Fresh Start

Prior to this post my blog was a 5 year running list of whining and self-loathing peppered with a handful of subjects that I had interest in. Of course that kind of mental masturbation never makes for interesting reading so, as one would imagine, I had no one viewing my updates. I would like to say it served as a pressure valve to get things off of my chest but that never happened. In the end It only served to depress me more than I already was.

What I would like to do is educate people on a subject I am quite familiar with which is drug addiction. Having been through "treatment" for the past 25+ years I believe I can maybe help a few folks avoid wasting time and possibly their lives by pursuing things that have been proven NOT to work. I can also offer a unique perspective since, at this very moment, I have relapsed after almost 10 straight years of sobriety. So this is a journey readers and myself can take together.

My main goal is to give people who are suffering from addiction practical advice that can benefit them in the here-and-now rather than vague cliche's or "war stories" that, contrary to popular belief, can actually push people back into the state of mind that precedes using. You will find no 12-step suggestions here. Not because I hate that method of treatment but, after having been railroaded into it for over 15 years by courts, friends, drug treatment facilities, etc I had to finally admit that it wasn't helping. I'll go into how I had to actually forge my own path into sobriety at a time when anything other than "meetings" didn't exist.

And, of course, I'll go into how I ended up falling back into my old behaviors when I was pretty sure I was "in control".

Hopefully one of us will get better, ideally we'll all get better. At the very least you'll know that you aren't alone.

-TJ Landry
November 7, 2009