HOW I FINALLY GOT CLEAN AND HAVE STAYED CLEAN
THIS IS LONG OVERDUE
Over the last 1.5 years, I have received countless DMs, comments, and emails asking me how I got clean and stayed clean—I have not answered them because I didn’t know how to explain it. Throughout this time, I have been thinking critically about how to communicate it in the clearest, most useful, and most orderly way possible.
Background: At the end of my addiction, I was spending hundreds of dollars a day on H, rock, coke, pills, etc. The dollar number is relevant to me because it was a major factor in my finally quitting. It started to strike me that even after spending $500 in a 24-hour period, I’d still find myself ripping apart a car at 7 in the morning looking for a pill I swore I had lost weeks ago, or crawling around the floor looking for remnants of rocks to smoke.
I have been clean since 11.5.2012. I don’t even take cough medicine.
DISCLAIMER: I am not here to harm anyone or step on anyone’s toes. If something is working for someone—anything—that is awesome.
Decentering the Addict
It didn’t matter whether I was in a detox, rehab, a sober living house, at a Suboxone doctor, in a methadone program, at a state-run psych services center, or in a ditch; I was told to go to meetings, get a sponsor, and work the steps.
While I respect and appreciate “the program,” it didn’t work for me, and it doesn’t work for a lot of people. Here’s why I believe it didn’t work for me:
– I didn’t trust a soul, including myself.
– I had a lot of trouble reading and comprehending.
– I couldn’t believe in a power greater than myself, let alone become willing to hand the care of my life over to that power.
I was the guy in a group reaching to believe in the wind or the ocean because I just couldn’t get a grip on anything. Growing up, I spent Sundays in hockey rinks around the Northeast. There were no faith or accountability components whatsoever in my upbringing.
The first thing I ever worshipped was weed that I picked up myself on Burnside Avenue in East Hartford, Connecticut. I was 15, and I felt proud and brave.
A wise man who recognized the most important point I was hung up on told me that if I couldn’t believe in a power greater than myself, I needed to come to terms with the fact that there was an addict inside of me who believed it was the center of the universe.
This was easy for me to buy into. At the center of the universe was the addict. I needed to reclaim my life from this evil shareholder in the company that is inside of me.
Taking Back the Shares from the Addict
Most people who have spent time running around in the streets have an MBA of sorts. We obtain first-hand experience that enables us to navigate difficult personalities, handle extreme stress and pressure, and negotiate complex business deals with stakes that can involve freedom and even life.
So I decided that the addict had 99.9% of the shares in my company, and I needed to take them back. I needed a precise instrument with which to take them back.
I got lucky, and while on my hands and knees in what felt like a cave—with only a month or two clean—I found a passion. It was passion that allowed me to reclaim my life after so many failed attempts.
I knew how to get clean, but I didn’t know how to stay clean. I would even joke about it, calling myself a professional quitter. I was able to endure the physical pain, and when it was over, I would go right back out.
I didn’t know how to stay clean until I decentered the addict and found passion.
I got lucky. Around the time I got clean, I started messing around with art on a Mac. It was the first computer I felt I could use; it was intuitive, and I was making progress creating art with free web-based programs.
I put my heart and soul into creating graphics; I loved it. It was my therapy. My meditation. It made me feel okay when things were not.
One thing led to another, and while all of this was progressing in parallel, unbeknownst to me, I was reclaiming my life. In between worshipping weed and now art, I worshipped oxy, H, coke, and rock.
Today, I worship art, and I stay true to it. That’s why I needed to get this out.
If you know what you’re passionate about, you’re lucky.
If you don’t know what you’re passionate about, being an addict requires passion, so passion is inside all of us.
“All thy passions in the end became virtues, and all thy devils, angels.” — Nietzsche
Guarantee
I like to tell people that being an addict is one of the hardest jobs there is, and I’ll make a guarantee: if someone who is addicted can stop and put 50%–75% of the energy they put into being an addict into something positive, they will be VERY successful.
At the end, and throughout early recovery, I hung on to the edge of the counter in the bathroom, stared into the mirror, and no matter what, I didn’t give up.
I love the person who I have discovered and truly appreciate those who accept me for who I am.
Much love,
IDGAFFOODS