Read Part 2 Here
Don’t Call Me Sober Pt. 1 | Recently a few friends have asked me why I say “I’m in recovery” and don’t like when people refer to me as just “sober.” I have a few reasons for not wanting to be referred to as sober, and one of them starts with this huge colorful box I now have to keep by my bed.
By the standards of some schools of thought, I am not sober. Some groups of addicts think as long as you are on any kind of mind/mood altering medication, controlled substances, or medication to help deal with the cravings or withdrawals from drugs, that you are not sober. You have to be doing this 100% on your own. Personally, I think this is a load of shit. As you can probably tell from the size of this box, I take a lot of medication, and a lot of it is to help me be more comfortable through this painful process and be able to focus on my recovery. If I weren’t taking these meds I wouldn’t be able to learn the skills I need to recover; I’d be curled up in a ball screaming, crying, completely unable to function, and risking my life due to my lowered seizure threshold. Yes, I take medication for mental health reasons, I take non-opioid pain medication, I take medication to help with the cravings and physical side effects from long-term substance abuse. Most of these medications fall under mind/mood altering or potentially addictive controlled substances, but I’m not abusing them and stopping some of these medications could literally kill me. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like to be called sober, because some people treat sobriety like it’s some kind of exclusive club you can only get in if you 100% abstain from everything from heroin to weed to porn, life-saving medication, caffeine, video games, sugar… and on and on. I think that’s absurd; I don’t feel like sobriety should be one-size-fits-all.
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