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Today marks two years since I checked into rehab – 730 days since I last used crystal meth. In that time, I’ve also abstained from any mind-altering substance stronger than coffee (I really must be allowed a few vices).
I don’t care to re-tell the story of the overdose that prompted me to check into rehab. Today, I’d like to talk about the ways my outlook has changed since I decided to start treating myself like someone I love.
My recovery has been steeped in reflection and loving self-critique, things that had previously terrified me. Looking inward and asking why I felt a void inside was not something I was used to, only trying in vain to self-medicate with substances.
I used to think that I deserved to be happy, as I considered myself a good person. Having innate self-worth and being generally kind, of course I should be happy! And if I wasn’t, it must be through some affliction or bad luck that this was so, never through any fault of my own.
My self-confidence was a façade I hastily built to protect the dorky, shy gay kid I was when I came out in 2000. I couldn’t manage to question any aspect of myself without feeling like that rickety wall would crumble into dust. No, I had to be perfect just the way I was.
So, when getting sloshed with friends turned into getting blitzed alone, slowly and over the course of a couple of years, I couldn’t see it as a personal fault. In fact, I preferred to pretend everything was fine. It was easier to bury my head in the sand.
I had done no work to instill a sense of purpose within myself and had smashed almost any template of what a man’s life should be. My 20s were spent rather like a fish out of water, flopping about aimlessly yet wondering why I felt lost.
Alcohol remained my steady poison through it all, even as I tried various other pills and powders. Cheap, easy, and socially acceptable, it was easier to fly under the radar that way. If people noticed, no one felt it was their place to say anything.
It was the numbness of being drunk that I loved. Fear, pain, doubt, all the nasty emotions I couldn’t cope with were washed away in a daily dose of ethanol. It didn’t make me any happier (quite the contrary), but if I couldn’t be happy, at least I could be numb.
What my younger self failed to understand is that no one -deserves- to be happy, any more than children at Sick Kids or St. Jude deserve leukemia. It took a near-death experience for me to realize that I was expecting too little of myself, and that I was the problem.
No more denying it: *I* was the reason I was unhappy. I was lazy, entitled, and ungrateful. That doesn’t mean I was a bad person, just that I was wrong & needed to change (it would have been nice if this epiphany could’ve happened without a fentanyl overdose, but I digress).
Happiness doesn’t just happen to people, it’s a choice you make and work you put in. No one is guaranteed an ounce of it. It’s also not a constant state of Stepford-like monotony; our happiest moments only matter because every one of them is precious and fleeting.
So, For the past two years I’ve been working to learn how to cope with living sober without chemical escapes, to accept my imperfections and try to work on them, and to be kind to myself when I inevitably make mistakes.
It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve never felt better. Now, when my naturally negative mind looks at something and reflexively picks it to pieces, I make myself look again to see what positive things could be there hidden under the surface.
Even my own transfer of substance from alcohol to meth is something I think was a net good. It spiraled me out of control so much that I couldn’t live in denial anymore. Had I not done this I would have continued drinking until my liver gave out.
If you’re struggling with substance abuse, I can’t help you by giving you a magic solution. Rehab can’t wave a wand to fix you, either. Only when you’re willing to admit that *you are the problem* can you start to work on it, one day at a time.
If you liked reading my story, please retweet it. Maybe a single person in the throes of active drug or alcohol use might see it and have a seed planted that maybe, just maybe they can light the fire in their belly and kick it, too.
To put my money where my mouth is on this, I decided to post my story publicly on Facebook for the first time as well. It feels like being naked on a stage right now but it& #39;s for a good cause.
