Author: isaydig

Posted: Wed May 22, 2013 3:41 am

beautiful disaster,
i know how you feel about starting 12 step meetings. other than my VERY first one when i was 18…my REAL first one was in when i was 22 (I’m 34 now) and I was hurting so badly i had no other options. i ended up (luckily) finding a Friday night 10pm candlelight "young people’s" meeting and everyone was so welcoming…instant best friends. and most of them are still around today (other than the ones who either relapsed and never came back or relapsed and died)…but the group stayed pretty strong and I will still go to that same location for 8pm "regular" meetings on occasion just because i love everyone there so much. i’d love to say no one in meetings will judge you, but it’s just not the truth. the truth is, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, because you’re there for you….and those who spend their time "shunning" you are the ones you want to avoid at ALL COSTS. you’ll find people you click with. i just sat there quietly listening to certain people who sounded happy and free and then i clung to them like crazy. i got a sponsor immediately then another, then another, then another, until i finally found someone i could truly be honest with. i’ve let my sponsor know i’m detoxing with suboxone and i didn’t get any judgment…just some sympathy…everyone knows how hard it is to get off of methadone and suboxone. there are people in the meetings who will spew crap like "if you’re on subs or methadone you’re not sober!"…and WHO CARES! you’re not taking it to get high, you’re taking it to stay ‘clean’…you won’t have to be on it forever. the thing i learned over the past decade about addiction is that if left "untreated" it only gets worse. the drug is just a SYMPTOM of a larger problem…what’s the problem, you ask??—ME! we are the problem. selfishness and self centeredness. we think it’s all about us, we think we are in the WORST situation, we think we’ve done the WORST things…but you learn super fast that if it has a name, at least half the people in the meetings have done it too i felt so alone before i started meetings and even for a while in the beginning but i sat around long enough to get comfortable because i was in so much pain. i honestly thought i would never relapse again, but i basically started feeling so good being sober that i just got lazy and stopped working on myself, my spirituality suffered, my home life suffered, and i said "F" it. so here i am in this chat room with some of the best people in the world. we are amazing people with problems. we aren’t problem people though. we can all get through this! you basically summed up untreated addiction in your last reply when you said you realized it just gets harder trying to do it alone. that’s the thing…addiction has to be TREATED. obviously there is no cure, but we definitely have a daily reprieve from dope, based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. it’s so simple but it’s so freaking hard! all i have to do is the "next right thing", clean up "my side of the street", and help others to achieve sobriety after working all 12 steps myself. i just realized that after over a decade in the meetings, the "God" thing drove me out. they say you just need a "higher power" but the AA big book constantly mentions the word GOD and i just can’t get down with that. we have a buddhist meetup group every sunday at my house and that’s how i maintain my spirituality…..i just got lazy:( after i’m off this suboxone crap, i’m definitely letting my doc know about the xanax because i know it can be fatal. and i have to tell her the suboxone didn’t help me get off the xanax. i just hope she will help me taper since i’ve been buying them "off the streets". first things first though. this is my 2nd night without any sleep so i’m just sitting around watching the minutes tick slooooowly by..hoping my mind will soon realize how absolutely exhausted my body is. Insomnia is the worst. Thanks for being here to chat with, share experience, strength and hope with. i really appreciate it more than you know!