Where to start?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Rio Grande, NJ
Posts: 1
Where to start?
I have been abusing drugs and alcohol for over 10 years now. These past few months of sobriety have been the longest time of sobriety I have ever had in my entire life since starting to use. The only reason I got sober was because of going to rehab at the Salvation Army. Today I don't know what to do with myself. Let me start with how drugs and alcohol have ruined my life.
I started smoking pot when I was 17, and messing around with psychedelics around 18. Told myself I would never drink because my father was a raging alcoholic and somewhat broke up our family. These trends continued until around the age of 21 when it became legal to drink. By this point I was working in restaurants where alcohol and social life sort of went hand in hand. At age 21 I started drinking after work regularly and the hippie type drug use continued.
By age 23, my brother and I lived together. We had a 2 bedroom apartment, and we got along well. He was a marijuana dealer and I worked in restaurants, and helped him get additional customers through people I trusted and worked with. Being a pothead this helped me out because he would smoke me out and give me free weed for doing so.
Within the next year or so, not quite sure how it happened, but he started selling and moving fairly large quantities of cocaine. By Age 24 I was now doing a lot of cocaine and still continuing my old routine. Cocaine and alcohol because a big part of my life. I loved it.
Somewhere during the start of that coke phase, I also got really into MDMA. I was doing a lot. I was mixing E, coke, and booze a lot. Also still smoking weed on the regular.
By the age of 26, I had been dating a girl I worked with at the restaurant for almost six years now. She was fully aware of my drug and alcohol abuse and was not keen to it. She was sober herself, and never did any drugs. She drank once in a blue moon, and when she did, it was one or two drinks. She had been asking me to seek help for years now at this point, we were truly in love. She wanted to eventually marry me and have a family. She stuck through my abuse for years hoping I would one day change. After six years she finally had enough and left me. I was destroyed. I no longer cared about myself or my life. I began to burn all my bridges and do more and more coke.
At age 27, I moved to Ohio. My mother had a condo out there, and offered me the option to move there, for a chance to get away from it all and start fresh. The first year in Ohio went smooth. I had put all the drugs down, except for the fact that I was still drinking regularly. Was working for The Cheesecake Factory, and was happy again, although deep down inside I was depressed. I had left everyone and everything I loved behind less then a year earlier for this chance to clean my life up.
Somewhere between 28 and 29 I moved restaurants. I followed a manager who was becoming a GM of this new restaurant opening in the area. He brought me along to be a lead trainer and lead server as we got established. During the one month training phase, i met two girls who became big roles in my life. One became my new girlfriend, we became deeply attached and were really good together. She didn't do any hard drugs, and drank very rarely. The other, was possibly the worst thing that ever happened to me.
This other girl, reintroduced me to cocaine. Something I hadn't touched in over a year. It was a random reintroduction. We were at work one day and I jokingly said, "Wish I had some coke right now!" She literally pulled a half gram out of her pocket and gave it to me. Said let me know what you think, I can get plenty more. I shouldn't have taken it. The next day at work, I was already asking her to get more, and we started hanging out a lot. We were doing lots of coke together and drinking tons. I was having a great time.
This is the point where I started dating the other girl. She was aware of my partying ways and asked me to stop when we started dating. A month or so into our relationship, she caught me doing blow. She gave me a final warning and said next time things were over. I didn't take heed to this warning, although I hid things well for the next several months. She eventually found out I was still hanging out with the other girl all along doing drugs behind her back. Everything fell to shambles.
At this point, one random night at the party girls apartment, I was going to break up some blow on the plate we normally used. There was a rock sitting on it, and I thought it was coke. I asked her how she had saved so much and she said, "That's not coke, you don't want that." I realized what it was, and in my drunken state convinced her to let me try it. Over the next year I had become a full blown crack fiend.
The two of us slowly but surely destroyed everything around us. I lost the trust of my family, friends, managers, coworkers. I spent every dime I had on more and more crack. I was drinking like a fish throughout this entire time, and also doing lots of pills. Uppers, Downers, whatever really. I had stopped caring about life again since the day my most relationship had ended. It was like the old me all over again, but this time I was deeper into addiction.
It got so bad that I had pawned all of my instruments, xbox, tv, and other items. I then stole a large sum of money from my mother. She kicked me out of the condo and was going to press charges. Myself and this girl went on an eight day bender with all the money I had stolen. On day eight we had not slept. I was hallucinating, and paranoid beyond believe. I thought the cops were coming for me and felt like I was on the run. I had a mental breakdown. I called my mother around midnight and begged for help, said I couldn't live this way anymore and wanted to change and begged for forgiveness. She was half asleep and said we would talk in the morning. Probably a good thing because at the time I was cracked out.
