"So it's been about two weeks now and I'm beginning to feel the mental strain. This is largely due to the nature of treatment here. It's literally non stop.





We start at about 8 am and get back to the hostel for about half past 4 / 5 o'clock. Thing is the idea behind the program is that treatment is supposed to be 24/7 and isolation is not only discouraged but punishable behaviour.





Any addict will know that being on your own is the most comfortable place to be. No one can judge your behaviour if they're not there to see it right?





Consequently on the program it is suggested that you mix with people as much as possible, hold mini groups with your 'peers' and discuss things about your addiction together. 5 nights a week we have to go to a meeting (AA, NA or CA) - two on a Saturday and Sundays we have meetings in the hostel and some sort of outdoor activity (to promote teamwork and so on).





I'm so far out of my comfort zone here. Particularly because there are a lot of people here who aren't so well educated - as you'd expect I suppose - but apparently the way I speak and write is off putting.









Because I use "big words".





Because I'm interested in learning and using concise and descriptive terminology to express myself and the world around me instead of punctuating every second word with a 'fuck' or a 'fuckin'.

At first this pissed me off but now I realise that it is, to an extent, a social flaw on my part. I'm not adapting to the people I communicate with and as such am causing distance between myself and them.

It's a social program..."





Things got easier after I admitted this behaviour and made an effort to adjust - accept the criticism. Fast forward another four weeks and my detox was finished. They dropped me 2 mg every two days from the Subutex and 2 mg every two days from the Valium once that was finished.





(Suboxone is more expensive and they figure we don't need to the blocker since we're in a safe place by then, so I was switched to Subutex when I got there.)





For a while I was fine and then I started to crave - worse still I wanted to use. I tried all the exercises they suggested to deal with craving and it came up again and again in group, one on one and everywhere I went until eventually I couldn't handle it anymore.



What I know now is that there is no therapy or cure for someone who wants to use.





At 28 days clean I left the hostel and picked up.





That was me away for 2 months in one of the worst relapses I can remember in terms of consequences.





I believe that that is what it took to really cement everything I had learned in the centre and today I am clean and sober once again. I am practising the principles suggested to me in the fellowship and - for now at least - recovery feels good.





The compulsion to use has left me.





I am 11 days clean from another Suboxone detox (which I did myself over the space of a week) and for the first time in a long time I feel good in myself.





It takes work everyday to maintain that. I'll go into that more for my next post.





My name is Nathan and I'm an addict. I'm grateful to be clean and sober.





Well it's been four months since I last posted anything. I have to say that many were right in calling me presumptuous in my claim to perfect recovery (and beyond). I've always been a high potential achiever and academically I usually stand out (as long as I stay interested). I assumed that I would be able to breeze through treatment with a cerebral approach but I was very very wrong.Although there was an intellectual aspect to the process the real work was something which happened "in the heart" as it were. That is to say that the key to success was to be openly talkative about feelings and thoughts; to let go and allow something less identifiable and concretely tangible to take place. Very simply it happens in the heart and not the brainI struggled with this big time. This is something I wrote at two weeks but never posted :