i would rather not be this specific, but the less specific version is less useful, and the part i have not said is the part that might make a difference to someone else.
the personal part is not what i did after rehab, but why it mattered.
my drinking was trauma aftermath, not chemical dependence, so there was also seven months of intensive dbt, three times a week. it included a psychiatrist, a psychopharmacologist, and a therapist led support group.
i experienced a very near miss at twenty, and i wrongly told myself that surviving it meant i was fine. i moved back to california and believed i had left it behind me, which was convenient, and also not true.
from this distance, i think some of that was emotional shock. a type of refusal, and i'm very good at refusal. i did not want to look at it, or admit that it had changed me. that part took years. but you cannot heal from something you are still insisting did not alter you.
iโve realized the private part may be the most worth passing on. and honestly, i'd be even more lost right now, especially right now, without those seven months to lean on.
