What clean time counts as clean time?

In response to my last poll, with these results

No drug addict should ever drink alcohol.
6 46.15%
Drug addicts can drink if they are careful and don't have a history of alcoholism. 2 15.38%
Drug addicts can drink when they have enough clean time.
0 0%
I don't know.
5 38.46%

I have made a new poll.

Just wondering... I dont think there is a black and white answer. For instance, I knew a guy who was given a drink of rum and coke as a prank. He had one sip then tasted the rum and spat it out. Still, he changed his clean/sober date...

I thought that was ridiculous. If anything, it showed how strong he was, that he could taste the alcohol and still resist it (and what an *** the guy who gave it to him was, knowing that he wasnt drinking).

I think it is a personal decision where to draw the line... one could quit one thing and start smoking twice as much, or get addicted to sex, or whatever else... I like the saying that your clean date is whenever you say it is. Black and white thinking means that anyone who has been in an accident and had to take pain meds wouldnt be in recovery. Or, taking the opposite approach, any drug addict who drank would be in recovery...

I have been clean for almost a year but if I counted alcohol, it would not be that long. But having been a homeless junkie, I do not want to discredit the amazing changes I have made. And I do not want to act like I do not think alcohol is dangerous--I know that it is dangerous.

I have never taken a drug or been addicted to drugs, so I can't say. But I am addicted to alcohol (21 days sober). Honestly? I think if one has an addictive "personality" then it's better to stay totally clean.

But, like you say, it is a personal decision. I have never walked those shoes. It's a tricky one.

I keep separate times for each addiction. One for drugs, one for alcohol, and one for shopping.

Eta: I hated that I was dumb and took two puffs off a one hitter, setting 11years back. Now I'm at two years. I'd hate to set back to 3 months because I went shopping outside my means. I'm afraid to me, I'd say off the wagon is off the wagon. Might as well have some 'fun' til the next wagon passes by.

Personally I think it's best for a complete reset w any use of any alcohol or controlled/scheduled drug. I certainly do not judge how others approach this so I lean a little towards personal choice.

I think resetting the days is humbling, and therefore helpful.

moogs

Sometimes I think that AA and similar type things have humility confused with complete ego defeat.

I really enjoy this thread and topic. You are absolutely correct about AA. There's a great deal of focus on removing ego and even in his later years the one of the two fellows who founded AA spent decades trying to remove and or rid himself of ego. That any ego that remains represents a risk to relapse.

Sounds like you have come a long way and seen many miracles happen in your life as a results of getting clean. Nicely done. There is a risk of relapse using intoxicants that were not necessarily your drug of choice, most experts would say. You seem to have a good handle on acknowledging and accepting that risk.

For me, in my personal set of choices, I am not willing to take this risk.

Thanks again for the thread,

moogs

But why when any scientific evidence suggests that destroying the ego is not only not possible but not even healthy?

I much prefer 16 step/SMART philosophy its just that 12 steps are more readily available where I live... I do not resent them the way that I used to, I simply do not agree and find myself, often, leaving feeling more depressed than when I got there... to each their own.

Cool. If you are comfortable, I'd like to know more about your story. What was your drug of choice?

Thanks,

moogs

If one is going to question whether drug addicts can drink, you need to look at whether alcoholics can take drugs.

Back in 1988 I started in AA. After quite a few years of total abstinence from anything and everything (except nicotine and caffeine/when I started AA I started caffeine) my doctor put me on medication for depression and anxiety. When Old timers in AA found out, I was shunned. In their eyes I was no longer sober.

I unfortunately believed them. I was told, after the fact, I should not have told anyone, but then I am not being honest.

That seems to be the old timers' motto. I take benzos, so I'm not 'sober' until I quit. So I quit going to AA. I don't want my alcohol sobriety confused with me using prescribed medication as its prescribed for a MI. I would love to be able to live life without them, but I'd rather not be shaking and having trouble breathing under a table somewhere.

FWIW, This is from some NA literature:

Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse.
Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be
confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must

abstain from all drugs in order to recover.

Heroin. I hate stimulants. I do realize that admitting that I am attracted to depressants means that alcohol is a warning sign, and I do view it as a warning sign. But I view it as a warning sign the way I view isolation as a warning sign--something very unhelpful, a sign that I am not coping as well as I would like, and a sign of something that could lead to relapse... But I am not changing my clean date because I isolated. That is how I view the thing with alcohol.

As for my story... my story is hella complicated. Detox 10 times. Rehab twice. Was homeless--all the rest...

Not sure what more about my story you want to know but... just ask. Unfortunately, I dont have much else to do these days.

I like that this poll is so close, it shows that there are many ways to approach things and there is no right answer. What has been more important than anything in my recovery is finding what works for me and finding my own voice and agency in the world... (which is why 16 steps were so great, when I could attend them...)

For some people, they need/want to just be told what to do... I spent much of my life asking permission to breathe and making myself small. I didnt need to deflate my ego!

Cool. Yeah I had 8 years of total sobriety in my late 20s. I relapsed and could social drink for a bit, but eventually lost nearly everything in a new low level of addiction.

Good luck,

moogs

It has been years since I was a daily user. The past 2 years I would go 3 months.. 7 months.. 3 months... each time only slipping for a day or 2...

I know that this sounds like I am minimizing the harm of slipping but I also think it is absurd to pretend there isnt a difference between being homeless and using every single day to just using that one day and getting right back into recovery the next day.

I only manage to get back into recovery the next day because I live far away from old triggers and connections and have no method of getting heroin here, the closest place to get it mostly rips me off or gives me stuff of super low quality... so I end up traveling to my old war zone to get in. Then coming back.

Still, havent even made that trip in *checks phone* 351 days

I agree with you. However, lets not put drugs and meds into one category and alcohol into another... They are all drugs. Sometimes there are addicts who abuse medication. But I would never tell any addict, regardless of drug of choice, which prescription they can or cannot take.

I always find it interesting how the system separates alcoholics from addicts. For instance, when I drank the system said that I was drinking to self-medicate my mental illness. When I started to drugs (not heavily--at first) they would insist that my mental health problems were due to drugs (even though the drugs came after the mental health stuff).

Doctors, largely, are much more likely to prescribe benzos and the like to alcoholics. I know many alcoholics on benzos, most addicts I know will not be prescribed much of anything. Furthermore, often the system denies help all together to drug addicts (and not alcoholics).

I have been stuck between the two systems for years... any time we classify things too strictly it becomes problematic, in my opinion... I know of many people who have had problems with abusing meds. I know more who have been saved by meds. What bothers me most is when anyone assumes to have the answer to somebody elses healing.

It always amazed me when they would give me a methadone dose so high that I was throwing up daily but simultaneously would not give anything for anxiety. Of course, on that much methadone I didnt need anything for anxiety, but the principle of it seemed off...

Too often we focus on the drug and not the person. I would not change my date if I smoked pot tomorrow, either. But if I were the type of person who smoked pot then ended up in a gutter (the way I do with heroin), I would change it.

That seems like a good strategy. I keep track of heroin and I was keeping track of smoking but then I started smoking again...

I keep it down to those two because otherwise I become obsessed with tracking my life and spend more time tracking it than living it.

On that note--maybe I need to start facing the day and getting off psychcentral (sorry if I post too much).

Putting on selfcontrol now! (My app to block wifi).

Clean times, being fixated on sober vs. not sober, and fear of relapse is what held me back. It only drove me to drink and think I'll have to either have it all or nothing at all. Now I drink a moderate amount of days (for my standards) and have actual success with staying sober!