Getting sober is easy, why is staying clean so hard?

At 20 years old, my life mainly consisted of drugs and alcohol. Between those drunks and highs, I spent every moment thinking about when I could take more, or oftentimes, where I would be getting my next escape.

The Life of the Party

At first, I was just a high schooler who smoked weed when I could spend the night at a friend’s house every few weeks, looking forward to the aggressive high this new substance gave me, since I was so new to this whole thing. Hell, I didn’t even take my first sip of alcohol until leaving to attend a university. I was a self-proclaimed “psychonaut”; I was experimenting with drugs like any other guy in their late teens does.

I could write for miles about my drinking and drugging adventures. Jumping off roofs, skipping class to smoke some new weed we picked up down by the creek, doing lines of cocaine to keep the party going; it was as if we extracted fun into a small concentrate of good times, until something shifted. House parties turned into violent affairs by the end of the night, we were spending more on dry goods than we could make selling our own, and driving intoxicated, often to the point of blackout, became a daily occurance.

While I say we did these things, which was true, slowly it became more of a me thing; from here forward, I’ll be discussing my personal experience alone. And it didn’t take long for me to reach that point of loneliness; most of the friends and acquaintances I associated with began slowly but surely drifting away in the wake of my chaos. Some might say they were not true friends to begin with if they leave you when you’re at your weakest, and to an extent, I agree. However, you cannot blame anyone who calls it quits after putting up with your bullshit every single day and night. Maybe these people from my past that I rode with were using me for my access to drugs, or it could be as simple as a group of alcoholics and druggies finding comfort in one another with our mutual interests. One thing is sure, though: I would have cut ties with myself much sooner than they did if I were in their shoes.

Finding My Community

On the cusp of my 21st birthday, deep into my daily habit of over a fifth of vodka per day and grams of blow to keep me going, I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous by a family member. There’s quite a bit I’m glossing over here in terms of sheer wreckage, but the point of my writing this is to explore why recovery is so hard for some people like me.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a rant about how AA is the only way for anyone to recover from addiction. It’s just what worked for me at certain times, and hopefully continues to. I can only share my own story; anything else would be a lie.

As I said, this journey began at about the age of twenty, before I could even take a legal drink. I vividly remember being driven to my first AA meeting by my parents after a bad blackout, only for it to be a DUI class, which I proceeded to sit through for almost an hour before the girl next to me (who also arrived at the same time) asked, “Wait, is this not AA?” We then walked a few blocks down the street in the night to find our first real meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was confused at first. The meeting was a group of rough-looking men sitting in a circle who shared their emotions and stories about drinking and other aspects of life. I didn’t know what to make of it, but it felt safe. It’s debatable if I took much from that first meeting, but I knew I had something in common with these gentlemen (and a woman, who they graciously voted to let stay in the all-men’s meeting that night).

I stayed clean and sober from that day for another five months before the inevitable relapse. But it wasn’t alcohol I tipped the scale with, it was my first love: marijuana. I thought I found a loophole in the system; if I get my buddy to exhale his hit of the blunt into a bag, I can inhale the smoke, and it’s as if I didn’t even really do it! Man, it’s like I was clacking together two rocks inside of my skull, trying to make a reasonable justification for that slip.

Now, if you’ve been around recovery enough, you’ve probably heard of “California Sober”. This term is when you quit everything: alcohol, cocaine, pills, needles, you name it, but stick to THC. This option might work for some people, hell, I’ve seen heroin addicts save their lives switching to weed-only diets, but it’s certainly not how I can operate.

Taking that single puff of secondhand smoke, as a former stoner who just went five months resetting his tolerance, put me on the moon. Not in a fun way, either. These days, marijuana is the thing I’d go back to if I want to feel scared for three hours and trapped in my own skin. Not exactly a good time anymore. I bring this up because this didn’t end with that puff of smoke; it set off a chain reaction of not giving a single fuck about staying clean and sober. “I already got high, might as well just get hammered again.” Soon enough, that sip of vodka turned into begging for grams of cocaine with the last money I had to my name. Rinse and repeat.

That five-month stint was the longest stretch I’ve had truly clean and sober to this day, nine years later.

It’s Easy to Get Sober

Part of why this was my longest time sober is partially due to the raw fear you have when you show up to the rooms of AA. When you get here, it’s life or death, the last house on the block. If this doesn’t work, seemingly nothing will fix these problems. That feeling of pure terror keeps you sober, at least in the beginning, and only the first time. Some stay clean the minute they walk in the door, never to drink or use again for decades, like my own sponsor. The harsh reality, however, is that most of us, when we walk through that front door at the meeting, have deeper holes to dig before we hit rock bottom completely.

Unfortunately, some alcoholics never do reach that point of desperation completely and die of their disease. Attending meetings for the greater part of the last decade has shown me many cases like this; death waits for nobody, especially not the active alcoholic or addict. And the fear that keeps me going today is knowing I could be one of those men if I can’t stop relapsing. I might not make it back to the rooms I know can change me.

