Find yourself isolating a bit lately?
Avoiding others? Hiding away?
Making up excuses not to keep your disease in check?
“TF you talking about? I’m fine…What day is it?”
It’s okay. We all feel that urge to hole away sometimes and avoid interaction. The thing is, though, we need to be able to talk with someone other than our own inimical monkey-mind about life’s arising issues. From our cravings to the unrelated daily vexations that make us have them in the first place, reality’s excellent at pitching shiz at us. And it’s always nice to have someone at the ready to arm us with a relatability bat for a home run. But if running to your home is literally all you ever wanna do, that can be hard. That unique clean guru you acquired is great ‘n all. But what do you do when your sponsor’s at work? In a movie? Having an issue of his own? And can’t be reached?
Why, use our other collective cultural addiction to fix it, obviously..
Our phones.
’cause, lucky for us, there’s an app called Sober Grid – which proves solitude doesn’t have to mean isolation anymore:
(I had no idea most addicts were white, 20 year old, American Apparel models. But we’ll go with it.)
Think of it as kind of a sober-focused Facebook. People log onto Sober Grid to share, listen, get inspired, and get talked down from cravings. Much like it is in ZuckerLand, you’ll see a feed of updates when you log in where you can sobrie-tweet whatevz going on in your life. Also, you can always widen your network. And if you need help ASAP? There’s this “burning desire” button – which is basically a Bat Signal for your pals to help hamper your hankerings before they can turn into using. Think: “Field of Fiends”. If you click it, they will come. And they will relate. And they will help you remember why it’s a terrible idea.
Named the best sober app on either Apple or Android devices, the thing’s already helped a shiz ton of ex-junkies ‘n drinkers. And for good reason too. Because, testimonials plastered onto the website aside, it’s actually helped people I personally know. Example? A buddy’ve mine, Kyle, who’s coming up on his nine year anniversary this May:
Another fun feature on this thing is their geo-locator.
While I generally loathe the notion of being “tracked” by anything, there is something to be said about finding local folk who share your desire to eschew extracurriculars of the mind altering variety. I say this because, as someone who doesn’t exactly live in a metropolis, the meetings are sometimes kinda sparse. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve met some stellar souls up in there. But, the thing is, not all of them are necessarily people I’d hang out with to grab a coffee or dinner with. In the initial stages of recovery, I’d find myself compartmentalizing. Socializing at the meetings – but then only talking recovery when I’d grab a latte with a fellow clean companion. It felt like all we had in common was this one malevolent force we actively had to keep in check everyday. I wanted something more in common than an invisible enemy, you know? Sure, it’s crucial to keep clean at our foundation, but I wanna connect on a higher level too – what do you do for fun, now that you’re a few years clean? What are your passion projects? How was your kid’s dance recital? All that kinda stuff. You don’t exactly get to choose who’s going to be at your meetings. And sometimes that’s great (because it opens you up to seeing A.) different viewpoints and B.) how we’re all essentially the same, at our core). But, other times, it’s less good. People won’t follow the meeting rules or they’ll get off track, deterring you from returning. With a browse-able local sober network, you can customize your recovery by locating peeps in your proximity who you might better connect with in the flesh.
So, friends, I’d highly suggest downloading this app now and taking an eyeball tour of it. That way, next time you find yourself going all Gollum in the hovel you call home, you’ll have some sober associates to virtually invite into your clean quarantine. It’s a way of connecting without doing all the stuff you don’t wanna do when you’re in isolation mode (like: leave the house, speak, wear anything but underpants…) The upside? Between the inspirational interaction and that geo-locator, all that apathy might just change.
You might even find some local sober-ians you’re willing to conclude your seclusion for.