The last month at Portage I was looking for an escape route. Now this wasn’t a literal, Shawshank redemption, crawl through the sewers kind of escape, it was escape through focus, which I was determined to be on anything but my role in the community, the therapeutic model, or even my alcoholism, it was, often, on everyone else and THEIR problems.
And planning my marriage to a guy I'd spoken to once, puzzling over the logistics of whether it’s OK for addicts and alcoholics to get wasted on important days like their own weddings. Surely this whole abstinence thing was just a suggestion, there must be cheat days, just like with diets. Surely I’d be allowed some reprieve. I wasn’t expected to live a joyless life forever, right?
And Just by that line of thinking, I should have known I was missing the point, but I was almost a decade short of believing, even theoretically, that a sober life is its own reward. So long as I saw sobriety itself as suffering, and alcohol as a privilege that had been removed, I was not going to last long.
Though I knew mine and Rehab Guy's marriage was unlikely, it was a stand-in for all the other occasions that would be robbed of pleasure without alcohol, events that could theoretically be considered ‘exceptions.’ If I only got drunk on special occasions, that isn’t a PROBLEM.
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Looking for an outpatient resource? Get in touch with my friends at Basecamp:
https://www.basecamptreatmentcenter.org/contact?fbclid=IwAR0EGE-HGH92qoQVJ46K66rNzIRJBPnmH16sSg2MU9q9LQjA1YMbbx7lOEM
Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org