Getting sober can be deadly for some. There is the general impression by those unfamiliar with the many stages people go through in recovery, that somehow greener, happier pastures await us right away when getting sober. Nothing could be farther from reality for quite some time. One of the things we hear in recovery is “first we’re going to save your butt, then we’re going to worry about the size of it.” Yep, you heard right. Getting sober means gaining weight.
Because people who get sober gain weight, the gym or the hiking trail is often a priority. Many of us get minor injuries because our minds do not understand how to work out a sobering body. The reason we gain weight is because we starved our bodies from good nutrition for so long that it now stores everything we give it and that means it stores the one thing we don’t want it to. Body fat.
But it gets worse. People who go into detox are given more drugs and even as they try to recover, the physical cycle of addiction cannot stop because rather than a regular regimen of cocaine and alcohol or marijuana and meth, we now are on a regimen of Librium or Methadone or whatever our doctors think will stop our cravings for the drugs that had us so badly addicted.
The death sentence, like it was for Amy Winehouse, is when we still have the mental obsession with the habit we are trying to kick and think we can go back “just one more time” - mixing the drugs we abused with the detox medication. This can and in some instances will kill us.
That is why, when we say we want to quit, we really have to mean it and stick with it no matter what. We have to be able to let go of “what it looks like” with our body image, and we have to start looking within and working on what it is. Looking inside is hard, everything hurts. Not only that, we have to fix the damage we have done to the lives of others as well as our own.
When exactly does our obsession with drug abuse leave us? No one knows that answer. When we begin drug use and it turns from “fun” to necessity, we do what in recovery is called “cross the invisible line.” We cannot tell you when that happens. But we know that at some point we have lost control over our lives and the addiction is ruining everything and ripping days off the calendar of our life. When we get sober we do the same thing in reverse. We re-cross the invisible line and when we do we are not aware of when exactly we do this either. Our body makes that decision and it does so years after we decide to get sober. Recovery is a process of the body returning to a natural state, where it can follow the ebb and flow of life on life’s terms.
Therefore, be cautious when someone comes out of recovery and tells you that after 90 days they are clean. The body is not ready because it can’t heal that fast. Addiction tries to lure us back to the brink of abuse and tries to turn us inside out for a long time. This is the great fight for our life when we get sober and we must stay strong and focused on our recovery. We need real friends, a meaningful life and as little conflict as possible if any. Give it about five years. Then you’ll know with more certainty that happier times are ahead.
In this video Dr. Drew points out some of the most basic and simple realities of what is and is not considered sobriety.
