Addiction Rock Bottoms

So I'm just sitting here thinking about addiction and that addiction does not give a shit about your rock bottoms. 

What's the rock bottom? 

I mean, I guess I always thought that a rock bottom would make you re-evaluate things and it would bring you out of addiction because you would be so mortified or so embarrassed or whatever about whatever you had done in that rock bottom moment that it would motivate you to change your life. That's not the case. 

Addiction does not give a shit about rock bottoms. 

There's no there's no such thing as a rock bottom when you're an addict. 

Because each new thing can be more mortifying than the last.

And when you're stuck in addiction, you might hope that you would feel motivated enough to change things after some of these experiences.

That was not the case for me. I think for some people, they have a rock bottom and it really makes them re-evaluate things. I feel like I always did that, but it never made me stop drinking. Even after I got a DUI on my motorcycle, I did not stop drinking. 

I was going to my DUI classes and when I would get picked up after my class, there would be a drink ready for me on the way home. I had to ride the train because I couldn't drive and I would stop at the store and get wine or beer to be able to drink on my train ride home. 

Rock bottoms were not ever…  They were not what made me stop drinking. 

Rock bottoms fill you with more shame, which makes you want to drink even more, because you cannot face the facts of the things that you've done and how embarrassed you feel. And all of that. 

But those rock bottoms never made me stop drinking. There were a number of factors that made me stop drinking. But the number one most important thing that made me evaluate my relationship with alcohol was that I was so fat. 

I did not want to be so fat. 

And I know that sounds so shallow. whatever, whatever. 

But I was doing all these other things. I was exercising. I was trying to eat better and I was going to the gym and I was doing all these other things and I still could not lose weight. And I knew that drinking so much was not helping. And so I quit drinking because I didn't want to be so fat. 

It wasn't some rock bottom moment. 

It wasn't one of the mortifying experiences of my life. 

It was that I didn't want to be fat anymore. 

Then once I decided that I didn't want to be fat anymore and therefore did not want to drink, then I started really, really taking a look at alcohol and what it had done to my life. 

Not that I was oblivious. 

I knew. I mean, I knew. 

There were even times when I wanted to quit because I knew that it was negatively affecting everything in my life. Particularly my relationship at the time. But even still, that wasn't enough to make me stop. 

It's so hard because you just want a fucking magic pill. You want something to just take it away, just to make you not want to drink anymore. There was a medication that I took once and I remember it because it made me not want to drink. I was so grateful for that because even in my times of real destruction, I still always wanted to drink.

You can say it's a willpower issue, whatever, but I don't know. I always wanted to drink. And you just wish that something would take that desire away. 

There was a book, “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace, she talked about observing what is it that you think that your addiction is doing for you?

Why are the reasons that you think that you do it? Then to just be really honest with yourself and observe it and see if it is really doing for you what you think it is. 

I very quickly realized that it was not. Because sitting there drinking myself to oblivion every night, I was like, is this really all there is? 

Like, this is really what my life is supposed to be?

This is it? 

You know, and I realized that it wasn't making me fun. 

It wasn't making me relax. 

It wasn't making me more calm. 

It was leaving an absolute path of destruction everywhere that I went. 

I finally realized that something else had to become more important to me than drinking. And as much chaos and just nonsense that alcohol caused in my life, every single day… I mean, we're not talking like, you know, once a month on the weekend when we go out for girls night… I'm talking every fucking day. 

I realized that the thing that I wanted the very most in my life was PEACE.

Because when you're drinking and you wake up in the morning and you see all these text messages or you see the fucking disaster area mess around you or you wake up on the fucking side of the road or whatever…those things do not give you peace.

There is a constant nagging shame and guilt in having to ask somebody what we did last night because you cannot remember. 

There is no peace in that. 

There is no peace in addiction. 

I did Dry January so that I could lose weight. That was my goal. I was just going to do dry January, see if I could drop some pounds.

But then through January, as I was really, really, really struggling with not drinking, I realized that peace was more important to me now than drinking. 

I liked going to bed on purpose instead of just passing out, you know? 

I liked waking up in the morning and remembering what I did the night before. 

I liked knowing that I wasn't going to send some random texts and cause a huge fucking shit show. You know? 

Peace became more important to me.

When I started to pursue peace as my number one value, the drinking, I mean, to this day still, I have zero desire to drink. None. Because peace in my life is so much more important to me than having a few beers.Because I know that a few beers will lead to ten beers. 

Anyway.

I hope that by sharing my shit show story, I don't know, that maybe it can help somebody else. That's it, I guess. 

Because there's so much peace on this side of it. 

I love my life. I'm absolutely in love with my life. 

The funny thing is, I'm broke as shit. 

I don't have a “real” job. 

When you look at the big picture, according to society standards, I'm not doing great in most areas of my life. 

But I am doing phenomenally in the most important area of my life. 

I love my life. I have so much gratitude for my life. I have so much peace in my life.

I truly believe that choosing peace over my addiction, it saved me. 

I was thinking about addictive personality. Like I always used to tell myself that I had an addictive personality. I really do believe that people use that, I used that, as an excuse to act like a fucking disaster and not have to take responsibility for it. 

“Oh, I have an addictive personality. Oh, I can't help it oh”.

Bullshit. Bullshit. You are always choosing what you want to do and what you want to engage in. 

But it took me a long time to recognize, and it wasn't until I was sober that I really began to recognize that all of these things that we tell ourselves steal our power from us. 

“It's an addiction, addiction”. 

It just comes with so much, the word itself, you know.

It just strips you of your power. It's something you have no control over. 

“I have an addictive personality”.

You have no control over it. It leaves you feeling absolutely helpless, even though you're not. 

It also gives us an excuse to not take control of our lives. By saying that “I'm addicted” you know…

To this day I struggle with the whole idea that addiction is a disease. I think people are afflicted by it for damn sure. But whether there is… I think that generational trauma is more likely to cause addiction issues than like, I've got an addiction gene or some bullshit, you know? 

Like the reasons that your parents drank, they transferred those reasons onto you and then you drink and then you transfer it.

I believe that addiction, rather than being something that is genetic and disease and something that runs in families, I think it is more likely generational trauma that has passed down and passed down because “Twatwaffles Tediously Transfer Trauma”. So further generations will seek to numb themselves just as the generations before them did because of the same mental health state, the same trauma that has passed on. 

I don't know. I don't know that I think that alcohol is alcoholism or drug addiction is a disease. I think it is something that we choose. You're not pre-dispositioned to be an alcoholic because your dad was an alcoholic. You're probably pre-disposition to be an alcoholic because the trauma that your dad had was transferred down to you. And so you also seek to numb that. Rather than it being, my dad was an alcoholic, so I'm more likely to be an alcoholic, you know?

It's not about the alcohol. It's about the trauma that you're numbing that is passed on, in my opinion.

May we learn and grow.

Please Prioritize Self-Care and Mindfulness

All My Love,

AbFabNerd