I slept it off somewhat and in the morning talked to her again. She gave me two options. She was either going to contact the bank about the stolen money and press charges, which was going to be a felony because i had stolen around 20,000. Or, she was going to take me back to New Jersey where she would admit me into a rehab center. I took option B, because I didn't want to go to prison.
I spent the next 4 months in the Salvation Army ARC program in Trenton, NJ. She thought it was a 30 day program when she took me in, but turns out it was a seven month program. After 30 days she gave me the option to come home, but I decided to stay for awhile feeling like I was not ready. I ended up staying there until one week ago today, just a bit over four months.
Today I feel a lot better. I no longer want to do drugs. I have no thought about getting high since I left there and with Gods grace that will continue. The program really changed me. Even she notices it. It may be due to the four months of recovery, but I learned a lot while there. I really got a look into my deep seeded tendencies, my selfishness, my lack of self worth. I was forced to attend lots of meetings and groups during the four months there, and found a knack in AA and NA. The whole religious aspect of the center wasn't truly for me, but still I took from it what I could.
Now being a week out of rehab, I have not thought about using whatsoever. The only issue I'm having is I still feel like drinking. Not getting drunk, but drink socially. I know I shouldn't because I know where it can and probably will lead. I haven't drank yet, but it's so tempting for some reason. I feel that if I do drink though, even if normally, eventually it will lead to drinking like a fish again. Maybe even lead me to make bad choices and start doing drugs again down the road.
I don't want to become one of those AA or NA types. You know, the type that attends meetings daily, gets really into it, and almost devotes their life to it. I'm just at a loss right now fresh out of rehab and not quite sure what to do with myself. I suppose I could attend a few meetings and see where it goes from there. It will probably definitely be a good way to meet sober people in my new area and possibly make some new friends. I'm just still kind of depressed, and know for sure, I do not want to go back down the roads I have previously been down.
Thank you for reading, any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Happy Holidays, thank you again!
I started smoking pot when I was 17, and messing around with psychedelics around 18. Told myself I would never drink because my father was a raging alcoholic and somewhat broke up our family. These trends continued until around the age of 21 when it became legal to drink. By this point I was working in restaurants where alcohol and social life sort of went hand in hand. At age 21 I started drinking after work regularly and the hippie type drug use continued.
By age 23, my brother and I lived together. We had a 2 bedroom apartment, and we got along well. He was a marijuana dealer and I worked in restaurants, and helped him get additional customers through people I trusted and worked with. Being a pothead this helped me out because he would smoke me out and give me free weed for doing so.
Within the next year or so, not quite sure how it happened, but he started selling and moving fairly large quantities of cocaine. By Age 24 I was now doing a lot of cocaine and still continuing my old routine. Cocaine and alcohol because a big part of my life. I loved it.
Somewhere during the start of that coke phase, I also got really into MDMA. I was doing a lot. I was mixing E, coke, and booze a lot. Also still smoking weed on the regular.
By the age of 26, I had been dating a girl I worked with at the restaurant for almost six years now. She was fully aware of my drug and alcohol abuse and was not keen to it. She was sober herself, and never did any drugs. She drank once in a blue moon, and when she did, it was one or two drinks. She had been asking me to seek help for years now at this point, we were truly in love. She wanted to eventually marry me and have a family. She stuck through my abuse for years hoping I would one day change. After six years she finally had enough and left me. I was destroyed. I no longer cared about myself or my life. I began to burn all my bridges and do more and more coke.
At age 27, I moved to Ohio. My mother had a condo out there, and offered me the option to move there, for a chance to get away from it all and start fresh. The first year in Ohio went smooth. I had put all the drugs down, except for the fact that I was still drinking regularly. Was working for The Cheesecake Factory, and was happy again, although deep down inside I was depressed. I had left everyone and everything I loved behind less then a year earlier for this chance to clean my life up.
Somewhere between 28 and 29 I moved restaurants. I followed a manager who was becoming a GM of this new restaurant opening in the area. He brought me along to be a lead trainer and lead server as we got established. During the one month training phase, i met two girls who became big roles in my life. One became my new girlfriend, we became deeply attached and were really good together. She didn't do any hard drugs, and drank very rarely. The other, was possibly the worst thing that ever happened to me.
