Seeking a New Story: On Sobriety and the Stories We Tell About Ourselves Literary Hub

I’m reminded of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s book, My Struggle, and the narrator’s perception of his alcoholic father. The drinker was the fixed identity, the main character, the person with whom I engaged. I blamed myself and started drinking every day to mask the pain I was in. I was an extremely angry person for so many years.

I have to be present and I have to self-reflect and commit to being a better person for the people around me. Alcoholism is a disease that affects relationships, not just the person suffering. It’s about you learning how to regrow relationships and care for other people, including yourself. Sobriety had become a trapdoor to feeling offended.

Jessica Simpson Shared An “Unrecognizable” Photo Of Herself During Her Active Addiction, And It’s Powerful

Soon we were flirting and going to lunch together. I was very fearful of beginning a romantic relationship. My wife had a miscarriage about a year https://ecosoberhouse.com/ after the birth of our second child. In my mind, we had had enough discussion about our family size, and I proceeded to go ahead with a vasectomy.

Some communities are trying to help, providing active drug users with clean needles and making the overdose-reversal drug Narcan more widely available. “They fought to only keep me in [rehab] for 14 days; they didn’t want to pay for 30, and I knew that wasn’t enough sobriety stories for me,” Rasco recalled. “They didn’t want to put me in a halfway house. I knew I needed a half-way house.” “Hopeless despair — that’s a good way to describe it,” said 34-year-old Travis Rasco, who lives in Plattsburgh, a small industrial city in upstate New York.

HuffPost Personal

That is why Don T is a role model for anyone in recovery. He managed to stay meth-free thanks to 12-step recovery meetings with other people who are addicted to more than one substance. He attributes his success to the power of these meetings. Having lost her home and children, Becki was living on the streets with winter rapidly approaching.

I have always been very public and transparent about my drinking and my recovery. Some people may not understand this choice, but the majority of people are supportive of it. I find that sharing my experience has a way of holding me accountable and keeping me on track. Being so open about my own sobriety has also been helpful for others and has connected me with people going through the same things I’ve gone through. We’re here 24/7 to help you get the care you need to live life on your terms, without drugs or alcohol.

Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed With Alcohol by Holly Whitaker

Every year since, I’ve taken breaks from alcohol. In August 2020, three months after my dad died, I set a four-month goal and surpassed that. Through the night, her family and friends tried frantically to reach her, all attempts ultimately proving unsuccessful. While they were diving into her phone tree to talk to anybody who might know her whereabouts, she was lying in a hospital room unaware of what was unfolding around her. The next morning that anybody heard from her. I got sober two months after my mom died very suddenly.

Indeed, most people people don’t just survive addiction. Research suggests they often thrive in long-term recovery, reconnecting with family and enjoying economic success. While tragic, the 100,000 fatal drug overdoses last year actually claimed the lives of a tiny percentage of the 31.9 million Americans who use illegal drugs. Kelly co-authored a peer-reviewed study published last year that found roughly 22.3 million Americans — more than 9% of adults — live in recovery after some form of substance-use disorder. Anna Mable-Jones, age 56, lost a decade to cocaine addiction.