Hi Tammy. The desperation in your post, the using against your will, the obsession with getting, using, recovering, these all are instantly relatable to me.
Your situation demonstrates that logic has no influence on an addict - you can’t get a drunk to behave logically when they are under the influence, and even before using, you can’t use logic to convince us not to drink and use. With my drinking, I had ultimately 6 convinctions for DUI and was facing a 3-5 year sentence for the last one, I’d lost jobs and was close to losing the one I had, I’d lost families and was close to losing the one I had, I was breaking promises to myself and everyone else, I could not keep my lies straight, and I knew, I knew, I knew I could not stop.
Consequences, like getting locked up or being required to give clean UA’s, can help us to gain enough physical abstinence in order to start the recovery engine. Our hearts and our minds and our actions and our souls need to heal and to change. That is not possible in the presence of the drug of choice.
What happened for me was that I was able, for a brief moment, to surrender to the idea of sobriety. Even though I thought and feared that sobriety would be no fun ever again, just one gray day after another, I reached the point where I was able to decide it was better than the alternative. Some days, I was only 51% convinced sobriety was what I wanted, but every day I did something to build up my sobriety.
I started out with enforced sobriety - required to give .000 blood alcohol breath sample every day until my trial for my last DUI. I started going to counseling and taking medication, then after about 3 weeks, I went back to AA and did what they suggested. I read the first step in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions every day, I prayed each morning thanking whatever for another day of sobriety past and for help to stay sober that day, and I called my AA sponsor every day. Simple actions that began to change my mind and my heart and my soul.
The state of being desperate enough to overcome the compulsion to use for just one day is not something that comes easily to any of us, and never comes at all to some of us. I was able to make that decision each day more easily after I came back to AA, because I saw that those people were staying sober and were happy about it.
You cannot win if you do not play, so keep striving for sobriety, keep trying, keep coming back. Stay open-minded to all suggestions, even ones you might loathe, like going away to detox and rehab.
Blessings
on your house as you begin your journey.