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Really Ridiculous Reasons

Old 02-05-2010, 07:28 AM
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Really Ridiculous Reasons

I am within the ups and downs of recovery where I know I hate it, find no more fun and satisfaction doing it, and am actually starting to those closest to me about this secret I kept so well for so long. But here's my ultimate

I know I'm lying to myself but...I keep thinking that if I meet the perfect person I will seriously quit crystal for good. Because I think about my future everyday, a future that involves never having to see or be near that dirt ever again. I've been in a few relationships since I started using (5 yrs ago) all of which never required me to reveal my one utterly shameful secret and my excuse was that none of them were "worth" quitting for. If I found out they were a drug user, I was turned off and basically ran the other way. How ironic does that sound? And wickedly hypocritical yes I know.

Don't say the obvious, of course I know this is stupid, but there are a lot of you, women especially, who have quit because of love or at the least it was a big reason why you had the strength to harness the addiction. I just want to know those experiences because they give hope, not judgement.
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Old 02-05-2010, 08:20 AM
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I wouldn't call it stupid at all. Addiction of any kind is cunning, and we come up with all sorts of reasons to justify putting off quitting, or to make our use the result of something other than our own addiction.

Waiting for someone 'good enough' or 'that perfect person' to come along and THEN you will quit sounds an awful lot like "I'll drink/use this one time, or for this one event, or until this date, THEN stop."

You might want to think about: What kind of person/personality gets involved with a using addict? Will someone who is 'perfect' for you now be perfect for you when you are clean and sober for a year or two, and so much has changed inside of you, or will you end up seeing them differently and using that as an excuse, that another one was 'not good enough' and using?

Ultimately there are many things that give people that oomph to begin their recovery, and loved ones certainly can be that catalyst. But people rarely, if ever, in my experience, get clean or sober for anyone else, it ultimately has to be for you and you alone.

Just my opinions and things you might want to ponder.

I hope you find peace from crystal, and keep coming back (:
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Old 02-05-2010, 08:21 AM
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Love is certainly a critical component in my recovery. Love for myself. I have quit drugs/alcohol to appease significant others and also sought out relationships with non-users in hopes of getting myself straight. It never worked for long. These peoples thoughts and behaviors(read:lives) are out of my control and when i made my personal recovery dependent on them it became in serious jeapordy when they didn't do what i wanted and inevitably left. It has to come from me.

Furthermore, i learned through experience that me and me alone simply wasn't enough to maintain recovery. My solution has been spiritual in nature. There is a psychological component as well, in that i've learned a myriad of coping techniques and methods of self analysis that's allowed me to better understand the workings of my mind. But without my spiritual solution i would be in trouble and have been in the past.

I cultivate this spiritual solution through 12 step fellowship(meetings, step work, service), practicing spiritual principles in my daily life, daily prayer and meditation, yoga, chanting, and reading about recovery and spirituality.

Ultimately, my recovery is an inside job. I cannot allow my recovery to depend on any person, place, or thing. It is my relationship with a higher power and actively cultivating that daily that gives me relief from my addiction. That may sound contradictory, but my higher power resides both internally and externally. Some call it god. I do not. The name doesn't really matter.

The first step was for me to abstain entirely from drugs and alcohol. I had to cross that threshold before anything else was possible. While in active addiction i was terminally incapable of making the right decisions for myself. Then immersing myself in a 12 step program and daily spiritual practice of my choice began the process of healing and recovering.

May you find your path to recovery.
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Old 02-05-2010, 09:40 AM
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Welcome to SR bluegrl, I am an alcoholic & until I wanted to quit I kept drinking for many years!

I had the love of my life as my wife and 6 beautiful childen & a grandchild that was awesome as well.

My entire family spent many years begging me to quit, my wife threatened me many times with leaving and I just tried to hide what I could no longer hide better.

When I quit, I quit for me, my wife was in the process of moving out with the younger kids, no one wanted a darn thing to do with me mainly because I had brought them to much pain over the years in more ways then one can imagine.

