The Tortoise & the Hare Parable – Why It’s Such an Important Lesson to Those Seeking Recovery
- Brainz Magazine
- 24 hours ago
- 8 min read
For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional but undeniably effective.
For the better part of a decade, I struggled within my own attempt to “recover” from my problematic relationship with drugs. I wanted to get better, to abstain. I truly did. And, I had some periods of successful abstinence within that decade, from the age of 19 until I turned 29. I’d be able to string together consecutive days of abstinence from drugs and drinking. 30 days here, 60 days there. Once, I even put together 6 months in a row before finding myself using again. But why? I was taking all of the recommended courses of action that the “professionals” had suggested to me, self-help groups, working with a sponsor/mentor, attending weekly therapy appointments, living in supportive sober housing, taking medication, and on and on.
Why wasn’t I able to benefit from this recipe that I was all but guaranteed by those who came before me, many with multiple decades of abstinence under their belts? It felt like I was making all the right choices. I was being told that “meeting makers make it,” so I was most certainly attending at least one meeting every day. I was being told to “raise your hand and share” at those groups, and so I was. I was letting people know when I was having a difficult day, an easier day, whatever else was happening in my life.
I was told by my psychiatrists and internists that the psychotropic meds I was on would surely protect me from the overwhelming depression, anxiety, cravings, and post-acute withdrawal symptoms I was experiencing. And they were. Kind of, at least. I was functioning. Going to work full-time. Exercising at the gym at least 3-4 days a week. But it just didn’t seem to stick. Inevitably, a cycle of relapse began, sometimes predictable, sometimes not, but I could never seem to get to that coveted ONE YEAR of continuous sobriety that so many newcomers get fixated on.
It all looked so good on paper. But the truth was this, and with hindsight being 20/20, I was in a hurry to get back to living a life that I didn’t know how to live.
I’ll say it again to drive home the point.
I was in a hurry to get back to a life that I didn’t know how to live.
My methodology was as such, I was good at putting the pieces of what looked, on the outside at least, like a pretty healthy life in recovery. I was able to assemble all the parts and pieces of what a typical adult life should look like. The job. The apartment. The girlfriend. The bills. The meetings. The gym. The responsibilities. And I truly believed, in my heart of hearts, that if I could just construct a “good life” from the outside-in, it would compel me to manage all of the hard work and responsibilities that come with maintaining it.
Here’s the rub, though. I had never learned how to manage any of those things to begin with. No one had ever taught me how to exist in this busy world, with its myriad responsibilities, tasks, errands, and demands, and to cope with those things in a healthy way. So, although I could assemble them together and make it at least resemble that which looked like “the good life,” what would always happen, 10 times out of 10, is when it came time to ‘settle up’ with managing and maintaining all of it, I wasn’t compelled to step up and do the work of juggling all of those balls. I was just faking it. Going through the motions. Fix it on the outside, and the inside will surely follow, right?
Wrong.
I would become completely overwhelmed by all of it, and 10 times out of 10 during that decade of a roller coaster ride of difficulty and dysfunction, I would return to the devil I knew to assuage the overwhelm, the stress, and the burnout that I was experiencing in trying to play the character of “healthy grown-up Josh.” I would go back to the drugs to relieve the feelings, and off the rails I would go in short order. Sometimes the relapse would be short-lived, a few months perhaps. Sometimes it would take years before I’d be humbled enough to admit I needed help or to experience some sort of consequence that would lead me back into receiving professional help.
I was taking this backwards approach to trying to get well, but more importantly, I was also trying to rush through it. I was always in a hurry. A mad dash. Scrambling to put together the parts and pieces of everything that looked so good on the outside, without ever taking the time to slow down and learn how to actually use those things. The tools of recovery, some call them.
So, my presence in meetings? I was in the room, but I was mostly just a spectator. There are plenty of meeting makers who don’t make it, because they aren’t there to do any actual work.
I would often use self-help venues to find a potential partner, telling “war stories” about all the crazy shenanigans I got myself into during my heavy drug use debauchery. Those full-time jobs? As soon as the substance use began again, I was able to retain my employment at whatever the gig was, but my paycheck was spent before it even hit my bank account on Fridays. I was a dependable employee, consistently showing up, always on time, and even picking up extra shifts or overtime, but only as a means to an end, to earn extra income to feed my ever-growing habit.
