My first Saturday, and I find it challenging to distract myself or keep myself leveled. I can feel the pull on myself towards the easy way that I have been fighting off fairly easily over the last week... This is day 5 out of treatment or 10 days sober.
Remaining sober seems to mean that it has to becomes a lifestyle. I hate that thought. I need it be not a lifestyle but a way of thinking. I saw a lot of this going through AA/NA back in the day when I was in my teens. (Yupper's in my teen's there should have been some hindsight.) I would see people come through meetings and the steps and they would make sobriety their life. I never got it. I get it now being an adult with way too much info about treatment. Sometimes to make it happen to STAY sober or without. you have to become it. I still don't want to see me like that. I have no problem been seen as an addict, but for some reason I have trouble being seen as someone that has gone through treatment. Or NA.When you go through treatment, after coming out of treatment people expect you to just be back to the person that I was before the breakdown or before starting to use. People are more sensitive around you, there is a lot to live up to. I am overwhelmed with this feeling that I can't really explain I just feel it. Maybe it's me . It could be me. I want this to be the last time I go through this. I know that it might very well not be. Relapse happens, ALL the time. It doesn't takes much. A thought left to bounce around without any notice.
I am surrounded by labels. These labels become you in one way or another. I think a lot about labels. anyone that says that they aren't labeled or have been labeled doesn't remember what type of society they live in. being labeled in treatment can hit you hard. Very hard. I have many labels. Homosexual. Addict. Bi-polar. PTSD. Depressive. USER. AMGONGST OTHERS. It can be confusing. I know it can be overwhelming. How can someone label you something by sitting down and talking to you for five minutes in treatment. I am becoming to think that if you fall into a label you can become that label. Just because someone in a white coat labels you something that doesn't mean you are that. I am learning that on my own.
the whole point of this post isn't that treatment is bad. Treatment is what you can make it. What ever that might be. whatever it is. Take the good from it. leave the rest. and don't loose your core being. just loose the "unhealthy behaviors". Treatment also isn't what people think it is. You can't be cured of your illness in 3 days, 5 days, 7 days...it might take a lifetime!!! And I am not going to break because I was in treatment. You aren't the reason, I am. Remember that. That's my rant.
