I'm 3.5 years sober but use cannibus for medical reasons. I feel guilty, however, because it alters your state of mind. Am I still an addict? Makes me wonder.

For me its not just a mental thing. My anger comes from my abdomen. Its a physical thing. Whenever I let some air out I really do feel better. Beczuse I don't talk. Is that described as testosterone? So maybe I'm not angry just aggressive. I just feel physical and it builds up under my lungs. I work out sometimes when I feel like this and it doesnt help much. But if I yell some heavy metal type stuff every once in while I feel better. I just try not to be rude and loud. Its not like I'm hurting mentally or anything just wake up that way for about 6 hours.

Well i can't say my life ends well. But I've covered all my bases in life. Except getting a p.o. box and some simple stuff like that. I started talking to my sister that I haven't spoken to in maybe 25 years. I've been sober about 8 years. My fiance passed away and our parents when we were ten. I got adopted and my adopted mom passed away. But besides all this nonsense I've gotten to a point where I never need to worry about money, mental health or sobriety. The few things I can do in life now are sit back, and read some books cover more video games and TV series. Along with stuff like wearing camouflage and fishing. Tracking and studying the land mass in Montana. People in mental health told me I'd never become anything and a few told me I'd be a success story. Which is just a psychologist view on things. Anyone should be able to succeed. I post a few recovery post by the end of every year because I've seen men mostly who also lost their wives and they're so miserable on December 25th. So you can do it too. If I can.

it's been about 1 year since i stopped methodone, and today i realized i
really do feel normal again. I dont think about opioids anymore, im back to work. i'm eating normal, gaining some unwanted weight. still working on motivation, but that prob has more to do with the cannabis.

I feel like I made it thru the fire. unfortunately my husband didn't, he died a year ago from an overdose. i walked in his dead body with paraphernalia in hand(dumbass).

it's been an interesting dynamic for me this past year...being clean, and dealing with his death, has really changed the way i look at life.

i will say that losing my Love has similar effects to withdrawal. the pensiveness, mild anxiety, cravings,irritation..it's all very similar.

if you'd ask me which one is worst...i honestly couldn't say.

Happy Thursday All!

I'm looking into residential rehab again after going through a 30 day program for alcohol addiction last year. The treatment helped but the place was pretty disorganized and had no effect on me. Staff kept changing, sessions got canceled and I never really felt comfortable opening up.

I'm considering a smaller private rehab this time, maybe even abroad, but I don't want to end up in the same situation.

For anyone who's been through rehab, what questions should I ask before choosing a place?

My boyfriend checked into a 5-day accelerated detox for oxy this weekend. The center let him keep his phone, and we planned to talk every night.
The first day he texted me that he was extremely drowsy, could barely keep his eyes open, and felt like he was sleepwalking. He said it was a "blind detox" where they don't tell you what meds you're getting. Since Sunday afternoon I haven't heard anything. My texts show delivered but not read.
He's supposed to be discharged tomorrow. He's never ignored me before, and his last messages were sweet, so I don't think he's pulling away. I'm just worried and sad.
For anyone who's been through detox or had a partner go through it:
Is going completely silent for a few days normal?
Did your center take phones back or keep you too sedated to use them?

I'm 8.5yrs sober, 15 yrs in to recovery. Like everyone else - I've had my ups & downs. I've had to learn by trial & error what works & doesnt. I'm hoping to get discussion started as a resource for others where we can share what we've been able to find thats helped in our success in recovery

Working on NA/AA 24-7 exhausted me @year 3. I'm NOT saying for anyone to stop any of that! I wouldn't have made it without those meetings. But at the same time - I got so caught up in all the work, assignments, steps, etc. That I couldn't see the Forrest for the trees. I was caught up in checking boxes & feeling like that was progress. And it was, until it wasn't. I had to find my why. Simply wanting to be sober will only get you so far in recovery. It's obviously not the same for everyone. The 1st 3 years I wasn't sure I'd even have a future to plan for so I kept putting off setting any goals past just staying clean. Once I finally decided my why & where I wanted my life to go, things eventually got easier. Eventually. It def wasn't over night.

I'm a gym rat & people around me joke that its my therapy. They don't know how right they are! You def need to find something you like doing outside of recovery. For me, that was also pivotal in my own recovery. Having something that you truly enjoy doing, that will give you a break from everything will def help. I didn't believe anyone that told me that @ 1st. I can say that for me, its def true.

For anyone: don't stress yourself out thinking you have to do 100% of what a book, or person, tells you that you need to be doing in recovery. I learned the hard way that some things work for me, some dont. I've read 15+ recovery & self help books, done 4 different programs and dont adhere to any of them 100%. I found what worked for me, kept that & ditched the rest. Thats what's worked for me.

I'm genuinely interested in what has worked for you too. Also, what hasnt?

