Clean Journey Day 7

Today was the strangest combination of difficulty and pride.

I went to a meeting I've never been to before that's only a few minutes from my house. My sponsor recommended it and said she'd be there, which always makes it a little less awkward than it would be alone. When I first got there I was really excited - I'd never seen so many young people at a meeting before, AA included. Everyone seemed really enthusiastic and happy to see newcomers, and everyone seemed really into recovery and pretty laid back. Then the meeting started.

They started by giving out clean time, as most meetings do, and I usually enjoy listening to people talk about their success, although it admittedly rubs me the wrong way on occasion - it can be difficult and intimidating to hear people talk about their success, especially if you only have 7 days. When I hear about people who have been clean for 15 years it makes me dread the thought of not getting high for 15 years instead of making me excited at the prospect of having long term sobriety. I don't care what anybody in those rooms says, it sucks to have to think about a life without feeling that kind of pleasure again. If it didn't suck, it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

I'm too pissed off to even get to the point. First of all, these two girls who were the welcomers were talking through everybody's fucking clean time. Especially the people with 30, 60, 90 days who I would imagine are more important to hear than the people with 5, 10, 15 years. I don't think there could be anything more disrespectful than talking about random shit while somebody has their moment. They Kanye West-ed everybody there. Those people deserve their moment.

Except for some people who fucking didn't. This one kid got up to take a 9 month chip and said "I only have 8 months, but I just wanted to share." And then proceeded to talk about how he's only been to 6 NA meetings in his life. I've been to 6 NA meetings in the past 7 days. It pissed me off. Also, "just wanting to share,", also known as just wanting to hear yourself talk, set the precedent for the rest of the night. Everybody continued to talk and walk in late and welcome their buddies with loud high fives and obnoxious calls to each other, and it made me question the integrity of the whole damn program. How are these people calling themselves sober, and having no regard for anyone but themselves and the few people they hang out with?

Big surprise...as it turns out, one of the two girls who were the welcomers was getting her 18 month chip that day, and the other girl was giving the congratulations speech for her. Fine. But it became obvious that the reason they were talking through everybody else's clean time was because they were so excited about their own. It didn't help that when the girl got up there she spent about 10 minutes acting like she'd just won an oscar. ("Oh my god, is it hot in here?! I don't even know what to say, I want to throw up, I'm speechless,") I mean I know its a big deal, but can you at least try to cut the theatrics? Tell us how you did it? What it means to you? It really was a bunch of shit. So I got pissed off and I went to have a cigarette.

There were two other kids outside who had left the meeting. The one girl was obviously upset, and talking to her friend about how it was impossible to go to this meeting in particular because everybody was so fucking clique-y. That's when it occurred to me that THAT was what had been bothering me about the whole thing - it was as if you weren't the 8 or 9 people that were collecting clean time or talking about their friends who were collecting clean time, you didn't exist. NA is supposed to be welcoming, especially to newcomers. This was like fucking high school. I told the girl outside that I felt the same way, and I planned on talking about it at the open BEGINNERS discussion group afterward - that its hard to find a home in NA when you don't know anybody, and especially hard when people don't introduce themselves to you or effectively ignore the fact that you're there.

But I stuck it out and went back in for the discussion, ready to talk about my concerns, but also wanting to share about other things. Like the struggles I've had in the past 7 days as well as what I'm proud of - How the detox was horribly painful, how it sucks to have people that you think care about you call you for drugs on a daily basis, when they know you're in recovery, how grateful I am that I have a wonderful girlfriend who baked me a cake today because I made it through a week, or how grateful I am to God and NA for letting me stay sober another day.

But this fucking jackass comes in, the same guy who talked through everyone's clean time and accepted his 15 year chip (by the way, this guy wears all of his chips on his belt like its bling...perhaps the perfect analogy of this guys attitude toward sobriety). So this section of the meeting is for beginners to share their shit, but I can understand somebody with a lot of clean time coming, to hear people out or to help. The first person to share was this girl who was genuinely going through some shit and really needed NA's help. He practically cut her off and started talking about some "Japanese girl..or chinese, whatever" who was fucking all these people in NA, proceeded to talk about how he wants to fuck his girlfriend every day...he slipped in a few things about recovery here and there, but it was obvious he wanted to hear himself talk. Why would you come to a beginners meeting and talk about NOTHING? Especially if we just had to listen to you give a 20 minute speech about your 15 years of sobriety? He started making jokes and making jokes AT people, yelling at them for not laughing, and it became obvious to me that it was a fucking stand up act. I left. I was done. I was hurt that I didn't get to share and that someone could be so insensitive and obnoxious.

Luckily I got to talk to my sponsor about it afterward. Too bad my 7 days was tainted by a gigantic asshole. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Thanks for letting me share, although you had no choice. 

Clean Journey Day 6

A beer sounds fantastic right now. It just sounds so fantastic.

Thanks for letting me share.

Clean Journey Day 5

Well, here we go, second post.

