Research & Development

How manys days would you suppose it takes to get a 30 day chip of continuous sobriety?

Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean.

And yeah, this cryptogram could be like asking, "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" but the reality of recovery is, that it can take decades, years, months & many days of relentless work. The mental evolution required within ones self to aquire anything substantial to the outside world can wear your soul thin. "But if nothing changes, then nothing changes" This last go round it has taken me 116 days, 3 ER visits, 2 neuro-pyschiatric observations, and being incarcerated to get 30 days in a row of clean time.

A Beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste..

 I have been sober at various times (sometimes months or years) in my life by will power, but that looks & feels much different than working a program of recovery. The basic distinction is that the white knuckle way of abstinence from drugs n' alcohol leaves you feeling restless, irritable, & discontent when you are left to cope without self medicating. 

Recovery has a beginning, goes in order, and maintains structure... however there is no end. You never graduate, there isn't a diploma or certificate of completion.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Those early days, just like drops of rain gathering in a bucket, could someday add up to a sea of sobriety.

If long term sobriety & dying sober is the pot of gold at the end of the recovery rainbow, then what must does the beginning of look like?

Recovery is not all Butterflies-n-Rainbows-n-blowjobs...

I will attempt to explain:

It is climbing out of a pit of dispair.... a deep, dark hole with a broken shovel in the bottom of it after you didn't have the strength to dig anymore.. . hopefully. But once you climb out of that hole and see the sunshine for the first time in days, saying that you are going to "give up digging your own grave" like so many times before this. But this time IS really the last time. You're shovelin days are over, no more slave to the grind. 

There is really no one that can help you out of this self imposed prison, you have most likely isolated yourself from everyone that cares about you, so distorted was your reality that you might think the drug dealer is your only friend & everyone else is out to get you... and going from feeling like this to actually reaching out for help when all you feel is shame for suffering from incomprehensible demoralization can be a stretch to say the least.

The recovery rainbow looks more like this:  Instead of a perfect upward arch of blissful heavenly rise, it resembles a heart rate monitor. A sine wave / acdc... there are ups, some downs, maybe a plateau. . followed by a cliff. But eventually we hope for a upward spiral.

If I ever want to see that pot of gold I have to evolve, to form a new way of thinking, and surrender to doing things on my own. My way got me a bucket full of newcomer chips & a empty playground full of holes. Slowly but surely, I am figuring out how to live life on lifes terms, how to walk the walk in a new pair of shoes, and how not to grab that shovel.