#alcoholism

this sounds stupid.

but it did. there were a lot of substances i had access to for various reasons (mostly my peers) that i never tried because i thought they would make my insanity worse.

based on my relationship with alcohol had i tried any of that i would have been FUCKED.

like in all capitals would not be here to type this fucked. like multiple times. dead and buried. like i can point out exactly when. which.

yeah.

my god i am so glad that the second i mentioned that i had psychosis (i called it schizophrenia at the time due to lack of knowledge) so many of my peers were like "no. you dont try this. you NEVER try this." and we were like teenagers i have no idea how they even knew to warn me.

for all that we were super fucked up and still are, those people who told me no loved me enough to keep me alive.

and a big part of me breaks for the kids like me who didnt have that knowledge or that love.

hmmm... day drink at 10 am?

As a recovering addict something that Ive found that trips me up the most in recovery is the very black and white all or nothing way we discuss recovery and how I cant really talk about my own journey without potentially triggering someone else's bc of it. And Im not meaning how "religion is the only way to recovery" and "if you relapse you're back to square one" conversations, the arguments against those are VERY important and its true those mindsets are harmful, but im meaning how we define recovery itself leaves very little room for any form of nuance and people are, by definition, very complex.

Im gonna paint a picture here, in my early teens I was introduced to a world of escapism via alcohol, drugs, and nicotine. And I loved it. I loved every second. I loved the person alcohol made me. I was less angry and I laughed so much more. I felt like a human being. I loved how speed and coke and weed and X (etc etc etc blah blah) made me feel. I wasnt tired all the time and I felt like I could focus or actually be chill and stop being so high strung 24/7. I was a model student. I had straight As and was in band and theater and sports. I did academic extracellulars and competitions. I felt on top of the world actually. I LOVED it. Recovering addicts don't tend to talk like that about their experiences. Some do, of course, but theres a massive air of shame attached to that time period for the majority of individuals in recovery. In my experience there is very rarely ever just neutrality when it comes to that period of someone's life and even rarer still, happiness or even fondness.

Things ive found out about myself as a grown adult man AFTER getting clean: I have autism, ocd, and adhd. For those unaware autism and ocd are very common in alcoholics and you can look up all the studies and science and whatnot if youd like. Adhd often requires stimulants. In summary, as a teen I was self medicating a host of mental disorders I didnt even know existed, much less ran in my family like wildfire. A large part of me looks back and realizes I was doing my best with what I had while wading a sea of abuse and neglect. And in a fucked up way, it was working.

Now back to my point of this post. The black and white thinking. I am a recovering addict but I am not sober. I went completely sober for 3 years and I fucking hated it. It sucked. I never felt accomplished, I felt like ass. Why did everyone else get to experimce this part of existence but I am somehow singularly cursed with being special and bad. Except Im not special or bad. Instead I had to acknowledge what my problems actually were. 1)I had untreated mental health problems. And 2) I had a serious lack of moderation ability. I had 0 control. Something felt good so I kept doing it and doing it and doing it. Part of which comes from the aforementioned untreated mental health.

So I worked on number 1 so I could tackle number 2. And in that I learned. Drugs are bad for me (obviously). But what I mean is give me an inch and I take a mile. A joint leads to a line very very swiftly for me. I can't control it. It doesn't matter what is legal where I live, once I have one I need to have another and another and then I need more. So I avoid them. All of them. And some days its really hard. Dispensaries are on every street corner where I live. Drugs are where abstinence works, really works, for me. Alcohol however, is different. My alcoholism was solely a moderation problem that I could overcome. I like alcohol. I still like how it makes me feel. I like that I am looser and that I laugh more. I like that I can talk with strangers and tell jokes. So I learned moderation because it was worth it to me. I have 1-3 drinks one night a week. Nothing crazy. A rum and coke maybe. A dirty Shirley if im feeling spicy. And then I stop. Most times 1 is enough for me. I dont want to keep going and going. I don't want to get blackout and wake up in my own vomit. And nicotine was the same way for me. I still smoke. Its just maybe one cigarette a month. Saved only for when I'm celebrating or very very upset. 1 pack lasts me over a year. And yeah smoking stale tobacco kinda sucks so it makes me do it even less. But again, it was about moderation and deciding if it was worth it to learn it or just abstain.

But this line of thinking means I cant walk into an AA meeting on days where I don't think I can handle the craving. Where my hard fought for moderation is being tested by life. Its easy for me to find a local NA and pop in and tell my story and talk about the shitty things in my life that makes me want to find out who my local dealers are and be surrounded by people who are struggling the same way. But if I walk into an AA meeting im not going to recieve the help I need. I know this from experience. I don't need God telling me to abstain and that Im a bad person to everyone around me if i dont or fail, I need someone to talk to and offer encouragement to keep fighting the good fight. To tell me that Im doing the right thing and that recovery is hard and Im not alone. But I feel so fucking alone. Nonaddicts will never understand that itch. They just dont. Talking to friends or my husband who's never been there isnt helpful. But I cant talk about it to my recovering friends bc my behavior is unintentionally enabling. For them, pure abstinence is the only way and the idea of "maybe just a little. I can control it" is dangerous to them and many others in recovery.