WantToLiveAgain

Honesty to yourself is the first step and from your posts in this thread you are ready to move forward towards true recovery. Honesty allows us to admit our faults, shortcomings and removes the lies that keep us chasing the drug. Honesty in a sense exposes "ourself" to ourselves.

For me ... been to both in-patient and out-patient. I think both programs offer a lot. The key for me was when was I really ready to "Commit" myself to recovery. I went through several out-patient programs but never could get more than 45 days clean without picking up again. I found new bottoms so to speak. I love that term bottom ... Bottom is just this ... It is the last place you were before you got clean AND, "Bottom" occurs wherever and whenever you are ready to call it quits. My "bottom" always had a trap door and even though I thought I seen it all and would get clean for another 30 days or whatever, I continued to fall and fall harder.

It was until I had nowhere else to go (what some call "Bottom") ... homeless with no possessions ... that I put myself into an in-patient rehab program. In the state of Pennsylvania when you are in that situation you are offered basically a once a year program that the state will provide assistance. I took that opportunity and stuck it out. The one thing different about in-patient was as others have noted ... there is nothing else to do, other than stay clean. So this sets a good model for you to carry forward once you get out. They bring meetings into the facility and you make acquaintances that in some cases you carry with you after rehab and break the ice of meetings on the outside with these new friends. This worked for me ... well, it worked until I stopped working 105 Days into my new found lifestyle of living clean.

I didn't understand why I relapsed after all this work and I found a new "Bottom". This "Bottom" was a realization that I was completely helpless, hopeless and beyond desperate. All the tools in the world were meaningless to a man with no carpentry skills. I went back to NA and cried my heart out that I felt the way I did. I told them it was over and I just couldn't do it anymore and that I wasn't asking for help but more or less just coming back to tell others how bad it is out there and no matter how bad you think it is being clean ... USING is far worse. I felt I owed to myself to share one more time at a meeting and be honest with others and who knows, maybe it would help some else or maybe even me.

Strangest thing happened. This dude asked me to go to another meeting and at that meeting I bumped into a guy I met right after this in-patient rehab. We talked and he agreed to be my sponsor. To this day I scratch my head and wonder about the circumstances of that night. I remember the one thing he told me that stuck with me more than anything.

"COMMITMENT" .... All the rehabs in the world and the all the meetings and prayers and blah blah blah are meaningless without "Commitment". It doesn't matter where you go, what you do, what meds you take, what god you pray to ... all of that is window dressing without "Commitment" to yourself, to your cause, to your life ... For me, that is what makes the difference.

I can name a number of people I know today who are clean who have come from in-patient 28 day programs, 90 day programs, out-patient programs of 28-45 days, some who never went to rehab and some who detoxed on their own and others who spent 5 days in the hospital detoxing ... they all have one thing in common ... "Commitment" to staying clean and living a clean way of life. That "Commitment" is what separates the people in the revolving door and the people that are season ticket holders.

I eventually relapsed after almost four years of being clean and it was clear to me that the "Commitment" is what started to fade away in my life and that was the ***** in the armor that I spent years building. I have never liked that saying you hear in the rooms or in rehabs ... :It is always about the drug" ... for me it always need to be about "What brings me to the drug" ... The thoughts, that allowed me after years of being clean, thoughts that justified in my mind, putting mind and mood altering substances in my body again. Whether I look at my using before experiencing clean time or I look at the relapse ... it was about escaping the thoughts that turned into urges and eventually cravings that I gave into. The relapse was months in the making and I didn't even see it coming. That is why "Commitment" is so important. "Commitment" keeps you sharp and aware ... keeps you honest about yourself.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, you seem to be having the "Honesty" thing going on right so time to take advantage of that and "Commit" to some form of recovery ... whatever one is right for you and any one of them could be the right one ... You will know what is right if you maintain the kind of honesty you are showing now. Honesty will get you in the game and commitment will have you playing well.

Good Luck in whatever method you choose!!!