When client’s enter our program at Sober College, we ask them to write a goodbye letter to their drug and alcohol dependence and addiction. We found that young adults dealing with drug and alcohol dependence found out a lot about their disease in this process.
Here is one of our client’s letters:
Dear Addiction,
I will never truly be able to say goodbye to you. They say that there is no cure for drug and alcohol addiction so i suppose you’ll always be somewhere inside me. However i have decided to stop giving you the satisfaction of control. You will no longer be enabled to control my thought, decisions, and actions every day of my life. You will no longer be who i turn to in times of elation or in times of struggle. I have become a new person, self-sufficient in every aspect of my life. Support my drug addiction will only slow me down and cripple or kill me in the long run. Having said that, i have many doubts about how my life will look without you around. You influenced ever minute of my life for so long. Ruining jobs, relationships, academic success, and emotional progress seemed to be your only purpose. When i finally was able to take a step back and actually take a look at what my life had become with you, i was disgusted. Now, those times are history. I am excited to move forward in the world rather than stagnating on a level of success that i reached when i was fifteen years old. I do have fears about what the future holds, but i feel empowered to face them head-on in sobriety. For five years you were my best friend, and my worst memory. Now, drug addiction is just a blemish of my past that i am forced to accept. Now the only direction to move is forward and I am not looking back.
Best,
Alex H.