this month to recalibrate, and rediscover less headachy ways of managing the stress of living with autism.  Truth be told, I'm struggling a little with boredom, of all things.  But that's a small trade-off for feeling rested, energised and motivated.

Autism and alcohol has the potential to become a car-crash relationship.  It's really good for me to take a step back from it every so often so I can continue to enjoy it, instead of rely on it.

"if I believe I'm beautiful, it must be true" (Buttercup, 2022)