Good morning. It’s the third Tuesday of the month, so it’s time for another batch of wisdom from a notable Sober Oldster. Today’s guest is author, teacher, speaker, and podcaster Eric Zimmer. Thanks again to Sari Botton from Oldster for the collaboration. —TSB Editor

How old are you, and how long have you been in recovery?

I’m 56. I first got sober in 1994, from a heroin addiction. I stayed sober for nine years, then went back out and drank for a few years. I never went back to the heroin. I’ve been completely sober for 18 years now.

How did you get there?

By the time I got sober in 1994, I was homeless and addicted to heroin. I had hepatitis C and was jaundiced, yellow. I weighed 100 pounds and I had just been arrested for a new round of felonies and was facing up to 50 years in prison.

I went to a detox center because it was winter and I just didn’t know what else to do after my last arrest. While there, they convinced me to go into their 28-day treatment program. I had been to detoxes before. I had been to 7-day residential treatments, but never a treatment program for that long. And that worked. I did that then I went to a 6-month halfway house, and I immersed myself deeply in Twelve Step culture, and it saved my life.

What are the best things about being in recovery?

That’s a difficult question to answer because pretty much everything good I have is a result of me being in recovery, and also it’s impossible to fathom my life now, all these years later, if I wasn’t.

But I think the very best thing, the thing that I still am most grateful for, is that that inner turmoil, that feeling of being pulled apart by craving, is gone. It’s one of the worst feelings I know. When part of me is screaming, “I have to get high,” and the other part of me is screaming, “No, no, no,” I just feel like I’m being ripped apart. The fact that that is gone is, to me, the biggest gift of recovery.

What’s hard about being in recovery?

Well, two drinks was the best antidepressant I had ever found, and that is off the table for me. It would be nice at times to be able to alter my consciousness like flipping a switch. But I don’t know if I would describe that as hard. It’s just something I occasionally miss. Also, if you put me in a room full of people I don’t know, with the expectation that I’m going to network, that’s when I most miss a drink.

Recovery, to me, seems to be the far easier path.

How has your character changed? What’s better about you?

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about character and identity, this question has a lot of layers. In some ways I feel like the same person and in other ways I feel utterly unrecognizable.

How much those changes have to do with recovery versus growing old versus all the spiritual practice and therapy I’ve done, I don’t know.

As an addict I stole anything that wasn’t locked down. I lied all of the time. I was constantly high and making bad decisions.

I am far less impulsive now. I tend to be able to think about what I’m going to do and decide whether it aligns with who I am. I’m kinder, I’m more thoughtful, and I’m far more at peace.

Just last night I was able to debate with myself whether I really needed ice cream after dinner. Thirty years ago I would have eaten the ice cream before the question occurred to me.

What do you still need to work on? What “character defects” do you still wrestle with?

My biggest issue is probably what we might lump under the term “people-pleasing.” Or conflict avoidance. It’s being able to speak up for what I want. In some areas of my life I have gotten so much better at this and then there are other areas where it is still a bit of a challenge.

What’s the best recovery memoir you’ve ever read? Tell us what you liked about it.

Strangely, I don’t read many of these. But three friends of mine have written outstanding ones: Catherine Gray’s The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, Laura McKowen’s We Are the Luckiest, and Anna David’s Party Girl, which is a novel rather than a memoir but belongs here anyway. And I remember Mary Karr’s Lit to be amazing.

What are some memorable sober moments?

Publishing my first book earlier this year. The birth of my son. An ecstatic enlightenment experience I had on a silent retreat.

But even better than the particularly memorable moments are the truly countless moments of being alive, being present. The sound of an E chord on the guitar, the smattering of clouds across the sunrise. A quiet morning on a park bench. Staring into the eyes of my dogs.

Are you in therapy? On meds? Tell us about that.

I am not in therapy anymore. I host a podcast twice a week where I am interviewing psychologists and researchers and spiritual teachers and all kinds of self-help people and I’m frequently self-disclosing during those conversations so on one hand it’s like I’m in therapy all the time.

I am on antidepressant meds and have been for a long time. I’ve tried multiple times to go off of them, even with a doctor’s help, and even with an incredibly slow tapering period. But I always seem to end up back in a very depressed place where everything seems far harder than it has to be.

I don’t know if that’s because I just really need antidepressants or whether being on antidepressants that long has caused my brain to need them but it seems a moot point. It works for me and generally has been a big benefit to my life.

What sort of activities or groups do you participate in to help your recovery? (i.e. swimming, 12-step, meditation, et cetera)

When I decided that I didn’t want to go to 12-step meetings anymore, I was a little concerned. I had had that first relapse after 8 years of sobriety and although not going to meetings was surely not the whole reason that I went back out, it was part of it.

This time when I thought about what I was getting from recovery meetings, I realized that there were three main things. First there were the people and the support I got. Second there was the chance to help others. And finally there was a structured program of working on myself.

At that time I looked and I realized I had lots of people in my life that I could turn to for support, that I spent time with, and that we talked about what mattered in life. I was helping lots of people but in a different way. And I was a dedicated Zen student, which, in its own way, was a structured program of improvement.

To this day I still look at those three things as essential to my recovery. So is my physical health. Exercise is probably the biggest antidepressant I have. But so is sharing how I’m feeling with others, eating well, and getting enough sleep. Playing guitar, reading, and walking are all, in a way, part of my recovery.

Are there any questions we haven’t asked you that you think we should add to this? And would you like to answer it?

What’s your favorite song of all time? And no, I don’t want to answer it, because it would take me the better part of 5 years to try and answer it. It would be a koan that would keep me stumped for eternity.

**********************************************************************

******