Learning To Live: A Reflection At 9 Years Sober

April 7th, 2016. For most people on earth it was such a mundane day that they can't even remember it. It was a day that simply no longer exists for them. April 7th, 2016 was a Thursday. It was cold, but not the biting cold of winter. Nothing  notable happened globally, but for me, the world changed. That evening, as it rained, felt the creeping sickness of opioid withdrawal set in for the last time.

Recovery Expectations Before Ending My Active Addiction

When I was contemplating what a life without addiction to drugs and alcohol might look like, I had incorrectly assumed it was the end of using those things. To my mind, that was what I needed to do. Just stop using. Just stop needing the drugs and alcohol. All I needed to do was get my shit together.

It seemed as though the moment of cessation was the line, and once it was crossed, I would enter the greener grass i had been promised on the other side. I imagined an existential utopia wherein I would find the happiness I so desperately craved. The void in my being that I had attempted to fill with chemicals would now be filled. No longer would I need oblivion to cope with my pain.

The Truth of Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery

Although clear from day one, it has taken me almost a decade to come to this conclusion. Addiction tecovery- perhaps all recovery from psychologically distressed states- is not about stopping feeling the bad feelings. This is perhaps why the following lyrics from my favourite song appeal to me so much, more so with each passing year:

I don't even know myself at all
I thought I would be happy by now
The more I try to push it, I realize
Gotta let go of control

...

And the salt in my wounds
Isn't burning any more than it used to
It's not that I don't feel the pain
It's just I'm not afraid of hurting anymore

Excerpts From "Last Hope" By Paramore

My addiction was about being in control. The trauma I experienced in my life was out of my control. Because of that trauma, I felt pain and distress, which was out of my control. Drug use gave me the facade of control over that pain and distress, the irony being that it further removed my autonomy and created more trauma.

My journey of recovery has not been one of gradually feeling better. I have been learning to live. I have been learning to feel my human feelings. I still feel the pain and distress that I felt all those years ago. At nine years of sobriety, I am becoming less afraid of that pain. Recovery isn't about stopping taking drugs or alcohol. It's about learning to be less afraid of my pain so that I no longer need to hide in drugs and alcohol.

My Addiction Recovery On April 7th, 2025

One of the most common things we ask people who have been through hell is what their hopes for the future are. I have come to learn that what I hope the future holds is rarely what is delivered. That doesn't mean that it's a hopeless endeavour. My recovery has taught me to embrace not only the chaos of life but the chaos within myself. I try every day to remain in the present while honouring the wounds of my past. The future is not yet in my control, and the only aspect of my past I can control is my response to it.

To recover, for me, is to choose contentment rather than perfection.