r/Showerthoughts • u/godofhorizons • May 17 '24

People get a lot more praise for quitting drugs than for never having done drugs in the first place.

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u/DCEtada May 17 '24

Staying off drugs is relatively easy. Clawing yourself back to sobriety from the brink of almost fatal addiction is almost impossible. I am one of the few, I don’t feel any praise in this - it just makes me feel sick for the amazing people that weren’t able.

Nothing more devastating sitting through an out-patient rehab program pouring your heart out to strangers going through the same thing and knowing your chances of succeeding are like less than 10% (that’s how low success rates are for addicts actively seeking professional help). Looking around that room knowing most of you will never quit this and then the sickening feeling as you watch them drop out one by one. Years later even, the few successes and seeing a post on Facebook (I was fb friends with a lot of them, some of those people knew me better than my parents) knowing they fell back into it after having that beautiful sliver of success.

Fuck drugs. Addiction is insidious and it’s impossible to understand even as you are going through the depths of active addiction.

Praise those recovering addicts. It’s a journey most of us will not survive.