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| It cost me a lot more than a pile of money... |
And, besides, that's not my point.
This post is for all of you who may be (or know someone who is) a young addict. It's a tough road. You may think that you haven't had enough experience to know whether you're an addict or not. Maybe it's a phase...
It's not.
Look, you've been in buildings with elevators before, right? You understand that when you get in the elevator on the top floor that the elevator goes to the basement. You're pretty smart (that's also another discussion for another day)...
But what if you want to get off at 3rd floor ladies' lingerie (insert your own joke here)?
My point is (and it's not an original thought so don't go off thinking that I'm a genius for thinking of it or something) that just because the elevator goes to the basement doesn't mean that it's where you've got to get off.
If you read this blog semi-regularly (or know anything about me), you'll have figured out that I got sober pretty young. I'll save you the trouble of doing the math. I turned 17 a few months before I got sober.
It's not really that unusual anymore, but 21 years ago.... It was REALLY strange. I was the youngest person in every meeting that I went to for years...
And to add insult to injury, I got sober in the deep South. And to say that there was some resistance to my getting sober by the sober community would be a significant understatement.
It was a good thing and a bad thing. Bad, because I think that someone less stubborn than I am would have walked out and never come back. Good, because it required me to fight for my seat. It required me to solidify in my own mind that I belonged there and that no one was going to be able to scare me away.
There are two incidents that exemplify this that I remember as if they were yesterday....
The first was at a night owl meeting (midnight start time) that I went to in my first year or so of sobriety. There was a requirement that you stand when you talk. I had been sober for about 4 or 5 months and I raised my hand in the meeting like my sponsor had told me that I needed to start doing.
I got called on and stood up.
As I began to talk, I heard very loudly from three rows in front of me, "Child. Sit down. I spilled more than you drank." Thankfully, I've always been the same loveable wiseass that you see before you today. I looked straight at him and replied in a nice, loud, clear voice, "If you hadn't spilled so goddamn much, you'd have gotten here when I did."
I actually got a pretty good laugh on that one...
Although that was an extreme example, I had many times where an old timer would come up to me, (and I know that they were trying to be helpful) and say, "You should go out and drink for a couple more years. You're not old enough to be here."
I would start to talk to them and inevitably I'd say the same thing. "Look, I've earned my seat here. If someone doesn't like it, they should take their resentment up with their sponsor, but I'm staying."
It wasn't easy. But I just kept coming back.
In June, I will celebrate 22 years of sobriety...
And you can do it too.
Just Keep Coming Back
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Okay I won't say you're a genius. I like the elevator analogy, especially the point that it's not a phase the addict is going through. Too many excuses are made by family members who see addiction as a weakness. Good for your family for allowing you go to rehab.
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