LGBTQ and in recovery (drugs and alcohol)

I have never had a substance abuse problem but I do know that here are people with problems at least with alcohol and probably with narcotics as well. I'm sure you will find support.

 

Congrats! Im reallt happy for you!

I personally havent had an addiction. My dad is an alcoholic, and my boyfriend does alot of weed, so I kinda have some experience with addicts. My dad has it really bad and its never nice to have something like that around your life.

Lots of luck for the future!
hugs

 

Hey guys. I'm scorpiontx91. I'm a 24 year old bi Latin guy. And I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. By the grace of god, I haven't had a drink since April 13, 2016(approx 18 days now sober).

I've had some ups and downs the past few years of my life. I've experimented with alcohol for about 5 1/2 years. I've been drinking more or less through all my college life since 2010. I've had points in my life that I've been sober granted I'll say. I made good attempts starting in Feb '14 when I was in AA in my college where I was getting my undergrad, I was just making attempts to "stay sober and graduate" basically. And I really didn't get my feet wet and complete all the 12 steps. I did 7 steps pretty fast and slightly half asssed stuff. I just picked a sponsor that I could relate to and was near my age: this pretty boy/preppy White boy that had 2 years clean and was going to the same AA group as I did. He was chill but we were close somewhat.

Anyway, I graduate and leave that area and I go back to my hometown. I get accepted into grad school on a late application submission. So I get to go to college again. So I'm in my hometown(San Antonio) and I'm getting my admission stuff for grad school on my emails. I get some email about this "recovery center" and it caught my attention.

So I slowly reach out to this guy that's sending these emails out.

He reached out to my via phone call and we talk. The guy was a fellow guy in recovery with about a decade clean time and he's in his early 30s. He's the directory of the emerging recovery center at the college. And he seemed energetic(and he's really like this in real life) about recovery and everything. So we talk and he invites me out to some speaker thing in Austin in a few weeks. I go there and we check it out. It cool. I met some UT people in recovery and other Austin people. And everything was cool.

So a few weeks later, I settle into my new college. I live on campus and I feel like "it's a new chapter." It felt like that. I met Clayton's sponsee Travis and he lives in the same appartment complex oncampus as me. We connect and slowly form a friendship. I mean, I felt happy. I had this recovery community, I was planting the seed and I was connecting with younger people in recovery and maybe being this "mentor." I just felt at the time, like I was going to be this graduate student guy just sitting in the armchair and just being a mentor to these freshman guys that are just starting out. I felt like I did my "thing" in undergrad of getting fucked up, I'm "retired" and I'm enjoying being sober.

Well....staying "retired" didn't last forever as I found out.

I just was going in different directions all throughout this entire period. I was putting myself in the college recovery program at my college, I was getting myself into Young AA in San Antonio(which I would enjoy at first, then slowly start to find as "corny/cheesy/high school shit" gradually and gradually. The Young AA stuff was getting to me slowly and slowly, I felt like it was some cliquish high school shit that I was getting tired of. I'm not blaming these guys for what was going to happen to me, but I just felt like I didn't belong there despite being 'young' AA. "Young AA" didn't really feel "Young AA" rather just a bunch of late 20s-mid 40 guys and ladies just acting like they were teenagers and early 20s and it felt odd to me. I just never really found my niche there, and slowly and slowly I drift away. At times, I swung back when I felt like I liked it or when I was bored. There was some good in there, it wasn't all shitty.

I was in grad school, trying to be a sober grad student. I did have a good and bad time my first semester academically. I did participate well but I never really found good friendships with people the first year I was there. People not near my age, people too snotty, etc. My incoming fall 2014 class in my MA program I didn't relate to. So I just retreated from them and just stuck with the recovery center people and Young AA people. They "were my people."

So I'm there doing all that. I slowly get pulled away from that slowly in late October 2014. I mean, I learned by this point: Travis was smoking weed but it wasn't a big deal. He had a mutual friend that I befriended that I felt was a good friend for him and me.

I slowly get into smoking weed with them. I get into the "party scene" again at the ripe age of 22. I mean, I felt like I was "back in the saddle." I wasn't going to be the miserable lone wolf I was a year prior in 2013 that went to bar after bar in my old college town and trying to find people at bars to be my friends or whatever. Here was a good chance to redeem myself and start a new. So I took this chance and held onto it tight.

So I did. It was good and bad, I slowly got into booze but it wasn't a big deal yet. I just drank on the weekend and ate while drinking. I only went to one bar that was walking distance from my appartment on campus, so I was playing it safe. Slowly, I was getting away from that bar and trying other bars near campus. I didn't have big issues(blacking out everytime I drank wasn't a problem yet or getting really drunk every time I drank).

Yeah I drank with Travis and smoked weed with him. But while I was doing all that, I was pulling away from recovery and AA. Why? Well, Travis had some "falling out" with the director of the recovery program who was also his sponsor(they met before Travis went to college at another place prior), he had discovered Travis was smoking weed from someone. It was an odd issue because it was during an odd time it happened this. I didn't want to pick sides, I didn't like picking sides. So while Travis and I were smoking and drinking, I was just going to meetings at times whenever I did. I was trying to keep a balance for a while. I stuck with Travis because I felt some emotional and amicable connection to him. I wanted to look out for him. And we started to show feelings for each other gradually: we said "I love you a lot", hugs lasting a while, and holding each other, and it was getting to show that. I knew I loved him.....so yeah.

That's how I started my spiral into a giant 15-16 month "relapse" into my graduate school life following getting sober while in the final weeks of my undergrad.