Rehab isn’t about drugs or alcohol

It’s actually about behaviour and mind-set. “I am an addict and I always will be.”

This is an account of an ex-resident at South Coast Recovery Centre, a place that changed his life.

There is no cure to this devastating disease however it is manageable.

Just like a diabetic would have to manage their blood sugar levels, an addict has to manage their environment and mental health.

Some say it’s simple, others say it’s complicated, for me it depends how you look at it.

I have lived in active addiction to alcohol for more than a decade and I can tell you first hand it only gets worse.

If there are any addicts out there reading, don’t think some miracle is going to change things for you because miracles don’t happen in this business.

I am not a religious person but even a religious person will tell you God does not help those who cannot help themselves.

You have to get up and do something about your problem.

A famous cliché quote in recovery circles states: “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” I have been fighting addiction for the better part of six years and I am happy to say things have finally clicked into place for me and what a beautiful journey of self-discovery it has been.

Some people take 28 days to get things under control, others three months, some six months, for me it was a solid year in rehab and five years of half-hearted attempts at stopping.

I have been to the most expensive luxurious rehabs in the country as well as the cheapest labour- intensive hell holes.

They are all unique and benefit different people in different ways. Some 90 % of them however use the 12 step programme and is in use to this day for a reason: If applied correctly, it works.

Most will tell you it’s a spiritual programme and I agree it is but for me personally I had to get down to the why? Why do I drink?

Addiction does not discriminate, you will find addiction in any race, religion, profession, age, gender, nationality, wealth class or background.

It does not care how much money you have, if you have a family or if you have a doctorates degree.

I shared rooms with convicted criminals who spent years in South Africa’s worst prisons. I met people who came from living under bridges. I spent time with lawyers and doctors getting high on morphine.

I rubbed shoulders with royalty, yes you read that correctly, members of the Monaco Royal Family all with the same disease, addiction. Everyone is on level playing fields here. The only way to get out is to surrender.

First, to win, you have to give up. This paradox can be a bit confusing but it’s a simple concept.

You have to surrender to the fact that you cannot keep this kind of lifestyle up any longer, you have to realise you are playing with your life and it’s dangerous territory.

You also have to surrender your life over to the care of professionals or the programme in general. If you could not stop on your own, then you have to throw in the towel and let the professional help take over.

I was drinking on a daily basis from morning to night, whilst trying to manage a somewhat “normal” life but by the end I wasn’t fooling anyone, not even myself. That was not a normal life.

Here’s the catch, for most people, you have to go through significant mess ups and horrific mistakes in life before you want to change.

Some call this hitting rock bottom. Everyone has different rock bottoms but at the end of the day, the real rock bottom is buried six feet underground.

This disease left untreated will without a shadow of doubt result in either jails, institutions or death.

The stats for successful recovery are dangerously low but I prefer to look at one statistic that trumps all others.

Recovery is 100 percent possible for everyone and anyone.

A big part of the 12 step programme in a very general sense is making peace with yourself and your past.

For me, I realised my problems were buried deep in self-esteem and insecurity issues and I had to find out where these insecurities came from.

Most if not all people, addicts or not, harbour some sort of trauma or pain.

You may not even realise you had trauma, it could be hiding in the back of your mind somewhere and it takes some digging to find it. It may be something as simple as what a school bully did one day to you. It could be as serious as regular sexual abuse of a minor, but how we see this trauma is all relative.

You can’t tell me that being picked on one day at school was not as bad as witnessing murder because everyone’s trauma is different and viewed differently by the perceiver. It’s all relative. I found out where my childhood trauma came from, I made peace with it, I forgave, I processed and I moved on. That’s what this is all about.

In the process I started to discover that people actually enjoyed the sober me.

That I was drinking to hide behind my insecurity and depression. I enjoyed a clear mind again. People have now become a pleasure to talk to rather than a difficult task. Sobriety is not a prison sentence, it is now a favoured lifestyle choice.

I found sobriety. I found myself. I found peace. I found happiness.

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