Hi Tyler,
I hope you are doing ok today and I agree with the others, you need to switch your mindset and decide that you are done with it no ifs, no buts and no "expecting pot oil in the mail"
Speaking of which, I would strongly recommend that you either trash it immediately without opening the package or if you have a friend who is in chronic pain/terminally ill you just give it to them as a no strings attached present.
You just got to start again from a clean slate.
You asked about personal experience, here is mine in a nutshell:
I was sober for 5 years with the 12 steps, moved and had a very rough time in life (I lost everything and became homeless in sobriety)
My AV told me that since things sucked, I might as well drink because homelessness and poverty was not supposed to happen to an educated, sober, middle class woman.
I was really unprepared at the time (I had no clue about the AV etc... I very rarely had any manifestation of it and did not know about SR) and felt for its lies.
Long story short, I managed to get back out of my material hole; got a job I love, got a home, made friends in my new city but I drank for about 6 years.
Despite what I was told, I did not go back drinking as bad as I was before (alcoholism did not progress) and mostly I managed to "control" it which was in itself a full time job.
I was a closet drinker and drinking made me extremely depressed. Deep down, I knew it was a matter of time before I lost "control" and showed up hungover at my job or before people realized I was a drunk.
I felt like crap about myself and was borderline suicidal.
On a Sunday in January 2013 on my day off, I was finishing a beer and realized I had to go buy some more. I really did not feel like getting dressed and going outside and for some reason something clicked in me and I poured down the rest of my beer and said to myself: I am sick and tired of that crap, I am done with it.
I joined SR, went to AA for a few years but also learned about AVRT, Women for Sobriety etc.... A few years ago, I was working on my 11th step and discovered Zen meditation and realized that mindfulness was a better fit for me so I left AA.
It has been over 5 years now that I am comfortably and permanently abstinent
So you see, if I can do it so can you. You just got to be done with it and seriously mean it. No ifs, no buts, no excuses.
You can do it!!!!
