empowering people to tackle substance use problems
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After an interesting conversation with a friend, I began to ponder on the thought, “Will I always be an addict?” Being tee-total for most of my life I believe that I began to abuse alcohol to mask the problems that I was encountering in my life at the time….
Now that I have acknowledged, sort help, been through treatment and prepared to address my problems. Can I still be an addict?
xx
Hi Von – what an interesting question,
I have always felt that my addiction to alcohol as a substance was much more about circumstances than it was about the substance itself. I think if I had been a different age and in a different group it could easily have been something else.
I suppose this means that I do consider myself an addict, as I know that there is a strong tendency in me – a compulsion perhaps – that could easily be destructive if I don’t keep working at my recovery and how I respond to challenging situations and feelings.
That’s just me and others may feel completely differently, but personally I find it helpful to understand this side of myself. I feel no shame about having that label, in fact I would go so far as to suggest that we are all addicts, except some of us have recognised it and tackled it head on.
Interesting Michaela in what you say. I guess the label ‘addict’ to me is shameful because I fell at the first post and chose alcohol even though I know how distructive it is…. I lost my father to alcohol 3 years ago and more recently I lost my sister and my children lost their father through alcohol x x
Hi Von,
Knowing how destructive something is doesn’t seem to stop us doing it! As I sit here writing this smoking a roll-up. Being human is a whole bundle of contradictions and none of us really believe what happens to others will happen to us.
:) thank you xx
I think its a question most ‘addicts’ ponder over at some point e.g. ‘now that i’ve addressed/faced up to the underlying reasons as to why I was drinking so much, will I now be able to drink socially?’
The questions you need to ask yourself are
> ‘is it worth taking the risk?’
> ‘is it the parrot talking (?) – the little voice rationalising why i’m going to have ‘just 1 drink.’
> ‘if i want a drink so badly, does that not tell me something?
> ‘am i craving…asking for permission off someone to have a drink?’
> ‘is it just that it’s still the early stages of recovery and i’m feeling a bit lost, like my left arm is missing now that the drink has gone?’
…
It’s hard Yvonne but it does get easier…with time.
NEVER act on impulse…always think ahead…what will happen next? (And CARE about that because that is what you’ll have to deal with after you’ve acted on whatever thought is ‘doing your head in…’)…
*
Sometimes in the very early stages of recovery Yvonne some thoughts are better ‘nipped in the bud’ before they’re pondered into full bloom…
Thank you Andrea! I was having a negative time earlier so I got my soothe box out and played the cd I put in there.
I seem to be all fingers and thumbs at the moment ajusting to my new life of abstinence. I am both determinated and motivated and although it will be challenges along the way – I CAN DO IT THOUGH! xx
Hi Von, Its Jo.
Is great to see you blogging :)
Of course you can do it!
When you are in recovery life changes – it changes because you do things differently – and when you do things differently you get different results.
So continue to attend your meetings and groups and use your new skills you have learnt.
You’re at the beginning of an exciting recovery journey!
You’re welcome Yvonne – glad it helped. It is hard to adjust but as Jo says the best thing about recovery is that we can make healthy choices by using the new skills we’ve learnt…
It’s okay, and ‘normal’ to have negative thoughts sometimes and I’m glad you felt able to share them…
YES! YOU CAN DO IT and YOU ARE!!!
Glad the soothe box helped (:
Hi Jo!
It’s a great community Wired in and i’ve managed to have a peek here and there. Very inspirational I think :).
Back to my soothe box and then to bed xx
Hi Von, very interesting blogg indeed! I have just come home from a seesion with my former work colleuges and a particular ‘big’ drinking buddy. Whilst sipping my j20 he told me he never had me down as an ‘alcoholic’ and that I just lost my way. With 3 years of abstinence behind me I find myself asking the same questions as yourself. I never considered myself an addict, although I did become a dependant drinker. Once that was sorted out after a detox I left hospital without an alcohol problem as such, just psychological ones.
Recent ‘recovery champion’ training in Doncaster has helped my new friends and I learn about the many physical and psychological complexities of drugs and alcohol. I can honestly say now that i dont consider myself an addict and I feel completely comfortable in my own skin having addressed matters in my past and getting through it.
I do like the questions Andrea has asked and after witnessing pub life such as today I ask myself…
What exactly have I missed out on?
Who looks the better…them after 3 years or me?
why risk dabbling in something which could have such a disastrous outcome?
The longer I stay dry I think…
Am I a better person now or before?
Could drinking again limit my capacity to be a very useful human being?
The questions are endless and the answers are well in favour of keepin the hell off it!
I wish you well in mind body and spirit….Great blogg!
Hello,
I think it’s largely a question of vocabulary.No words or phrases can adequately describe the utterly joyless state which results from persistent substance abuse,both for the user and those effected.
I accept that I will always have a predisposition towards reckless self destructive behaviour as a function of my diagnosed anxiety disorder,but I don’t any longer refer to myself as an alcoholic because I believe I have grown beyond that. I was told that it is very common for people with my condition to resort to alcohol and drugs and this diagnosis provided the box that I keep the tools of recovery in.
The important thing to me is not whether I am an addict or not, but that I don’t return to the behaviour which made the recovery process necessary.
Personally I think that I’ll always be an addict, but I’ll be an addcit in recovery, in remission if you will.
