DriGuy

Well, you got that part right. For me, the help I needed didn't come from my closest friends. They liked me and wanted me to be better for sure, but they had no clue about my inner suffering, continued failure, and what I had to do to become whole. I'm sure that at least a few of us have close friends that understand better, but I'll speculate that the norm is more like my experience. I simply had to reach out to find other people like me, but not like my bar friends, many of which understood, but were in no position to help even themselves out of the mire. A group that is in various stages of recovery and dedicated to the process knows what you are going through, and that resource was vital to my own success. Could I have done it on my own? Some can, but I don't think I could have or would have without the help of others.