Thinking of drinking and getting high? "Play the Tape Through."- A useful tool of Addiction Recovery
17Thinking of drinking and getting high? "Play the Tape Through."- A useful tool of Addiction Recovery. When considering relapse, think of ALL the ramifications. Soberdelic James live stream everyday at 4:30
Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqy7U-Yv4bWsBmo8HCefsvQ/join
SJ’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/soberjames
SJ's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/soberdelicjames
SJ's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@soberdelicjames
SJ's Cashapp: http://cash.app/$Soberdelicjames
#aa12 #soberdelicjames #addictionrecovery #alcoholicsanonymous #12steps
Try playing the tape through. When an addict’s desire to abuse drugs or alcohol strikes, they recall the full experience of what it means to get high – from beginning to end – from the moment of desire to euphoria, all the way through to the dark, ugly path it leads them on. They play the tape through as a strategy to get past the struggle of that longing.
When Leilani began to play her tape through, she witnessed the severity of her addiction. She saw that what would begin as an urgent need for a shred of happiness that she felt could only come from a pipe would quickly become a desperate search for a way to hide what she had done.
Growing up in the foster system, Leilani had a traumatic upbringing. At eighteen, she emancipated from the system and moved into a transitional living home where she was first introduced to meth. Meth became an escape from the trauma, and at the time she thought it filled the hole in her heart where she wanted the love of a family to be.
She met a young man who had also grown up in the foster system and battled his own addiction to alcohol. Despite their substance abuse, they wanted to start a family together. Leilani convinced herself that she was staying clean when she stopped using meth and began using prescription opioids. After the birth of her son, Leilani continued using prescription drugs. Five years later, she and his father broke up, and she went back to meth. She started using so heavily that she let go of her son and began living on the street. This destructive path continued until her son’s father tragically died in a car accident.
“I was in jail when I found out, but I knew I had to step up for my son.”
For four years, Leilani bounced around from home to home, using needles to get high, dealing with toxic relationships and, all the while, trying to raise her son in that unstable environment. By the age of nine, he had attended six different schools, while Leilani continued to find ways to dodge the system and keep her son with her.
“My biggest fear was my son being taken away.”
When his father’s friends that were helping out finally tired of Leilani running around at night while they cared for the child, they called CPS. She devised a plan to test clean and meet someone with a pipe in the parking lot as soon as she finished. The plan derailed, and Leilani was caught using.
“I finally just surrendered. I thought, ‘How am I going to put my son through what I went through in the foster system.’”
It turned out to be exactly what both mother and son needed. Her son was relieved to have a stable place to stay while Leilani met the system’s requirement to call an outpatient rehab program. For a month she visited her son on Fridays, got loaded on weekends and then stopped for a couple of days each week just long enough to test clean on Fridays for her visits. This was the lowest point.
“I wrote a suicide letter to my son. I thought I’d jump off a building, hang myself… I played around with a shotgun. Then I tried but couldn’t do it.”
Then she had an appointment at Cedar House Life Change Center.
“I was convinced it wasn’t going to work. I got high in the parking lot before going in. I was so terrified of not having drugs.”
With that attitude and a steadfast belief that she could not recover, Leilani began her treatment. It wasn’t until the first panel she attended that she began to open her mind to the idea of recovery.
“The panel was so amazing. It opened up my heart, and I saw hope. I realized I was a good person; I was just broken.”
One of the most influential parts of her Cedar House treatment was her counselor Michelle who taught her to “walk and talk with love in your heart” and always reminded her about the importance of these four components of recovery: going to meetings, finding a sponsor, working the steps, and being of service.
When she completed the program, Leilani was relieved to learn there was a bed available at Steps 4 Life sober living. She rode her bike six miles everyday to work at a warehouse in Redlands. She attended NA meetings and got a sponsor. In April she was able to reunite with her son and close the CPS case. play the tape through, thinking of drinking, thinking of getting high, tools of addiction recovery, soberdelic james live stream, Alcoholism sobriety, sobriety tool