Didn't get a chance to go to a meeting yesterday. I ended up spending about 8 hours at my Aunt and Uncle's, filled them in about how I'm back in the program. Told my Aunt everything I'd been doing, how it had moved to heavier shit and that's what made me hit my bottom. Talking to her about my previous recovery attempts and explaining to her why I felt like this one was different really allowed me to see how I'd finally hit my low. I guess before, after I got out of rehab, I just wasn't ready to give it up. Now I know what they mean by "You weren't done using yet." Speaking of knowing what they mean....

Since I've found my home in NA, and found in myself what is so attractive about certain drugs and why I can't control how I use them, I've had no qualms with anything. I used to sit in AA and create lists of fallacies in AA philosophy, explaining how their arguments didn't hold through, how they weren't true for me, how I was jealous of the people who connected so much with the program. I felt hopeless because AA is so effective, and if it didn't work for me I thought nothing would. Now in NA I'm not making any lists. I can't find any fallacies in their arguments, and everything they say is true for me. I finally understand the feeling of belonging that people in AA felt. All I had to do was think of it in terms of the substance that really got me, which to my surprise wasn't really alcohol.

Not to say I'm going to continue drinking. I'm the best addiction hopper in the world. I stopped using Ativan, but suddenly whiskey seemed so much more appealing. Drinking is something that I definitely have to get rid of.

Marijuana I feel is a different story. But that's for another post. I've been having a hard day. Hard to say goodbye with the misery that defined me for so long, makes me afraid of getting clean. More on that tomorrow. Thanks for letting me share

Clean Journey Day 4

Well hey everybody.

I guess there is no better or more ironically appropriate way to begin this first post other than to say, my name is C____ and I'm an addict and an alcoholic.

Obviously some of you knew who I am before you clicked on this , but I think it's important to maintain some sort of anonymity, especially on the internet. On that note, anything I talk about on here that is a proper noun will be written similarly, not to be unnecessarily cryptic or weird, but because it seems like the best thing to do. I'm really excited about starting this blog, and I want to share with the anonymous universe why I did it and how I'm going to do it.

As of 4 days ago, I started my recovery and my journey into sobriety. It seems as if the more excited I get about the progress I'm making and the new experiences I'm having, the more I feel the need to talk about it to the people around me and share how I'm doing or feeling. The problem with this is I can feel people getting mildly bored with me - not out of any sort of malice, but simply because hearing one person talk about one thing for any length of time can be extremely taxing. I'm acknowledging this, and wanted to find a way to keep my excitement about what I'm doing in my life alive without having to talk about it constantly. Believe me, nobody knows how horribly annoying it is to listen to someone in recovery talk about recovery 24-7 more than I do (I spent a month in rehab and another year in and out of AA). So, I figure that this is a way I can get things off my chest and keep my friends and loved ones updated on how I'm doing without forcing them to listen to it - this way, if you want to know, all you have to do is click, and if you don't want to know, you won't be forced to hear about it.

Someone at NA told me yesterday that a good way to get through the withdrawals is to keep a journal about my progress daily, so I can be encouraged by it later. My plan is to update this once a day, to provide myself with a bit of a running record that I can look back on later and feel proud of. Hopefully school and my band and my laziness won't get in the way of doing it, but I'm going to try to make it a priority, not only so I have an outlet but so that I can feel support from others. Please feel free to comment on this blog in whatever way you choose - emailing me or commenting underneath. The only thing I ask is that you don't use my name or anyone elses...initials should work. But yeah, I think it would be really cool if I had some sort of interactive way to talk to people about this that wasn't in real time - admittedly, sobriety is my life right now. But it doesn't have to be everyone elses..

Any way, I hope you guys think this is a good idea, cause I do. I'm not really sure who I'm talking to when I say "you guys" other than myself, but we'll see where this goes. Today is day 4 of being clean. I feel like shit and the withdrawals are awful. It also doesn't help that I tried to go to a meeting today - an AA meeting even though I'm going to be working the program through NA (narcotics anonymous). At this point I'm feeling pretty much done with AA. Every time I try and go to a meeting, there are either only 2 or 3 people there, half of whom are using alcohol or something else (visibly), or everyone is depressed as fuck and over the age of 65. They're also condescending and assume I have no experience with AA and that my problem isn't that severe ("It doesn't matter how much you used, I know I was at the point where I was homeless and jobless and blahblahblah, but you don't have to have used that much, assuming you didn't..."), and also take it on themselves to give advice at every opportunity. I know their hearts are in the right place, but the truth is I just don't relate to AA people anymore. I probably shouldn't make such a gross generalization and I'm sure there are good meetings out there, but where are they?! At this point I'd rather not go to a meeting than go to a meeting that's going to discourage me. 

Well, that's it for today, to avoid the risk of this being a super long post. Going to my Aunt and Uncle's house today, both of whom are recovered alcoholics, to watch the Notre Dame game. Should be a good day. Thanks for letting me share.

- C