First time seeing this thread and I'm really glad I found it, it was a good read. Some of you guys have some amazing recovery stories behind you.
I haven't been around here much the past 6 months or so because I've been on a drinking/partying binge for about that amount of time and that kind of lifestyle just consumes most everything else.
Like I said in my cycle log awhile back (which I still haven't started yet, still sitting on all the gear) ever since my late teen years I've struggled with addiction. The majority of both sides of my family for generations have been alcoholics. I grew up around it and I thought of it as just the norm. I drank ever since I was a kid because I've always had access to it, although it never got me into trouble until high school. One day during my senior year I got caught drinking on school grounds and got charged with an underage and being a student athlete with a drug/alcohol violation, they told me I wouldn't be allowed on any sports teams for the rest of the year. This crushed me, football and wrestling were essentially my life and just like that they're gone for good.
So at this point I just pretty much gave up on myself. I didn't finish that last year of school, I dropped out and I was drinking heavily every night. And I started hanging out with this group of people from school who were pretty much doing the same thing I was. We were drinking, snorting, and smoking anything we could get our hands on. Even so much as chugging cough syrup and swallowing handfuls of motion sickness pills to trip out. This went on for a few years until I got a DUI when I was 20 and then I cut out everything except for the booze. I could never completely give up drinking even when I was doing good in sports or the gym. I never had the ability to limit myself either. I hated the feeling of sobering up so I would just drink until I passed out or until I didn't have anything left.
Then not even 6 months later I got a second DUI when I got blackout drunk and was in a really bad car accident. Still to this day I don't know what happened but it almost cost me my life. When I woke up two days later strapped in a hospital bed, aside from all the flesh wounds, I had a severe concussion and a compression fracture on two of the vertebrae in my spine. I just thank God that I didn't hurt anyone else but myself driving that night. It was bad enough that it made mainstream local news for a week. What I did was plastered all over the TV, the newspapers, and the radio stations.
So fast forward through all the shame, regret and the physical therapy and I ended up with time in county, house arrest, and court ordered drug/alcohol counseling.
Like some of you guys said, I never cared much for group meetings. I'm sure some of them are okay but I always felt like they wanted you to feel like you were a victim and to just accept it and pity yourself. That wasn't me. So I pulled my head out of my ass and for the first time since I can remember I kept myself completely 100% sober, drew up a good workout/diet plan, and went and got my GED. Once I earned the diploma, I enrolled myself in college, majoring in electrical engineering. (Currently going into my 3rd semester there).
So all is great until January of this year, thinking I have nothing to worry about and that I earned it, I started drinking again. It quickly turned into the same old shit. Binge drinking, blackouts, waking up sick and confused, it started causing me to miss days at school and turning in subpar work because I was too hungover to think straight. My workouts were here and there, diet was garbage, and it just sucked all the motivation out of me. I let this binge go on up until about two weeks ago when once again, I said enough is enough.
So I realize I'm one of those people that need to be in full control of themselves all the time to keep on the right path. My inhibitions are what keep me well and straight. When they're suppressed, I lose.
And sorry for the long ass post, it's just a good feeling to be able to lay all that out. Even though I don't know you guys personally, we're all in this together fighting the same disease. Even though some of us have it worse than others, have done worse things, or have to take different steps to control it, at the end of the day we're all facing the same enemy.
Thank you for this thread and everyone that's shared their experiences. I'm sure I'll look at this often for motivation.
2 weeks and counting brothers..
