There was problematic drinking in me and my partner’s lives. We both did things to fan the flames. We both lost our minds in different ways. We both became versions of ourselves we weren’t proud of. So we both got clean. Our recoveries look different from each other, but both my partner and I have been sober for one year today, here’s what I’ve learned:
- Everyone has some personal connections to addiction, but it’s rarely relevant to you. The truth is, everyone’s experiences with alcohol or other substances is independent from yours. People will try to tell you they had a buddy “just like you” who moderated his intake and was fine. Or that their Aunt or cousin just “couldn’t stay clean” without AA 5 nights a week. Those are all truths, but there are many truths. There are many successes, and many failures, but they are not part of a singular cause and effect. They just are.
- People will be made uncomfortable by the mere presence of you. And it’s best to just accept that. Many people have considered their own drinking problematic, even if it isn’t at a level that requires professional rehabilitation or abstinence at that moment. Anyone who has even considered it will may judged because you’re sober and present they project that onto you like when eating a cheeseburger with people who only order salads. My advice (do with it what you will): know this will happen, don’t let it silence you or pressure you, know that this in no way should make you feel guilty.
- There are no victors in addiction. I feel like we see addicts as monsters regardless of where they are in their battle. Even an addict in recovery faces a certain stigma as untrustworthy, not to mention the rehashing of the person’s misdeeds from when they were using. And those are for people who are clean, imagine the stigma for people struggling with active addiction. (While I recognize the therapeutic validity to step 8 and 9, those amends are initiated and implemented by the person in recovery, not people in their lives that feel jilted.)
- We romanticize the loved ones. As a partner of a person in recovery, I can tell you — many people feel we can do no wrong. It’s always “Oh, the struggles of those friends, family, and partners of addicts! The poor souls” Let me tell you: When I say we both lost our minds. We. Both. Lost. Our. Minds. I am no more a victim of the addict in my life than I am a victim of the Loch Ness monster. I am a victim of my need to stay and control situations — in the guise of helping them. I am a victim of my own manipulative devices. I am a victim of my own low self esteem. My addict had control over none of those things. I have complete control over them. I am my own problem.
- There is more than one way to get clean. And sobriety looks different to every sober person. Take me and my partner. Getting clean for me required minimal effort in the beginning. I’ve never been a daily drinker, I’ve been a binge drinker. Now that we’re at the year mark, I find myself missing the occasional intoxicated dance-off like a friend I fell out of touch with. My partner drank every day. Heavily. The withdraw was intense and required medication to stabilize symptoms. He required rehab and AA to get clean and gradually sobriety became his new normal. He does not express the same temptations as I do at this point. Some addicts swear by AA. Every week. With zeal. Others detest AA and use naltrexone or Cognitive-Behaivor-Therapy. Some use outpatient rehab, some inpatient. At the end of the day it only matters that it works. All the matters is that you went to bed one more night successful.
- The most challenging thing and the easiest thing to do is to have faith. In the rooms there is a saying “Not but for the grace of God.” Now we all learn for ourselves what exactly God is, and if it is nothing, what learn we have faith in. But I have to say, I’ve begun to believe in luck less and less. So many times when I feel like I’m drowning, I find there happens to be a life raft waiting for me. Or times when I’ve struggled for a while, contemplated darkness, felt doomed to despair- then all the sudden the sun rises. I can catch my breath. Help often comes when you need it. Don’t get me wrong- I can find all the evidence in the world for why I shouldn’t have faith. But I can also find so much evidence for why I should have faith. So many beautiful days, gifts of good company, moments of gladness. It’s easy to lose sight of the comforts in life. But recognizing them makes life so much easier to handle.