Am I Ready for Treatment?
“Get busy living or get busy dying.”- Andy Dufresne
I am a multiple time offender. I have been to treatment centers, the psyche ward and crisis centers compliments of my addiction. There are similarities in regards to my internal experience. Maybe these three types of battles are different but its all the same war. Nobody enters drug and alcohol treatment on a winning streak. One of the pieces of recovery literature talks about the “Four Horsemen”: Terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. There is no sunrise, but for enduring the darkest hour of the night, some call it the dark night of the soul. Whatever its called, it’s horrible.
When someone wakes up, and their life hurts, nothing is enjoyable. A hopelessness sets in that is like a dark fog that sticks to your very being. Many of us at that point had even had the substances that we are using no longer deliver even close to the euphoria that they did when we started. We are drinking or using merely to endure. It’s often referred to as “the jumping off point”; can’t live with and can’t live without it.
Contemplating Treatment
It’s rare that a person contemplating treatment doesn’t need treatment. Someone not suffering from alcoholism or addiction doesn’t think on their drive home from work “Should I go to rehab?” Rather a person who is already experiencing their life falling apart is asking themselves. Usually, someone knows that going to treatment could be most helpful, the question is more, “Am I ready?” There are many fears and concerns when making this type of decision that everyone experiences.
It’s scary to walk away from your own life for a month or more. It feels as if we may return to nothing. The truth is usually the opposite. Alcoholism and addiction are chronic, progressive and fatal. For many of us, we are already barely holding on as is. The mismanagement of our lives due to the substances making our choices point, it’s likely our lives will only worsen in the next thirty days or so just by default.
My Personal Experience with Entering Treatment
The progressive nature of the disease stacks the odds in favor of things getting worse. Even worse, the fatal aspect of the illness bets against the incalculable: death. In my last run, I was safe at home, had plenty of drugs, had had a very disturbing conversation with my mother where I had to disclose that I was using. Till this day was the most painful conversation of my life.
I had given back over eleven years of recovery and let down the person I loved the most. The weight of the conversation was more than I could handle. After getting off the phone, I took double the amount of Xanax that I had been taking to sleep or come down. I woke up in a pool of my blood. My room was destroyed. It looked like a fatal stabbing from the show “The First 48” There was blood everywhere. It took me some time to find out where the wound was to cause that much bloodshed. The wound was 3 inches from my wrist. I would have never woken up. There is no scaring an addict into a new life.
My waking to the attempted murder of which I was both the perpetrator and the victim didn’t stop me from using. I didn’t care if I died, but I didn’t necessarily want to. I more wanted the pain to end and wasn’t sure it would. Two weeks later I was in detox. Over a year later my life is better than it ever has been. My story is not unique at all in this. It appears that the actual question isn’t “am I ready for treatment?” it’s “am I ready for the pain to stop?” It only takes the courage of a split second to reach out for help. That is the doorway to a new life. We all deserve a chance. If you’re thinking of ending your life, please call the suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
If you’re ready for the pain to end and want to live your life again, call us today at 855-448-3638 or contact us here. We can help you; nobody has to die from this disease.
