Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

Back from rehab, I believed, due to a few months of sobriety, that all the problems in my life would solve themselves. Alcohol had been the problem. The thing that was holding me back was removed, so nothing could stop me!!!Stop me from... organizing my books and haircare products? Catching up on the TV I missed?I found myself more and more preoccupied with the things that NOT drinking was preventing me from doing, or would at least stop me from enjoyingThe problem was I hadn’t created an alternative life model. I just thought I would insert my sober self into my old life and everything would be the same except without the nasty consequences of being a sloppy drunk. However, the first time I tested that hypothesis, I found it was not that simple.Talk to me about it! Interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Looking for an outpatient resource? Get in touch with my friends at Basecamp:https://www.basecamptreatmentcenter.org/contact?fbclid=IwAR0EGE-HGH92qoQVJ46K66rNzIRJBPnmH16sSg2MU9q9LQjA1YMbbx7lOEMThanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicSuicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

The last month at Portage I was looking for an escape route. Now this wasn’t a literal, Shawshank redemption, crawl through the sewers kind of escape, it was escape through focus, which I was determined to be on anything but my role in the community, the therapeutic model, or even my alcoholism, it was, often, on everyone else and THEIR problems. And planning my marriage to a guy I'd spoken to once, puzzling over the logistics  of whether it’s OK for addicts and alcoholics to get wasted on important days like their own weddings. Surely this whole abstinence thing was just a suggestion, there must be cheat days, just like with diets. Surely I’d be allowed some reprieve. I wasn’t expected to live a joyless life forever, right?And Just by that line of thinking, I should have known I was missing the point, but I was almost a decade short of believing, even theoretically, that a sober life is its own reward. So long as I saw sobriety itself as suffering, and alcohol as a privilege that had been removed, I was not going to last long.Though I knew mine and Rehab Guy's marriage was unlikely, it was a stand-in for all the other occasions that would be robbed of pleasure without alcohol, events that could theoretically be considered ‘exceptions.’ If I only got drunk on special occasions, that isn’t a PROBLEM.Talk to me about it! Interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Looking for an outpatient resource? Get in touch with my friends at Basecamp:https://www.basecamptreatmentcenter.org/contact?fbclid=IwAR0EGE-HGH92qoQVJ46K66rNzIRJBPnmH16sSg2MU9q9LQjA1YMbbx7lOEMThanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicSuicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

It seems the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial made me have a whole lot of feelings. Particularly, where do ideas and 'victim' and 'perpetrator' fall apart when there is wrongdoing on both sides, or when an environment or relationship is in itself intrinsically chaotic. I have been in plenty of mutual destructive relationships, and substance abuse seems to change the rules of engagement.To what extent do we hold people to different ethical standards when they are intoxicated? Should we? To what extent do we hold ourselves to different ethical standards when intoxicated? And also, should we?Talk to me about it! Interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

My first rehab was awful. Often, when I externalized my misery in one way or another, I can look back and say, naw, well, that was really more of a me thing. Yet with this rehab, I look back and still think it was awful.Was I miserable the whole time? Absolutely. Was I also sober the whole time? Yup. For many of the residents there being in portage meant they weren’t on the streets, they were away from abusive relationships, they were out of prison, and many, probably, just not DEAD, and that’s not trivial, and many of my objections were, in perspective, kind of trivial. Maybe all the ways it was a bad fit for me are exactly the ways it was just what someone else needed.Not everyone gets 12 plus shots at recovery like I did. Many people don’t even get one. So if you’re in a place that isn’t helping, or a program of recovery that doesn’t resonate with you, or a community that makes you feel bad, there’s no harm in investigating the other options. My misery was partially due to my skewed expectations. I’d romantically assumed that rehab was a delightful teahouse of tortured artists, who would gather their heavy hearts together debating existentialist philosophy and comparing poetry. I’d constructed a vision of a kind of creative retreat, surrounded by people like the ones who wrote the addiction and mental illness memoirs I so cherished, that we’d be huddled together on a couch near a fireplace after curfew because we MUST, we absolutely MUST continue our esoteric forays into the deep cellars of the soul. My illusions were quite viciously shattered.Talk to me about it! Interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

