One Week Sober Today

[AdamAnt]

I said above I'd never tire of sayin it, so you decide to test me?...HA! :)

Congrats and good luck Jadebear. So many know what you do but don't keep making the effort, Proud of you for keepin on with the fight. I'll keep sayin it even when you've been quit a year....

Congrats Jadebear!

 

[Jawn]

Good job Jadebear. Keep it up! :)

 

[snugglepuss]

One day at a time, and if that seems to be too overwhelming, break it down into minutes if you have to. When I got clean and sober, that is how I had to do it. Trying to think of being sober for the rest of my life really overwhelmed me. But there was no need to think like that, because all I had to do was be where I was. And it was really not comfortable either. But if I could just hang on, it would pass. I think of it like riding a wave in surfing. Emotions eventually do pass. And there are things you can do to help yourself be more safe when you are in the middle of the shit.

Using alcohol or drugs to get through life does not equal a moral failing, contrary to what western society would have us believe. The vast majority of us who struggle with addiction issues are quite literally fighting to stay alive. Drugs and alcohol are not good or bad. Same as cutting. The act of using or doing is not good or bad. There is no judgement attached to it. I view it as a coping tool, same as breathing, asking for help, or doing something else to distract myself. Obviously some of the coping tools offer a different outcome, but once I stopped attaching a value judgement on how I had coped for so many years, I gained a lot of freedom.

If I cut, and feel guilt and shame and embarassment over it, guess where I end up? In that nasty downward spiral of self loathing and disgust and isolation, which then leads me to cut, which then leads me to...

You get the idea.

So hang in there. You have a whole bunch of people here who are ready to provide support whenever you should need it, in a variety of different ways.

 

[Jade-]

If I cut, and feel guilt and shame and embarassment over it, guess where I end up? In that nasty downward spiral of self loathing and disgust and isolation, which then leads me to cut, which then leads me to...

That's exactly how I feel about drinking. It's definitely not something I'm proud of, and makes me feel like such a failure when I do....

 

[snugglepuss]

Jadebear

One of the most important things I can do for myself is try and reframe some of my thinking.
The first time I got clean and sober, it lasted for about 6 months. I was in no way in recovery. I was hanging onto being drug free by my fingernails, and was miserable every second.

When I relapsed, that lasted about 6 months too. And the amount of damage I did to my body in that time is pretty scary. I was cutting all the time (and pretty seriously too), and my emotions were so out of control. The more I felt like I was a failure, the deeper I dug myself into the hole. And in mid January 4 years ago, I tried to kill myself by overdose. Obviously didn't work, cuz I'm still here.
And it wasn't so much that I wanted to die, I just wanted the misery and the pain to stop. But I needed help and support and guidance to learn how to do it without completely destroying myself.
I personally do not attend AA/NA meetings anymore, and haven't since I was a year and a half clean. Some people thrive in the rooms of 12 step programs, some people don't. I have a hard time with absolutes, so NA didn't work for me.
I really think that getting some good counselling and getting to the bottom of why I used drugs was important. I obviously had some sort of idea, but by talking about the hows and whys outloud, I was able to process some of the emotions. And I also invested a couple of years in participating in a few programs, one was called seeking safety which is for people who have addiction and trauma in their lives (groups can be mixed gender, or split...personally, I liked being with other women because I think society is different for us than how men can experience it). That lasted for several months. And then I took a DBT course that lasted a little over 8 months. DBT was developed by Marsha Linehan to be used with people who are primarily diagnosed as BPD, but anyone can benefit immenself from this program.
So please, don't beat yourself up. It takes time, patience, practice, and learning new skills to develop sobriety. Like I said above, using drugs is only a coping mechanism. We can't remove one learned skill and expect life to continue on merrily without replacing it with another coping mechanism that is perhaps more conducive to living life the way we envision ourselves living it.