They’re out. They’re back in. They’re out. They’re back in.
It’s exhausting. I’m afraid I have a growing prejudice against those that seem to want it but aren’t willing to ride out the discomfort in order to achieve long term sobriety. Not that I can claim anything like long term sobriety for myself yet, but at 3 months shy of three years clean, I think I may be on the right track. I have definitely endured the first difficult days and not had to go back.
The Cheerleader went out the night I thought he was doing so well. He claims to be back in. I haven’t talked to him. This is the third time he’s done this and I don’t really know how much I want to keep being hopeful for someone, only to be let down. Again.
The Farmer’s Daughter did a tour through a psych hospital after a couple of rounds of vodka and an attempted suicide by insulin. She is now at the Betty Ford Center. Truth be told, I’m jealous. I’d love to go back to treatment for three months. In many ways the 28 days I spent in treatment were the happiest days of my life. You can do an amazing amount of growing in treatment that is very difficult to do when “worldly clamors” distract you from full time healing.
Dr. Silkworth is rightly points out in a Grapevine article from January, 1947, that, “There is nothing “screwy about it at all. The patient didn’t follow directions.” Which makes me wonder if they are the kind of patients that were unable to follow the directions, or did they simply refuse to. And does it matter.
I cannot claim to have followed the directions perfectly, myself, and yet I seem, more or less, to be fine; to have recovered from the hopeless condition I found myself in three years ago. I may have missed the mark, but I’ve come close enough to score, and I intend to keep doing that. We addicts are human beings, just like other human beings, and we can protect ourselves intelligently from relapse.
-
Gosh. 3 years. Remember when it all seemed so hopeless and the distance between where we started and where we are now seemed so far? Now it seems to me to have been such a short time for so much good/growth to have happened.
-
wow amazing three years. amazing what the program can do isnt it?
we are so ‘hopeless state of mind and body’ yet we stay sober thanks to the suggestions and get to build a meaningful life for ourselves. how cool is that?
hhaha yeah and the ? weirdest thing, is that it keeps ! getting better
life gets more satisfying and meaningful the more we do this thing. -
Maybe some are constitutionally incapable of staying sober. I’m glad that you are working the program. I too was “hungry” enough to want what was offered to me. I’m glad that I continued as well.
-
One of my roommates from treatment is doing the same thing… in/out, in/out…. he was taken to detox by another of our roommates and his wife this week… checked himself out the next day.
I think Syd’s right. It just feels like, based on my experience, when I thought I was the most helpless case in the world, that anyone should be able to get and stay sober–If I could, anyone can.
But I really wasn’t the most helpless case in the world–I was a garden variety drunk and addict who somehow has managed to follow directions for a few days at a time. I’m thanking my higher power for that and praying for the rest.
Congratulations, dude. Sleep well.
-
Thanks for the post
Congrats on the near three years.
As for the folks who are in and out all the time, just pray for them that they will be as fortunate as you are one day to find sobriety and happiness.
I do feel sad for those who fall in and out a lot but I look and wonder and thank God for ‘but for the grace of God, there go I.’It could be me and I thank them (the in and outters) for the lessons they teach me each time I go to a meeting.
The Last Chance Texaco salutes . . .
Search the experience, strength and hope of over 150 recovery bloggers.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://thelastchancetexaco.com/2009/10/exhausted-again-naturally/trackback/