The therapy appointments I was attending? The treaters and helpers were wonderful people, but I wasn’t being straight with them. It was a story of half-truths, or sometimes very elaborately dishonest stories about who I was in order to, I don’t even know what. Impress them, I suppose? In short, I wasn’t being honest with them. I wasn’t following their guidance or completing the assignments they were offering. I was just bullshitting my way through the hour-long dialogue. A waste of my time, and a waste of theirs too.
My mentors and sponsors? Same story. I wasn’t truly opening up to them or calling them consistently. I wasn’t letting them get to know the real Josh, and I wasn’t letting myself give them a chance to pass along any of their wisdom or acumen to me as a result. My life during that span was just a story of smoke and mirrors. Deeply unwell, and terrifically prideful and egotistical, I was a young man who needed very comprehensive help, and was shooing it away in my frantic push to construct the life that looked so good on paper. I kept convincing myself that surely a young man of my talent and intellect, through sheer force of will and problem-solving, could do it on my own.
Get better.
I was half-stepping. Telling half-truths. Getting half-better, for half a year at the most, and the whole time just running on a hamster wheel of my own creation to destination nowhere, as my drug use increased and my behavior and lifestyle grew increasingly deranged and erratic, before finally crossing that invisible line to illegal enterprise and criminal behavior, a series of choices that, ironically, would eventually get me to a place where I could truly start learning how to live that life I didn’t know how to live, in a slow and steady fashion. And it started on a micro-level. Learning to make my bed each morning. Being sure to brush my teeth and clean my dirty clothing.
When I look back now, as a person with 16+ years in recovery, my drug and alcohol use career, with some minimal interruptions, lasted for the better part of 17 years. That’s a long period of self-medicating, and my expectation that I was going to heal, truly heal, get better, and be able to maintain a healthier life, day after day after day, in a short course of time, like after 3 months of not using, was delusional. I didn’t know that back then. I can see clearly now. And I also know, if I could have done it differently back then, I would have. I didn’t enjoy, for the most part, the life I was living during that 10-year span, and I wanted to be better. I was always just trying to jump to the front of the line instead of learning to stay healthy in the moment.
This moment is the story of forever.
If a client of mine wants to lose 50 lbs by next year, I always ask them, “So what are you doing today to get closer to hitting that goal?” Because if we wait until the 25th hour, or if we try to rush the process, we’re either not going to lose the weight or likely hitch our wagon to some sort of fad diet, drop the pounds, only to see them come back with a vengeance. Slow. Steady. A few pounds at a time. Maybe one or two pounds lost over one or two weeks, transforming our diet to more nutritious food and increasing physical activity. That tends to be the more sustainable recipe for achieving that goal in a healthy fashion.
The same is true with recovery. The same is true with anything, really.
Why does the tortoise always win the race? It’s because the tortoise takes the slow and steady approach to achieving its goal. The hare? The hare sprints. And no matter how much speed and endurance that hare might have in the tank, when we sprint, there’s always going to be a point where we flame out, burn out, and hit the wall. For people with proclivities toward substance abuse or other dangerous vices, it’s often a gateway to finding ourselves back in their company, self-medicating the feelings of overwhelm and the disappointment that we’re not hitting the mark of our ultimate goal, becoming that healthier version of ourselves. The person in recovery, whatever that means.
A caveat to wrap this article up with a bow.
Recovery? Life? It’s not a race to begin with. It’s not a problem, or a series of problems, to be solved. It’s not a puzzle to be put together hurriedly. Life is an experience that is meant to be felt, in all of its depth, wonder, beauty, difficulty, and glory.
Look to the wise tortoise, kind reader, and approach the experience of this life in a slow and steady fashion. Hell, maybe that’s one of the reasons some tortoises live to be hundreds of years old. They don’t rush. They take it slow. They savor. They listen to their bodies. They rest when they’re tired, they eat when they’re hungry, they’re active when they have energy. They’re true to themselves in each moment. One after another after another, on the road to forever.
Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson
Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Addictions Therapist
After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is something that is worth more than any dollar amount.
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