When I was 19 I worked out that every time I tried to stop drinking I would smoke more weed and vice versa. I knew that I had to stop both, but I didn’t know how. I looked up the white pages and found a helpline. I ended up in a private rehab and it was explained to me that I had a mental obsession and physical compulsion. This made sense and I gave total abstinence a go, which I actually quite enjoyed. Although I enjoyed it, it was hard to stay abstinent for long. I would always revert to type and pick up a drug. I added meetings to my abstinence and was able to stay clean for longer, but would still relapse.
Years later when I was 24 I was able to add the love of the NA fellowship to my life by getting involved and being an active and contributing member. This enabled me to enjoy being clean, but I still relapsed. Finally I found a sponsor and followed his direction regarding the steps. Then I was able to stay clean. He explained that I needed to clean house and then be of service. I found the steps rewarding, but never enjoyed service. I only did it because I was told to.
My life got better every year until about 8 years and my plans didn’t work out. I didn’t get the girl I wanted and couldn’t handle the loss. I was only doing a meeting a week and realised my life was shit. I had pinned all my hopes on romantic love. I didn’t know what to do, but I thought I would go back to meetings. I went to Gympie AA and made an effort to connect with the members. Life got better. I moved to Redcliffe and made some friends with the AA members there too. I flew to Thailand every other month which sustained my sex addiction. Life was pretty good.
I got a girlfriend in 2016 and fell in love again. I thought it would be good to “settle” with one woman. I had been whoring for so many years I thought it would be good to settle down and build a relationship. She ended up being a cunt, but I made her worse by my needy behaviour. I had stopped whoring and I expected her to fill the needs of what I had sacrificed for her. I thought true love would get us through, but my behaviour was so needy and repulsive she lost all attraction for me.
I left that relationship broken and went to SLAA. I worked the program with another member – not a sponsor, we sort of sponsored each other. I found not acting out really easy and when it came time to set my bottom lines I decided I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t feel the need to set bottom lines, I just thought I needed to be sane and could maintain that through AA and NA.
I then decided that I needed to get better with women. I believed I would behave the same needy way again if I got into another relationship so I dedicated myself to learning seduction. I read countless books and spent countless hours on the street trying to meet girls through daygame. I made this my primary purpose and committed to it for 2 years. I moved to West End because you need a decent population for daygame. This was an exhilarating time of my life and I certainly grew as a man, but now I look back I put it ahead of my recovery. I kept doing meetings as “insurance” but I hated them and only did it because I knew if I drank or used heroin all bets were off and I would be in the gutter.
Just before the end of my 2 year commitment to daygame I was quite depressed and had lost faith in NA or AA being the answer to all my problems. I looked around the room and didn’t like what I saw, the other members with over 10 years clean looked even more miserable than me. At least I was getting laid sometimes with hot young girls.
I started to look for solutions outside of the 12 steps and was drawn to psychedelic psychotherapy. The internet is filled with very positive accounts of ayahuasca ceremonies so I looked into that, but it all seemed a bit hard to fly to the amazon to do it under the guidance of the shamans. I decided LSD would do the job. I was scared it might re-start the obsession and compulsion for other drugs, but thought it was worth the risk. I took the acid and it didn’t trigger a compulsion to use other drugs.
The next 12 months were awesome. I travelled and lived out my travelling seducer fantasies. I would come back to Australia and hang out with family and take the drugs I considered safe and non-addictive. My son got sick and we all went through a traumatic time. I coped well and was very proud of myself for how well I reacted to the trauma and how much I was available for the kids. I got him and his sisters through that. I was the emotional rock. I was a bit crazy, but I honestly don’t think I could have done any better clean. I used the drugs to cope and they served me well.
I had an emotional breakdown in August when I moved warehouse, my personal residence, and separated financially from my Ex. I had emotional flashbacks from when I was 4. My dad died, my dog died and then we moved house. I was in so much pain and all on my own since my mum was under her own trauma and not available for me emotionally. Everything was fucked and it was never going to get any better. Almost 40 years later with the grief of my son, finally separating from my ex, and moving house, it triggered all the same emotions as the previous worst time in my life.