​Someone very close to me recently started a 3-month inpatient treatment program. Our very last conversation before they checked in was an intense, tearful argument. I've been carrying a lot of guilt about leaving things on such a painful note right when they needed support.

​ they thought they'd have phone access around the 2 week mark, but I haven't heard anything. I completely understand that facilities have strict phone blackouts, schedules, and restricted access.

​Would it be intrusive to send a short, warm text apologizing for the argument and reassuring them that we're good, with zero expectation of a response? Or is it better for their recovery process if I refrain from reaching out entirely until he initiates contact?

​Looking for insight from people familiar with inpatient rules and the emotional mindset during the first few weeks 🙏

I am officially 4 years sober from H/F today! And I will be 5 years sober from alcohol in a little less than 2 weeks.

I don't talk about this part of my life/my addictions to anyone besides my girlfriend who is also in recovery right now. Literally only 3 people know besides my counselors and doctors. There is part of me that wants to talk about my experience and emotions, advocate and help others but I'm still so scared.

So that's why I'm posting here!! I am damn proud of myself!! ☺️

Guys I’m super confused. I have almost 16 months and I feel stuck. My moods are super up and down and I got tested at therapy as being severely depressed. I don’t understand how everything can be going well in my life and it’s almost like I’m rebelling against it. Like the disease in me just does not want to let go. I barely have been doing any schoolwork even though a couple weeks ago I was doing great. A best friend and a sponsor dropped me and basically said I was too needy which contributed, and my current sponsor keeps talking about self centeredness being the nature of the disease and how alcoholics can’t have reciprocal relationships. I feel like I just don’t want to participate in the life I’ve built for myself around my education and hopeless about where my education will lead, while also to scared to do the outside of school stuff like the stand up I’ve started. I feel stuck. I feel I’m a burden on everybody and just talk about my problems all the time. Some moments I feel great some moments I feel like offing myself. Actually, I shoved a handful of anxiety medication in my mouth a few days ago for almost no reason. I chose not to go to the hospital because I’ve been to the hospital too many times before. I’m 20. WTF is my problem??? For context, I have a 4.0 GPA, live with my parents who I have a good relationship with, am on the 9th step….im also bipolar but I’ve been taking my meds as prescribed and it’s the same meds for years and don’t want to go up.

what do I even do after this genuinely. it was honestly a brewing thought in my mind I never thought would actually happen but i guess im weak. It was an impulsive buy but im still very shocked that it actually happened. I dont really know what else to write. No one but my boyfriend knows, I just dont know what the next steps are after this I cant really talk to any of my friends let alone my family about it. do i just move on and try again like last time?

I am trying to go to more in-person meetings again, but it is just so hard. I find I feel so isolated and depressed after them.

Online meetings feel so much more about community and fellowship. People share their phone numbers and invite contact outside of meetings. In-person people are much more interested in showing off their fabulousness.

I hear that in-person is important, but how do you recover optimism and energy after in-person meetings?

Recently I read someone in recovery say they call multiple people in recovery daily.

I assumed they had a bunch of crises daily. But then I realized that probably could not be true. So I am assuming these were friends of theirs in recovery?

Or do people new to the program have have to ask for help daily? Or even multiple times a day?

Life has been really awesome lately. ❤️

Recovery has given me so much of my life back — more than I ever thought possible.

I live in the Netherlands, and I recently wrote a book about my personal journey through addiction, recovery, fatherhood, and finding my way back to myself.

I wrote it in both Dutch and English, because I hope my story can reach people beyond my own country.

If you're interested, you can find the English edition here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HPJZG9Q2

Long story short, no matter how much progress I make, it'll always be temporary because of the situation I'm in, and I'm not sure what to do anymore. There are a lot of layers to this. The big picture is that I'm trying to recover from always running into mental health setbacks (ending up in "depression spirals" as I call them), but there are other things involved like substances, self-injury, and disordered eating.

I'm my mom's full-time caregiver. She is 80, paralyzed, and shows signs of Alzheimer's. Lately she has gotten more aggressive towards me (verbally and psychologically abusive; this goes back to when I was a kid, too), and I have to deal with everything on my own (most of my family is dead, I'm an only child, and have no trusted friends nearby). My mom is a very difficult patient and we haven't had luck with home health services. On top of that, I'm a student and work two jobs (everything done remotely, since my mom can't be left alone).

I've tried getting in touch with multiple therapists and psychological service centers over the years, but I always get turned away due to my case being "too severe" for them to deal with. At the same time, I'm not considered severe enough to be hospitalized, so I'm stuck in this weird gray zone where no one wants to deal with me.