My grandfather passed away, and I was useless. I didn’t go to the hospital in his last few weeks. Hospitals really bummed me out. I mean I was fragile. God forbid I carry any extra emotional weight. I checked out. I did nothing but try to drink less, feeling terribly burdened by this sacrifice, and that was all I could summon. I couldn’t handle complex emotions, my own or others’, without alcohol. However, WITH alcohol I ran the risk of completely mishandling those emotions. I spent all my focus on trying to drink 'just enough.' I even told I was drinking FOR my mother’s sake, like, she had enough to deal with, her father’s passing and siblings bickering, without dealing with what a wreck I would be if I wasn’t drinking. It was compassionate intoxication. Also, what are the RIGHT reasons and the WRONG reasons for quitting drinking, drugs, or any destructive pattern of behaviour? Do you have to do it 'for yourself?' People talk about ‘wrong reasons’ to go to treatment like it’s a season of Bachelor in Paradise and you’re trying to get instagram followers. I believe there is no wrong reason to GET sober or make the first step in changing your life. Reasons to STAY sober or integrate those changes can be worked out on the way.Talk to me about it!: interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PYGYDK9EHG2AW)Support the show

Back at Concordia University, I set some boundaries with myself and alcohol. Since I still wanted to drink all the time, I had to strategize how my ‘normal’ drinking was going to go down. Was there an event being hosted at a bar? Was there a  poetry reading, an open mic, someone in the program’s birthday? Well, yes, as it turned out! Almost every night, yes!!! If not, I knew the haunts I could reliably find other students or teachers having a drink after class. There were book launches and writers in residence events with free wine, cheese and elegance. I was having a sophisticated experience at an institution of higher learning, and alcohol was part of that recipe.I was able to ‘keep it together’ was not because I was suddenly any less of an alcoholic. It was because I was getting some of my needs met by something that wasn’t alcohol. Drinking always rushed in to fill the gaps following a loss, or to cover up an absence. Finding a sense of belonging, having my writing acknowledged, having things I didn’t want to be drunk for, like class, and, yes, even having things I was encouraged to be drinking for, allowed me to compartmentalize. The drinking was all above board now. My greatest fantasy was to be able to maintain this balance indefinitely.In this culture drinking was not only acceptable it was a kind of currency. In those dimly lit pubs, in the company of Real writers, professors with their names on actual, published books, the barrier between us was softened by alcohol. The more I drank, the more that line receded entirely. That the line itself was only ever a construct in the first place did not occur to me. I was fully convinced the booze itself held magical properties of status equalization. I could feel like I deserved to be in the company of the writers whose works were mounted behind a glass case in the English department. I deserved to be invited to where the higher ups did the real drinking, not to the reading that everyone knew about to but to the after party, and then the after AFTER party. It was like being inducted into a secret society.Talk to me about it!: interactivememoir@gmail.comShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault that may not be suitable for some listeners. Want to talk about it? Drop me a line at interactivememoir@gmail.comThe second after I accepted that Leo had really dumped me, I plunged into the project of ‘getting him out of my system’ by sleeping around. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, as they say, I was taking my power back, yessiree!This was all utter bullshit, and even drunk me was aware of it on some level. This prowl was showing up at acquaintances parties drunk, looking for someone to want me. The prowl was showing up at bars by myself when i ran out of acquaintances to impose on believing if a guy bought me a few drinks he’d bought me for the night.  I wasn’t an empowered, sexually liberated modern woman. I wanted to disappear completely, and just being drunk wasn’t enough anymore. Until a point I could still pretend this was all a game I was playing, that I was in control, that I was having a good time. Until that story was replaced with something more sinister. Rape crisis hotlines: https://ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.htmlShare this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

