Thoughts after about 8 months clean minus bumps in the road + mini professional advice

So, I have a BSW (bachelor in social work) and have worked in the addiction field for around 6 years. Mainly alcohol and drug abuse.

Anyway, all addiction patterns have extremely similar traits. The only difference I can see is the negative affects. Meth you lose your teeth, alcohol you can kill somebody drunk driving, PMO, you can get into more hardcore porn, etc etc.

One of the patterns that I, and any person who has worked in addiction before, is relapse patterns. Every addict will relaspe on their way to a life of sobriety. Every one. Some of my clients went to rehab 10 times over a 10 year period(on average) before they finally got clean and sober.

Binges, stints in jail, all apart of the process of either getting clean and learning lessons, or just wallowing in your self pity and mistakes. For me, since I have around total 8 months clean, but 40 days hardcore mode clean, the relapses for me were a wake up call. Why I did it, the bad feelings after word, what lead to it, etc etc.

Basically, I want to encourage people who relapse not to beat themselves up over it. Learn from your mistakes. Below are great links that can help people if they relapse. It also shows the process from a psychological perspective.

http://psychology.tools/stages-of-change.html

http://psychology.tools/lapse-and-relapse-management.html

In the center of the stages of change is says the following quote, "Upward spiral, learn from each relapse"

 

Um.......thanks for the haiku. Credentials are irrelevant? Sure because it allowed me to get a job, to see how addiction works as well as support myself, and help people with addiction? Ask a person without any credentials who doesn't have a job then. More about straight forward experience? I talked about straight-forward experience. Quoting myself here " For me, since I have around total 8 months clean, but 40 days hardcore mode clean, the relapses for me were a wake up call. Why I did it, the bad feelings after word, what lead to it, etc etc.". Since you too, have similar credentials, why didn't you contribute to this post instead of making an awkward haiku that really didn't serve any purpose.

And yes, since we have similar credentials, you could have quoted the big book, (I assume you know what that is)when it says "knowledge of the problem doesn't necessarily lead to a solution of the problem" not a direct quote but I hope you can see the jist...I guess Ill end this post with an awkward smile from my laptop...because I still am trying to figure out your post, and why you posted it.