I know this might seem like a self-serving question; but I need to hear the answer from outside of my head.
I attend meetings and hear stories of park benches, streets, jail, stealing, etc. I have no experience with any of that. However, I do have had the experience of being in psych units multiple times and rehab twice. I know what it's like for my life to have become unmanagible because of my drug use. And yet, I still have this burning question, "Am I in the right place?" Does anyone else relate? Does it even matter?
I was told by an "addiction specialist" some years ago that I was only "chemically dependent." This same doctor grudgingly admitted me into Rehab only a month ago. While, upon discharge, he still insisted on my chemical dependency; staff and others, including myself, agree with the term, "addict." Only an addict would allow themselves to become "chemically dependent" more than once in their life (on the same drugs!) However, because I never went beyond a couple of extra pills here and there, I catch myself in the grip of self-doubt.
I need constant support in this early phase of my recovery to keep myself out of this trap.
Thanks for your help.
Lisa
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"The past is history... the future, a mystery... today is a gift... that is why they call it the present."
Thanks so much for sharing about this topic. It is one that's been very near and dear to me for many years - ever since I sponsored an elderly woman who had a problem with prescriptions. She struggled with belonging both because of her age and because she felt that she couldn't relate. I've since encountered men and women with similar stories and watch them come and go. I do not know what happens to those who go, but I know that those who stay eventually find their places, get connected, and benefit from recovery.
Here's the thing, the way we used may be different on the outside, but on the inside it's the same. Our negative thoughts and feelings, our self destructiveness, and our I-don't-care attitudes are all the same.
Recovery is an inside job, so comparing yourself to the external behaviors of others is useless. The external stuff are the symptoms, the manifestations of an internal disease.
My personal belief is that no one comes to meetings by accident.
i know for myself i concentrated on the differences between myself and others, and felt the same way as you......it took awhile for that to go away, reading the literature, the text books helped a lot with that for me
not everyone has the same story, but pretty much everyone has the same feelings when it comes to this disease. after i left rehab i went to this pych ward and my main doctor told me that NA only works for a few people, but that it probably wouldn't work for me and all i really had to do was to grow up and act like an adult. that i should be able to drink a beer every once in awhile, that i shouldn't smoke pot or do other illicit drugs because they aren't taxed and thus un-american. weird stuff like that. so yeah, doctors can be pretty delusional sometmes. but regardless of what he said, i knew what i was, i knew i was an addict. and it only really matters what you believe because thats whats going to help you fight this thing.
hi lisa.im an addict named anthony..i have read most or all of your posts.my question to myself in your case is not " do i belong ?" but " have i suffered enough to be able to talk to lisa? " my heart goes out to you .i read with great pain your post on grief . as i type this my eyes well up . i admire your will to push on with your recovery.you are an inspiration to me. so you are asking if you are in the right place ? well girl i hope so.for my sake and the sake of my family.i have not suffered your loss but i have raised 3 practicing addicts whose lives are in turmoil as i type..they dont know any other way.they were raised by me and i accept that. they dont contact me.we dont connect .there is a huge gap where they should be in my life..its not the same i know.but its a pain that runs deep. im praying for your continued recovery. if you feel your in the right place then you are.you have earned your spot. ty so much for being here and please KEEP COMING BACK..
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" If you have built castles in the air , your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be . Now put the foundations under them . "
I also had similar thoughts and feelings in my first few meetings, and I shared it with another oldtimer in the fellowship...
He told me that it's in our nature as addicts to focus on every little difference we could spot as newcomers in the fellowship, and he left me with a suggestion - look for similarities, not differences. Even thought it all sounded crap to me at that time, I thought opening my mind and trying out this suggestion is no harm. The more I looked for similarities through what others shared in their meetings, the more I could relate and identify.
The outward appearances, the different incidents of other addicts that didn't happen for me, all ceased to take my attention. Instead of the outward symptoms and expressions of addiction, I started bonding with the group and the individuals in the fellowship at the thoughts, feelings and the pattern of behavior levels. And I discovered that we are all the same there I was at home.
Welcome Lisa, thank you for sharing, NA Hugs.
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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.
As another member shared above, reading NA literature, especially the Basic Text, and some other Information Pamphlets also revealed a lot as to whether I'm an addict or not.
This NA Questionnaire that could be found at the below web link can also help... It's called "Am I An Addict?"...
"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.
Here's a light-hearted take from a NA Newsletter... I could relate with a lot of stuff here which I have commented on at the end of each line...
