Dangit! Typo fixed. 
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So crazy, at over 3.5 years drug free (liquid drug included) when I read “I have separate counters for drugs and booze,” my addict says to me, “hmm, you could always restart and have separate timers.” No you can not,
alcohol is a drug period, separating timers is dangerous. If you are anything like me you need to abstain from all mood and mind altering substaces.
And side note: i would have so many fucking timers if i started a timer for all the drugs I have stopped using in my life when I stopped using them. “I’ve been clean from crack for 22 years” “I’ve been clean from opium for 24 years” “Ive been clean from benzos for … " oh wait yeah, " Meth free for 18 years!”
No… fuck, I have 3.5 years clean because I’m a raging dope feind who just kept switching her drugs for something else trying her hardest to survive this disease we have. Finally I have found a way to live without drugs, finally. Being honest with myself has helped.
Rant over. 
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I keep timers for alcohol and cigarettes/nicotine…9 years apart. The only reason I keep the cigarette one after all these years is because I like seeing the savings, when I think to look. All the other stuff, I don’t timer that. Alcohol was my main nemesis all these decades. Still struggle with sleep when stressed (hello 2023), but I don’t have that on a timer. It isn’t sucking my soul/making me want to die.
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Yeah, I stopped doing drugs long before alcohol. But that was mostly because I left the UK and no longer had access to a uber-sniff (sorry, bad joke) who I could summon to my door with one text. I’m inherently lazy like that.
If I ever decide to quit vaping / nicotine, I might do a separate timer for it, though. But that day is not today.
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Obscene amount of money!!! 
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One thing I seem to forget, especially on here, is that you can’t scare an alcoholic into sobriety. I’ve seen plenty of people drink themselves into early graves after being told by every doctor they needed to stop, but they didn’t care. Or maybe they did care and just didn’t know how to stop. Either way they are dead.
I don’t know what the difference is between them and me (other than my status of alive) that gave me the desire to get sober. I don’t know why I survived long enough to get that desire and they didn’t. And honestly, I don’t need to know. Maybe it’s just the odds.
What I do know is that once I found that desire I was able to find a way out. All the overdoses, health scares, and accidents never stopped me. Didn’t even phase me. For me the only place that desire could have possibly come from was a power greater than myself. Once I had the desire AA took me the rest of the way home.
Hopefully someone who is stuck in the cycle of constant relapse can pull something from this post. There is a way out.
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In the last 3.5 years I have seen plenty of desperation bring plenty of addicts to the rooms with a deep desire to stop the chaos and suffering they are in. I have also seen a high percentage of them go back out after a short time, and I think the difference isnt that they dont have the desire. The addicts I have seen do but they are missing the willingness to get honest with themselves, and to feel the pain that it takes to really recover. Living as a clean addict is not for the faint of heart, it takes a lot of courage.
I pray for them a lot.
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One of my favorite meeting leaders says AA is for those that want it and are willing. Have to have both.
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I never drank or did drugs because they were easily accessible. I did them because I had absolutely no defenses against picking up.
It is impossible to completely shield yourself from drugs an especially booze, so if that’s your plan you’re going to pick up again. Find a program and work it so you can actually enjoy the freedom from the substance rather than living in fear that a beer might jump out of the can and into your throat.
Now this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t try to avoid boozy situations in early sobriety, you absolutely should. I’m just saying that isolation won’t work forever and if you don’t do the self work you will never get a defense against picking up the next one.
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All I’m getting from this meme is that Harry was one of us.
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I didn’t learn anything during my 2 relapses that I hadn’t already been told by a dozen people. Just because I didn’t listen doesn’t mean I didn’t know. “Learning” from a relapse is nothing more than a cop out. Not listening is a willful choice, not lack of knowledge.
There’s nothing to be learned from a relapse. Point. Blank. Period.
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For me it’s been for my health. I don’t have kids but I also didn’t want to be a drunk father if I did have any because I wouldn’t want to set them up for failure.
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Most returns to addiction are self-fulfilling prophecies. All of mine certainly were. Not being confronted with that truth, I was able to build up my layers of denial.
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The more I blamed external forces for my drinking and drugging the less I took any responsibility for the problems in my life.
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Saw an interesting post on people from rehab. Rather than derail another thread I’m gonna put my thoughts here.
Most of the people I went to my first rehab with are dead. Same with my second. I scroll through my friends on Facebook and can’t count on 2 hands how many are dead. Quite a few others seem to be well on their way.
Most of them don’t get debate whether or not they keep their sober days after a relapse. They didn’t even get to keep breathing. I’m sure they, and what was left of the people that loved them, would really love the chance to start that clock over at zero days.
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Wow …powerful… brutal honesty and truth
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I sat in a meeting on Friday with someone who I went to rehab with and she was coming off a psychotic bender and it was her first time back in the rooms for a while.
I sometimes feel shocked that I’m still sober when many others have gone back to their old ways but also remember I changed everything and they haven’t. I also haven’t left thinking I’m ok (even if sometimes I think about it)
It was a great reminder that rehab is not a fix all and I am so grateful to be here sober and breathing.
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A few weeks back I had to have a meeting with HR regarding some feedback from my staff. Needless to say that if you are meeting with HR the feedback isn’t good and this instance was no different.
To be honest I did not agree with the feedback at all. In fact I still don’t. I could have gotten defensive, made excuses, or shifted blame. That’s pretty natural for someone to do in that moment. But I didn’t, because if different people are giving similar feedback there’s probably some truth to it, whether I believe it or not. So I took the feedback, owned my shit, and made some changes. And those changes have yielded positive results in my department.
This is not so different from my first attempt at sobriety where I had multiple people tell me I wasn’t doing enough. Except back then I didn’t take the feedback. Instead I got defensive and acted like a victim because how dare them.
Turns out I should have taken the feedback because I relapsed not long after. Luckily in my sobriety I have learned to take accountability, even when I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, and as a result the outcomes in my life are much better.
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That’s such an important lesson to learn for us all. Not accepting feedback is almost like a reflex that defaults to these
I could add hiding behind humour. “Oh, I was only joking.”
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