By Paul Sinclair, Managing Director of Mind Matters. One of fewer than 200 Compassionate Inquiry practitioners certified by Dr Gabor Maté, working primarily with high achievers on trauma, addiction, and the patterns beneath both.
In this piece: a letter Paul would write to his younger self after forty years of addiction, the 1 percent statistic that became a dare, why Gabor Maté and Mark Lewis reframed recovery for him, the rehab that saved him and why it was in South Africa, and what addiction is really about once you stop hiding from it.
This is addiction from the inside out. Not the Netflix dramatisations. Not the mugshots cropped for shock value. This is the ache. The noise. The cost.
Unless the host has a particularly morbid sense of humour, it’s the kind of story that doesn’t get shared at dinner parties.
Maybe you’ll see yourself here, or someone the world has already written off as unsalvageable.
It’s not an obituary, but it often reads like one.
Let’s call it a quiet, ironic middle finger to the darkness lingering in the corner, asking if you even noticed it was still there.
If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I’d love to pretend it would be a profound exchange. But truthfully? He’d smirk, nod politely, and then do exactly what he was already planning. He thought he was untouchable. Invincible. A discount James Dean with a death wish and bad taste in substances. He was sprinting headfirst into destruction and calling it freedom. His head did the driving. His heart? Tied up in the boot with duct tape. I followed that head. Massive mistake. Huge. But in fairness, he was incredibly convincing, especially when high.
I spent forty years shackled to addiction—heroin, crack cocaine, benzos, alcohol, and Es —the unholy, unholies of chemical catastrophe. Threaded through all of it was booze, slithering silently in the background like the world’s worst safety net. If you’re going to self-destruct, might as well go deluxe, right? I believed I had an incurable disease. That’s what they told me. So naturally, I leaned in. Why give up the one thing that made life bearable, even if it was also killing me? The logic was flawless in the most ironically doomed way possible.
When I arrived at rehab, the clinical welcome wagon told me I had a 1% chance of recovery—one percent. A number so depressingly specific it felt like someone had crunched the data to slap me in the face with it. It was both a curse and a challenge. I took it as a dare. Others didn’t. They gave up before the ink on their intake forms dried. I’ve buried too many of those people. We used together. We laughed, cried, and fell apart together. But now I’m the only one left from that old crew. The reluctant winner of a game no one wanted to play, clutching the trophy like it’s made of teeth and dandruff.
And here’s a plot twist worthy of its own laugh track: I’ve survived three massive overdoses. I don’t know if it was luck, dumb biology, or divine intervention—but even death seems confused about why I’m still here. Every time I should have died, I didn’t, which is hilarious. Not in a funny way, but in the “I can’t believe this is still happening” kind of way.
Addiction isn’t a moral failure. It’s not laziness. Not weakness. Not a lack of character. It’s a survival mechanism—a particularly destructive one, but effective, until it isn’t. No one wakes up saying, “Today, I think I’ll lose everything and destroy my life.” We reach for the needle, the bottle, the pill because, for a while, they work. Then they stop. And when they stop, the fallout is biblical. Ironically, you don’t notice the walls collapsing because you’re too busy celebrating the illusion.
Shame is the gasoline. And the story we’re sold—that addicts are just bad people making bad choices—well, that’s just the spark. The truth is inconvenient: addiction occurs when hurting people try to stop hurting, and there’s no safe way out. And the truly cruel irony? What begins as survival becomes the very thing that threatens it.
In his brilliant book The Biology of Desire, Mark Lewis argues that addiction is not a disease. That flipped the table for me. Gabor Maté, someone I quote often, says addiction isn’t about drugs, it’s about pain. Trauma. Wounds never healed. His words ring truer than any step work I ever did: “Addiction is not a choice, but neither is it a disease. It’s a coping mechanism for trauma.”
And there it was, the mirror. And once you look into it, you can’t unsee it. Once you realise your spiral makes perfect, painful sense, it becomes harder to hide behind the label. Because then you have to face it: you’re not broken beyond repair. You’re hurt. And hiding. And the longer you hide, the better you get at calling it freedom.
