dziga's blog post - Didn't mark it on the 24th...

usually do. It was eight years without a single drink or drug. I'm more impressed than you are. Much more impressed.

Truth be told, it has not been the easiest of those eight years by any stretch of the imagination. Staying sober with someone who is not staying sober...it doesn't make me want to use anything, but it certainly adds a lot of tension to life. The problem does become the pink elephant in the living room. Perhaps the hardest part is not being able to deal with it honestly and rationally. When one is in the grips of this stuff, logic, truthfulness and perspective all go right out the window. It is not something that reasonable conversations can be had about until one is completely resolute regarding the notion that they are ready to be done for good and all. Despite all my experience with recovery, there is not much I can do but try my best not to obsess on things I can't really do anything "satisfactory" about.

And I get it fully. A little over eight years ago, there was seriously a big debate going on in my head as to which was preferable: suicide or life without drugs and alcohol. Yes, I wanted a life without drugs or alcohol...but life was exceedingly painful emotionally and mentally to me at that point. If you've ever seen The Days of Wine and Roses there is a moment where the guy is trying one last time to get his girl to quit. She's standing in front of the window and talks about how dirty and ugly the world is without booze. So she needs to drink in order to be able to stand the world. And that leaves out the fear that usually grips an alcoholic/addict. Vague, omnipresent fear. One can't imagine life with or without booze/drugs.

I get it. Unless one changes sufficiently on the inside, all that stuff returns after a while and a relapse becomes just the next thing...not really a choice, just the next thing. I don't believe for a second that the majority who return to it sit there one day thinking, "Well, my life would be more fun if I started using again." They just reach a point where it becomes just the next thing, the familiar tool to deal with a life that they are losing their ability to deal with.

Something a speaker said that made a lot of sense to me: People headed for a psychotic break and alcoholics share a lot of symptoms in common. Psychosis is simply the minds way of coping with a reality that they are no longer able to cope with. Alcoholics almost never truly suffer psychotic breaks. Why? Because when they reach the point where reality is becoming so hard for them to cope with, they take a drink and that alters their perception of reality enough for their minds to "reset" a bit...staving off psychosis. Taking a drink/drug to preserve their sanity even though taking a drink or a drug is an insane thing for them to do. Scylla and Charybdis. Don't know how this line of thought holds up in modern psychiatry, but it makes a lot of guttural sense to me; it rings true according to my experience.

Anywho...eight years and counting. Screw the people who say that recovery can't happen quickly. Within a month and a half of my last bottom, my internal world had completely changed. Within three months I was helping other people change their internal worlds. And apparently it has all been solid because I have dealt with some of the things that the "professionals" say one is in trouble with if they are around it. Keep your own house in order and good things will happen.