I got through this and was able to enjoy myself again. Life was good for a bit and then I decided I wanted to have a break from the drugs. I was no longer enjoying weed as much as I had and had to admit that it was no longer making my life better – I had always said I would give up when it ceased making my life better. I thought a month’s break would do the job. I went to a couple meetings and saw what I was missing out on. There were men I had known for many years that had over ten years clean and I believed were happy. They weren’t having the wild drug or sex experiences I was having, but they were calm and content and had more love in their life. I was a little envious of the love they were able to give and receive. They all stated that they were able to achieve that by their dedication and connection to the NA program.
I gave up trying to stay clean after 16 days and vaped some weed. I loved it. I liked it so much I took some acid and then some 2CB. That worked out so well I took some MDMA. It was a great day. I flew to Bangkok a couple days later and had a week’s holiday in Pattaya – where I stayed clean, but gorged on sex addiction. I was back. I was over the trauma of the past year. My son was settled in his new accommodation, I had a good business making me money, I was super healthy, I had pussy raining on me, and I had NA to go back to once I decided that I had had enough of a run. I didn’t think I could stay clean without addressing my sex addiction and I didn’t think I could address that without falling to pieces. Life was good, getting clean can wait.
A week after I was back to Australia the glow of sex addiction had left me and all I had to manage my emotions was my drugs. I did a couple AA meetings a week and really tried hard to connect with and be available for family, but it was getting harder and harder. I rarely enjoyed being clean and when I was out of it I was so isolated I was lonely a lot of the time.
I persisted trying to connect with others, but it was like I was on a treadmill. I could get a few steps forward by going to AA, practicing empathy through active listening with family, and even working with a psychologist, but as soon as I had a rest I would slip back even deeper into isolation. I was able to smoke less weed around family and that helped a bit to connect with them. I even started getting a little honest at AA. I didn’t share I had been using drugs, but I did share that my life was unmanageable by the “ism” even though I had been sober 18 years.
I looked back at those 18 years and realised I had spent the majority of it looking outside of NA for reason and purpose in my life. I hadn’t forgotten I was an addict and couldn’t physically manage alcohol or heroin, but I had forgotten that if NA (or even AA) was not my primary purpose I would become spiritually bankrupt and not be able to enjoy life – all the wonderful things I had gotten as a result of being clean. The weed and psychedelics were medicines that helped that feeling of lack of purpose and isolation, but they were no longer working as well. The only thing that could save me was genuine human connection and despite my best efforts I was not able to achieve that without total abstinence.
A few days before I got clean I went and spent the weekend with my kids. I didn’t take any drugs because I wanted to be more emotionally available for them. It was so hard. I would try and sit and be intimate with them, but I just wanted to run away into my own head. My mum and her husband came up and they were even harder to be present for. I was being an actor around the people I wanted to love. There was no chance of intimacy while I was so dishonest.
I made an excuse to leave after lunch Sunday so I could go and isolate and get wasted. I took Monday off to get wasted on LSD, but the denial was too cracked to enjoy it. I was a 44 year old who wanted the responsibilities of an 8 year old but the privileges of an adult. The drugs hadn’t beaten me physically this time. I was healthier than ever, my business was better than ever, and my friends and family outside of NA didn’t think I should get clean, even my staff and kids didn’t want me to get clean. But the drugs had beaten me spiritually this time. It was only a matter of time before severe depression. I had pushed the race car as hard as it could go into the turns. If I didn’t stop and get out I was going to crash the car.
I didn’t think I could get clean without addressing my sex addiction – which I was not prepared to do, but I also couldn’t not get clean. I decided to hand my will and my life over to the care of a higher power I no longer even believed in. I let go and surrendered. The future would be the future, but I was going to commit to NA again. I didn’t know if I could get clean again. I didn’t know if I could cope with life on life’s terms if I was clean, but I felt I no longer had a choice, the denial was too cracked to continue using drugs, especially LSD. I made a commitment to NA. It was deep in my heart and I cried. I woke up the next morning and the commitment was still there. I told a few friends to help that commitment stay. I haven’t had the desire to use since.
Red Pill Recovery 