Addicted to Recovery's first conversation episode, where I talk to Brianne Davis about sex and love addiction, and our secret lives. Video format available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wJYuVLJJbYTalk to me about at interactivememoir@gmail.comAbout my co-conspirator: With over 12 years of recovery as a Sex and Love Addict, Brianne hosts the popular personal journal podcast “Secret Life.” The podcast launched in August 2020 and features inspiring true confessions from an eclectic group of guests, unpacking a plethora of taboo topics. Brianne’s latest venture in the “Secret Life” brand is her debut novel, “Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict,” which instantly hit the best-sellers list on Amazon earlier this year.She is a renowned sober coach in addiction recovery. She has spoken on over 175 podcasts and television shows, including The Doctors, The Daily Blast, and many more as an advocate for creating awareness of the deadly disease of sex and love addiction. She has also penned several articles on the subject for Cosmopolitan UK, Daily Beast, HuffPost, and The Drill. She is currently in rewrites for the follow-up novel of the Secret Life series and developing it as a tv series. Amazon:  https://amzn.to/2MjsjvLWebsite:  https://secretlifenovel.com Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Instagram:@thebriannedavis@secretlifenovel@secretlifepodcastTiktok: @the.briannedavisShare this podcast with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicSuicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesSupport groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

I wake up to my phone ringing through a lacerating headache. I ignore it. The person calls again. The guy sleeping next to me grumbles enough that I pick it up, mumbling hello, my breath acrid, my mouth chalky and sticky. There is a frantic woman on the line demanding “are you Tara?” I grunt affirmative. “I’d like to know what this magical evening you spent with my fiance is all about.” Shit. Which one was that? I’d been flinging my body around so carelessly, to whoever would take it, I wasn’t keeping much track of their names, let alone details like which of them might have had fiances. She’s asking me these questions about whether we use protection because she doesn’t want to get an std and I look over at naked guy next to me and he’s hearing the whole rant. After I manage to get the woman off the phone, he asks me to leave. Shucks. He didn’t even want to kiss me goodbye. He was one of the few I’d actually slept with more than once, and I’d been hoping it might turn into something more, if it wasn’t for that hysterical woman. Not my fault some guys can’t keep it in their pants. I’m not the engaged one.I gathered my clothes then crept into the living room sucking out the remaining droplets of beer and wine in the abandoned bottles, as there was no booze left in my bag. I look up and the guy who’d slept with me just a few hours before is standing there with his arms crossed looking at me like I’m all kinds of trash. I think to myself ‘how the Hell did I get here?” Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

My classmates in Creative Writing would understand how edgy, cool and tortured I was, and how cool my drinking was. The first writing assignment I workshopped in my fiction writing class was from my *ahem* novel, a chapter in which the narrator, reeling from a devastating breakup, hurtles into alcoholic drinking and ends up in rehab. Funny how I was writing things, as ‘fiction,’  that hadn’t happened to me yet, but were going to. Was it prediction? Manifestation? But a story about rehab, that would certainly make everyone think I was edgy, cool and tortured. I didn’t even bother to mask my breath if I came back from swigging wine in the bathroom at break, because that’s what someone who was edgy cool and tortured would do, and because I WANTED them to talk. I imagined them having whispered discussions about me in the hallway, wondering if I had indeed been to rehab myself, because that would just be so ME, given how edgy cool and tortured I was. Want me to talk nerdy to you? Check me out on the Ryan Stick show:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynHQudyAyuk&t=4110sSend questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

Over the next year, I kept both a job and a boyfriend, and was thus performing normalcy to a dazzling degree that surprised even me. Since the incident and my outpatient therapy, every time I drank and nothing terrible happened I gave myself permission to drink more often and still, nothing catastrophic occurred. I’d broken the system. I’d graduated into what I believed was functional alcoholism, and was perfectly content to stay there indefinitely.People speak of addiction as progressive, something that gets worse and never better, and though it eventually passed the point of no return, for awhile the progression was far less linear. My pattern was that it would get bad, some incident would happen, like splitting my head open on the kitchen floor,  and I would reign it back in to almost normal for someone in their early 20s, figure, OK, I’ve got a handle on this, then increase it bit by bit, seeing what I could ‘get away with,’ until another accident, humiliation, betrayal, meltdown, shitshow, and I’d reign it back in again, to show everyone, and myself. how capable I was of managing life with alcohol.Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PYGYDK9EHG2AW)Support the show

