A Recovery Primer

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Just because I want you all to understand a few things. Some of us on here are in recovery. That can be from drugs, alcohol, food, any addiction.

The Basics: Recovery is the middle state between being sick and being well. For addicts, recovery never becomes being well again. We can get sick again, but we can never be cured of our addiction. We can keep getteing better, but never cured.

People become addicted to stuff for all sorts of reasons, from genetics, to abuse, to depression, even from too much partying. People who habitually abuse anything are addicts. The longer the addiction, the more hard wired it becomes.

Recovery is not a simple matter of quitting something. If you can just up and quit something cold turkey (as they say) and not feel any ill effects, you never were addicted and therefore are not in recovery.

A Description: Recovery is a moment by moment choice to not return to your addiction. It is moment by moment because the desire is that strong and the temptations are everywhere. Plus, life is filled with stress.

It is not easy. Every recovery is different, bu none are easy. It does not get easier with time. They say the first year is the roughest, until you've gotten through the first year and they tell you that the second year now becomes the first year again. No moment is easy. Some moments are better than others.

Paul Simon put it best when he said "A good day ain't got no rain. A bad day is when I sit in bed and think about what might have been." He was talking about marriage, but heck it works for this too.

A Warning: Anyone here who thinks it can't happen to you, you're wrong. Sometimes one small choice leads to a life of bad situations. And willpower does not overcome addiction once you have it. That's a myth. So, don't assume you know anything about addiction and recovery unless you're in recovery or you're a Doctor who specializes in it. And don't you ever look down on an addict or a recovering addict. You just don't know. You don't want to know. If you ever look down on an addict I actually HOPE and PRAY you become one yourself so you can understand what a judgemental ass you are.

Addiction is an Illness: A MEDICALLY DEFINED ILLNESS just like the flu or cancer. Doctors across the world accept it as an illness. AND those of us in recovery or various stages of addiction never chose to get sick. You can't hate or blame the person, you can hate and blame the disease. It is a medical fact. Ask any doctor.

Everyone makes bad choices, especially when you're young and invincible. I made some bad choices. Did I ask to be an alcoholic? Hell no. Would I make better decisions if I could go back? I have no idea. I was a teenager when I started.

Let's put it this way: If someone had come up to me and showed me all the fun I woul have drinking and then just shown me the pain of the last three years of addiction and the first year of recovery and offered me a way out, a different choice that would alter nothing accept my alcoholism and recovery, would I take the clean way? Hell... Fuck... Yes...

But I never had this information. Commercials told my how great it was. Friends and relatives had fun doing it. It was socially acceptable and even expected, like a wedding toast.

So, one last time. Judge me for who I m today if you must, but don't pretend you are any better, any smarter or worth more than me. I've Paid My Dues.

Have you?

Murk