30 August 2022

ABSTINENCE is Not RECOVERY

 

IF ONLY I COULD JUST NOT DRINK OR DRUG, my life would become bountiful, unicorns and rainbows in deep abundance. 

Not exactly like that, but the wishful thinking I was left with when my drinking and drugging careers ended wasn't far afield from this illusion. Illusions were my carryovers from the decades which preceded my abstinence. My self-denial and restraint left me with an emptiness which drugs and alcohol once filled. 

"Where to? What next?"

Left with nothing, in absence of my drinks and drugs, I still felt shackled. My mere abstinence felt like an incarceration in emptiness. Decades before I stopped (I had to stop. Addiction was killing me.), chronic use had given me occasional small pleasures and a shitload of unhealthy consequences.

After nearly two decades in recovery, the snapping sound of a pop-top beverage still is the sound of a beer can opening in my ears (and I was never a beer drinker - except to drink to sober up with, strange as that may now sound). Sometimes, the smell of a cigarette can ignite a cue. Even small exposures to the drinking, drugging life I once led can jumpstart thoughts of a relapse.

But I don't act on them. I will not incubate a relapse. I have learned to let go of thoughts which could return me to disorder, chaos and drug dependence. 

The underlying traumas of my teenage years were salved by drug use, a 30-year drug career-in-the-making with disastrous results and no traumas dealt with on the road ahead. 

Indulge. Self-indulge. Youth lost or stolen in a world of out-of-control, destructive behaviors and dire consequences. 

ABSTINENCE is Not RECOVERY.

Addiction left an empty hole in my life, wider than a 3-day blackout stretched to infinity. I would have to do more than recuperate from years of drug abuse. Addiction-free, to remain so, I would have to choose all options leading to a healthy, happy, fulfilling and purposeful life.

My recovery would be a journey with no clearly defined endpoint. I would grow as my recovery developed. Self-empowerment, social inclusion and the development of coping skills were in the mix. My attitudes, values, feelings and goals would replace the empty bottles and endless search for that ever-elusive MORE that addiction most definitely became. 

Recovery is satisfaction. 

Hope, meaning and purpose would not be found behind the door called Abstinence. The door called Recovery opened for me ever-so-slowly. Abstinence gave me a Shot. Recovery is my Chaser.

That is funny because it's not.

WE DO RECOVER.

Share your Courage. It's contagious, if not downright addictive.

We do recover.

We.

Do.

*****

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books

Check out my NEW Non-Fiction, BECOMING UNBROKEN: Reflections on Addiction and Recovery 
(Find it on Amazon, Book it here): https://lnkd.in/dkF767RT 

Both Books are Available in Print and Kindle Editions.

20 August 2022

NO MORE DRINKING GAMES... Simon says, "Stay Sober!"

 





"I cannot betray today, the sober days leading up to now, this certain resiliency which I have somehow obtained, this gift. One drink would toss that all away. I'm invested in my sobriety now as I once was too invested in drinking as a means of self-definition. Moving forward in my sobriety actually feels good today, natural. My ever more painful relapses have brought me through these rings of fire to my current calm and sober place, a recovery enhanced by the routine miracle of breath."

Simon says, "Stay sober!"

*****

ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c 

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books

06 August 2022

"Don't Make Me Think, Don't Make Me Feel." [Think. Feel. Listen... REJOICE!!!]

 


Using Drugs and Alcohol stopped the flow of feelings and stifled clear thinking.

In my early Recovery, the flood of thoughts and feelings almost swept me away. I wasn't used to thinking and feeling. My habits of using precluded thinking and feeling. Thoughts and Feelings might get in the way of Using. And life simply didn't seem worth living without my substances. 

Recovery is the Good Life, Real and Full and Fulfilling.

Slowly and surely, I would learn to let thinking and feeling back into my life.

Recovery is that different world I did not know I did not want to live without.

I'm really not prescribing anything here, but I do know that my 30-year prescription of self-medication was not working and frankly, rarely, if ever, did work.

Discover your own path. Create it as you progress. You will surely learn that Recovery is as Progressive as the Behaviors that it will be replacing. 

Rejoin. Rejoice. Recover.

We are here to help each other come out of those dark and deadly days.

Allow yourself to think and feel. It's free and we will become freer with each passing day.

I know this entire post is more sugar-coated than most I've written.

Sometimes I allow myself the occasional sweet thought.

RECOVERY IS EARNED (I knew this sugar-coating couldn't last forever!).

"Work it; you're worth it" is an old Truism in the Rooms of Recovery. Like a shiny penny, an occasional repolishing seems in order. 

Enjoy this new life as we carry it forward.

REJOICE!!!

******

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c 

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books

05 August 2022

A Few Short Weeks Ago, He was Living in Recovery. Today, He is Dying.

 

[Please note that this post first appeared in my social media on August 5th of 2022 and is repeated here in its entirety. Thank you.]


It takes much to take my breath away and leave me speechless. 

The pictured quote from 2015 is as true today (or truer) as it was then. Experience has proven this to me. In some ways, the details do not matter much, but let me mention the most dramatic weight loss due to drug use I'd ever seen horrified me recently. Addiction wasting away another one. I've been wrong before. He might live but addiction is eclipsing his life right now.

Below, a repeat of an old post from several years ago. It helps capture my frustration and emptiness where words now are nearly impossible for me.

THE TOMB OF THE ANONYMOUS ADDICT

Sometimes, walking down the street, you think you hear the sound of leaves scuttling along, but these are the plans, hopes, dreams of the dead. Wind barely whispering over the green lips of empty bottles, syringes puncturing the silence in their stillness. Sentences gasping for a last breath forever unfinished. The Tomb of the Anonymous Addict is really many tombs in many doorways, further down anonymous valleys than any still alive have ever ventured.

No such monument truly exists. It's undedicated, the dead remains unidentified. It is truly unnamed and unguarded. It tires me, this Tomb of the Anonymous Addict. It exists in my mind only... and it make me weary.

******

Immerse yourself in my Descent into Addiction and eventual Recovery in my Autobiographical Fiction, ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal 

(Find it on Amazon. Book it here): https://lnkd.in/esP83n-c 

#alcoholism #addiction #recovery #books