What Recovery Truly Means

Contrary to popular belief and statistics...

Before I get started, for the new subscribers here, WELCOME. If you are not familiar with prior posts where I’ve discussed the process of getting sober (and staying sober, coming up on 15 years now) from a heroin addiction along with all other drugs and alcohol, I will include this older post because I’m going to take a different direction today:

Aside from the above story, let us discuss what recovery is and is not.

I will only use my own experiences, as I am not qualified to speak upon anybody else’s.

Recovery absolutely is:

• up and down, often doesn’t make sense, scares the shit out of you - learning when to attack and when to release, and learning to discern the Higher Voice (Signal) from noise (ego, fear, external racket, old programming)

• SAME STIMULUS, DIFFERENT RESPONSE

Recovery is not:

• All of a sudden, you’re cured!

• You do everything perfectly and it’s a constant shiny upward trajectory

• an excuse to play God - with your life or the lives of others

• Recovery is also NOT an identity. I may elaborate more on that, not sure yet. However I see this keep a lot of people stuck. For those of us who join 12-step fellowships (which I still am involved in, although not to the same degree I was 15 years ago) simply stopping there can be a trap. Recovery is a gateway into living aligned with a Higher Power / God, or harmonizing with Life, whatever language resonates with you. It’s not the end of the line, it’s our starting point.

What are things one can be in recovery from?

Anything that doesn’t serve you and fucks your life up - along with the lives of others. Never forget that if you are suffering with some sort of vice, be it heroin, alcohol, dishonesty, thought-loops, shame, guilt, self-sabotage, rage, lust, crime, adrenaline-seeking dumbassery, isolation, yes — all of those are vices that fuck other peoples lives up just as bad (in some cases, much worse) as yours.

May nobody who thinks they commit a “victimless” crime because they are “only hurting themselves” delude themselves beyond this point.

I mean, let’s be honest, I doubt I’m going to say anything to pierce through human delusion here, but I can at least throw that out there. We are all connected, there’s no such thing as “only hurting yourself”.

You are needed on Earth. When we abandon ourselves, we rob everyone around us of what we came here to give.

They say hell is when you meet the version of you that you could have been. That’s certainly one flavor of hell, I’m of the belief that there are many. But surely, that is the epitome of regret, so let none of us stay there if we have been there!

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I will be nice for the rest of this post.

We can be in recovery from PTSD. Fact. I can attest to that, and absolutely it is possible to recover. I am not cured of it entirely, but statistically I should have been dead a long time ago.

I am also NOT UNIQUE - there are countless others who are NOT statistics who allegedly should be. You yourself may be one, and if you are, I encourage you to share your story. It’s not about us; We don’t know who is going to read our stories, resonate, and have that be what gives them hope on a day where they might have ended it all.

Never underestimate the power of sharing.

We can recover from any drug or alcohol addiction. I personally attest to that.

We can also be in recovery from abusive relationships - which I will discuss today.

I’ve spoken about drug addiction before. There are several tips to getting and staying sober in the post I linked above, and also in this post, where my friend Chelsea and I did a podcast when we both celebrated 13 years in 2022. Her and I got sober in the same month - November of 2009.

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Recovery just in the last year alone:

I say this for the sole purpose of other people knowing it’s possible for them -