{"id":879,"date":"2025-07-02T17:18:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sober.ie\/?p=879"},"modified":"2025-07-02T17:18:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:18:31","slug":"im-a-thirty-five-year-old-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sober.ie\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/im-a-thirty-five-year-old-child\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a thirty five year old child.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My primary purpose for coming to Cuan Mhuire is to grow up. To learn to grow up. If I manage to get some sobriety in the real world that would come as a bonus. I would be very grateful to get it this time. I have been spoilt my whole life. Spoiled both my family and homeless services too. It has come at a great cost though. I rely on others a lot and have had to compromise my independence. Not that I wanted independence when I was drinking or gambling. I am very fortunate to be given an apartment through Housing First at thirty five. I am also very fortunate that to my knowledge I haven\u2019t lost it\u2026yet. Whenever I pick up a drink all my self respect goes out the window. I have no limits or boundaries when drinking or gambling. I don\u2019t value anything I have, all I care about is finding my next drink or money for a gamble. I have never given myself the space to live and act like someone who is thirty five.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another place I need to look at is behaviours. Three areas which stand out for me are my childish behaviours, my homeless behaviours and my using behaviours. I was twelve years in the homeless system and picked up a lot of behaviours along my journey. One example that comes to mind is I have been housed yet I still act like a homeless person would. If I picked up a drink today I would go straight back to the streets drinking. I would be back socialising with other homeless friends and alcoholics. I would feel the same pain they do. When sober I have my own home, I have family supporting me and I have plenty of guidance through fellowships, my psychiatric team and Cope Galway &amp; Galway Simon. Yet like a lightswitch I can turn on the self sabotage and lose everything in a flashlight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today I should be celebrating three weeks since I had a drink. Instead I feel low, unmotivated and riddled with stinking thinking &amp; anxiety. No matter what life throws at me I can\u2019t leave this programme. (I did leave this programme after approx four weeks) Two weeks ago I spoke to my psychiatric team quoting my addiction councillor Tom Holton \u201cabout getting off the roundabout\u201d. The only exit I could see on the roundabout was suicide. As the fog and librium induced living lifted I could see another exit. That exit was Cuan Mhuire. I need to remind myself that I have taken that exit and must continue on this road to sobriety. ( I obviously didn\u2019t remind myself enough) I think I could find happiness and contentment living sober. At present I do feel lonely though. I\u2019m almost punishing myself by not being able to connect with fellow alcoholics and gamblers. I don\u2019t understand why I\u2019m so antisocial, So afraid to speak. I have a lot of demons in my head. I need to get them out, but to who? Where? Plenty of skeletons in the closet, I have a lot of recycling to do. Maybe it\u2019s time to work on my story. Maybe I should write one today.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>My primary purpose for coming to Cuan Mhuire is to grow up. To learn to grow up. If I manage to get some sobriety in the real world that would come as a bonus. I would be very grateful to get it this time. I have been spoilt my whole ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-style-5.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,52,65,66,21,62],"tags":[29,28,27],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-addiction","category-cmathy","category-cuanmhuire","category-homelessness","category-mystory","category-reflections","tag-getting-sober","tag-sobriety","tag-time-to-grow-up"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cI\u2019m a thirty five year old child.\u201d - Sober.ie V1.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My primary purpose for coming to Cuan Mhuire is to grow up. To learn to grow up. 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