This other girl, reintroduced me to cocaine. Something I hadn't touched in over a year. It was a random reintroduction. We were at work one day and I jokingly said, "Wish I had some coke right now!" She literally pulled a half gram out of her pocket and gave it to me. Said let me know what you think, I can get plenty more. I shouldn't have taken it. The next day at work, I was already asking her to get more, and we started hanging out a lot. We were doing lots of coke together and drinking tons. I was having a great time.
This is the point where I started dating the other girl. She was aware of my partying ways and asked me to stop when we started dating. A month or so into our relationship, she caught me doing blow. She gave me a final warning and said next time things were over. I didn't take heed to this warning, although I hid things well for the next several months. She eventually found out I was still hanging out with the other girl all along doing drugs behind her back. Everything fell to shambles.
At this point, one random night at the party girls apartment, I was going to break up some blow on the plate we normally used. There was a rock sitting on it, and I thought it was coke. I asked her how she had saved so much and she said, "That's not coke, you don't want that." I realized what it was, and in my drunken state convinced her to let me try it. Over the next year I had become a full blown crack fiend.
The two of us slowly but surely destroyed everything around us. I lost the trust of my family, friends, managers, coworkers. I spent every dime I had on more and more crack. I was drinking like a fish throughout this entire time, and also doing lots of pills. Uppers, Downers, whatever really. I had stopped caring about life again since the day my most relationship had ended. It was like the old me all over again, but this time I was deeper into addiction.
It got so bad that I had pawned all of my instruments, xbox, tv, and other items. I then stole a large sum of money from my mother. She kicked me out of the condo and was going to press charges. Myself and this girl went on an eight day bender with all the money I had stolen. On day eight we had not slept. I was hallucinating, and paranoid beyond believe. I thought the cops were coming for me and felt like I was on the run. I had a mental breakdown. I called my mother around midnight and begged for help, said I couldn't live this way anymore and wanted to change and begged for forgiveness. She was half asleep and said we would talk in the morning. Probably a good thing because at the time I was cracked out.
I slept it off somewhat and in the morning talked to her again. She gave me two options. She was either going to contact the bank about the stolen money and press charges, which was going to be a felony because i had stolen around 20,000. Or, she was going to take me back to New Jersey where she would admit me into a rehab center. I took option B, because I didn't want to go to prison.
I spent the next 4 months in the Salvation Army ARC program in Trenton, NJ. She thought it was a 30 day program when she took me in, but turns out it was a seven month program. After 30 days she gave me the option to come home, but I decided to stay for awhile feeling like I was not ready. I ended up staying there until one week ago today, just a bit over four months.
Today I feel a lot better. I no longer want to do drugs. I have no thought about getting high since I left there and with Gods grace that will continue. The program really changed me. Even she notices it. It may be due to the four months of recovery, but I learned a lot while there. I really got a look into my deep seeded tendencies, my selfishness, my lack of self worth. I was forced to attend lots of meetings and groups during the four months there, and found a knack in AA and NA. The whole religious aspect of the center wasn't truly for me, but still I took from it what I could.
Now being a week out of rehab, I have not thought about using whatsoever. The only issue I'm having is I still feel like drinking. Not getting drunk, but drink socially. I know I shouldn't because I know where it can and probably will lead. I haven't drank yet, but it's so tempting for some reason. I feel that if I do drink though, even if normally, eventually it will lead to drinking like a fish again. Maybe even lead me to make bad choices and start doing drugs again down the road.
I don't want to become one of those AA or NA types. You know, the type that attends meetings daily, gets really into it, and almost devotes their life to it. I'm just at a loss right now fresh out of rehab and not quite sure what to do with myself. I suppose I could attend a few meetings and see where it goes from there. It will probably definitely be a good way to meet sober people in my new area and possibly make some new friends. I'm just still kind of depressed, and know for sure, I do not want to go back down the roads I have previously been down.
Thank you for reading, any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Happy Holidays, thank you again!
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Welcome EJmate and thanks for sharing your story. You'll find a lot of support here and a lot of understanding too. If you truly do want to stay sober I would suggest that you will need to find a program or community to be part of daily, at least for a while. Rehab is great but it's only the beginning. As you mention you are already having througts of drinking "socially"...but that is not possible for an addict.
