I didn’t realize the deep journey I would be taking into my own mind when I started writing this book. It has been a tough slog as I remembered things long forgotten and worked through old feelings. I have learned a great deal about myself while putting this project together. My goal is that you find some of yourself in these pages so you consider joining sobriety and recovery too.
I am keeping this book anonymous in the spirit of recovery. It covers many issues and topics that are unique or amplified in veterans suffering from alcoholism and other addictions.
There is also a self study workbook, so get a notebook and pen dedicated to your sober march. These questions will help you uncover some of the deeper shit that might be affecting you as a veteran. They are not a replacement for working your steps, just extra credit. Digging deep into yourself is where the long term healing and life long sobriety occurs.
It is vital to share your responses with somebody else. You can go through them with your sponsor, a mentor or a church leader. Just be sure you can trust them and can open up to them without anything negative coming back. It would be ideal to have a sponsor that is a veteran.
I won’t sugarcoat it. Sobriety can really suck at first. When we take away our substances of numbing and escaping, we start to feel again. The memories and emotions we have suppressed might rise up with intensity. But, it gets better with time and self reflection, I promise. Dealing with it is how we save our lives.
Veterans have unique drivers of addiction that civilians don’t. I can say this because I am a veteran who was a blackout drinker for 17 years, then added weed for another 10 after getting out.
I haven’t had a drink in six years or any drugs in four years. I was sick and broke in every way when I decided to try recovery. It’s a miracle I’m alive. I would be a rotting corpse without AA!
As I sobered up and started to learn about myself, I began to see certain drivers of my addiction were unique to me being a veteran. So, this is the book I wish I had when I was trapped in addiction or newly into recovery.
But to practice some radical honesty, I was a drunk because I’m an alcoholic! I was a pothead because I’m a marijuana addict! Addiction is genetic for me, but my upbringing, military indoctrination, deployments, PTSD, depression and the ways I was trying to cope all mixed to fuel my self destruction.
I also share principles and sayings that are helpful to keep repeating to stay sober. Being trapped in substance abuse is a habitual, repetitive action. So, we must reiterate things to ourselves and act until they shape us into new, sober, improving people. A spiritual veteran in recovery is your new identity to adopt if you want to stay out of hospitals or jails and avoid a miserable death.
Many sections of this book won’t apply to you. But please focus on the similarities that hit you like that wonderful first wake up in bootcamp. Let a phrase, a sentence, or paragraph in this book be your moment of clarity where you truly see your need to change. The step before the steps is to admit, “I’m fucked. I need help quitting!”
My main goal with this book is to bring you out of denial and into recovery. If you are a veteran already in recovery, then I hope this book guides you into deeper healing. Scraping that shit out is tough, but worth it. You can handle the process because you’re a veteran!
The first thing we do in recovery is “put the plug in the jug” and set aside the drugs, one day at a time. That means today! It might be the first time you’ve tried sobriety. In that case, welcome to a new life. We’ve saved a chair just for you.
Of course, consult a medical professional if you plan to go cold turkey from drinking or drugs. You can die from DTs and convulsions depending on how much you are drinking and what drugs you have going on. You may need to do a medically supervised detox or rehab to get you started, which is great. Many people with decades of sobriety have done this. Ask a doctor, go to the ER, or call your local detox or veteran center.
Keep up with your water intake (hydrate!) and start eating as well as you can. Go to lots of recovery meetings to feel the belonging and understanding. From that basis, you can begin to heal, learn about the parts of yourself fueling addiction, and improve.
I came to the fellowship of AA completely broken in every way: physically, mentally, spiritually, and economically. I was completely isolated and had a host of mental problems. After a little while of recovery I began to heal. The rooms of recovery are actually the first place where I felt I belonged, oddly enough.
As I stayed sober one day at a time, I began to be honest about the things going on inside me and the shitty things I had done, mostly while wasted. Life got easier and recovery has been worth it. I was certainly headed towards an early death as another veteran statistic. That doesn’t have to be you either.
Repeat this to yourself throughout the days: “I will stay sober and clean today. I do not need to keep suffering.”
Early in sobriety, I began to re-learn about myself, my drivers of addiction, and how the military mind played into my self inflicted suffering. I began to get the idea a military ego was implanted into all of us. Most of that needs to be released for sobriety and inner peace. I will discuss those notions a lot throughout these pages.
This book is based on the observations and honest admittings of my past few years in recovery. I want to share the patterns I see in myself and my fellow veterans that are healing from various addictions.
I am not unique. I was just a hope to die alcoholic, pothead veteran that now enjoys to write about it. Sure, I was brutal on myself for a long time, but that has turned into a magnifying glass pointed inwardly at my mind. I was able to dissect my military ego and the many aspects that relate to addiction, depression, anxieties, PTSD, and healing.
It’s amazing when I bring up an idea from this book to another veteran in recovery. They mostly agree as if I just said the most obvious thing in the world. Yet, most of us hardly talk about any of it.
If you think this book will help somebody you know, please send them here. When it is complete, there will be a free pdf of it at SoberVeterans.org/book
Writing this book has been many things for me. It is a way to be of service to you, a veteran that might be suffering. I haven’t seen any other books about this from our perspective, so I went for it.
As I pondered and brainstormed, I peeled many layers of my own thoughts, feelings and experiences, which was not something I expected. If it gets preachy in places, it is because I am talking about something that worked well for me.
I hope my writings help you dig out of your own collapsed foxhole. Just reach your hand up and the people in recovery will pull you out.
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