Recovery Stories: Breaking Up with Addiction
Break up with addiction; healing is just a phone call away.
Addiction is like being in an abusive relationship with yourself. And, like all toxic love affairs, after years of pain, guilt, secrecy, and deception, the chickens eventually come home to roost. When we finally decide to face those demons, it can seem like an insurmountable task – a mountain too high to climb alone.
Breaking Up with Addiction
A painful truth? For most individuals with a substance use disorder, it is. The American Medical Association estimates that between 80% and 95% of those who need addiction treatment don’t get treatment. The hardest part about getting help for me was admitting to myself and others that I needed it. I recall many sleepless nights, staring at my phone, gripping a bottle of wine, scouring through local AA meetings, detox, and rehab facilities, all while thinking, there’s no way I can do this. I was paralyzed with doubt, fear, and most of all, shame.
Shame and isolation are killers, and like an abusive partner, our addiction wants us alone. It wants us to be disconnected from the people and things we love, so it can do the job of slowly dismantling us until we no longer recognize ourselves. Someone once told me addiction is the only disease you beat by throwing in the towel – by giving up and giving in. Every time you drink or use, you’re putting on proverbial boxing gloves and getting in the ring with an opponent who knows your every move; it’s a battle you’ve already lost, and will lose again. It’s a rigged game where the odds are never in your favor.
“Addiction is like being in an abusive relationship with yourself.”Â
The Grieving Period
For me, making that first call for help was in some ways anticlimactic. There was no eureka moment, no “come to Jesus” event that magically took away the blindfold. Looking back, the decision happened slowly, little by little, the very same way my addiction took hold to begin with. Suddenly, one day, after many false starts and stops, I woke up and realized I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and that was that. The wheels were in motion.
What most people don’t realize is there’s a grieving period when getting sober. You’re giving up a comfortable, familiar part of your life. It’s essentially like breaking up, not just with substances and behaviors, but with your old self. There was a time when addiction “helped”. It offered quick and easy shortcuts, momentary respites from the pain of reality. We don’t realize we’re making a deal with the devil. Every drink and every hit came with a hidden fee, and the tax man would eventually collect – they always collect.
Saying Goodbye
Saying goodbye to a toxic relationship means saying hello to a newer, healthier partnership. It means closing hopeless doors and opening hopeful ones. The hardest thing I ever did was pick up the phone and admit, “I can’t do this on my own.” But the best time to jump is always when it’s the scariest. And whenever that time comes, whenever you’re ready to make that leap of faith, take comfort and solace knowing there are people and places available to catch you. The biggest journeys begin with the smallest step. You never have to be in a bad relationship with yourself again. Take back your life. Break up with addiction; healing is just a phone call away.
