Sobriety is a Numbers Game

It’s my birthday today.  Not that birthday.  My sober birthday: 10/23/16. 

I just turned three.  I’m a toddler in recovery years. 

If you haven’t figured it out on my blog yet, I’m an addict.  Junkie.  Alcoholic.  Call it whatever you want.  It doesn’t matter to me. 

Because it doesn’t define me.  To me it’s not a label.  it’s just another part of my life like anything else. 

You might wonder why I would bring this up?  What’s the point in a personal finance blog? 

Well… I’ll give you three reasons to start:

1. Personal finance is PERSONAL.  And this is my blog, I get to write about what interests me.  How I feel.  How I see the spectrum of life.  Unicorns and dandelions.  You get the drift… 
2. Sobriety is a numbers game.  You might not see it on the surface, but I’ll explain. 
3. Mental health affects everything – my relationship with money and how I spend it.  This is obvious when stated.  Yet harder to decipher in practice. 

So let’s begin… 

#1 – Personal finance is PERSONAL. 

You see this said a lot in blog posts, and it is for good reason.  Each of us is unique.  There should be no comparisons.  We live our lives and develop our own distinct voice to sing a song that is uniquely ours. 

And for me, addiction is a seductive melody that plays a central part in my FI story.  My FI journey didn’t begin with it, but my substance abuse struggles helped open my eyes to the fact I can leave the workforce much earlier than I had originally anticipated.  It wasn’t until I was sober that I revisited my financial goals for the future and began taking serious action. 

Recovery is also my foundation.  I see the world through an addict’s eyes.  I point this out because it can be very misleading on the surface – the ‘show’ as I call it.  We’re all familiar with that saying, “the show must go on”.  And it’s true, you suit up and show up.  You’re the lead actor in your life and that’s what you learn best as an addict, how to act… how to play the part.  You understand what it is to be a chameleon. 

Addiction also puts a filter on how I see the world.  It’s like a constant pressure on your mind, it never goes away, it never leaves you.  That’s why FI has become so important.  My time is always ticking, and I don’t know when my card will be called.  I plan my financial decisions around this because any day can be my last.  This might sound dark but it’s not. 

Because the numbers don’t lie… 

#2 – Sobriety is a numbers game. 

In FI we love the numbers, the details, optimizing the shit out of our lives.  We use the data and models to guide our decisions, to motivate us, to measure if we are on track.  They become our safety net and salvation all in one. 

I do the same for my sobriety.  But when it comes to addiction, the picture isn’t so bright, and the odds are never on your side.  I use this as a daily reminder to motivate myself. If I rely only on the numbers, then I shouldn’t be where I am today. 

10% aren’t good odds if you’re trying to survive. 

There are a lot of statistics out there on detox, rehab, recovery, etc.  Just Google it and you’ll see.  I’m not going to get into all the arguments.  All you really need to know is that it’s hard to get good data because you’re trying to put black and white numbers to grey areas.  How do you define success, sobriety, recovery, rehab – outpatient, inpatient, time of stay – relapse, treatment, detox, etc. 

You can get lost in the details quickly. 

But I tend to rely on my experience.  What I’ve seen, heard and felt in the rooms over the years.  As a rule of thumb, most counselors say that the success rate for long term sobriety is about 10%.  Some might argue this is higher.  But I personally think it’s more around 5-7%.

In my last stint in rehab, I’m the last one standing out of a group of 16.  The longer you go the scarier it gets, days, weeks, then months and people are dropping like flies.  They just go dark and don’t show up.  Stop returning calls or sometimes you get the worst news, they didn’t make it. 

All you can do is put your head down, put in your own work and hope for the best. 

And always help if you can. 

Be of service. 

Five years tends to be a magic mark. 

I’m not big on goals in sobriety, because I like to focus on the present, one day at a time.  If you start looking ahead then you can get complacent, or worse yet, arrogant.  I try to keep it simple: live my program to the best of my ability and practice gratitude for a daily reprieve. 

However, there is a number that I pay attention to – the five-year mark in sobriety. 

There is data that supports if you hit the five-year sobriety mark, your chances of relapsing can be less than 15%.  I don’t know what makes this such a successful milestone, but I have my sights set on it.  At year three today, I’m 60% of my way there. 

Mortality comprehension doesn’t tend to sink in until 24-25 years old. 

The folly of youth in the addiction game is invincibility.  I think we’ve all felt it at times growing up.  You take risks because you haven’t lived long enough to truly understand the consequences. 

My first stint in treatment was in high school at 17.  I spent my entire senior year in outpatient rehab.  It was a living hell.  All I could do was go to school, then five hours of rehab on every weekday and meetings on the weekends. 

I didn’t think I deserved any of it at the time.  I thought I knew everything.  But I didn’t.  I was just a kid.  I couldn’t see that my decisions had put me there. 

And I was lucky, at 18 I had figured things out (relatively, I still thought I could beat addiction).  They say it usually takes until about age 24-25 before addicts start to see the world differently.  And it’s only getting harder in today’s age.  Fentanyl is killing kids left and right and we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg yet.  Just wait a few years from now and the opioid epidemic will be hitting new heights that we didn’t think possible.   

It’s a true shame that it takes youth so long to ‘get it’.  Because I knew a lot of kids back then that haven’t made it to today. 

I’ll be honest.  I didn’t even think I would make it to 30, and here I am at age 37 approaching 40.  It’s crazy how fucking lucky in life you can get.  One coinflip and heads you survive or tails you join the black parade. 

#3 – Mental health affects everything, especially health insurance when you’re an addict. 

I don’t think normal people (“normies” we call them) understand the mental health toll addiction can have on a person’s entire life. 

Let’s be clear, there is no cure for my disease.  I suffer daily and do my best to live as full a life as possible while practicing physical, mental and spiritual diligence.  You’ll never know this, because I hide my affliction on purpose.  The constant smiles and witty remarks are all just part of the show.  And that’s how it needs to be when you’re working in corporate America.  I work my program quietly and go about my business.  

As I pointed out in section #2, the numbers for long term recovery are terrifying.  Because of that fact I need to plan for the worst and hope for the best.  All it takes are a couple relapses (if you survive them) and the medical bills can crush you.  Detox, rehab and hospitalization are just one slip away. 

People often ask me what is my biggest fear.  And I answer: being in a car accident. 

You’re knocked out from the impact and the medic pumps you full of morphine and it’s game on.  Once the drug hits your system all bets are off.  There’s not a hint of rationality left with those chemicals singing in your veins. 

That means my health insurance needs to be primo.  I won’t be cutting any corners here.  Because the older you get, you always have another relapse in you, but the real question is do you have another recovery? 

I hope to never have to answer that question again.  But I need to be covered if it does… 

In addition to this post, I’ll also be writing a separate article in which I’ll pull out my actual detox and rehab costs to show what the situation would look like with insurance and without.  The #’s are crazy.  I think this will also help explain why most addicts/alcoholics can be saddled with debt. 

But for today, it’s still my sober birthday.  And a slice of cheesecake with my wife is the tradition. 

So that’s what it will be tonight. 

Happy Wednesday to all. 

And if you’re out there struggling or might need help.  Contact me through the blog or Twitter and we can talk.  Or I can listen.  Sometimes that’s all we need. 

Always remember… 

It’s never too late to begin again. 

-Q-FI