impatient, sober living, cravings and homesick

[brassmonkey78]

So i went to impatient for the first time about two and a half months ago. I moved states to go to impatient and now I'm in a sober living here. It sucks. I have made two or so good friends but other than when I get to see them, about once a week, I am very lonely in this city. I'm from a small town in Washington and now I live in Hollywood. I want to go home and go back to the life I had. But i know I can get a better college education here and have a better future and going home means a significant possibility of relapse. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced moving away from home to go to impatient and sober living? How did you make it through?

 

[herbavore]

I don't have your exact experience but I did move a lot in my life and know the loneliness of not knowing anyone and missing what is familiar. One thing I would suggest is finding a group that does volunteer work for something that you truly care about or are interested in learning about. This connects you to a small group (the volunteers) and also to a larger community. If you are going to be going to school at a community college at first, see what clubs exist that might interest you. Loneliness can be a huge trigger for relapse so you need to be very aware of your thoughts about it. Make sure you are working on your relationship with yourself and not turning loneliness into fatalistic thinking or negative thoughts about yourself. Have you thought about some kind of mind/body practice like yoga?

Have you ever heard of Tommy Rosen? I think he is in the LA area and he is starting a new free online recovery conference soon.http://recovery2point0.com/c2/
I listened to his last conference and I got a lot out of it. He brings in a lot of people from different paths to address not only addiction but what underlies it.

Feel free to PM me anytime if you need extra support.

 

[phactor]

It gets better!! Stick with it. I left sober living to early awhile ago and ended up using again. I used for another two before I decided to get clean again and now I have a year, a month and a day. My girlfriend is at sober living right now and I have to say I am jealous somewhat. Making connections is so so worth it.

Have you talked to anyone about wanting to go home? To me, that would be a warning signs of a relapse.

Are you hitting up meetings?

 

[brassmonkey78]

I have started doing yoga and I've noticed that it makes a huge difference in my mood and helps center me. I also go to iop and a morning meeting 5 days a week. I'm slowly starting to make a small group of friends. And I'm starting to gain attachments to those friends. That's helping keep me centered where I live now. It's just a difficult process is all.

 

[OverDone]

I admire your self-awareness and self-honesty. New environments, new people, new ANYTHING can be very uncomfortable and pretty damn scary. Nothing ever stays new, though. You took major action to pull yourself from the "suckiness" of being a stranger in a strange land. I LOVE hearing that your positive action is yielding positive results :D. That type of courage will take you a long way. Pretty damn admirable!