Twelve Step Sports Addict

What is the hardest thing about being an addict?? Many people, including myself thought it was going to be the detox. For me, it was alcohol detox, the five days in the hospital, sweating, shaking, vomiting, generally feeling like I was going to die. The ironic part was, when you detox, for that little time, you feel sicker than you did when you were using. I never felt as bad drunk as I did when I was detoxing. My heart rate was sky high, I was having nightmares, and I lost my appetite.  But that really isn’t the hard part. They give you medicine like Adavant or Valium to control some of the DTs and withdrawl symptoms, so it doesn’t get that bad. The hardest part is the time after an addict detoxs. I think it is harder because you need to finally look at life through clear eyes. The rehab was easier than I thought. I am by nature, not a very social person, but I found it pretty easy to open up to total strangers. The hardest part for me, was two fold, the idea that I was not a pile of crap, and the feeling of failure. Most people feel great, like they accomplish something when they are sober for a while. I like to see what could have been, and it so depressing sometimes.

Today I got a very big suprise when someone I accidently heard talking about me like I was an anecdote and it crushed me. The good part about it was that something like this would have been a trigger for me, and I did what they explain in the Big Book and in meetings, I called some people, vented, called my sponser, and went to a meeting. The old me would have been half dead by now with a fifth of cheap vodka in my system. Unfortunately though, the meeting made me realize what I was trying to avoid. Who I was, as a person, is truly dead. I will never, ever be, what I was suppossed to be in other people’s eyes.  When people talk about me, sometimes they talk about having to “deal” with me, or having ”dealt” with me. ”This is how we/I dealt with Mike’s problem.” People have to “deal” with the dog pooping on the floor, people have to deal with car accidents, bad service, criminals, a bad experience, etc. Growing up, I never thought that I would be something or someone that had to be dealt with. Being dealt with is never a positive thing, but that is what I have become, and people say it without even thinking about it or know what they are saying. “You have an alcoholic that you know…. here is how I “dealt” with who I know…… this is how I stopped his sickness from infecting me.” It truly does suck, but it is a fact of life. Deal with life on life’s terms, is what they say in AA. That is something that I will have to learn the rest of my life, but I will always be an alcoholic in everyone’s eyes, maybe better, maybe recovering, but always that drunk, that will always have that stigma, always have people afraid that I am one drink from a bender. I will always be a story to someone. Men who are 25 years sober told me today that it is never the same, people will never treat you the same, especially the people close to you. Even 25 years after their last drink, their families, their friends, look down on them. That is why they still go to meetings, even 25 years later, just to feel normal and among friends. What a shock to me. I was hoping that someday this constant judgment of me and distrust would go away, but it probably won’t. Wow. But I guess that I am lucky in a way. I am free in ways that some people are not. I don’t need to worry about my status, or what car I drive, how good looking my girlfriend is, or what people think of me. Who cares what other people think of me now. Anyone that wants to judge me, will never understand the pain I have felt, the struggle of waking up and not knowing if I wanted to finish the day breathing, the constant self doubt and self destruction, and the thirst. A good day for me, what makes me happy, is to feel normal, to go through and not have a drink today. That means I won. The brotherhood of AA is special, we all have one goal, to stay alive, and to stay sober. That is a journey I need to walk myself, but as long as I can, at least one day at a time, I can feel happy and feel like I truly accomplished something great.ML

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