I’ll be 3 years clean again in a month, and I’ve just booked a weekend holiday in Redcliffe for my 51st birthday at the same hotel where I chose to relapse in celebration of my 48th birthday. I plan to stay clean this year. The holiday will likely be very similar: long walks, nice food, and lots of sex. I just won’t need a couple of weeks to recover this time. It’s good to have time up again and good to be free of the obsession to use drugs.
I have a strange relationship with NA. I want to be honest, but I’m not sure about my message. I was the exception who relapsed, and it was pretty awesome. I identify at meetings as 2 years clean, but I’m friends with all the old-timers and mostly share about my previous recovery. I just have very little to share about the addiction of my 40s or the subsequent recovery.
I am selective in my sharing because most of my relapse was awesome, and I don’t want it to be taken out of context. I want to be understood. I don’t want to be judged for things that aren’t true. The truth is, I totally feel God guided me and protected me into and during my relapse.
At the time, a recovery friend said, “When are you coming back?” I said, “When it stops being enjoyable.” I actually tried to get clean before that, and after a couple of years I just thought it was the right thing to do. I thought my future self would appreciate it. But I really had a lot more drugs to take. I still feel God had more drugs for me to take.
And this was confirmed by never regretting a relapse. Every time I relapsed, I would totally get something out of it. From breakthroughs in my own psychedelic psychotherapy to bonding on MDMA with my fiancée. Not to mention how much I enjoyed these relapses. Sure, it was hard to get clean again, and early recovery was never much fun with anxiety pretty high, but nothing really bad ever happened.
I never even felt like I left recovery. I never stopped doing AA, and no matter my state, I would always get at least one AA meeting in every week. I did my morning program every morning except when I was coming down from MDMA, which floored me. I even grew in areas like my personal finances. I was worried (understandably) I would blow all my money on drugs and sugar babies, so I went to Debtors Anonymous (DA). I did the steps and totally changed my relationship with money. And my financial position continued to get stronger.
The year I relapsed was one of the best years of my life. I was about 16 years clean and had just spent a couple of years embracing single life at the ripe old age of 40. It had taken me a while to get used to it, but by the end of that second year I had found my flow. I no longer needed a relationship.
There was something in me that wanted more internal change, and I thought LSD could get me there. It worked. The next 12 months were awesome. I could mostly take it or leave it and spent a lot of time travelling Indonesia, Thailand and Eastern Europe. I got laid a lot.
Then, before even a year was up, my son got sick, and I had to live in the hospital for a year, watching his life drain away. Many a time did I thank God I had relapsed before this horrific event, so I had my “Medicinals” to help me through. I knew thanking God I had relapsed was such a weird thing for an NA person to say. I was also so proud of myself for how well I was able to handle a tough situation. I was able to be the strong one for all the kids.
About 18 months into smoking weed again – well, actually vaping. That was something else that was so different. In my teens and 20s I had smoked a bong, which brought lung problems, but in my 40s I was using a dry herb vape with no tobacco, which may even have improved my lung capacity. I was also vaping a quarter of what I had hit with the bong, without really using any willpower. It was all so different, except the dependence part and not really knowing how I would get clean again – that stayed the same.
Anyway, 18 months in, I was in the hospital and it was all so tragic. I was looking after my 14-year-old, who had become helpless like a baby. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t move on his own, couldn’t do anything for himself and could only answer yes or no by blinking his eyes. We were preparing to go to the cinema, which we did most Saturday mornings, and the weight of it all had gotten to me. I ducked into his bathroom for a hit of my vape, and I realised that was the first time (to my knowledge) I had used my weed to cope. I had crossed a line. All the other times I had vaped to enhance rather than numb. But it certainly helped, and looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.
The psychedelics and weed helped me in the transition of losing my son: first losing the dreams, hopes, and goals I had for my firstborn, and then, 5 years later, when he finally passed. I had been clean a couple of months when he died, so I thought I’d better stay clean to process the grief, but after a year I decided to process the next phase of grief with the help of LSD, MDMA, and weed. It was an incredible experience and something I will remember forever. It wasn’t easy, but it was so special. Not only did I grieve for my son, but also for my father, who had died over 40 years earlier.
The last relapse really did feel like the end of the road for my drug use. I didn’t take that feeling too seriously, as I had heard similar comments from chronic relapsers who usually relapsed again, but looking back, it was different. The reservations were gone. It’s not like I worked the program so well that God removed them; it was more like I had tried everything, and psychedelics were no longer anywhere near as transformative – or as fun. I was ready. It’s been almost 3 years, and I haven’t had even the smallest desire to use. It’s easy to stay clean when you never have a desire to use.
I don’t take that for granted, and I know I need to keep connected with NA to stay sane and hence clean. Life today is far better than it’s ever been. By every metric, I am better off than when I had a decade-plus of clean time. I have more peace of mind, a healthier body, a better relationship with my wife (a better wife), more money, a better business, a better and more consistent connection with NA, and a brighter future.
I don’t know if I will stay clean forever. God may decide otherwise – there may still be some reservations, but maybe they are justified. I am where I am as a consequence of my past. But it is totally inappropriate for me to get high at the moment. We have toddlers, and I can’t disappear emotionally like I would if I were back on the vape. Nor do I have any desire to at the moment, but you never know what the future holds. I plan on being around for a long time.