A few thoughts on the holidays, and the challenges they have presented, as well as the legitimate joy they can bring.The holidays can be difficult for people in recovery So many holiday traditions involve alcohol, the office party, the Christmas cheer, and let’s not even get started on New Years Eve. There is this idea that the holidays should FEEL different than other days. Your relationships should feel closer. There should be a warm and cozy fireside feeling in our hearts. We should feel like the Christmas songs and Hallmark cards and commercials and Love Actually promises we will feel. But how about embracing how we actually feel? Whatever YOUR holidays look like for you, rather than missing them because you think they're supposed to feel like someone else's Instagram.Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

After a disturbing alcohol related injury, it was off to my very first outpatient program for addiction. The outpatient group, at the time, was five days a week, and it was good in that it gave me something to do every day and bad in that it gave me something to do every day, in that it seemed to excuse my otherwise minimal participation in my own life, a crutch I would come to rely on to give my life structure and meaning.I did want to get better. I was suffering. But I also couldn’t imagine a world in which better also indicated completely without alcohol. The only time I felt a bit ‘better ‘ had something to do with alcohol, even though every time I felt awful had something to do with alcohol too. One being true didn’t make the other one less true. I also didn’t know what ‘better’ would look like. There was no point of reference for a non self-destructive me. I reverted back to eating disordered behaviours to manage me emotions as a consolation for my reduced drinking.Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PYGYDK9EHG2AW)Support the show

Why would I quit drinking when I still liked me better when I was drinking, and the confounding thing was that other people did too.Well, that's what I believed at least.I didn’t have much to offer in a relationship, but that was never so much my concern. What was important was what I could get out of it. What I needed was a sense of legitimacy, of identity, a role to play in the world, and since I wasn’t participating in my own life too much, a role in someone else’s life would do. In the movies, getting the guy, or girl, is the end of the movie, the happily ever after, the resolution, and my goodness did I crave resolution, or maybe more urgently, redemption. If I could be everything to someone, then I wouldn’t have to agonize about feeling like nothing to myself. I may have failed to mention I was already in a committed relationship with alcohol, and not everyone's down for playing second fiddle to a bottle.Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgAnd guess what! I was on other podcasts, which I highly recommend!  They are both doing great work in the recovery space.https://www.recoveryelevator.com/re-349-the-inner-voice/?fbclid=IwAR3PZTlbDHfVeqAtdcHyD4tcjm-S9KhYNDUfQtGBJJ_Pe0L6dyJrnNDTwJ8https://beyondbeliefsobriety.com/Support the show

That awkward moment when you walk into your first AA meeting and there's your friend's cool dad who used to give you booze as a teenager. And your first impulse is to go and tell your mom and friends about it.Oh wait... I think that's against the rules. Before I return to troubleshooting some issues surrounding 12-step, I can remember how I first came into the program, and I was hardly a paragon of virtue, honesty and good intentions, so I can be a bit more generous in my judgment of others. 12 step are not professional programs. They’re a bunch of messed up people trying to help each other. There are no character references at the door. You can’t get kicked out for being a creep or a gossip or an egomaniac because then no one would get sober, because come on now, how perfect were YOU when you first came in?  As all 12-step meeting are made of people, there are some that are better to avoid. But there are also some of the most caring and generous people I've ever had the privilege of knowing. It just took me awhile to be available to form those relationships.There is no welcome package at the door of a 12 step meeting to navigate all the potential social issues, so the responsibility is on the people who have been around for awhile to be guides and supports.And guess what! I was on another podcast!https://www.recoveryelevator.com/re-349-the-inner-voice/?fbclid=IwAR3PZTlbDHfVeqAtdcHyD4tcjm-S9KhYNDUfQtGBJJ_Pe0L6dyJrnNDTwJ8And I'm going to be on this podcast, which I recommend to anyone who resonated with the last episode.https://beyondbeliefsobriety.com/Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