One thing people love to say in meetings is that you’re never the same when you have a “head full of AA and a belly full of liquor”. It couldn’t be truer; relapse is quickly followed by the worst guilt I’ve ever experienced in my life. Any potential fun you thought you were going to have still goes right out the door. But it doesn’t stop us.

I’ve attended meetings for a long time (relative to my age, at least), and I’ve only been able to string together a handful of months at a time, if that. Why? Because I put the steps on the back burner, I coast by and show face as if I’m doing the right things, but I’m always an arm’s reach away from a pill, a drink, or a dirty bump of fentanyl.

But why? I know what to do, so why not do the work? That’s the gist of why I’m writing this today. I want this so badly, but I can’t put one foot in front of the other and see the light at the end of the tunnel that others achieve so freely. You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. That’s as true a saying as ever in this context; nobody, I mean nobody, can get long-term recovery unless they are the ones who sincerely want it so desperately that they put as much effort into doing the steps as they did securing dimebags on street corners.

Keeping It Through Action

I’m no expert, I’m just a recovering drunk with a strong fellowship of men in the rooms of AA, but what I’ve gathered in years of meetings is that sitting in a chair for an hour doesn’t keep you sober for long; action does.

Most have heard of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, but what many people don’t know is that only the first step mentions our drinking problem, and only half the step at that.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

When someone walks through that door, they might be confused by the second half of that step, the one they don’t mention in Hollywood movies. AA is not just a program to stop drinking, it’s a ruleset for living life and turning your bullshit around.

Speaking for myself, it’s this fear of grand change that keeps me from putting pen to paper. I can’t put words in anyone else’s mouths, but I’d wager that a lot of other alcoholics have felt the same at one point or another — this fear of the unknown. We all talk about how we want to be like our “old selves”, how Alcoholics Anonymous will “restore us to sanity,” but what if it’s been so long that you don’t remember who that person was? What if you don’t want to be that person from before, you want to be better than that, but you don’t know what that looks like?

Sobriety is Not Recovery

Getting clean and sober, honestly being in recovery from your addiction, is possible and is laid out in these nearly century-old steps some drunks wrote up that made their lives worth living. It doesn’t happen through osmosis, by sitting in a chair, or by sharing how your life sucks for a few minutes each week. It happens by working through the steps thoroughly, to the best of your ability, and sharing them with another man who can guide you on your own personal journey towards a better life.

I’m talking like I’ve done this myself before, but in reality, I struggle to take direction even when I know these things are true. I’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do in this program, but I hope that what I’ve learned over my nine years sticking around can help someone else find their own path quicker than I did.

One thing I’ve learned along this path is that many people don’t drink. Lots of former problem drinkers can put down the bottle for a month, a year, even 20 years. But do they genuinely have better lives today now that they’re hooked on seltzer water instead of Steel Reserve? I know some dudes who are dickheads and have gone 30 years without any mind-altering substances. Some put on a facade of happiness, while others project their misery onto those around them with ease. If you go to even a small handful of recovery meetings, you’ll easily find which people walk the walk and which people talk the talk.

Just stop before that first drink or drug, go to meetings, and work the program while you’re waiting for the next one. A big missing piece of my own recovery is the idea of picking up the phone before you do something you’ll regret later. When you join a community of like-minded recovering addicts and alcoholics, you become part of the fellowship, and your entire personal relationship network changes. Here, you find people who love and care about you and want you to succeed. People who want you to live so that you can provide for your family, and so you can help others who are struggling, just like the hands that reached out to them before you.

Conclusion

Well, this post went all over the place, but it felt good to put into writing. I hope this helps even one person who reads it, but if not, it helped me stay sober for one more day, and that’s good enough for me.

I’d also like to dispel any notion that Alcoholics Anonymous is a “cult”. Yes, part of the steps involve trusting in a higher power, but this does not have to mean God, Jesus, or any preconceived notion you’ve had about religion. AA is strictly a spiritual program, not a religious one; you choose your own higher power, whatever that means to you.

Alcohol isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Check out some meetings, and if you are certain it can’t help you, the bottle will always be there waiting for your return. But if you’re on the fence, keep going until it makes sense.

As a younger guy going to men’s meetings with people sometimes over twice my age, listen for the similarities, not the differences; you’d be surprised at how many strong, lifelong connections you will make on this path with others who can lead the way for you.

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Here are some resources for those who are struggling.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - Government services for recovery.

FindTreatment.gov - Find a recovery center near you (rehabilitation, outpatient, sober living, etc.)

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism - For researching more about the disease of alcoholism.

Alcoholics Anonymous - Find meetings near you and get other resources for the program.

Narcotics Anonymous - Based on AA’s steps, but some find it more comfortable being explicit about any substance abuse.

SMART Recovery - Another, more secular recovery program, in case the higher power puts you off. Follows a 4-point program rather than a 12-step program.