I wasn’t born an addict. No one is. But I was born into trauma. And I carried it like a second skin. Not everyone who’s traumatised ends up addicted—but everyone I’ve worked with in addiction has been traumatised. That’s not a theory. That’s a pattern. And patterns have a cruel sense of humour when left unchecked.
This reality hits hard often at Mind Matters, where I work. It’s not about substances. It’s about what the substances shield us from. Among my female clients, around 75% were sexually abused as children. That isn’t a statistic. That’s a tragedy with a body count. And the men? So many carry invisible scars—abuse, neglect, emotional abandonment—all shoved down so far that only heroin or vodka could reach it. We weren’t trying to die, we were trying to quiet a noise no one else could hear.
I spent two years in rehab in South Africa. Not a spa. Not a gap year. I was sent there under a warrant, legally mandated because I was a danger to myself and anyone nearby. You don’t get lower than that, unless you’ve got a shovel. The irony is that the place saved me. Not through slogans or lectures, but because someone looked at me and didn’t just see a lost cause. They saw someone worth dragging back from the edge. They offered to train me to become a therapist. I, the guy who once rationed out needles like party favours. The guy who woke up next to his dead girlfriend and didn’t cry because he was too numb. The guy who thought emotion was weakness and numbness was survival. Irony, meet rock bottom.
You don’t come back from that. Not completely. But you move with it. Carry it carefully. Use it.
I was an IV user. The needle wasn’t just a delivery system; it was an obsession. Sometimes I think it was the ritual I craved more than the hit. Even now, a film scene with someone tying off can send my nervous system into a full-on tailspin. It’s like my trauma stored itself in muscle memory, right down to my teeth. Recovery doesn’t erase muscle memory; it just teaches you not to flinch when it plays on repeat.
The grief doesn’t disappear. The guilt doesn’t evaporate with clean time. I’ve had people thank me for helping them score, only to be burying them weeks later. That doesn’t go away. It lingers. It whispers. It wakes you at 3 a.m. with your stomach in your throat. There’s no closure, just new chapters written in the same red ink.
There is no closure. It is just the ironic truth: I thought I was helping people survive, but I was helping them die. Try holding that and still showing up with compassion. Some days, it feels like holding your breath indefinitely, underwater, with your lungs on fire.
Recovery means finding what was lost. And what was lost? Me. Recovery isn’t linear. It’s not logical. It’s a maze made of mirrors. One day, I’m on top of the world, sipping herbal tea like a Zen master. Next, I’m bargaining with ghosts. And always, there’s that whisper—soft, nearly drowned out by the static—that maybe, just maybe, I can still come back to myself. Or at least a version of myself that doesn’t feel like a stranger.
The rituals help. Meetings. Journaling. Therapy. Sometimes psychedelics. Sometimes prayer. Sometimes silence. But the darkness? It still knows my name. It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t leave a card. It just walks in like it owns the place. Familiar. Relentless. Comfortable in its confidence that I’ll eventually offer it tea and a biscuit.
I still struggle every day. The milestones don’t inoculate you. The brain remembers. The body does, too. Sometimes, the memories are louder than reason. It’s not just cravings. It’s grief in disguise, rage with nowhere to go. Fear in fancy dress pretending to be instinct.
But now I’ve built something of a life. I don’t have to earn the right to exist anymore. But addiction still circles like a dog with blood on its teeth. Persistent. Loyal in the worst way. It doesn’t care how far I’ve come. It just waits. Because it remembers who I used to be. And it’s betting I’ll forget. It’s patient like that.
At Mind Matters, I work with people who remind me of me. People who’ve been called monsters, losers, and criminals. And yet, they are some of the most sensitive, creative, intelligent people I’ve ever known. When the fog lifts—even briefly—they shine like candles in a dark basement with no windows.
This isn’t noble. This isn’t heroic. There’s no soundtrack. No applause. Just one more day of doing the next right thing.
I wouldn’t lecture him if I could talk to that kid again. I’d sit beside him and put my hand on his shoulder. Maybe I’d hand him a shitty cup of coffee in a chipped mug because nothing says existential chat like shitty coffee. After enough silence had passed to feel real, I’d say:
“You’re not broken. You’re wounded. And wounds can heal. If you stop pouring salt into them.”
