Leaving everyone behind is hard, especially the people who were good to you even in your using substances, but were still too closely associated with the drug scene for you to be around them without being too close to problem individuals. I mean I think of my friend Mike, who was always so kind and fun to talk with, but we had always smoked pot together. When I got clean back then the people that often had hung around the same places we did were involved in heavier drug use, so I couldn't really chill with him anymore... sucked a lot. Also, a guy I new that never really did drugs was friends with one of my dealers and he had to be left behind simply because if I ran into that dealer, the prices were so good that I'd be buying in bulk on the spot. I'd say the worst thing for me was destroying my life to the point that I pushed away all my friends who didn't and had never really engaged in recreational substance use, and then got clean and dropped all my drug related acquaintances. I was left alone in the beginning, all the people who knew me for what I was, both good and bad, were no longer part of my life. I had my brother still, and my family, but besides my brother no one really knew me. The good news is that in my first few months of sobriety this time around I began to find myself surrounded with smart, dedicated, and loyal people. Not everyone stayed sober, but those that wanted help after a slip were able to get that help easily. I was going to AA at the time, but even though everyone in my group of friends was in AA, that's not where we met. AA/NA can be really good for people, I don't think it's for me, but especially in Los Angeles where you can find a meeting at anytime 24/7/365, I think that it's a valuable resource not to be underestimated. A year later I still have a lot of the friends I made in those first few months, yeah only myself and one other guy didn't relapse over the past year, but all but one of us is still fighting the good fight. Have fun is important to recovery and even more so having a community that you can have fun with when the time is right is crucial.
I have a psychiatrist who practices psychoanalytic insight based therapies as well as psychodynamic therapies and I find this to be rather helpful at times. I got a dog this past year and she helps keep me responsible and definitely helps with the lingering loneliness that has haunted me in the years since I graduated high school. I live back at home with my parents and that keeps me accountable plus it's nice to have people around, my younger sister is still in high school and she's cool so that helps. I just bought myself an Xbox One, it definitely helps at times, I gave up video games a few years back, but I'm realizing that if used properly they can be an excellent distraction if you need one. I read a lot of random stuffs, from academic journals to bulk fiction to fairly heavy non-fiction in the social sciences. I've torrented more books than I could ever read, but they're organized so I can find almost whatever I'm looking for in my library of 100,000+ books (yes, that's a large number, and yes, there are also some duplicates, but I underestimated to account for potentially 10's of thousands of duplicate that may or may not be in the library). I've been trying to work my way through the IMDB top 100 movies, the IMDB top 30 or so TV series, and the myanimelist top 50 anime TV series. I've always prefer TV as it has more time to develop plot and character depth. I understand the connotations that come with anime, but it can be extraordinarily good and more creative than Western television series. I play racquetball 4 times a week, I try to eat properly as best I can. I take a fuck ton of vitamins, whether this helps or not is unclear, but according to psychiatrist it's important in my case to get folic acid, B complex vitamin, and Vitamin D supplements. Music can be helpful, however I will say that listening to music you did during active drug use can be a problem for people; for the most part I've been fine but I simply cannot listen to rap anymore whatever reason it's too much for me. Find household projects to undertake, I'm trying to lay out plans for a larger cage for my dog, so that when I have to be out for 5 hours she can be comfortable. Do people favors, I have a lot of time on my hands so I drive my sister to voice lessons or theatre practice and save my mother the trip. Make friends with the employees of stores you regularly go to. I chat with a lot of store clerks and honestly I feel much better about my day after a pleasant 2-5 minute conversation. Read comics, I get "XKCD" comics on my phone and they brighten my day even when it's a really shitty day. If your not into XKCD then you should try "The Far Side", which is hilarious. I mean there are ten-thousand and more things we could do to make our lives better or more complete or even just finding little distractions when you need them. Be creative, it feels good and you'll probably find some really fun activities that you never would've thought to try while you were using. Best of luck and hopefully you got something out of this long ass rant