I can honestly say that I loved them all enough to sacrifice my life for any of them, but I could not stop drinking for them!

When I reached the point where I fully conceded to my inner most self that I was nothing but a drunk who managed to hold on to his job, a drunk who had lost my very heart & sole I finally REALLY wanted to quit!

I could not quit for ANYONE or ANYTHING............. Until I reached the point where I wanted to quit more then I wanted to drink.

Most folks I know in long term recovery share a similar story, they drank/drugged until they had had enough, not when they found the perfect person, place, or thing to quit for.
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:04 AM
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I have to agree with Taz on this. I would do anything for my husband and my son and in the beginning I thought I gave up drinking because of them. Well, down the road that love was over road by that addiction and I had to find something else. I too was in the mindset that I would do ANYthing but drink for that day and that's what saw me through. Correction - that still is my mantra.

I really wish I could have done it for my husband and/or my son, but addiction totally owned me and it was a personal battle.
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:09 AM
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I think so far everyone has responded wonderfully. I concur.

I know that I also loved my family and friends and tried, tried tried. Lot's of things needed to change within ME!!

I know you're probably looking for that right "answer" but I have to tell you that I know that I had to take certain steps that were suggested to me. No matter what way "I" wanted to do it, it didn't work.

I bet you'll get a lot more awesome responses to your question. Good luck to you!!!
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:30 AM
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Why don't you make a list of qualities you want in a mate. Then see if you have many of those qualities. Chances are if you compare, that guy will never give you a second date as long as you use. I know it sounds cold, but waiting for some great guy to clean is kinda silly as you know!
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:34 AM
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Howdy blugrl,

If you are interested in quitting for good and all, it helps to start with the truth. If you are still using, you are not in the ups and downs of recovery. You are not in recovery at all. You are still actively using, with all of the delusional thinking that goes with it.

If you'd like to start in recovery, look around this forum for people that have been successful with it, and do what they do. I think you will find it extremely rare where someone says they recovered as the result of meeting the right person.
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:52 AM
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I have smoked cigarettes off and on through out my life and I never liked to date anyone that smoked. I quit smoking and drinking when I married my first husband I did it for him, I wound up resenting him and in my head I always said "when he leaves I will smoke/drink again", well guess what? 5 yrs later he left and I started smoking and drinking again. When I married my 2nd husband he smoked and drank so I didn't quit for him but during the marriage I decided to quit both --mainly to anger him-- but I did quit for 5years. Well 6 yrs into the marriage he left me for another and within a year I was back to smoking and drinking more than ever! and continued to do so for nearly 12 years. I finally quit drinking 2.5 yrs ago for ME, my daughter had given up on me as did most everyone else including myself. You can't quit for anyone but yourself or it won't work in the long run.
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Old 02-05-2010, 10:53 AM
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I was never able to quit for anyone else either, and from what I have /heard/seen/observed if one is an alcoholic, that is a common trait, people lose their lives, freedom, family, children, mate etc and are unable to quit even though it costs them these things.

As a sober man if I met a woman who was going to "quit for me" would have me running the other direction so fast I'd probably knock people over in my haste to get to the door. I would view it as nothing but an unhealthy and codependant dynamic. I would literally run.

However, when I worked the steps, there is a part where I got to do a sexual inventory, part of that inventory is writing a sexual ideal of the qualities I wanted in a mate, at that point any sponsor worth their salt will glance at the list, pull out any unhealthy howlers and explain why they are unhealthy, and then say "OK, You want this person in your life with these qualities?"

"Then you have become that person"

I attract what I am, I hear people sharing in meetings about how they have "broken pickers" because in a room with 100 mates they can invariably pick the unhealthy one.

To me that says their picker is just fine, they pick who and where they are, they pick their mirror. If they pick the unhealthy person 10 out of ten times, it's not their picker that is broken, it's the operating system behind it. Garbage in garbage out, and like attract like, and unhealthy attracts unhealthy.

