Life Is Ups and Downs
I've had a tough last few weeks. I'm not sure exactly what has changed, but I do know that I've been living in my head much more than I would like. I've been hyper-fixating on things that bother me; relationships, friends,
Jason Schwartz
The Myth Of Being Ready
If I always waited until I was ready for change or ready to do something, then the truth is, I would still be in active addiction. Something that I learned from Steven Pressfield's book "The War of Art" is that sometimes, we just need to go
Every Day Is a Beautiful Day, Even When It’s Pouring
The weather is one of my favourite topics and also one of my least favourite. It’s a love/hate relationship. I love it because it allows me to practice acceptance. I hate it because why is it all that anyone ever talks about? The weather has been one of
The Gym, Recovery and Me
For the longest time, I felt embarrassed by my body. When I was younger, I was very skinny and very small. As I began to drink more and more, I started to gain weight. Now, I wasn't exactly skinny anymore but I also had absolutely no muscle. Don&
My Healing Started With A Change in Perspective
So much of life is about perspective. I used to not understand this. I used to not understand how much weight it had when people would say you have two options: you can either look at the glass half full or the glass half empty. I never understood how profound
Anger Was Only the Tip Of the Iceberg
My inability to regulate and express my emotions was something that started very early in my life. I expressed one emotion and that emotion was anger. Saying that I expressed anger is probably an understatement. I threw temper tantrum after temper tantrum. Most of the time it was when I
730 Days
May 10, 2024 to May 10, 2026. A lot has changed. I am two years sober today. It doesn't feel real. My dad asked me earlier this week how I was feeling as I was approaching two years and the reality is, I think I've been
Learning to Belong
My whole life I went from friend group to friend group, always blaming other people for the reason a friendship didn’t work out. I would find what I thought was my community and then inevitably act out in one way or another, blame them for the falling out and
I Am No Longer Obsessed, But I Still Think About Using
Something that I struggle with being in recovery is the idea that I will always have the battle in my head of the pros and cons of using drugs. I am someone who will fantasizes over what it would feel like to do heroin or meth or crack or ecstasy,
Connection Is The Opposite Of Addiction
Before I got sober, the time that I felt most alone was when I was surrounded by others. I remember vividly, one day, I was sitting in my room alone thinking about how badly I wanted to die. I was crying. I was unstable. I was high. I felt hopeless.
They Said I Needed Treatment. I Thought They Were Crazy
About a year before I got sober, I had broken up with my long time girlfriend, I started doing Xanax again and was also doing whippets and some cocaine. This was after two years of not touching anything other than weed and alcohol. That semester was also the first semester
It Was Never Just The Weed
On April 27, 2022, I smoked weed for the last time. I had decided a few weeks before that it was time for me to stop. I had a lot of trouble with it. I didn't put in any action, I didn't do anything differently. I