My counselor wants me to write a “goodbye” or “breakup” letter to my DOC. I’m not sure how this will help me but I’m definitely willing to try. Only thing is I’m not sure how to go about doing this. Has anyone ever did something like this? Do u have any advice?
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I have written 2 good bye letters. One to my addiction and one to my alter ego as a sex trade worker. Honestly… it was sooo therapeutic. For both letters i just started writing anything and everything that i thought of. It doesnt have to be perfect 
there was so much hate i had towards addiction. Everything it stole from me, my family, friends, self worth and self respect, all the things i did for drugs and money to support my habit, and how it almost took my life numerous times. I swore in my letter i cursed at my addiction and then i told it i didnt need it anymore. I dont need drugs to cope and that they werent my best friend. It was very personal and very powerful. I think honestly to just sit with some paper and a pen and start writing anything u can. I found for me, it started to just flow and before u know it, i had a goodbye letter. Then i did a letting go ceremony and burn it. And let it all go
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Yes I have you write it like u are writing to a boyfriend that u are breaking up with u tell your addiction bye that it’s over u are done n u go throw all the disappointment n hurt n stuff that it’s took from u it’s to help u see the negative in your addiction n to start to let go of it n change your mindset
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I’ve done this with my eating disorder and it was very helpful. We did both a letter from our disease to ourselves (mine for example was like this I want you in this body as I have control over you, feeling your hip bones is seductive, etc) and from ourselves to our disease (F* you, I want to break free from your constraints. I am not powerless, etc.)
Just put pen to paper and see what spews out. There’s no right way to do it. Some of the things that you could think of are how has your DOC impacted you and your family and how you know you’re better off without it. Why you don’t need it, why it doesn’t serve you and also maybe forgiving it for the damage it’s caused to your life.
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If yiu use the search function (magnifyinb glass right above) to search gor “goodbye letter” yiu’ll find plenty examples !
Good luck with the writing
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It’s very common actually, saying goodby to that very toxic friend can be very powerful. Mostly in the line if when we first met, when it was fun and maybe working in the short term, when the damage was doen…etc. and time to say farewell for good. As mentioned above you can lookup examples that might be helpful to get started. But my advice would be to take it’s in your own words, you know the best what this do called friend meant en did for you.
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This sounds like a great idea! You can use the search function to search on ‘goodbye letter’ and get a lot of suggestions as well. Wishing you all the best!
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This helped me tremendously in my recovery! It was the turning point for me, saying goodbye and I’m done with you and pretty much just breaking up with drugs and alcohol….I’m proud of my letter and anytime I’m feeling complacent in my life I turn to it for a reality check. This took a few days of piecing together the good/bad/ugly of my addiction. Would you share your letter with us when you finish? They are POWERFUL!!! I’ll attach mine below
@ahaygood
Dear Heroin, Meth, and all of your little friends……
it’s me again I haven’t seen you in a while but it’s for good reason. I am done with the back-and-forth and don’t ever want to see you again but there’s a few things I have to say so I can move on with my life.
For so long I’d do anything for you because you were the best friend that I had ever had. You were always there for me just a hit or a shot away. Through police raids, loosing custody of my children, breakups, arrests, totaled cars, getting robbed, kidnapped, fights, high speed chases, all the money lost, heartbreak, breaking hearts, relationships-real and fake, endless nights that turned into mornings…you were my only constant. You made me feel like everything was fine and I had it all together when actually you were the source of my pain and suffering. You made me so cold and evil and brought out a monster, a monster I still know is within me but I will never let you take away my light again. You showed me the true evils of the world that I wish never discovered. I lost my intuition and any sense of who I was, it all went up in smoke. You made me hurt the only people who truly cared for me, missing birthdays holidays Christmases I’ll never get back. I’ll never be able to take back the things I’ve said or done and I’ll never be able to make up for the lost time that I spent alone with you dropping my morals and values so there was always space for you. I chose you over anyone or anything without skipping a beat, you were my answer to everything. Happy? Smoke. Mad? Smoke. Sad? Smoke. Tired/not tired…it was insanity and you are not my answer-not ever again. I’m done hurting, I’m done searching, I’m done giving up and giving away my life and soul to something that sucks at me until all that was left was a shell of myself.
