Why I'm Being Vague About My Addiction
There are a few reasons. I've been thinking about starting this blog for a while, and I think this is the right way to do this. (The original title of my first post was “Let's call it 45 days”) Here's why I think staying vague is the right move.
I'm Ashamed
Of course I am. I wasn't supposed to be an addict. That was never part of the plan, obviously. I don't like the fact that this is part of my life. I want to share what I've learned without sharing what's wrong with me. Call it pride or shame or cowardice, whatever you like. It's my blog, I'll be vague if I want to. 😃
Staying Vague Means I Can't Overshare
I've been to a number of group therapy programs. One of the first rules is that we should talk about what we're doing to recover, not what we did when we used. Humans are good at imagination, and it's easy to read someone's experiences and imagine yourself in the same place, following the same steps. Oversharing can trigger someone else to use again. It could trigger me to use again.
It (Hopefully) Makes the Things I Share More Widely Applicable.
I suspect that there are elements of addiction that are common to all of us that struggle with it. (Well, I don't just suspect it, Iv'e been told as much in therapy.) If this was a blog about my specific “flavor” of addiction people could easily say “Oh, I'm not addicted to that, so this doesn't apply.” They might be right, my experiences might be totally unique to me and useless to anyone else, but I'd like to hope that something I write might be helpful to someone, and I don't want to cut that off before it starts.
I'm Not Actually This Pretentious, This is Hard to Write.
Ugh. I hate how I sound here. So pretentious. I know you can't see my face, so I'll tell you that I'm not trying to sound all intelligent and “right”; I certainly don't feel that way. Mostly I'm scared that I'm wasting people's time, and I've been thinking about this a long time. I'm just trying to say all of this as best I can so you can see where I'm coming from.
Not sure who “you” are, of course. The Internet is weird.
-A