Let me start with something I’ve said before, I don’t update this blog thing enough. But I guess that could be a good, the last thing I need to be doing is spending more time in front of the puter.Let me start with something I’ve said before, I don’t update this blog thing enough. But I guess that could be a good, the last thing I need to be doing is spending more time in front of the puter.
Well, the main reason for this blog today is to share my excitement about another year of sobriety.
that’s one decade in the bag!
ten whole years!
no drinking, no drugs!
So people ask how I did it; well I did it simply by not drinking or taking drugs.
“Simple”… . . . it even sounds easy to say it.
In this case, simple does not equal easy.
In this case, the simple act of not putting drugs or alcohol in my body is miraculous.
I love being Happy!
I love Liquor! I love amphetamines! I love hallucinogens!
My drugs and drinks of choice were “More, Yours, Free, and New”
I love the way they were able to make me happy! Make me feel like a super star! Make me feel loved!
I never got to experience an complete demoralization.
Shit got bad when I used, but I had a chemical blanket pulled over my head keeping me warm. So I didn’t care that I hurt those closest to me; I would lie, cheat, and steal from my own mother, and good friends. It didn’t matter I assumed they would all forgive me as long as didn’t hurt anyone physically. I smiled and laughed my days away, I think…. I’ve never been that good at recalling. I did a large number of drugs that didn’t have names just number and letter combinations — designer drugs where I was the test rat. I do remember my friends saying, “Give it to Nate he will take anything,” and I did, I think……
I didn’t see my life as falling apart. I saw it as a constant amazing party! I imbibed as many mind altering chemicals as I could get my hands on. I never stopped and could not save any bottle bag or dose for a special occasion, to me every minute was a special occasion. I tried selling shit (Yay, Speed, X, doses, booms) to pay for my use, but, to no surprise, I always did all of it before I could get it sold.
Counselors, family, teachers, caring friends – “Nathan, why don’t you try NOT drinking or doing drugs for one week.” It was like they were speaking some ancient dialect; I understood what they said, but it made zero sense to me.
This led to that and back to this, and I ended up at a young peoples meeting for an outpatient rehab. A small group of friends and myself meet with one of the counselors while everyone else was in a larger group meeting. This young lady Allison K. told us how much she loved being fucked up. She told us how much she loved drugs and drinking, and that she felt her life was great when she was loaded. When Allison spoke the language she used was, might i say a bit salty, actually it would have offended sailors. I liked her immediately. She had a good understanding of how to live life to it fullest. We sat and listened to her stories turns out she ended up in the same place as us, a meeting for a rehab. When a counselor sat her down, they told her their story and, more importantly, that there was a better life to be found without drugs and alcohol.
Allison loved drugs and drinking as much as me for the same reasons, so when she told me she had gone five years without touching either she had my attention. She continued to tell us how her life was far better than she could ever imagine. How she was happier and had more fun now than she ever had before. Just the fact that life was better and she was happier. If shit didn’t get better she wouldn’t have continued, really why bother doing something if it makes life worse?
I decided before I left that room she had something that I wanted a taste of — I would give it a shot. I was going to stay sober for a month.
I relapsed that weekend.
Try again I said to myself, after a few rough weeks I sat with the counselors and decided with them that I might need to join the outpatient group daily. I started outpatient the next week while I was there I found out that eating a bunch of mini thins (gas station speed) every morning was still considered using drugs, what a bunch of sticklers.
On the morning of June 4th, 1999 I had a muffin coffee and a cigarette for breakfast,
I did not take speed.
that evening I had dinner at a Ihop fry’s and coffee,
I didn’t drink.
the next day I repeated.
It has been a hard ten years.
Leaving rehab going to AA was rough, AA didn’t seem to have the same playful youthful sense to it, I found it to be grumpy in comparison. I gave it a fair and through shot before I dwindled my way out of meetings practicing the steps of AA on my own….. there were a few steps missing from my solo routine. I have recently decided I need those rooms of AA back in my life. I need to listen to others talk about their struggles and if I get the chance to help someone through some of their shit thats a bonus for me. Today, I feel great! If you talk to me about drinking these days I can vividly recall the taste of a whisky shot sliding to my stomach giving those warm tingles as body absorbed that delicious alcohol, how by the fifth shot you can hardly taste the whisky any more.
My mouth is watering as I type this.
This isn’t easy.
But, then again, no one said it would be easy, they said life would be better.
Wouldn’t you know it, they were right.
I don’t think of using everyday anymore actually it has to be shoved in my face to drudge the memories.
Every year since ‘99′ has been amazing most years exceeding the previous in utter amazingness. I have had amazing accomplishments and complete disasters. I have found love and lost close family. I have watched so much happen to so many and have been able to be there for them to celebrate or to console. None of which would be possible if i was in a chemical haze, or, more accurately, in prison/dead.
Today, I get to look around me and find my self surrounded with a far better party than I ever experienced pre-sobriety, and I try to spread it to everyone I’m around all the time.
I keep Bouncing, I remain Delicious!