You just might be an addict... If you find yourself saying "It's not hurting anyone but me!" more than 6 times in less than 5 minutes... TRUE FOR ME
If you wake up in the morning and find things in your apartment you don't remember buying... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If you find yourself planning vacations around the drugs you intend to take... you just might be an addict. TRUE FOR ME
If you've ever smoked something unidentifiable you picked off the carpet just in case it might be the drugs you think you dropped there... you just might be an addict.
If your dealer ever suggested that you slow down... you just might be an addict.
If you dont remember why you are handcuffed to the bench at the police station after being arrested... you just might be an addict...
If the sunrise is merely a reminder that you neglected to go to sleep AGAIN, you might be an addict. TRUE FOR ME
If you're lying in your bed and you think that you might be od'ing, so you use more to kill the pain... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If you steal your roommate's money, and then help him look for it... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If your shorts and shirts have burn holes from dropped cirgarettes... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If you swear you're quitting but you are still going to use on the weekends... you might be an addict GOSPEL TRUTH
If you have no fingernails... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If you have never studied in your life but spent your whole day researching the fasted route to your dealers house... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If you find yourself sleeping with your shotgun... you might be a dealer or... you might be an addict
If the sun comes up and you are still cleaning your carpet... you might be an addict TRUE FOR ME
If a porn director offers you unlimited dope for being in his movies, and you steal the dope and run... you might be an addict
...if a cop wakes you up in your car in the middle of a corn field and you tell him that you were just watching the pacers playing the san diego chickens on television at a friend's house.
...if you try to sell a fire extinguisher to a pawn shop. EVEN WORSE SCENARIO LOL...
if every bill that u have on you is rolled into a tube and u have to wipe it off before spending it at the store...
if u have searched every little corner in ur room to look for "the chunk" just cause you are dope sick and need something... HUNDREDS OF TIMES
if later on when u are clean a while and move ur room around and find pills and chunks everywhere... YEP
if ur desk has smash marks all over it from smashing the pills... TRUE FOR ME
if u just got a big ass stash and are paranoid of where ur gonna get more at when this stash runs out... TRUE FOR ME
if u leave 2 hours early, in the freezing cold and show to meet the dope man on the corner and he dont show so u wait and wait and say ill give him 15 mins but u really wait the total of 5 hours till he finaly gets there.... DONE THAT DOZENS OF TIMES
if u have multipule pharmacy tags on ur keychain....
the pharmicist knows u by first name and if ur insurance dont' pay he automatically knows to charge u the cash price without calling to get authorization...
...when you know where ur friends keep their meds at... HOW CAN I NOT KNOW
......if you boost some lotion from a dollar store and then go resell it in the hood to get some scratch. YEP
......if all your clothes and bedding have cigarette burns in them. BURNT 'EM ALL
......if you know of every pay phone in the city that receives calls back.
......if you keep clothes and blankets in your car.
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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.
"If you've ever sat around wondering if you are an addict, you might be an addict."
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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.
If you sit around and ponder how sad it is that the rest of society chooses NOT to live the "liberal, care-free, mind-expanding and free existence" that you are so blessed to have been living... while you are tightly locked in your bedroom with a blanket over the window... you just might be an addict.
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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.
...if someone asks if they can bum a cigarette and you reply, "No man, I only have 9 left" (I saw this happen at a meeting. I laughed and said, "You're not an addict now, are you?")
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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.
If you stay up all night and you're STILL late for work in the morning...
You can't commit to being anywhere more than two days ahead of time, cuz you don't know if it will be an "up" day or a "down" day... you JUST might be an addict!
if u talk jibberish to cops about its not mine and i dont know how it got there, these pants aren't mine i borrowed them.....
if ur friday nite consists of a meeting... u might be an addict LOL...
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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.
If your favorite motto was "I WILL STOP TOMORROW..."
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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.
...if your contact with God goes something like this: if you let me live through this I promise I'll never never ever ever ever do this shit again!!!!!
If you have ever picked through your own vomit for pills that were "still good"...
If you really know what three doors deep means... you might be a addict. (in case you don't know - the front door, the bed room door and the closet door.)
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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.
if the pawn shop tells you that you cannot pawn anything else... you have reached your max!!!!
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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.
if you know what A.M.A. means, you might be an addict (Against Medical Advice)
if your mornings include saying the phrase, "what happened" you might be an addict...
if your friends' or loved ones' morning includes saying phrases like, "do you know what you did last night" you might be an addict...
if every story you have starts with "We were really high, and..." you might be an addict...
if you know which keytags are old-timers resentment tags... you might be an addict...
