Hey agian I recently posted up a post about how I had been sober for three days..well within that next week my dealer called..and as anyone knows, when it calls..
well after using in my room by myself alone, my mom caught me and I just confessed everything..because just being alone with no one but the shit I was shoving in my nose wasn't much company. She tried to get me into a rehab but none in virginia could even see me until that monday unless it was an emergency (and this was a friday night when she had caught me)..I started getting sick agian by that night and I managed to feel better with nothing but headaches and a runny nose by monday morning so I told the closest Rehab i didn't need detox and I wasn't suicidal, so I didn't qualify since I was under 18. So now I am in IOP (Intensive Out Patient) and I am required to attend 16 NA meetings just to graduate from this meeting..and it really is starting to help me see things clearly..almost too clearly. but I have managed 19 days sobriety.
i have a question for everyone here that has managed to stay sober though, how do you deal with the lonliness of being sober? In this lonliness I find myself debating things like "i'm so young, if i use now it won't show up on the piss test at IOP, etc." until I go to my next group session at IOP or a NA meeting. I've had to lose touch with all of my friends because I know I'm going to relapse and be kicked out of IOP, because they are supportive and all..but they don't see how them talking about using and using infront of me is doing anything damaging. I'm also on house arrest so I can't really go out except to my meetings which I have to be home RIGHT after.
So how do you guys deal with these thoughts, lonliness, loss of using friends, etc??? any advice, ways to take your mind off, thoughts I can think instead?
Well, I can say from experience that the loneliness and negative thinking will pass. They are only temporary.
However, that doesn't make it any easier until then.
Here are some suggestions that may help in the meantime:
- Get to meetings as often as possible - preferably every day. It will do you good to meet some new people and have something else to think about for an hour.
- In between meetings, use your phone list to call people. It's weird at first, but you can do it. Pretty soon you'll have new friends and won't be so lonely any more.
- Don't pick up no matter what. Feelings are always changing, so why use over them if they're going to change anyway? It only makes things worse.
- It might help to repeat the Serenity Prayer or read some recovery literature.
Hi Glitter Girl, great work on the 19 days! I agree with Blithe you need to find some different friends because the ones that are using will let you down and will hurt you. Even though they really don't want to hurt you it will happen and when they are using they will not care if you get hurt or not. Stay clean, follow the directions from the good people with NA and on this site. I only have 4+ months clean so I am in no position to give you any advice. I just know that being clean is great.
Best wishes for you
kenh
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God is the only one you can depend on in recovery.
Find something or things to take care of thing you become responsible for. Plants, animals maybe get a service position setting up before an after meetings I'm sure you can come up with some things.
I have been alone, well lived alone for a long long time probably since 1996 I had a roomate once that last a few months I was trying to get clean he wasn't that didn't work. So I like my isolation and solitude but it can be too much. I have my cats they keep me company and I've gotten hobbies. I worked out in a gym for years relentlessly, sometimes never taking a day off for months to recover thats all changed it became an obsession I have cut way back, I have my gold mining hobbie now and I do online stuff . I really dont have much of a social life, I have a girlfriend and hang out go to dinner with her family and sometimes see a friend ot tow here and there . I'm pretty much by myelf a lot come of think of it and you know i'm comfortable with that its ok to be with me these days I'm not such a bad guy.
Lonelyness, aloneness my head will wonder its my responsiblity not to make anymore REGRETS we always have that choice and I try to ask myself before doing something " Is this something I am going to regret?" we really don't need to add more to that list Glitter.
Welcome back to recovery give yourself a break and some time to adjust this can take time getting used to but its worth it .
You should be very proud of yourself for staying clean.
Loneliness is an emotion that really saps your energy, and is the addict inside of us trying to hurt us. The addict within me wants me dead, but will settle for me stoned.
Going through my dicorce, i wanted to kill myself and be done with the pain. It REALLY hurt me for a couple of months, and was just dragging myself through the motions. I couldn't get any lower......Then I had a revelation about my higher power, and I came to believe that he, the 12 steps, and meetings could restore me to sanity. Keep going to meetings, listen to the people sharing, and ask someone who sounds like they make sense to you to be your sponsor. Having someone to share your most intimate thoughts with can be very helpful in sorting out the insanity which is our lives.
I overcome my loneliness by reaching out to the NA fellowship on a daily basis. Making NA meetings, sharing with others one-on-one before and after the meetings, making those calls to other NA members at other times of the day when something seems to overwhelm me, having a Sponsor and using him/her etc. all this helps me break the myth that I find myself trapped with time and again - that I'm alone, no one understands my problems, no one wants to help me and so on. These messages that my dis-ease of addiction supplies me with constantly from inside my head is what keeps me in loneliness long enough for me to pick up a drug again. That's my addictive self's pattern. And by reaching out and connecting to the fellowship and the program, I get to break this pattern and render it powerless.
These are the affirmations I used to overcome my loneliness, which is nothing but a manifested defect of character of addiction, the disease that I have:
FROM ISOLATION TO CONNECTION NEVER ALONE, NEVER AGAIN TOGETHER WE CAN I CAN'T BUT WE CAN IT'S A "WE" PROGRAM, NOT A "ME" PROGRAM MAKE THAT CALL MAKE A MEETING SHARE ABOUT IT WORK THE STEPS
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
