Good morning to all my sober living warriors..... First of all I want to say congratulations to Chinup.
I'm losing my fucking mind. I took 6 grams of gabapentin but I still want to slit my wrists. I fucking despise the people I live with. I got roped into watching some dumbass movie tonight. The worst part is I don't even want to get high anymore. I just want to die.
Hang in there CJ. I can definitely identify with where you are at. I started trying to get clean with assistance in Apr of 2015. Over the last 4 yrs I have spent 2.75 years living in sober living houses and another half a year living with a couple of nutcases I met in the rooms. The other .75yrs was spent homeless, renting rooms off Craigslist to try and stay around my recovery groups-job, and with the my parents. Those 4yrs have been filled with the most beautiful moments, excruciating ordeals, self loathing, homicidal rage, meltdowns, forced learning experiences, friends dying, friends trying to plant drugs on me to set me up, relapses, homelessness, trips to the psych ward for wanting to kill myself, detoxes, several wrecked cars, felony charges and a partridge in a muthafukin' pear tree.
I got a little over one year clean my first go around, which is actually a lie because I drank one night right in the middle of that yr. I was extremely depressed and lost during that year. I was horribly discontent and constantly under attack by a barrage of seemingly, uncontrollable mood swings. I had a hard time connecting to any of the people at my halfway house and I had plenty of people to connect with because my program was 150 some odd guys spread across 2 sprawling properties. I hated the staff and I found the program to be extremely small minded, dogmatic, cultish and essentially uncaring and grossly, exploitative and profit oriented. I wound up relapsing after getting let go from my 5th job in a year.
I came back for another go around, which lasted 9mths. I made the mistake of falling for a girl. During that go around I was homeless after getting kicked out of my halfway house, when one of my best friends ratted me out for admitting a moment of weakness, in which I took kratom. I bounced from house to house, while feeling pretty much alone. This attempt ended with a disastrous relapse and suicide attempt that saw me running into a light post on the highway at full speed. I then wound up in the psych ward. Then there was another half hearted suicide attempt and a broken heart.
I am on my 4th attempt now after getting out of a 2mth stay in rehab, a failed third attempt that saw 4 overdoses, another wrecked car and and felony arrest charges. I was clean 4mths on that go around.
Getting clean has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I have a really difficult time connecting with others on a less than superficial level because of my girlfriend overdosing and dying next to me in bed. I easily draw people to me and I am very gregarious and likeable, however I am mentally fucked in the emotion department.
I'm telling you all this because I want you to know that despite all this struggle and hardship, that things have gotten infinitely easier since that first recovery go around. I am slowly learning to live life on life's terms. I definitely don't have it figured out and life will probably knock me on my knees with another curve ball but I am learning to love myself and how to roll with the punches. Looking back I have realized that everything that has happened made me the person I am today and I am grateful to have the long, hard, lonely, twisted path I have had because it has made me into a person I can be proud of... I get back up every time and forge forward and it gets easier.
I love you man and that's not bullshit because you're just like me.
