by Fiona Stockard | Oct 1, 2014 | Sobriety For Women
Written By: Fiona Stockard
First Thing’s First
Okay, here’s the deal, I’m not going to sugar coat this. I’m not going to blow smoke up your t*ts for twenty minutes. I’m going get right to the answer. Date a recovering alcoholic or addict.
“But Fiona, what if they relapse?”
Shut up.
The core of this whole “should I date a recovering alcoholic or a normal guy” debate is the word normal. No one, not one soul, is normal. The guy you think is normal is most likely the craziest cat in the alley.
The Truth
Nobody is normal. We all have our issues. That’s why you should date someone in recovery, you already know their issues. They have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Do they have other issues? You bet your little judgmental a*s they do. The cool thing about people in recovery is they’ll tell you exactly what those issues are.
People in recovery love to talk about how f**ked up they are. It helps them stay sober and it helps others stay sober as well. So, date number one rolls around and you pretty much know what to look out for.
The Advantages of Dating a Guy in Recovery
The cool thing is that you know they’re working on these issues. You know they use their issues to fuel recovery.
It’s not like they say, “You know, when I drink I like to put goldfish up my butt, and eat Sour Patch Kids, and I have no plans on quitting that game anytime soon.”
Nope. Instead, they say, “When I used to drink, I’d put goldfish up my butt and eat Sour Patch Kids. I’m very ashamed of it, but if someone can relate to it, or if my story helps them in any way, then it was worth it.”
Now that’s how you explain doing stupid s**t when you were wasted!
The other cool thing about dating a recovering alcoholic or druggie is that everyday they work on becoming a better person. You’re on the ground floor of what could become one of the greatest dudes in the history of the world!
People in Recovery Battle the Pink Robots
People who’re truly in recovery get better and better everyday. Now, so called “normal people,” they don’t do that. Normal people…you know what, I hate that term. Lets call them Robots!
Okay, robots sit in their cubicles, or corner offices, talking about their material possessions, the stock market, last night’s game, the PTA meeting, whatever. This repeats for years and years. Never do they help people. Never do they really open up. They don’t get better. Robots only get worse.
Robots live their entire lives seeming to be normal robots. “Oh, Pastor Mark? He’s such a kind and companionate robot.” Bulls**t. Pastor Mark has been smoking meth behind the Waffle House for ten years. He’s been banging the pool boy. In his spare time, he tells bible stories at church. Oh, and one more thing. Pastor Mark is the one who puts goldfish up his butt and eats Sour Patch Kids and has no plans of stopping.
Robots are always going to be robots. They hide their faults. They live in secret and present fake lives to the world.
Recovering alcoholics admit their faults, face them, fix them, and strive to make themselves, and the world, a better place.
So who do you want to date, a person in recovery or a robot?
If you choose the person in recovery, I wish you nothing but the best.
If you choose the Robot, I’ll buy you some Sour Patch Kids.
by Fiona Stockard | Jun 19, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
Written By: Katie Schipper
Romantic Relationships in Sobriety Can Be Healthy!
No, but seriously. Wait.
That guy/girl/whoever you met in your treatment center/halfway house/that meeting that you can’t live without? You can. Just wait. The crazy thing about waiting is that you might find out your tastes aren’t quite what you thought they were. Thirty, or sixty, or ninety days off your lifetime of smoking/snorting/shooting drugs and drinking? Yeah, you probably don’t know what you want!
So wait. You might grow (shocker!). You might change. You might actually realize there’s something to be said for getting to know yourself and your inherent value. You might learn that what’s inside you is so much bigger and so much better than an attachment to another human.
Before we start new relationships, we have to fix our old ones!
First We Must learn to Love Ourselves
That doesn’t necessarily mean wait a year. After all, a year is just an arbitrary, man-made measure of time. Some people might get well before a year is up. Others, most others, probably need well over a year to undo a lifetime of diseased, insane, chemically affected thinking and acting.
It isn’t the year so much that matters, but rather the time you’ve given to the two most vital, lasting, and important relationships in your life: the one you have with God/Higher Power/the Universe/etc. and the one you have with Yourself.
Here’s the thing, we’re phenomenally adept at bulls**ting ourselves. Nowhere is this more apparent than when we are describing why, contrary to all popular evidence, we’re ready to be in a relationship when we’ve done no meaningful work on rebuilding the ONLY relationships that matter!
It’s a cliché, but it doesn’t matter because it’s true! We can’t fully love someone without learning how to love ourselves. That doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of love, or that we don’t care about others, or anything like that. It means that until we’ve built a solid foundation of self-esteem and self-love (spoiler alert: that doesn’t happen overnight, or in a month, or in three months) we’ll use the other person to fill a void, or feel better about ourselves.
All of these things that we do in addiction recovery programs, all of the work, and soul-searching, and praying, and meditation – it’s designed to connect us to a God of our own understanding. Guess what? This God already lives within each of us. If we seek it in another person before we seek it in ourselves, we’re doing ourselves a huge injustice. We usually pay for it, too. Maybe not right away, but any relationship that’s put before those two most vital relationships will eventually crumble.
Safe relationships? Whatever happened to safe sex?
Let the Right Relationship Present Itself
As for the actual steps for getting into a healthy relationship? There aren’t any. If you can honestly and earnestly say that you have a solid relationship with yourself and God, then chances are you won’t be actively seeking a relationship. Usually, faith that the right relationship will present itself in your life goes hand-in-hand with those two things.
The beautiful thing about unreservedly loving yourself is that you get to a point where you won’t settle for less than you deserve. You’ll have this gut instinct that explains what this means for you. So, if you want to get into a healthy romantic relationship, the first thing you should do is wait.