Would he believe me? Of course not. He’d laugh, ask for a tenner, and go score. But maybe—just maybe—he’d remember the look in my eyes. That haunted, I get it, look. And one day, when the silence grew too loud and the high wasn’t high enough, he might ask for help. Not because someone guilted him into it, but because, for one small second, he believed maybe he deserved something that didn’t hurt as much as he did already.
Negative Core Beliefs
Here’s what isn’t featured on glossy rehab brochures: the chorus of beliefs playing repeatedly.
I’m worthless. I’m unlovable. Everyone I love will leave. I have to earn the right to exist.
These aren’t thoughts. They’re gospel. They shape everything. You self-sabotage so no one else gets the chance. You disappear so no one can leave. You shrink because somewhere, you decided that existing takes permission.
But these beliefs? They’re not yours. They’re inherited, passed down like trauma’s family heirlooms, worn in until they feel like skin.
Healing means challenging those lies- in therapy, in quiet, and sometimes in chaos. For some, psychedelics crack the door open, not as magic, but as light in a locked room. Healing isn’t about becoming new; it’s about remembering who you were before the world forgot you.
The Criminal Justice Carousel
And then there’s the system. The carousel of shame. Because what better way to heal traumatised addicts than with strip searches, orange jumpsuits, and cold cells with flickering lights?
What screams recovery like being punished for symptoms of pain no one acknowledged? You’re not just judged—you’re recycled. Stamped. Filed. Forgotten.
We call it justice. Like, pain needs more punishment. Like, shame ever helped anyone heal.
Final Thoughts.
This piece—whatever it is—isn’t noble. It’s not a TED Talk or some romantic monologue about hope. It’s a note from the wreckage. If it lands, great. If it gives someone a little clarity—even better. And if it makes someone feel a little less insane, then dragging it all back up was worth it.
Don’t ask what’s wrong with them. Ask what happened to them.
Behind every addict is someone who learned to hurt themselves just to feel okay.
I see you. I’ve been you. And you’re not alone.
Addiction isn’t failure. It’s what happens when survival becomes a trap. When pain goes untreated, destruction starts to look like relief.
People see the chaos. They don’t know the kid underneath, still screaming.
Just for Today
The Serenity Prayer, attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Just for today, I will focus on living through this day only and not attempt to tackle all my problems at once. I will be honest, clean, and kind. I will believe in something better.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is addiction a disease or a coping mechanism?
My view, shaped by Gabor Maté and Mark Lewis, is that addiction is a coping mechanism for pain, not a disease in the traditional sense. The disease model helped a generation get treatment. But it also locked many people into the belief that nothing could really change. The coping-mechanism lens opens that door back up. If this lens resonates with your own experience, get in touch. We can start with a conversation.
Can someone really recover after forty years of addiction?
Yes. I did. The work is brutal and uneven, and recovery does not mean cure, but yes, it is possible. Recovery from long-term addiction looks less like a finish line and more like a daily practice. Connection, honesty, the right support, and a willingness to feel what you spent years avoiding. If you are ready for the kind of work that does not flinch, reach out.
References
- Lewis, M. (2015). The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease. PublicAffairs.
- Maté, G. (2008). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books.
Disclaimer:
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are seeking medical guidance, please consult a licensed healthcare professional. Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not legal in Malta, so our Malta-based work focuses exclusively on preparation and integration. In jurisdictions where psychedelic-assisted therapy is legal, Paul delivers the therapy directly, collaborating with licensed local therapists where required by the regulatory framework. We do not provide, facilitate, or encourage the use of illegal substances. Legal frameworks around psychedelic therapy are evolving quickly, and readers should verify the current legal status in their own jurisdiction before making any decisions.
Paul Sinclair
Paul, Managing Director at Mind Matters, specialises in mental health, trauma, and psychedelic-assisted therapy. He has trained under Dr. Gabor Maté, a renowned expert in trauma and addiction, and has also undergone extensive training in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Paul's diverse background as an elite military unit member, top athlete, and successful entrepreneur informs his unique approach to transforming ingrained patterns of thought and behaviour. He has trained thousands of individuals, and over 20,000 development and mental health professionals follow his teachings on LinkedIn. Paul believes in the power of resilience and personal transformation, drawing from his journey to inspire and guide his clients.
