“The victim card makes for a losing hand,” – Michele Flynn
The more I sit with alcoholics and addicts of all stripes, the clearer it becomes, we all carry wounds. But somewhere along the line, we started confusing wounds with identity. “Wound-identified” became a badge of honor. We drag our scars around like trophies, demanding sympathy instead of healing.
As a kid, I was raised on stories of people who clawed their way above pain:
- Beethoven composing deaf.
- Lincoln clawing out of poverty.
- Roosevelt stricken by polio, yet steering a nation.
- Harriet Tubman breaking chains and leading others toward freedom.
Those were stories of grit, not excuses. Today, the loudest stories are too often about staying stuck. The victim card is easy to play. The problem is, the prize is usually a pity party… and no one brings snacks.
Science Check: Learned Helplessness
In the 1960s, psychologist Martin Seligman shocked dogs, literally. When escape seemed impossible, they stopped trying. Even when the cage door later swung open, most didn’t move. Their brains had learned helplessness. The brain of a man who shocks dogs. Another matter.
Humans do this, too. Repeated trauma, humiliation, or failure teaches the nervous system that effort is pointless. Motivation circuits shut down. The prefrontal cortex—the planning part of the brain—dims. You don’t just feel hopeless. You become chemically less able to act.
That’s exactly what happened to me in a Salt Lake City bookstore.
The Utah Bookstore
In 2001, I already knew I was an alcoholic. Then came the second stamp in September: “bipolar I with psychotic features.” Two life sentences stacked.
On a Utah ski trip, I wandered into a bookstore and found a clinical text on co-occurring disorders. Deep in the appendices were recovery statistics. Brutally low.
In that moment, I decided I was doomed. Why bother with recovery? I was going to die from the bottle or by my own hand. I carried that victim card like it was laminated. For five years, I barely touched a meeting. Learned helplessness had me chained even while the door was wide open.
My Father’s Lesson
My father was a Great Depression man. He didn’t speak therapy. But when I phoned home after another binge to whine to my mother, he got on the line. His words hit harder than any intervention:
“Stop dragging your mom through your wreckage. Life isn’t recess all day. It’s classrooms. You don’t get to pick the class. You just learn the darn lessons.”
He planted a seed. It didn’t sprout until after his death a couple of years later, but it saved me.
Me at my Father’s Grave.
Eight months sober, whispering at his grave, “I’m taking the classes now, Dad.” No angel choirs, just a quiet click inside. Victimhood giving way to responsibility. Those lessons gave way to a master’s and doctoral studies in psychology.
Prison Year: The Grit Classroom
Years later, after a not-drunk but wrong-way driving charge, I landed in prison. A therapist in prison, what a joke. But concrete doesn’t lie. Eight by ten, flickering TVs, bad grub.
One night, an old-timer named Henry sat next to me. “Don’t think you’re better than us and you’ll thrive,” he said, calm, not cruel. He’d seen me talking to guys. “Ain’t no victims here if you show them how from experience. Just always remember, you’re one of us.”
He was right. I’d been preaching college lessons I hadn’t lived. Prison stripped away jargon. Authenticity, not DSM codes, mattered. My prayer shifted: God, show me the lesson. Give me the words.
In that year, I learned to see fellow prisoners as peers. Men, broken but not beaten. Hustlers who had to re-route their hustle.
The Man With the Failing Liver
The rooms of recovery, though occasionally featuring a professional victim, are full of people who don’t roll over and play that card. On the outside, I once sat next to a man two months sober. Doctors told him cirrhosis was eating his liver. His skin was yellow, but his eyes were on fire.
“The emptiness is gone,” he said. “Sixty days and I don’t feel like a victim anymore.”
Some folks in meetings carry the ‘poor me’ card so proudly you’d think it came with a frequent flyer miles program. Not my friend. He reminded me of Viktor Frankl: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
His liver was failing. His spirit was thriving. Purpose kept him moving when despair could have nailed him to the chair.
Learned Optimism
Psychologist Martin Seligman showed us two sides of the same coin. On one side, learned helplessness. A man believes nothing he does matters. Life keeps handing him pain. He quits before he even starts. On the other side, learned optimism. A man sees the same blow but frames it differently. He says this is temporary, not all my fault, not the end. One belief shrinks the world. The other opens it.
Helplessness kills addicts. It whispers after relapse: What’s the point? You’ll never get better. You see it in the man who stops applying for work, in the woman who will not run even though the door is open, in the survivor who can’t move forward. The body is free, but the mind is locked. It is not only the mood. It is wiring. The brain bends toward resignation. Muscles won’t move.
There is good news. Optimism can be learned the way helplessness was. Recovery rooms know this. So do CBT, ACT, and the 12 Steps. They all teach the same thing: failures are temporary, specific, and survivable. Seligman gave it five letters: A, B, C, D, E. Adversity. Belief. Consequence. Disputation. Energization. Simple words. Hard practice. Challenge your story. Argue with the lie. Find the spark. What is learned can be unlearned. Hope can be taught. And when hope comes back, the victim card falls from your hand.
How Science Says We Hustle Out
Research on resilience shows three keys to reversing learned helplessness:
- Attribution shift. Reframe failures as temporary, not permanent.
- Active coping. Even micro-actions—walking, calling, journaling—retrain the brain to expect agency.
- Meaning-making. Purpose transforms suffering into growth.
Addiction recovery programs work best when they combine these: CBT’s reframes, DBT’s skills, narrative therapy’s story rewrite, and Twelve Step service. Together, they rebuild the brain’s belief: I can act.
Life as Classrooms
If I could walk back into that Utah bookstore, I’d tell myself: “Statistics don’t know your hustle. They don’t know your father. They don’t know your God is Love worldview.”
Prayer and Practice
My daily prayer is still simple: “God, show me the lesson.”
Not polished. Not holy. Just gritty enough to keep me hustling. When I forget, I remember: my father’s bluntness, Henry on the prison bunk, the jaundiced man with fire in his eyes.
I’ve recovered from a seemingly hopeless state. But the hustle isn’t done. Life will keep sending lessons. My job is to show up, learn, and witness to a power greater than my wounds. And it’s definitely not to pocket them as victim cards.
Action Plan: The Mind Hustle Way
The man sat in the church basement. Fluorescent lights buzzed above him. Coffee steamed in a Styrofoam cup. He stared at the floor.
He had thirty days, and then he slipped. The voice came quick: What’s the point? You’ll never get better.
The cage door was open. He didn’t move. Maybe instead:
- Spot your victim card. Write down one way you’re saying, “I can’t.”
- Flip the script. Reframe it: “This is temporary. I can act.”
- Take a micro-step. Call, pray, journal, or serve.
- Ask the lesson. Pray or reflect: “What’s the lesson here?”
- Tell a new story. Share it. Stories heal brains—yours and others’.
Call to Action
If this hit you, follow Recovery Rules Share it with someone who’s stuck. Don’t let the victim card be your last card.
Life is a classroom. Keep hustling..
References:
- Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: A review of the evidence and its neurobiological implications. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000033
- Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. Vintage.
- Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227
- Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301
- Kelly, J. F., Humphreys, K., & Ferri, M. (2020). Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs for alcohol use disorder. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2020(3), CD012880. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012880.pub2