AA Member
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 2,977
Originally Posted by EJMate85 
I don't want to become one of those AA or NA types. You know, the type that attends meetings daily, gets really into it, and almost devotes their life to it. I'm just at a loss right now fresh out of rehab and not quite sure what to do with myself. I suppose I could attend a few meetings and see where it goes from there. It will probably definitely be a good way to meet sober people in my new area and possibly make some new friends. I'm just still kind of depressed, and know for sure, I do not want to go back down the roads I have previously been down.
i felt the same way
in my first year i went to AA ...
yea meetings
dances
bungee jumping
hang gliding
parachuting
socials
movies
hiking
bicycling
had sex
snow skiing
water skiing
jet skiing
on and on and on
give it a chance
Member
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: United kingdom
Posts: 360
Thanks for posting, i would say that life is likely to become more difficult again if you start drinking. Its so easy to lose ourselves in any kind of substance. I would go to a few meetings, find new hobbies and just continue developing your new life.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,869
Hello and welcome to the family. Have you heard about AVRT. It has helped lots of us. Also, do you have a plan?
That first sip is what always gets us. You know where drinking will lead you. Rehab is awesome and now you have to prepare to deal with cravings. Read here a lot and participate. It has really made a diferente for me.
That first sip is what always gets us. You know where drinking will lead you. Rehab is awesome and now you have to prepare to deal with cravings. Read here a lot and participate. It has really made a diferente for me.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2016
Posts: 122
EJMate85, you have come such a long way.
What kind of advice did your program give you on reentry into the world? While I don't think you need to devote your entire life to meetings for the rest of your days, attending some sort of out program while you learn to navigate the world as a sober person might be a very good idea.
Learning to socialize, over come problems, or just coping with "being bored" without using can be challenging outside of rehab, and if you want to give yourself the very best shot at sobriety, I think it's important to "go all in" for a little while, so that you can learn how to deal. That doesn't have to mean meetings. It could mean reading as many books on sobriety as possible or hiring a therapist to see regularly. Things are still pretty fresh, and absolutely nothing good will come out of socially drinking. Are you looking for the social connection of "going out"? The familiarity of having a drink? The need to just drop out from reality for a bit?
Post regularly! The forums usually offer good (albeit sometimes a bit preachy) advice, and there are usually at least 2-3 great takeaways from every post. I'm excited to hear more about how things are going for you.
What kind of advice did your program give you on reentry into the world? While I don't think you need to devote your entire life to meetings for the rest of your days, attending some sort of out program while you learn to navigate the world as a sober person might be a very good idea.
Learning to socialize, over come problems, or just coping with "being bored" without using can be challenging outside of rehab, and if you want to give yourself the very best shot at sobriety, I think it's important to "go all in" for a little while, so that you can learn how to deal. That doesn't have to mean meetings. It could mean reading as many books on sobriety as possible or hiring a therapist to see regularly. Things are still pretty fresh, and absolutely nothing good will come out of socially drinking. Are you looking for the social connection of "going out"? The familiarity of having a drink? The need to just drop out from reality for a bit?
Post regularly! The forums usually offer good (albeit sometimes a bit preachy) advice, and there are usually at least 2-3 great takeaways from every post. I'm excited to hear more about how things are going for you.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,355
Hi and welcome EJMate 
Noone here is goingto force you to do anything
I will say tho that my recovery was not 'set and forget', particularly in the early days.
My recovery is the wheel on which the rest of my life runs.
If I neglect my wheel maintenance, I'm more and more likely to end up in a crash.
Trust me, you'll get back every bit of effort you put into your recovery...and a bit more besides
I don't want to become one of those AA or NA types. You know, the type that attends meetings daily, gets really into it, and almost devotes their life to it. I'm just at a loss right now fresh out of rehab and not quite sure what to do with myself. I
I will say tho that my recovery was not 'set and forget', particularly in the early days.
My recovery is the wheel on which the rest of my life runs.
If I neglect my wheel maintenance, I'm more and more likely to end up in a crash.
Trust me, you'll get back every bit of effort you put into your recovery...and a bit more besides
Member
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: CA
Posts: 967
Congratulations EJ on your sobriety and deciding to stay in rehab for the extra time. Although you may be having cravings to drink, I would think that the havoc you described in your story from drugs and drinking and the ensuing chaos it caused in your life would deter you from going down that path again, which all can start with that first drink. I know that you do not want to end up like one of those AA people who attends meetings regularly, but would you rather have that or end up in prison? You stated in your story that you could have ended up in prison if your mom had pressed charges. Maybe down the road once you have a year or more of sobriety you can assess if daily meetings are necessary for you, but with your current level of addiction and your history, I personally believe a daily meeting is just what you need to keep you out of trouble. Good luck!
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