Welcome, with a message about Uniqueness and The Matrix.

Welcome to Utopidy!  I am so thrilled you have decided to take a couple minutes out of your day to take a glance and have a read.  My name is Christian Polak. I am the owner and host of these pages, which I intend to be a healthy blend of science and philosophy along with some entertaining stories and perhaps some outright daydreaming.  Utopidy is my made up word and is a combination of Utopian and Dystopian.  As implied, the subject matter will not always be light and fluffy.  In fact some topics may be very dark as I intend to cover all facets of society with no stone unturned, the good and the ugly.

However, I must initially cover the more heavy topics of addiction and homelessness (with relevant sub topics), as these continue to affect me on a daily basis both personally and with regards to my own friends and family.  I will try to do it in as light-hearted a fashion as I can, and mix in some fun posts along with the deeper, more difficult ones. Along those lines, please take a moment to visit the Read Me and About section to read a little more about my intent with this site.

I am a severe, late stage alcoholic, and secondarily a drug addict.  I use those terms because they are still likely the most common terms used and most people can understand what they mean.  One could say I have alcohol use disorder, or substance use disorder, if one wanted to be more accurate and politically correct.

For those of us who have been in treatment, we view ALL substances as the same, including alcohol and marijuana.  We consider ourselves generally to be an addict, but make a distinction by declaring our Drug Of Choice, also known in our circles as DOC.  I consider myself to be an addict with substance use disorder who is in recovery, and my DOC is alcohol.  No terms offend me, per se, but I feel some terminology can be misleading or outright harmful to someone in recovery.

So, now that we have THAT out of the way, I want to address in this first post the topic of "uniqueness", and the desperate need that we (as human beings) seem to possess to put individuals into boxes, as eggs in a carton.  Using eggs as an example, we may carton them according to size, color, even upbringing such as whether they were caged or not.

We have the same need with individuals, and when discussing or addressing the topic of addiction it is no different.  We want to distinguish addicts from alcoholics, treat one as "worse" or "harder" than the other.  And it isn't just addiction, it is with mental health as well.  Someone is bi-polar, or borderline, or schizophrenic.  But thankfully, with mental illness, we are starting to realize that an individual can be in a "spectrum", such as with autism.

With addiction, we still tend to be in a world where you either are, or you are not.  However, I still believe that there is a spectrum with addiction as well, and that furthermore, when you inevitably add in mental health issues, personalities, and IQ (these will be fodder for future posts, I assure you!) we end up with such a dizzying array of possibilities, that I can assure with 100% confidence, that we are each unique in our addiction, and thus, unique in our "solution" to the problem if there even is a problem.

Yet, this concept of uniqueness is treated as a "thinking error" in many addiction recovery philosophies.  I have fought hard against this line of thinking (them telling me I am not unique) to the point of real consequences while living for a year in an extreme behavioral modification program.  Since leaving that program, I still maintain that I am a rare bird when it comes to recovery.  So, using myself as an example, let me bring up a list of facts:

I was born to a severe alcoholic/addict father, while my mother is not.  I grew up in poverty, but went to college.  I eventually made six figures a year, and attained the "American Dream".  I am a father of two, now divorced.  I have a very high IQ, proven through membership in Mensa.  I used to be an expert cellist/musician, yet my profession was software engineer.  I started drinking at age 14, binged through my twenties, and started daily drinking at age 31.  At my height of drinking (the last 7 years) I was drinking as much as a half gallon of vodka every day.  I have been through nearly every program known (and more than one psychiatric facility), and still struggle.  I have been homeless, on and off the street, living out of a car or shelter, or crashing someone's couch, for the last 7 years. Through those 7 years, I used all of the "hard" drugs, off and on.  I have been hospitalized countless times, once on life support.

Yet here I am.  Age 50, sober today, and by most counts healthy.  To the point where medical doctors do not believe I have lived the life I have.  Sure, I have some memory loss, and I am not nearly as quick as I was.  And I have some nerve damage in my extremities, get tired a little easier, but mostly I am in decent physical shape.

Most of the people that hit it as hard as I did, are not even here.  They are dead, as was my father at age 44.  Or, they succeeded at recovery well before this point.  Most smart addicts I know, have been in recovery for years, if not decades.

Here is my main point:  The human brain, obviously, is incredibly unique to the individual.  Physical looks, personality, and even things such as your soul and spirit, make you 100% unique.  Throw in your completely unique past and experiences, and the level of uniqueness becomes astounding.

Why do recovery programs and ideologies like to tell us that we are not unique?  I will grant them, partly so that we feel we are not alone, which is a cornerstone of every recovery program.  You can't do it alone.  And, I do agree with that take.  But mostly it is because they need us to fit into society.  That is the goal of every program, to fit us back into society.  Typically, that is also our own goal.  Maybe to get the job we lost.  Get the kids back whom we lost.  Get back some level of respect.  Get back into the Matrix.

So here, I must pause, and likely end this blog post because I need to define what the "Matrix" is for me.  Of course, most of us know this term as used from the movie series, which I absolutely loved!  Though I don't consider myself a movie buff, I do enjoy a well done movie (my preference, however, is still reading).  My use of the word is very similar, and certainly inspired by the movie.

The Matrix to me, in a nutshell, is society.  I don't believe we are living in a computer simulation (though I haven't ruled it out) but I believe that our society is similar.  While inside the Matrix, we must all behave by sets of rules and laws that govern, and also by an incredible myriad of unspoken rules and laws.  If we don't, at a minimum, we are constantly judged or shunned.  At a maximum, we are thrown in prison or executed.  Most of these laws exist for good reason, and we thrive as a result.  I am not an anarchist, nor do I condone any kind of violence, especially against minors.  However, I think many of these increasingly complex rules are harmful to an individual, and can be contributing factors to poor mental health and addiction.

The alternative to existing in The Matrix, is just like in the movie.  You take the red pill and rip yourself outside of The Matrix, so that you observe society in an objective way.  I remember vividly when I took the red pill.  I was 31 years old, and my second child had been born and was maybe 1 or 2 years old.  Unfortunately, it was so hard on me, that I started drinking every day to cope.  And I did cope for another decade, before it all came crumbling down.

Being outside of the Matrix can exist in many forms.  For example, you can physically still be "in the Matrix" in terms of working your job, paying for a house etc., but mentally be outside of it.  Or, you can completely remove yourself, and live a homeless vagabond life out of motorhome, car, or on the street in a tent.  Or go "off grid" to Alaska or some such.  That is ultimately what I chose, but as an addict, I do believe that only leads to one of two places:  Incarceration, or an untimely death.

I want back in.  Just like a character in the movie who wanted back in, I have chosen life over death, and a permanent, societal abode over a tent.  Unfortunately, unlike the movie, I cannot just go back in, get all that back, and forget what I already know.

This blog post, is the very beginning of what I know will be a long and incredibly challenging journey to get back into the Matrix in a way that will allow me to retain my unique individuality, keep my life philosophy intact, and restore my family and friend connections, an maybe even meet a few new ones along the way.

And, I hope beyond all, to help anyone else who finds themselves outside of the Matrix, and wanting back in, to get where they want to go.  If you made it this far, I would say "thankee sai".