If parents hold their kids' hand when you walk by, you might be an addict.
if you've ever taken prenatal vitamins to counter act your lack of nutrition and you are neither pregnant nor a man... you might be an addict.
If you've had your 20th cup a coffee by noon, you might be an addict
If you start seeing NARCS hiding under every single rock and tree in your neighborhood
If you have to look out your window to see if its night or day... you might be an addict.
if you drove better while using, (or at least thought you did) you just might be an addict
if vitamin C works best in hand fulls, you just might be an addict.
if your dread sunlight, you just might be an addict.
if you idea of spirituality is talking to other homeless people talking about how great it is to be free and how fucked up the world is (and how great you are), you just might be an addict.
if you get happy over your next prescription refill.
You might be an addict if... you'd rather play on the internet than write your steps.
If you leave your first NA meeting thinking "yeah i can see how that can help some people but i'm not THAT bad..."
If you've injured yourself for the medication, you might be an addict.
If you masturbate for hours, but can't find time to do the dishes, clean time aside, you're still an addict.
If your pick-up line starts with "I really liked what you had to share..."
If you use the term "I'm powerless" more than 10 times a day...
if in recovery you "keep coming back" YOU ARE AN ADDICT!!!
If you are on an NA forum thinking of witty comments to add that end in "you might be an addict", well, YOU MIGHT BE AN ADDICT!
If drug use messed you up so bad that you cant remember any of the posts you just read you might be an addict.
If you're nodding in agreement to most of the posts here saying either done it or know someone that's had something like that happen to them...
Here's one from our IP "Welcome to NA" - "non-addicts dont sit around wondering if they're addicts."
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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.
wait..one more..if you ve ever stood at your bathroom sink scraping the last little bit of brown stuff out of your spoon for so long your knees woundnt bend anymore.................
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" If you have built castles in the air , your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be . Now put the foundations under them . "
If you are in a NA service meeting and you get this thought again and again in your head "I've got it all right, why don't they all just listen to me and follow my plan?", then you are surely an addict...
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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.
"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.
If the world seems to come to an end just because you had a flat tyre, you just might be an addict...
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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.
For my first four years clean I asked myself this same question. I got clean at the age of 16,and had limited knowledge of drugs beyond pills and alcohol. It was only by an act of my higher power that I even ended up in NA because I didn't view myself as a drug addict. I remember going to meetings and hearing this one addict sharing about his heroin addiction in detail and I knew I didn't belong. I kept going to meetings because I felt safe there, accepted and wanted. Meetings left me feeling bettter at the end. Nothing else ever had. I took the suggestions of other addicts with time. They told me to get a sponsor, home group and make meetings. I did that and slowly the changes began to happen. After the speaker told their story addicts would sometimes share that they heard their story being told. I had never had an experince like that. One day I remember going to a meeting and the speaker was a huge man covered in tattoos, ten years older than me and with more clean time than I ever thought possible. I had already heard his war stories of being homeless, doing heroin, eatting out of dumpsters and robbing people. With a closed mind I dismissed him from being any help to me. He started to talk and I sat there waiting for the break. Then he started to talk about feeling hopeless and helpless and the isolation his addiction brought him to. I related. I understood. I finally belonged. At the age of 21, I found out I had a reservation and almost used. My higher power and the fellowship once again saved me. Now I know it isn't the drug that makes us addicts. That's why we say it doesn't matter how much or how little you used but only what you want to do about your problem and how we can help. Since I have been clean drugs have come about that I have never done. I still haven't had a legal drink. My wedding did not have a champane toast. I don't know what cocaine looks like beyond watching "cops" on television. God willing and with unconditional surrender these things will never happen.
I was told, if I attend enough meetings I would eventually hear my story. This is one of those unwritten promises along with "the miracle will happen."
I sat waiting for the women's book study as I always do, feeling isolated and detached. I haven't really connected with anyone at this meeting yet; except for my sponsor. So, I sat alone watching the other ladies chat and crack jokes with each other.
During the meeting, a lady who was celebrating her 3rd birthday related her story. I was touched as she shared. She told my story! The drug might have been different; but the story was the same. She found herself, alone in her garage, shooting-up dilaudid, saying that she was only following the prescription.
Wow! While, I have YET to shoot-up anything, I did find myself, alone, taking 12 to 16 Vicodin a day, saying that I was only following the prescription. I had lost my daughter, my job, and almost my relationship with my husband, saying that I was only following the prescription.
CL
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"The past is history... the future, a mystery... today is a gift... that is why they call it the present."