What is it that attracts us to each other? when our eyes meet across the room and we make the smoldering glance and dream of the future?

Our matching mental illnesses or where we are in our spiritual development.

A relationship won't fix me, as a matter of fact turning to a relationship to fix me has never not made me incredibly worse off, my stupidity and consequently my subsequent experience with this is vast and my pain vaster, I have washed up in Alanon and therapy to try and repair the damage from my stupidity around this issue, the pain I have caused myself and others around this is incalculable.

My sexual inventories show me that when I am growing towards health I pick people that are also growing towards health, and the healthier I am, the healthier are the people I am attracted to, the inverse has also proven to be true.

Science and nature show us that nothing stays in one place, at any given time I am going one of two directions, towards health or towards sickness, that's my experience and observation, if I want a relationship with someone who is also getting sicker I do nothing and look for Ms. Right, if I want a relationship with someone who is growing healthier, I don't look for anyone but I start doing the work and growing towards health myself and she will appear as if by magic.

If I want an unhealthy mate I go looking for a mate, if I want a healthy mate I get healthy first and ignore trying to fill that void with another person just like I do with alcohol.

My experience with my own life and sponsoring others has turned my opinion of this to be a mathematical certainty.

When I got to the point in my life where I had been sober a few years and wanted a healthy relationship, I went to therapy and then couples counseling to learn how to do things differently then I had been doing them.

Money WELL spent.
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Old 02-05-2010, 11:15 AM
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Originally Posted by Ago View Post
if I want a relationship with someone who is growing healthier, I don't look for anyone but I start doing the work and growing towards health myself and she will appear as if by magic.
Exactly my experience. Having someone to fulfill my selfish wants has nothing to do with finding the right person. It has to do with getting my selfish wants fulfilled. When I work on the problem (my selfish wants) via the 12 Steps, I get a relationship that is mostly free of selfish wants. The person appears.
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Old 02-05-2010, 11:16 AM
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Incredible post ago. You are a true asset to this board. Thanks.
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Old 02-05-2010, 11:25 AM
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PS Also, just as an aside I have never had the "If only this then that" work as a tool to quit drinking, nor have I ever seen it work for anyone else.

Ever.

I don't like to pronounce anyone's recovery plan as a success or failure but I can emphatically say I have never seen this work for anyone.

ex: if this set of circumstances comes together I will quit drinking" just doesn't work in my experience, hope is not a plan

I have seen thousands of people including myself give it the old college try though so certainly won't deny you your opportunity to try it.

keep us posted.
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Old 02-05-2010, 11:56 AM
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I agree with the consensus here - the only motivation that ever moved me, the only one that really 'took', was an internal one.

Welcome to newcomers bluegrl

D
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Old 02-05-2010, 01:09 PM
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"I attract what I am, I hear people sharing in meetings about how they have "broken pickers" because in a room with 100 mates they can invariably pick the unhealthy one."
Ago, what a great post! I attracted so many losers in my life whether drunks, cheaters, liars or all of them and thats what I WAS. Course now that I'm none of those I haven't attracted anyone but I still like ME a whole more now.
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Old 02-05-2010, 04:44 PM
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To kind of illustrate what addiction looks like if you put off "quitting" (to the OP) I suggest that you take a look here

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...d-help-fl.html

For those that say "I would never do that" or "that would never happen to me" well that's what we all say to ourselves until it is us.
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Old 02-05-2010, 05:10 PM
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As A former user ( 10+ years using 8 years clean) I can tell you if you aren't quitting for yourself it doesn't work. I can also tell you It's very hard to stop, especially if you are deep in the lifestyle.

Meth is very ugly and difficult to get away from. I suggest you quit as soon as possible and I wish you luck.

I still have some of the mannerisms that came with all the tweekin years and I hate it!

Some of the Meth burns in to your brain it gets "Hardwired" .

I hate the time I was on it, the only thing good that came out of it is that I can recognize it right away and that allows me to keep my distance.

Good Luck.
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