Why are we clean and sober and other's arent?
Attended By a Single Hound
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: England
Posts: 425
My reason came in two parts. I had the first for years, before I found the second which enabled me to realise the first and actually get and keep clean / sober.
1# An unyielding desire - to be and to feel something other than a junkie / drunk getting their fill. A desire so strong it equalled my desire to use / drink. A lot of addicts have this and never actually get or stay clean / sober because they don't get to '2#' before the streets get to them. That's my opinion anyhow.
2# Finding what works for you - For some it is NA / AA. For some it is AVRT. And so on.
And that's why I'm clean and sober while many are still using or dead. Some out there are only just beginning their 'adventure' on the streets. Some haven't hit rock bottom yet. Some don't have the desire or enough of it...at least for now. Some do have the desire and just haven't yet found '2#'. And some will die before they make it off the street.
1# An unyielding desire - to be and to feel something other than a junkie / drunk getting their fill. A desire so strong it equalled my desire to use / drink. A lot of addicts have this and never actually get or stay clean / sober because they don't get to '2#' before the streets get to them. That's my opinion anyhow.
2# Finding what works for you - For some it is NA / AA. For some it is AVRT. And so on.
And that's why I'm clean and sober while many are still using or dead. Some out there are only just beginning their 'adventure' on the streets. Some haven't hit rock bottom yet. Some don't have the desire or enough of it...at least for now. Some do have the desire and just haven't yet found '2#'. And some will die before they make it off the street.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
many are picked. few are chosen.
it happens and it can be a difficult one for me to acept at times.
theres something called survivors syndrome or survivors guilt. good thing to read up on.
it happens and it can be a difficult one for me to acept at times.
theres something called survivors syndrome or survivors guilt. good thing to read up on.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Chicago Burbs- Illinois
Posts: 202
Originally Posted by nandm 
But that changed when I went to my first AA meeting. I have no idea what was said and can not even tell you other than myself and the person who took me to the meeting who was there but the one thing I still remember to this day is the feeling of hope that I walked out of there with. Hope that life could be lived and a person find happiness without drinking. Hope that life does get better. I found that hope through the faces and voices of the people in that room. That hope sustained me, kept me coming back, kept me following the directions given me, until I was able to gain the tools of the program and find recovery. I still can feel that hope today even when times are difficult.
For someone who was suffering the hell of alcoholism to see real life examples of people who changed- that's one of those defining moments in life.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Vancouver BC Canada
Posts: 384
Well there are numerous alternatives to AA and many of them are discussed on the Secular section of SR. Some people find success with them to stay sober. Myself , I found AA works for me.
While not the only requirements to get toward recovery , I think honesty , willingness , an open mind and a true sense to the peril you are in has a lot to do with just getting started no matter how you approach stopping and then entering any period of recovery. How bad things get seems to vary a lot with one person going through much more than others before the peril and other items come into focus.
It takes the realization that you will never be a normal drinker/user , its simply not the truth or an option. Complete abstinence is the only option and you must be willing to do anything to achieve that before anything else in your life.Chances are by the time you even think about the problem seriously you have countless attempts at trying to drink/use normally and the track record is pretty poor. The people I know with long term sobriety never forget this fact and I have met some with long term sobriety who forget it and they are quickly in as much or worse peril than before.
Some folks can never overcome the root cause of their substance use , typically a mask of some pain in their life. Their hope is long gone and the effort to deal with life without their substance is simply too much. Unfortunately many take their own life while in active addiction or in withdrawal stages. The will to live is gone and I think that's a definitive demarcation point for those who get a chance at recovery and those who slip through the cracks.
My belief is poverty , access to assistance , and the basics of human dignity people struggle with all play a role in the chances of recovery. More poverty , limited or no assistance and a lack of resources for any form of dignity ( food , shelter , clothing , meaningful occupation paid or unpaid) makes the odds so much more stacked against recovery.
While not the only requirements to get toward recovery , I think honesty , willingness , an open mind and a true sense to the peril you are in has a lot to do with just getting started no matter how you approach stopping and then entering any period of recovery. How bad things get seems to vary a lot with one person going through much more than others before the peril and other items come into focus.
It takes the realization that you will never be a normal drinker/user , its simply not the truth or an option. Complete abstinence is the only option and you must be willing to do anything to achieve that before anything else in your life.Chances are by the time you even think about the problem seriously you have countless attempts at trying to drink/use normally and the track record is pretty poor. The people I know with long term sobriety never forget this fact and I have met some with long term sobriety who forget it and they are quickly in as much or worse peril than before.
Some folks can never overcome the root cause of their substance use , typically a mask of some pain in their life. Their hope is long gone and the effort to deal with life without their substance is simply too much. Unfortunately many take their own life while in active addiction or in withdrawal stages. The will to live is gone and I think that's a definitive demarcation point for those who get a chance at recovery and those who slip through the cracks.