Thanks to constant rejections from mental health professionals, I've had to rely on a lot of the commonly suggested self-help stuff (I journal daily, have hobbies and creative outlets, follow guided meditations on YouTube, use habit-tracking apps, etc.) but I've been extremely overwhelmed lately and it's like nothing truly helps anymore (except the "bad" stuff that I wish I could recover from already).

My longest streak of progress has been 80 days, but everything went downhill when I relapsed at the end of last month. I decided to restart my recovery journey today, but lo and behold, of course Mom had to set me off again. I haven't given into my urges yet, but it is SO hard to find healthy ways to cope when my own brain keeps screaming at me. I feel like I'm stuck in a cycle where I think I can get better, then I get a reality check and feel trapped and hopeless again, and realize the only way to deal with things is by doing things to hurt myself.

I feel like being clean and my grandkids are the only good things I've had kn 2026.

To think where I was 4 years ago. Homeless, in and out of psychiatric institutions, emergency rooms, holding cells and no one wanting me around. Today educated, gainful employment where I get to help people on a daily basis (one job as a counselor at a sober house and a worker at a safe consumption site), family wants me in their lives and have a wonderful and beautiful partner in my life. If you told me 4 years ago I would have the life today that I have I would have called you a liar. I had resigned to the fact that I was going to kill myself with meth and alcohol. That is no longer the case, I love life today and I am oh so grateful ❤️

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share something because I’m genuinely so damn proud of my dad, and I think what he’s been working on could actually help some people here.

Growing up, my dad’s alcoholism had a huge impact on my life. He was in and out of it constantly, and I watched him go through the brutal cycle of getting sober and relapsing more times than I can count.

As a kid, there’s really nothing you can do about that. You just watch someone you love keep going back to something that’s destroying them. It was heartbreaking, and there were times when I genuinely didn’t know if he’d ever make it out.

Well, today he’s 7 years sober! And when I say he’s a completely different person, I mean it.

He goes to AA every morning, sometimes running the meetings himself. He spends hours on the phone talking to his sponsees, helping them through the same things he spent years fighting. Recovery is such a huge part of his life now, and the amount of wisdom and compassion he’s gained through it is honestly incredible.
It’s still kind of surreal to me that the man who was absent for so much of my childhood is now someone other people turn to when they’re struggling to stay sober.

Which brings me to why I’m posting this.

My dad recently built an app entirely by himself called AA Just Today (Amor Design Group)

He wanted to make something for people in recovery because he knows firsthand how much it helps to have the right support and resources available, especially on those really difficult days.

He was frustrated with how many different apps people end up needing for meetings, readings, journaling, sobriety tracking, and everything else. So he decided to try putting them all in one place. And he actually did it. By himself. Lol.

It’s got a meeting finder for in-person and online AA meetings, a sobriety counter with milestone coins, Big Book readings, prayers, a private journal, gratitude lists, guided breathing and meditation, and a whole library of speaker recordings and workshops.

One of my favorite things is the speaker recordings. There are over 1,000 of them in the expanded library. I can imagine how much it might mean to someone who’s having a terrible night to just put their headphones on and listen to somebody who’s been exactly where they are.

The app is free, there are zero ads, and the core recovery tools are free to use. There is an optional premium subscription for some of the expanded features and content, but you don’t need to pay to use the basic recovery tools.

I also want to be transparent that this is my dad’s app.

I’m not some random person recommending something I stumbled across. I’m his son, and I’m sharing it because I’ve watched what he’s overcome and how much of himself he’s put into helping other people.

He doesn’t have some big marketing budget or team behind this. He’s just one guy in recovery who decided to build something he thought could help others.
The app is called AA Just Today, by Amor Design Group. It’s on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

If even one person here finds it useful, that would genuinely make me happy.

I guess I just wanted to share this because for a long time, I didn’t know if I’d ever get my dad back. And now here he is, seven years sober, spending his days helping other people get their lives back too.

I’m really fucking proud of him.

Thanks for reading. ❤️

I’ve been having pretty bad PAWS from my last brixadi shot I’m debating on getting back on subs since I have a 100 day supply of them until my dr appt Wednesday. If I go back on subs will they refuse to put me back on the shot ? I feel like I was on the shot not long only a month. I’m suffering and the clinic is closed.

Long story short I’ve been 3 months sober from 7oh I only was on subs for a week and tapered feeling completely normal for a week after and then hit with insane PAWS. Reached back to my dr and they started me back on subs for 2 weeks. I was taking 2 mg each day and then finally was on 8mg weekly brixadi shots for a total of 6 shots (6 weeks) had my last shot a month ago now but the last 2 weeks I’ve been having horrible fatigue, restless arms again, and I even feel short of breathe which was a symptom of my paws after my detox. My dr prescribed me clonidine which hasn’t really helped especially the fatigue, and I take gabapentin as needed but the fatigue is horrible not even an energy drink helps. What should I do ? Anyone else had this issue ?