That Could Have Been Me…

Getting sober is a difficult process. Not everyone gets it. Some people try 12-step and some people try “wilderness therapy.” Others try holistic, non-12-step programs. The point is, addiction is a hard thing to break, well—because it’s addiction. If addiction were an easy thing to handle, there wouldn’t be rehab centers, there wouldn’t be support groups, and relapse certainly wouldn’t be a “thing,” but unfortunately, it is. Addiction is something that runs deep and every addict has a different reason for having become addicted. It’s one of those things that sort of sneaks up on you. One moment you’re giggling with your friends, smoking a couple of bowls and in what seems like some instantaneous and dramatic fast-forward, all of a sudden you find yourself shooting dope in your parent’s bathroom, hoping they didn’t just hear the thud of your head hitting the wall after you pushed the plunger in. And as you gaze at your disheveled reflection in the mirror, you have no idea how you got here, how things went so far. But they did. And most addicts, at some point, will find the need to get sober, so they reach out for help and grasp for whatever lifeline is still available.

Once sober, living life without drugs can be a scary and an almost jarring experience. Remember, drugs are a solution to a problem for addicts and it’s the way they have dealt with life on a daily basis. Getting used to life sober can take time and it definitely takes an adjustment period. But once a person leaves rehab and returns to life and society as the rest of us know it, some scary introspection can take place within many recovered drug users. The opiate crisis and drug use, in general, is at a point where it’s pretty ridiculous. Stories of mass overdoses abound and while some are trying daily to “keep it together,” one can’t help but think:

“Wow, that could have been me.”

Or

“That could have been my parents burying their child.”

That’s a scary thought but it’s also quite realistic. That could have been you, been me, been us. It’s hard to not see all these addicts dying out there and not somehow wind up questioning our own mortality. We absolutely could have died out there. Every time we shot up we took a gamble and the gamble was whether or not we would survive the drugs coursing through our veins. But some of us didn’t care. All we cared about was making the sickness and cravings go away, and numbing out all the bad feelings, guilt, and shame that started to overtake our minds.

But one thing is sure, it could have been us, but it wasn’t. We survived. We got sober, got ourselves cleaned up, gained some life skills and some spiritual enlightenment and we SURVIVED. We didn’t become a statistic. We barely dodged the grim reaper’s grasp, but the fact is, we’re still here. We’re still here to tell the tale of a journey out of addiction and into recovery and we need to use those stories to help and inspire others. Because if I could do it, anyone can. And no one has to die and become a statistic.

Hope is out there, you just have to find it.