Hi! I’ve struggled loads with addictions to alcohol and other drugs, spending large chunks of my 20s and 30s totally in thrall to one substance or another. I spent several years trying and failing to get sober, and finally succeeded 2.5 years ago. I’m sorry you’re going through it; it’s fucking agonizing.
One thing I found indispensable in early sobriety was fellowship, and I think this is true of a very large % of people who successfully recover. 12 Step programs can be an awkward fit, but also have huge fellowships in many areas, and I was able to get a fair amount out of them eventually. Buddhist recovery was also fairly helpful for me. In my experience, unfortunately, existing secular programs suck.
Feel free to message me if you’d like to talk. Wherever you are in your journey, there’s a very good chance I’ve been there, and have known many other people who have as well. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to organize some kind of recovery fellowship within EA and would be open to doing that if there are others interested, as well.
As a result a few more people have expressed interest in an EA recovery group, so I created a Discord chat to coordinate and discuss the possibility further:
Thanks, I appreciate you sharing this. My point is roughly: I have told most but not all of the people closest to me about it, and I’m gradually decreasing the amount I drink each night to avoid rapid withdrawal problems (and failing many nights). I think an EA fellowship/get together on this would be a great idea, though my wi fi is terrible so I personally would be unlikely to attend unless it was in-person.
It probably doesn’t narrow it down too much for me to say that I’m in New York City (and honestly even if it does, I don’t worry so much about some people being able to guess my identity as just not wanting it to be very public), so there might be enough people by me as well.
Hi! I’ve struggled loads with addictions to alcohol and other drugs, spending large chunks of my 20s and 30s totally in thrall to one substance or another. I spent several years trying and failing to get sober, and finally succeeded 2.5 years ago. I’m sorry you’re going through it; it’s fucking agonizing.
One thing I found indispensable in early sobriety was fellowship, and I think this is true of a very large % of people who successfully recover. 12 Step programs can be an awkward fit, but also have huge fellowships in many areas, and I was able to get a fair amount out of them eventually. Buddhist recovery was also fairly helpful for me. In my experience, unfortunately, existing secular programs suck.
Feel free to message me if you’d like to talk. Wherever you are in your journey, there’s a very good chance I’ve been there, and have known many other people who have as well. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to organize some kind of recovery fellowship within EA and would be open to doing that if there are others interested, as well.
Since posting this post, I’ve written more about my experience and given updates here:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/F2MfbmRAiMx2PDhaD/some-observations-on-alcoholism
As a result a few more people have expressed interest in an EA recovery group, so I created a Discord chat to coordinate and discuss the possibility further:
https://discord.gg/DwMw9C6p
This might wind up being temporary and I’m happy to switch to something else, but it seemed like I should at least set it up to get started.
Thanks, I appreciate you sharing this. My point is roughly: I have told most but not all of the people closest to me about it, and I’m gradually decreasing the amount I drink each night to avoid rapid withdrawal problems (and failing many nights). I think an EA fellowship/get together on this would be a great idea, though my wi fi is terrible so I personally would be unlikely to attend unless it was in-person.
Don’t know where you are, but there might be enough people here in the bay for it to make sense.
It probably doesn’t narrow it down too much for me to say that I’m in New York City (and honestly even if it does, I don’t worry so much about some people being able to guess my identity as just not wanting it to be very public), so there might be enough people by me as well.