So, time to get controversial and talk about 12 step recovery! People have very strong feelings about 12-step, what it is, what it isn’t, if it’s bad, if it’s good, if it’s a helpful community, if it’s a cult, whether you need to find God, whether it’s 2 well-to-do men from the 1930s and why should we listen to them, of whether there are wrong or right ways to do it, and the types of people it can help or not help, so many opinions.A lot of this noise gets in the way of what I believe is a very helpful community, made up of diverse and flawed individuals who are trying to get better. 12 step is supposed to be for anyone, regardless of your background, beliefs or culture . Whether or not it always succeeds in that endeavor is another matter.I struggled for over 15 years because I couldn't get past 'the God thing.' Hopefully I can help you navigate your own concerns so you don't have to let resentment and confusion distract you from finding the right people in your community that can help enrich your recovery. Supplemental 12-step reading that helped me understand the program on a deeper level: Recoveryby Russell BrandSane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Stepsby Marya HornbacherWaiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Powerby Marya HornbacherA Buddhist Insight into the 12 Stepshttp://aaagnostica.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/12-Step-Buddhist-Insight.pdfFor more secular 12 step goodness:https://aaagnostica.org/Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.Join the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirIf you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

I'd heard somewhere no one understands an addict like another addict, so as my alcoholism, progressed I gravitated towards a booze-fueled affair with a deliciously tortured soul who was legit damaged: He'd actually been to rehab. How exciting! He drank a lot, but it was OK, because alcohol wasn't his drug of choice... Holy Moly, I didn't know there was a CHOICE!!!This episode also begins to tackle alcohol as a means of addressing a deeper inability to connect with people and our environments, that seems to bridge the gap but ultimately ends up widening the chasm. Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirJoin the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

At 20 years old I'm already washed up, so might as well just give up on doing anything meaningful and go into a school program I have no intention of taking seriously. While I'm at it, might as well give up on love as well and lose my virginity to a stranger. Winning at life!This episode also talks about addiction as a fundamental refusal to accept reality. Being rather pissed off that the world was not bending to my every whim, and not seeing that my participation, or lack thereof, might have something to do with it, kept me in a powerless loop of resentment. Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirJoin the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I am an abuser. There is someone in my life that for years I’ve been abusing mentally, emotionally, and physically. I also neglected her, endangered her and left her vulnerable to the abuse of other people. Beyond that, I was so convinced for much of this time that she deserved it, or even that it was for her own good, that I was teaching her a lesson, that I didn’t recognize I was doing anything wrong. The only reason I'm not in jail is because the person I was abusing was... myself.  Why is it that we think it’s OK to to do and say things to ourselves that we would never dream of saying to someone we cared about, or even someone we don’t particularly like? And what do we do when these patterns of behaviour and thinking persist, even when we know better?Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirJoin the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show

The first time I drank I may not have catapulted into full-blown alcoholism, but it was clear, even from the get go, that alcohol only amplified my personality deficits.But what about other first times in recovery, in life? What about the positive milestones? The first time you resisted buying drugs or alcohol. The first time you reached out for help. The first time you helped someone else. The first time that proved to yourself 'I can do this!' These moments are just as important, or more, than the markers on the downward spiral. What are some of these moments for you?Let me know, or send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ atinteractivememoir@gmail.comCall to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recoveryFind me on Twitter!https://twitter.com/ToMemoirJoin the Facebook group!https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above! Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro musicHere is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_linesHere are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:https://12step.org/social/online-meetingsSmart Recovery:https://www.smartrecovery.org/communityRefuge Recoveryhttps://www.refugerecovery.orgSupport the show