I now choose to take back the parts of me that you took away. I choose be the mother and woman you would not let me be! I now put my family first instead of you! Somehow you took away everything I cared about and then left me EMPTY wanting to die. I thought if I can’t have you then I’d rather be dead, you were all I wanted and needed for so long. You were all I had to hold onto but now that you are out of my body physically, I am back in control and I see that everything you gave me was fake and toxic. The other addicts you brought into my life hurt me more than I knew humanly possible. Together you broke me down, took advantage of my kindness and took me to places physically and mentally so dark that I will never be the same person I once was. You took everything from me but it was never enough. You had me convinced that my kids could live without me and that things would be better that way. What a fucking lie!!! The more you tried to fix me the more you made things worse, The more numb I felt the more empty I became. I remember looking at my kids like they were see through, there was no love no emotion I was out of my mind. My brain had become as cloudy as the pipe in my hand. It was so hard to think when I couldn’t feel a thing. I was sick and only getting sicker until I found myself getting raided AGAIN. The desperation and hopelessness I felt sitting in that cold empty cell facing 5 years all by myself for the second time within a year became the place that I would rebuild my life on. That was the moment I could not take one more second of the life I had been leading. No more will I volunteer my life to play in your games. The first two weeks without you was comparable to a living hell, my husband carrying me to and from the bathroom, bathing me, feeding me because I could not take care of myself. Withdrawals from you had taken every ounce of energy and strength I had left. You sucked me dry like a fucking leach. But then I woke up one morning and things felt better. I had feelings and emotions again!!! And one those was hope, HOPE that if I held on, things would get better as long as I never touched you, tasted you, or put you into my body again. You still linger daily in my mind and creep up on my dreams. Petty as you always been, begging for me to come back to you but I will never give you that satisfaction or power again. Thank you for the lessons, thank you for leading me to recovery, thank you for being there when I would have checked out of life otherwise. Thank you for bringing the most amazing people into my life that I only know because they are fighting their own battles with you. But more that, FUCK YOU, go rot in hell, peace the fuck out.
NEVER AGAIN,
ahaygood
You may see me struggle but you will never see me quit.
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I have written a break up letter to my DOC a couple of times. Our brains are like a computer to where we need to reprogram it after something like addiction. The problem is, this programming isn’t instant. We have to say over and over that we are done in order for our brain to have the chance to reprogram. I don’t know if this conveys exactly what I was trying to say as my brain has been destroyed after 2 decades of abuse, but the ghist is there. My letters helped me to get it out in the open and helped me to dig up more reasons on what I needed to break up with my DOC. Hope it helps
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Very good on your goodbye letter congrats on being clean n sober keep up the good work it’s worth it
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I think if I wrote a goodbye letter to my doc right now it would be very very short and the second word would be “you”
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Hahaha!!! Love it……Damn straight
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Wow…Reading your letter made me feel as though I was the one that wrote it. It brought back so many emotions. U said pretty much all the things I couldn’t put into words. Thank u for sharing it with me.
Here’s mine…
Finally I Say Goodbye
I once thought I loved you. I used to think u were the answer to all my problems. You were the first thing I thought of when I opened my eyes and last thing before I closed them. With you I was able to forget how broken I was… how much pain I was in. I thought u were good for me but it was all lies. Lies I made myself believe. Lies I would tell myself and the ones that love me. You destroyed my life, my health, my relationships. Lies that left me with me with only disappointment and regret. So thank you for being there when I thought I needed u. I don’t need u anymore. So I’m saying Goodbye once and for all and saying hello to my new idle Sobriety.
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Hell yeah!!! No more money, time, energy, wasted on that shit. I’m going on 10 months and wrote that letter when I was 2 months clean. I have come such a long way it is amazing!!! I’m proud of you and what you are doing, it isn’t easy but it’s so worth it❤️ One day at a time….sometimes one breath at a time and life is worth living again.
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