Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir
Warning: This might be hard to hear. It was hard to LIVE. Having an honest dialogue about what active addiction was like isn’t pretty, but I’m hoping that even if you come for the train wreck you’ll stay for the recovery conversation. Settle in for notes from the thick of two decades of substance abuse, mental health struggles, romantic obsession, rehabs, hospitals, institutions and general despair, to the last few years of coming out the other side. I've had a lot of time to collect insight about recovery, and to stay sober I had to be as obsessed with getting better as I was with staying sick, and I hope to share some of that insight with you. Through writing a memoir about my recovery from alcoholism and mental illness, I realized, my recovery is an ongoing process, and also an interactive one, based on shared insight and dialogue. So why would a book about those things be any different? I want to share my story while engaging in a conversation about the nature of addiction and recovery, to share tools and crowdsource far more wisdom than I could export on my own. Join me as I read chapters from my memoir and join the discussion about recovery, addiction, mental health, spirituality and humanism. I invite you to e-mail any questions or comments to: interactivememoir@gmail.com
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir
Time To Say Goodbye
My grandfather passed away, and I was useless. I didn’t go to the hospital in his last few weeks. Hospitals really bummed me out. I mean I was fragile. God forbid I carry any extra emotional weight. I checked out. I did nothing but try to drink less, feeling terribly burdened by this sacrifice, and that was all I could summon.
I couldn’t handle complex emotions, my own or others’, without alcohol. However, WITH alcohol I ran the risk of completely mishandling those emotions. I spent all my focus on trying to drink 'just enough.' I even told I was drinking FOR my mother’s sake, like, she had enough to deal with, her father’s passing and siblings bickering, without dealing with what a wreck I would be if I wasn’t drinking. It was compassionate intoxication.
Also, what are the RIGHT reasons and the WRONG reasons for quitting drinking, drugs, or any destructive pattern of behaviour? Do you have to do it 'for yourself?' People talk about ‘wrong reasons’ to go to treatment like it’s a season of Bachelor in Paradise and you’re trying to get instagram followers. I believe there is no wrong reason to GET sober or make the first step in changing your life. Reasons to STAY sober or integrate those changes can be worked out on the way.
Talk to me about it!: interactivememoir@gmail.com
Share this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.
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Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of 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
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