My belief is poverty , access to assistance , and the basics of human dignity people struggle with all play a role in the chances of recovery. More poverty , limited or no assistance and a lack of resources for any form of dignity ( food , shelter , clothing , meaningful occupation paid or unpaid) makes the odds so much more stacked against recovery.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 243
Almost 90 days later and Gods grace is still here. It helps i lead a comfortable life but my experience shows me when i was 19 driving a cadillac and having access to as.much money as i need i was miserable and ready to kill myself. Today im no longer alone, love compassion and truth are the principles.i live by. Im even becoming honest.
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by YVRguy
My belief is poverty , access to assistance , and the basics of human dignity people struggle with all play a role in the chances of recovery. More poverty , limited or no assistance and a lack of resources for any form of dignity ( food , shelter , clothing , meaningful occupation paid or unpaid) makes the odds so much more stacked against recovery.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 243
Originally Posted by Boleo
In my case, I had to run out of all options and safety-nets before I took recovery seriously enough to put it first on my list of priorities. Having "limited or no assistance and a lack of resources for any form of dignity" are what motivated me to abandon my old life and look for a whole new one. That is why I call it a gift (Gift Of Desperation).
It was more of an internal bottom. Infact my loving, compassionate family helped me stay alive and motivated me to get well for myself and them. But everyones journey is different.
God bless.
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by Alraihani
When i was living out of my car, staying at homeless shelters, kicked out of treatment...that never got sober. When i finally made that desperate cry to God for help, i was living with my enabling parents, had a car, job, minimal responsibility.
"All expectations are seeds for resentment".
(Zhuang Zi)
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Location: balt. md.
Posts: 13
I always wondered why some people got sober and remained sober but I couldn't. So I got on both knees and screamed to the top of my lungs GOD PLEASE HELP ME. And things started coming together and I look back and its been three years. I think the differance is how bad you really want it and hjow far would you go to get it.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 443
"The chronicity of addiction is really a kind of fatalism writ large. If an addict knows in his heart he is going to use someday, why not today? But if a thin reed of hope appears, the possibility that it will not always be so, things change. You live another day and then get up and do it again. Hope is oxygen to someone who is suffocating on despair."
-- From an excerpt of David Carr's book, The Night of the Gun:
-- From an excerpt of David Carr's book, The Night of the Gun:
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
I'm sure there are many answers to this question, both questions... it seems to be 2 in 1. I guess I just don't like the question. Not passing judgement on the OP or anything... but I guess it doesn't feel good inside for me when I ask this question... as if the universe is saying... hey, no worries... you don't have to know the answer... just be grateful to be where you are... and pass along the hope.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 165
That's an impossible question. And a dangerous one. Why and how did I survive when so many others, better people than me, couldn't find the path?
My blind hope, that survives in the face of all the evidence maybe?
Or my uncompromising ability to just not give a f**k?
Flipping heck. I really really really really wish I knew.
My blind hope, that survives in the face of all the evidence maybe?
Or my uncompromising ability to just not give a f**k?
Flipping heck. I really really really really wish I knew.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 243
Reading back what I wrote four months ago, this question has become even more important for me. I don't understand how it would be considered a dangerous question. It doesn't produce guilt for me, but reminds me why I must show gratitude for AA and those who have yet to reach the rooms.
Lately I've been frustrated with some basic human issues, and just reading this thread again reminds me of what a miracle and gift from the universal spirit this sobriery thing has been.
God doesn't make to hard of terms to those who seek him.
Lately I've been frustrated with some basic human issues, and just reading this thread again reminds me of what a miracle and gift from the universal spirit this sobriery thing has been.
God doesn't make to hard of terms to those who seek him.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 321
I can see where questions like this could possibly be dangerous, it gets me in the train of thought of it being my job to figure these things out. The simple truth is I don't have to know the answer. I don't have to know how the electricity powers my TV, I don't have to know how the internal combustion engine works, I don't have to know many things in this life. It makes my life simpler when I operate in that perspective. It doesn't turn me into one of the sheeple, it doesn't make me stupid or narrow minded or any of the derogatory things associated with purposeful ignorance, it makes life easier.
That being said, I didn't get sober for any decent length or have happy sobriety until this time around. That's not to say that I didn't have happy moments, or I don't consider a few months a decent length, but for me I am at 6 months and going along with a career in the works, housing, food, and many material things I have never had due to alcohol and drugs. And I never experienced joy on a continuous basis. Do I give the credit to God? Not exactly. My experiences brought me to where I am now at. I am a believer, but I am not one to say that God is responsible for everything that happens period. If that were so then free will does not exist and I was scripted to be a drug addict and to be writing this and I can't choose when I go to bed. I don't believe that one bit.
What I've done and where I've been and what's happened to me brought me to an internal desperation strong enough to desire what was offered by the program of AA. A fear of the consequences has brought me to where I am now at. And a hope for the benefits keeps me moving forward. It is that simple for me.
I hurt. I didn't want to hurt. I moved into educated action. I experienced results. I liked said results. I continue action.
Why do others not get what I have? Because I haven't offered it to them. Why do they turn me down when I do offer it? I dunno. None of my business.
