Nice to read that others went on the pilgrimage in search of an answer too. I am coming up to 4 years mid January clean and sober.
It is interesting to be able to look at the hows and whys of my addiction now, and be able to see that addiction is a symptom, not the disease in and of itself. None of the meds I take can be addictive, because I know that I will abuse them. Prior to getting clean, I was abusing anything and everything I could get my hands on. Alcohol was the one constant in my life, since I was in grade 7. I was a black out drunk my very first time getting drunk. Definitely not the last time I got black out drunk though. At the end of my using career, I was abusing benzos, Gravol, cocaine, alcohol, cold medications....anything that would make me numb.
When I got sober the first time, was when I found self injury on a big scale. I still struggle with that today when I get really overwhelmed, but also know that it is a desperate struggle for me to not dissociate more often than not.
I relapsed for 6 months, then realized that things weren't getting any better with the drugs when I tried to kill myself.
I went to rehab for 6 weeks, then into a support recovery house for 6 months. Having that space away from drugs allowed my brain time to heal enough that I could see that there was a reason why I used drugs the way I did. It was not because of some moral failing on my part, I was not a bad person. I used drugs because I didn't know how to handle the insanity of my emotions and the nightmares and not sleeping and realizing that I was not and will never be like other people.
Coping skills were not modelled for me as a child. Using alcohol was modelled and extreme violence as well. So of course I didn't know what to do. Psychology suggests that when we start using drugs in any way to squash things down or to cope, we stop growing. I stopped growing mentally and psychologically at a very young age. So getting sober was like starting to learn as a kid, but in an adult body.
Having cPTSD and trying to get sober in the gong show that was the support recovery house was trying, at best. I am clean not because of that place, but rather despite it. The level of violence that took place there was horrifying to me, as someone with trauma.
There is an awesome book called "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts", by Dr. Gabor Maté. He is a doctor who has a practice on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver BC, the place they always show and talk about in terms of addiction issues in Canada. He writes about how every person he treats for addiction issues has a history of trauma. He makes the people people. He humanizes them, puts a face to the person and tells their story.
Just like us. We all have our stories.
