This is a prime example of what often happens to people who are with a SUD (substance use disorder as defined in the diagnostic service manual for psychiatry) or an addiction.
Half of people who qualify for an SUD in their 20s no longer do by age 35. This doesn't mean that half of twenty something "addicts" stopped using by then. It just means that they no longer hit the number of ticks on a list required to garner that diagnoses.
There is also a study done in Vancouver which has shown that out of a group of around 1500 or so "addicts", the 250 who were either made to or otherwise went to treatment fared no better than their counterparts who did not go to treatment. You are no more likely statistically to stay sober in the long term (as in 100% clean) if you go to rehab or treatment otherwise than someone who does not go. Those numbers speak only to 100% sobriety though.
As soon as you start looking at things through the scope of harm reduction, to introduce that ladder where every step toward using less and / or using in a less harmful way is a victory that you should be proud of.
Here in Canada, in Vancouver this could be something like accessing a safer supply agency and using pharmaceutical grade heroin instead of street fentanyl. Maybe that's not getting "clean" by the standards these studies are most often setting the tone by having 100% long term abstinence as the protocol to follow in study..
Then there are things you can do in your life otherwise to improve things like accessing social supports and medical resources to take better care of your overall health. Treatment and counseling to a better mental and physical health in ways that aren't directed specifically toward your addiction(s).
Then consequentially, there's this expected recovery that always gets put on the line with abstinence-only programming. A getting "clean" mentality. There's a widespread stigmata to define us dirty "addicts" as needing to be cleansed, or "detoxed" entirely from these substances we've become addicted to.
Stigmas which are so predominant in the world now as being the standard to achieve and live by.. anything less than achieving absolution in a complete purity is not good enough for society. People will leave you alone to rot in your wasted life as "loving you from a distance" if you can't achieve this perfection. A clean date, and often times to fjnd your "higher power" in 12 step programming.
To be a story to overcoming rock bottoms as expected by society so you can be exemplified as another example (no pun intended) to achieving this much greater life you'll in find in sobriety now - your life is defined completely and only as whether you are sober, or not. The second you are given the stigmata regarded to being an "addict" - this is often what happens. This is what society has been taught.
Even Jesus Christ wasn't able to in his own stigmata to overcome what his society called him Ill for. That's why was he put to death, and left to rot as stigmatized as he was.
The point is, take steps to achieve what you need to become in your own life and for those you choose to live for. If you so choose to live that way. What you do in your life, and what constitutes 'good and bad' for you in your own view?
That is what's important to finding your place here in this world. So personally as to be content with your own place here in this world, and to be proud of yourself for who you are and to be happy with the direction you're going. Nobody ever said you can't possibly find yourself, or be good to others, or do / be anything and the only path truly is you have to get sober. In the context that all people who are there are sober, and that's the be all end all.
Anyone who has told you that had better have had some good heart and mind for you in your life specifically, because that's bold statement and for the vast majority (all) in their lives - total bullshit. Maybe that would help you a lot in fixing your circumstance presently going forward, but that will never fix the past and it doesn't make you any better or worse of a person In your heart and mind.
Do what you need to do to make a better life for yourself, if you can. Find others who can help you along the way. It's so important to have good people in your life. That's what I think and that's what is proven to be what actually makes people happy. It's relationships in your family, friends, partners, and communities. And it's achieving goals with intrinsic values like doing something for the good of the people, places, and things around you. Ever volunteered? It feels good, really!
