Five years later
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
Five years later
When I first came to SR, I had been sober from a decade-long binge of booze and mega doses of benzos for a few months. It took me four months of abstinence to be able to stop my hands from shaking enough to boot my computer and type in the window of a search browser. The four decades of booze and pot wrecked me, but it was the decade run on benzos that brought me to my knees.
My first year of recovery was fraught with the most intense depression, panic and anxiety I had faced in my five decades on the planet. I never had that pink cloud feeling; my best days were more like dim sunlight piercing dark skies.
But each day for months I spent inordinate amount of time here, reading the stories of others, posting my own stories of slow progress and self pity, offering kernels of encouragement here and there when I could step out of my own self absorption to do so.
I daily read newcomer threads to remind myself of where I came, though aside from those who ended up in jail, I'm usually hard pressed to find others who reached a bottom similar to mine. I chalked up all of the major pitfalls those in addiction fall to: hospitalization, loss of career, family, homes, cars, health, relationships.
Today, I drive a new car, take my road bike out on the Santa Ana River Bike trail for a 22 mile run four times a week, live in a nice apartment, pay my bills on time, and the greatest achievement I have attained is being in a loving relationship with a woman who has only known me sober. We will marry January 13.
To celebrate my five-year anniversary, we drove to Palm Springs Wednesday and took a tramway to a restaurant 8,500 feet above the desert; altitude in the mountains is my main high these days. Yesterday, we drove into downtown Los Angeles to conduct some business, then headed south to Redondo Beach Pier for a seafood dinner and watched to sunset and a crescent moon climb a purple sky.
Things are not all rosy, my SR friends. I still suffer the consequences of four decades of daily beer, benzos and pot use. There isn't a day goes by that struggle and despair fails to appear. Temptation isn't the question, but dealing with life on life's terms is.
Sobriety isn't for the faint at heart, and as research and anecdotes here show, we fail in recovery more often than succeed. This struggle to escape addiction is a losing proposition for most of us. I found this today on a pop-psychology website, the results of an eight-year study of 1,200 addicts:
Only about a third of people who are abstinent less than a year will remain abstinent.
For those who achieve a year of sobriety, less than half will relapse.
If you can make it to 5 years of sobriety, your chance of relapse is less than 15 percent.
The bedrock of my sobriety was found in AA and NA, and believe me, I had and still have prejudice and reservations about both programs, but it was a regimen of daily meetings for my first two years of recovery that got me through. Forget the God thing, the dogma, the rough personalities -- what I found were people just like me from all stations in life who came together face to face to support each other. Powerful stuff. The key for me was able to overcome my reservations, to humble myself, and reach out to others for help.
I was fortunate, and believe my recovery is a miracle, though I slip into a state of complacency nearly every day, succumbing to the temptation to take my sobriety for granted.
But each day I flash back to where I was five years ago and recognize the drastic yet incremental improvements in my life, and believe me, they were slow, hard-fought and often imperceptible on a daily and often hour-by-hour basis in coming to be.
And SR remains an important part of that.
Thanks all.
My first year of recovery was fraught with the most intense depression, panic and anxiety I had faced in my five decades on the planet. I never had that pink cloud feeling; my best days were more like dim sunlight piercing dark skies.
But each day for months I spent inordinate amount of time here, reading the stories of others, posting my own stories of slow progress and self pity, offering kernels of encouragement here and there when I could step out of my own self absorption to do so.
I daily read newcomer threads to remind myself of where I came, though aside from those who ended up in jail, I'm usually hard pressed to find others who reached a bottom similar to mine. I chalked up all of the major pitfalls those in addiction fall to: hospitalization, loss of career, family, homes, cars, health, relationships.
Today, I drive a new car, take my road bike out on the Santa Ana River Bike trail for a 22 mile run four times a week, live in a nice apartment, pay my bills on time, and the greatest achievement I have attained is being in a loving relationship with a woman who has only known me sober. We will marry January 13.
To celebrate my five-year anniversary, we drove to Palm Springs Wednesday and took a tramway to a restaurant 8,500 feet above the desert; altitude in the mountains is my main high these days. Yesterday, we drove into downtown Los Angeles to conduct some business, then headed south to Redondo Beach Pier for a seafood dinner and watched to sunset and a crescent moon climb a purple sky.
Things are not all rosy, my SR friends. I still suffer the consequences of four decades of daily beer, benzos and pot use. There isn't a day goes by that struggle and despair fails to appear. Temptation isn't the question, but dealing with life on life's terms is.
Sobriety isn't for the faint at heart, and as research and anecdotes here show, we fail in recovery more often than succeed. This struggle to escape addiction is a losing proposition for most of us. I found this today on a pop-psychology website, the results of an eight-year study of 1,200 addicts:
Only about a third of people who are abstinent less than a year will remain abstinent.
For those who achieve a year of sobriety, less than half will relapse.
If you can make it to 5 years of sobriety, your chance of relapse is less than 15 percent.
The bedrock of my sobriety was found in AA and NA, and believe me, I had and still have prejudice and reservations about both programs, but it was a regimen of daily meetings for my first two years of recovery that got me through. Forget the God thing, the dogma, the rough personalities -- what I found were people just like me from all stations in life who came together face to face to support each other. Powerful stuff. The key for me was able to overcome my reservations, to humble myself, and reach out to others for help.
I was fortunate, and believe my recovery is a miracle, though I slip into a state of complacency nearly every day, succumbing to the temptation to take my sobriety for granted.
But each day I flash back to where I was five years ago and recognize the drastic yet incremental improvements in my life, and believe me, they were slow, hard-fought and often imperceptible on a daily and often hour-by-hour basis in coming to be.
And SR remains an important part of that.
Thanks all.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Fantastic post Memhpis, and a wonderful reminder of what is possible if one puts their mind to it. The importance of daily work on our sobriety, even if it is simply spending some time on SR, cannot be overstated and I thank you for sharing that.
Soon you will be counting in decades instead of years, congratulations to you and thank you for all of your contributions to SR as well.
Soon you will be counting in decades instead of years, congratulations to you and thank you for all of your contributions to SR as well.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 464
Great post memphis, its always great and encouraging to read about people who have overcome the worst of addiction to make their lives better.
Coming from a low place and conquering an addiction is hard. But we can do it and remain abstinent!
Coming from a low place and conquering an addiction is hard. But we can do it and remain abstinent!
Trudgin
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 6,348
Recently I heard a friend speak of his first three years in recovery as Come, Come to and Come to believe. Your story reminds me of those words. Growth comes only through pain.........
Thank you for sharing part of your story - remarkable and inspirational!!!
Well done, !
Thank you for sharing part of your story - remarkable and inspirational!!!
Well done, !
A Day at a Time
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Grand Rapids MI
Posts: 6,435
Congratulations on 5 years. Statically your chances of dieing sober have gone way up.
I loved your post because it did not promise any sobriety fairy had sprinkled pixy dust on you and you got sober. You worked and continue to work very hard on your recovery but the rewards make it all worth it
I loved your post because it did not promise any sobriety fairy had sprinkled pixy dust on you and you got sober. You worked and continue to work very hard on your recovery but the rewards make it all worth it
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 51,519
It's wonderful to read of your progress and triumph, MemphisBlue. I'm so happy for the positive changes in your life, & news of your wedding in January.
Thank you for giving all of us - especially our Newcomers - this message of hope. We can all get free.
Thank you for giving all of us - especially our Newcomers - this message of hope. We can all get free.
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