A shift in the zeitgeist seems to be happening in recent years, such that four particular things are becoming regarded as pests:
- Recovery, both as a goal and as a process
- Sobriety (its functional significance) and Abstinence (its efficacy and value, vs. its safety and vs. one’s ability to tolerate it)
- Addiction illness (the construct)
- Treatment (its indications and its current forms)
A few years ago this shift seemed clear enough to me that I could identify it. And clear enough that I could list these four components inside the shift whose status and value in the zeitgeist seemed to be under attack.
Have you noticed such a shift?
Once this shift seemed clear to me, it seemed important enough I should give it a memorable name – for the sake of my own clarity and ease of remembering it. The one I chose was “The Four Pests”.
Why did I choose that name?
Good question.
I grew up in Hong Kong in the 1970’s. During most of my time living in HK the ruler of China was Mao.
During my childhood I heard many first-hand accounts of the “Four Pests” or “Four Enemies” Campaign. The amazing accounts I heard centered on the giant magnitude of the:
- folly of the idea,
- waste of the effort, and
- destructiveness of the consequences caused by trying to achieve it.
What was The Four Pests Campaign? It was the idea that there were four pests that needed to be eradicated. And one of those four were sparrows. (The other three were rats, flies, and mosquitoes).
The campaign wasn’t completed before the decimation of the sparrow population had led to a severe ecological imbalance, and severely worsening the Great Chinese Famine in which 15-45 million eventually people died.
It turned out that sparrows did not eat so much rice that the sparrows were harmful to the people in rice production as it was supposed. Rather, the planners learned the very hard way that sparrows ate enough insects to be helpful for rice production.
What negative consequences will we experience if we succeed at the eradication of recovery, sobriety and abstinence, addiction illness, and treatment? Or if we reduce them to the status of uncommon, rare, endangered, or nearing extinction? Would the idea of their removal be seen later by historians as folly? As wasted effort?
Back in 2021 I wrote a fuller treatment of this topic that might be of some interest to some readers.
Recovery Review 