That being said, I didn't get sober for any decent length or have happy sobriety until this time around. That's not to say that I didn't have happy moments, or I don't consider a few months a decent length, but for me I am at 6 months and going along with a career in the works, housing, food, and many material things I have never had due to alcohol and drugs. And I never experienced joy on a continuous basis. Do I give the credit to God? Not exactly. My experiences brought me to where I am now at. I am a believer, but I am not one to say that God is responsible for everything that happens period. If that were so then free will does not exist and I was scripted to be a drug addict and to be writing this and I can't choose when I go to bed. I don't believe that one bit.
What I've done and where I've been and what's happened to me brought me to an internal desperation strong enough to desire what was offered by the program of AA. A fear of the consequences has brought me to where I am now at. And a hope for the benefits keeps me moving forward. It is that simple for me.
I hurt. I didn't want to hurt. I moved into educated action. I experienced results. I liked said results. I continue action.
Why do others not get what I have? Because I haven't offered it to them. Why do they turn me down when I do offer it? I dunno. None of my business.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 42
I feel very uneasy about this subject because of the way I came to recovery.
I didn't seek recovery. It came to me.
I was in a drunk driver accident. The man driving the car I was a passenger in was drunk and he was killed and I was injured badly. While I was in the hospital my mother's pastor and the hospital chaplain spoke to me. I did have a drinking problem and I told them how guilty I felt that he had died and I had not. They told me to go to AA and I began to attend meetings while I was still in the hospital.
I would not have started attending them on my own. I feel like I was hand picked. I never believed in Providence or that Hand of God. I still don't really. I feel like I got lucky in my recovery the same way I was lucky not to have been killed in the accident.
I obsessed over that a lot at the beginning but was told to let it go. Why doesn't matter, what matters is that I had the chance and took it, and what I did with it. And old timer said it was like this...that a person could get one million dollars from working hard, or as an inheritance, or from winning the lottery. What mattered in the end though, was what they do with their money, something constructive or destructive, not where the money came from. He said that as a result of my accident I could use it as an opportunity to drink more, or to get sober. It didn't matter how my chance had come, only what I did from here on out. He said life isn't fair, but we do have the freedom to make choices.
I am clean and sober now because of the choices I make every day. Is it really as simple as that? Well, I could choose to drink tomorrow, and then I would not be clean and sober, so in some ways, it IS that simple.
I didn't seek recovery. It came to me.
I was in a drunk driver accident. The man driving the car I was a passenger in was drunk and he was killed and I was injured badly. While I was in the hospital my mother's pastor and the hospital chaplain spoke to me. I did have a drinking problem and I told them how guilty I felt that he had died and I had not. They told me to go to AA and I began to attend meetings while I was still in the hospital.
I would not have started attending them on my own. I feel like I was hand picked. I never believed in Providence or that Hand of God. I still don't really. I feel like I got lucky in my recovery the same way I was lucky not to have been killed in the accident.
I obsessed over that a lot at the beginning but was told to let it go. Why doesn't matter, what matters is that I had the chance and took it, and what I did with it. And old timer said it was like this...that a person could get one million dollars from working hard, or as an inheritance, or from winning the lottery. What mattered in the end though, was what they do with their money, something constructive or destructive, not where the money came from. He said that as a result of my accident I could use it as an opportunity to drink more, or to get sober. It didn't matter how my chance had come, only what I did from here on out. He said life isn't fair, but we do have the freedom to make choices.
I am clean and sober now because of the choices I make every day. Is it really as simple as that? Well, I could choose to drink tomorrow, and then I would not be clean and sober, so in some ways, it IS that simple.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Uk
Posts: 1,190
Originally Posted by Boleo
It was not until I got a whole new GOD in my life that I was willing to "take an action that I didn't believe in". Nor was it the God that I got from religion. It was the "Gift Of Desperation".
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
(Matt 5:3)
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
(Matt 5:3)
Sums it up for me - desperation was and is very still raw inside me. It was either do something or die.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
seems like a really important question, but i'd take the "i" out of it and ask more in general "why are some sober and others not?"
i understand it to be about the "how" of how people got and stay sober.
how and why are not the same thing, i realize, but when i was still stuck in the cycle of drink, try to quit, drink, again again again, the how and why some are sober and i was not was huge.
it was a question that included hope, because right there it encompassed the fact that people can and do get sober and stay that way.
and the myriad answers were encouraging to me because they showed that there was stuff i could DO. others had answers that i might or might not LIKE, but at least there were people who had found ways. it meant there were ways.
i understand it to be about the "how" of how people got and stay sober.
how and why are not the same thing, i realize, but when i was still stuck in the cycle of drink, try to quit, drink, again again again, the how and why some are sober and i was not was huge.
it was a question that included hope, because right there it encompassed the fact that people can and do get sober and stay that way.
and the myriad answers were encouraging to me because they showed that there was stuff i could DO. others had answers that i might or might not LIKE, but at least there were people who had found ways. it meant there were ways.
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