- Alcohol
When I came in, I was defeated. I couldn’t hold on to a job, a relationship or anything really. My life was miserable because I drank, and I drank to escape it. I had tried everything I could think of to stay sober (including moving 2,000 miles from home) and hadn’t found anything that could end the pattern of chronic relapse.
After crashing another car and losing another job, I tried rehab again. I didn’t know how this rehab would be different than the last one I’d been to, but I had no idea how to stay sober either. When I arrived I was very much treated as an individual unlike the psychiatric wing that was the last institution I’d been to. We got to the root of why I was unable to achieve sustained sobriety, and I learned how to do things differently. It’s entirely possible that I’d heard these things before, but I’d run out of the self-will needed to keep thinking I knew better than those who could actually stay sober.
When I came in, I thought meditation was just something hippies did on communes and monks did in monasteries, but I was willing to try anything. Now it’s a major part of why I’m still here, and I credit meditation with being responsible for a handful of significant epiphanies along the way.
After rehab I was newly sober and unemployed in an unfamiliar city (Los Angeles), without a car and asking myself, “What now?” Even though I wasn’t a client anymore, my treatment center asked how they could help and offered me a job. It didn’t seem like much at the time, taking clients to meetings, running errands and doing miscellaneous tasks required to keep the place running smoothly, but it kept me thinking about sobriety and held me accountable when I might have relapsed in those first few months out of treatment. Having close contact with clients in their first days of sobriety was a humbling reminder of the desperation I came in with. It was the first job that I didn’t hate. The treatment center now offers many of the clients some sort of internship because so many of us come in broke and unemployed.
In my experience getting sober is just a part of it. So much more is required to keep sobriety. Getting back on your feet is a huge part of recovery, because sometimes it’s hard to find reasons to stay sober if you think you have nothing to lose. Another key component to sobriety is having a sober posse to make sobriety fun and keep you going in the right direction. The support of friends and family is great, but there’s something special about talking to someone in recovery.
I’ve recently done the unthinkable: celebrated two years sober. I still work at the treatment center I got sober in (in a different capacity), and I’m finishing the degree I started over a dozen years ago. I got my first new car because I’m not afraid that I’ll crash it or won’t be able to make payments. I have my small posse of friends that I look forward to fellowshipping with after meetings.
My life isn’t all sunshine and roses, but I have good problems. Things like being late for work because I have a job, getting parking tickets because I have a car, or locking myself out of my apartment because I’m a genius. Generally speaking though, things are good and I’m happy. I haven’t been able to honestly say that since my early teenage years.