"Here I'll read to you a firsthand account of a client who I lived with for one month, and we followed up the sober companionship with phone/video support. This was a smooth transition because after you live with a person and their family for a month, you have a deep connection with that person, understand the context around their issues, and they are open to share." — Floyd Orr
I have been an on-and-off user of drugs and alcohol for the past 22 years, most of which has been alcohol. Drugs were recreational, but that played a big part of the impact which alcohol had on me during this period up until now.
I had not really had the opportunity to figure things out for myself during those periods as I had no long-term relationship, so anything I did was just for myself as long as I got by. I got married about nine years ago and that was the first long-term relationship I had, including living with someone aside from friends (people I didn’t have to depend on or affect directly). During this time, I still had not done anything to develop myself or work on co-existing and along with a lot of never-ending financial burdens, my drinking started becoming excessive and more anger and resentment started coming out.
Along the way, with the drug and alcohol use, which was still recreational at this point, I also kept up with a lifelong affection for pornography. My first encounter with that was in 2nd grade when a classmate, at his house, showed me naked pictures he had from a magazine and started doing stuff to me. Since then, I had seemed to always come across or have access to pornography and did not realize how that was affecting my emotional, ethical, and social development which in the long run has affected my marriage.
Inevitably with the proliferation of access to pornography via the internet, I delved deeper into this and the access was just a gateway into the further reaches of accessibility and communication with others and solicitation of anything you could think of. Spiralling out of control, this led to me communicating with people for sexual gratification (not meeting up and doing things, but just seeing how close to doing that I could get and via communication getting sexual gratification). Luckily, my wife had found out about this and through the hurt and emotional destruction of trust, finally had to come to a solution.
My wife had got a program which gave her access to my phone and computer and organizes them so she knows what sites I go to and whatever communication I do, along with screenshots; basically, I am forced to not do what I had been doing, which a lot of this (though not all) was while drinking. While the knowledge of her accessibility to my activities has led me to not go there nor think about going there and has, in effect, led me to stop thinking in the ways I used to (albeit only a few months thus far), we both agreed that in order for our marriage to work and her to be able to fully trust me, something needed to be done. By this point, I had lowered my drinking exponentially from several bottles of wine or a half-gallon of vodka per day (at least) to a few beers to a six-pack (more when the aforementioned came about, because I had no other way to feel anything other than distraught and the fear of never seeing my family again).
Still, I had not dealt with the underlying issues that are at the forefront of my problems and that had stunted my emotional development and intimacy issues. I needed these to be addressed and fixed so that we could move forward and work on our marriage and family life. I had at this point done AA on and off for years (only sometime working with a sponsor), gone to a detox/revitalization facility (which did not work on the problem, just detoxed and rejuvenated my body), and a couple stints of IOP (Intensive Outpatient). I also looked into residential treatment, which was more preferred because of more constant work and counseling, but those are expensive and I don’t have insurance. Added to that, we live on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis and me being away that long would mean no work from me at that time.
There is also the transition from residential to normal life which if you are not prepared for, which most treatment centers do not (at least on the level that is necessary in my opinion so you could live a normal life and not a life of avoidance and discomfort), you would ultimately fall back to your old ways. My wife was recommended to Muslim Sober Companion and we requested information, expecting it to be a huge expense, but we needed options. To our surprise, he was really affordable, especially compared to what was out there for the type of service he provided. The thing that was interesting is that he would be there the entirety of the month following you on your day-to-day activities and helping work through your addictions, self-reflection, and direct, detailed observations of every aspect of your life (free time, work, school, marriage), lots of counseling, counseling with me and my wife, and you develop your own recovery plan.
One that will work best for you with your lifestyle and comfortability, and it is based on Islamic sciences and principles. After talking with Brother Tahsim a few times (once to find out more about the program and a couple of times to get to know him and him to know me and my wife – what we were about and what we expected and what our goals were after he left) we both decided to hire him. Expecting added expense and inconvenience, we were both surprised at the simplicity of his expectations from us and how easily he adapted himself into our house and lives without being intrusive or imposing. Having him quartered here for a month in our small house, he is very accommodating.
He lives by and respects the Islamic lifestyle and as I am a weak-convert, he had taught me to pray and pray correctly and helped with a lot of other things that go along with it. I also ride my bike to commute, so he did as well, and our town is not very easy to get around as it is very hilly, but he jumped right in; he wants you to live as normally as possible so he can help you in that way so that when he leaves, you are set to continue the program you developed. Part of the preparation process was a questionnaire finding out personal information and a brief sketch of my daily life and how we would identify him to our family and friends.
It was agreed that he was my friend visiting me for a bit and it worked out perfectly. This involved him coming to school, work, and family outings. This is important because of privacy and its effectiveness to your comfort level of attaining your sobriety and applying it to your life and, in some cases, but not mine, could affect your job or the way your family and friends view you. With my personality, I do not like people knowing about my addictions, because I do not like being pranced around or people having to change around me for fear of being insensitive or triggering something. So he followed around in an unobtrusive way to observe and offer help when necessary but comes across more as a friend than a sober companion – meaning that he is easy to get along and go around with.
A lot that had hindered my development and progression in my sobriety has to do with not being challenged. With AA, you could or could not have a good sponsor but even that is dependent on meetings and calling and meeting that sponsor. That works for a lot of people, but what happens when you cannot get a hold of that sponsor? It was recommended to get a few sponsors, but that just seems way too complicated for something you do when feeling the need to drink; being that you’d have to call one, two, or three people.
Someone like me has trouble even calling the first one. Then you think of other situations such as on a plane where the need to drink hits you even harder, and the ability to call a sponsor or two is next to impossible or expensive. Just these examples, themselves, were enough for me that AA alone was ineffective. The 12 steps I see as beneficial as there is no emphasis (though it is usually that way) on the Christian God as the higher power for your sobriety and more so is the great amount of self-reflection involved.
IOP was great but it was three days a week for a few hours with a group, which was great for a lot of self-reflection and highly beneficial cross-talk, but the individual portion was limited to an hour of counseling a week. I needed more one-on-one counseling than I could afford. It is easy to be sober but there was obviously something that needed work on. A lot of this had to do with a temper which he saw a lot of the time here. It was also the thing that came about when drunk and what led to a lot of insecurities. What I had noticed thus far was (like most things in life) the things that were less expensive or free were the more beneficial, and with Brother Tahsim you knew his passion for what he was doing. He truly wants to help and for you to overcome your afflictions. He puts as much into the program/regimen as you need and he keeps you active in it with good habits which is what I needed so I would not slack off and/or put things off as I usually do.
The analogy I found was with my current swimming class. I had an interest in swimming for a few years but going to the pool I would swim a lap or two and rest for five minutes and get maybe a few hundred yards in. So I signed up for a Swimming for Conditioning class. During this class I found out that all the swimming strokes I thought I knew were wrong. For instance, in freestyle, my head position and breathing changed everything and now I could last longer and could work on everything else I had wrong. He also pushed us harder which was the discipline I needed to get to where I needed. Now I was swimming 1100-1300 yards in 45 minutes. The discipline, fixing what was wrong to help me progress better, and fine-tuning to be more effective to help my overall development and progression to where I am at now.
It is now about a month since Brother Tahsim has left and I have kept up what was being taught and practiced. I am still sober and mostly I have worked on my temper and, although not perfect, my wife and my mother had noticed a huge difference. My mom had asked if I was doing it just in front of them or if it was real and found out it was real.
