Two Years Clean - The Start of Something New
Yes. It’s real. I’m two years clean.
Two years without a single psychoactive substance in my blood or in my brain. Two years of letting my neurotransmitters try to reset themselves — because that’s what has to happen after you stop. People think recovery is just “stop using.” But the physiology doesn’t care about motivation. Your brain has to rebuild itself, molecule by molecule, and that process takes years. And honestly, I don’t think mine will ever go back to how it was before. I damaged it too much.
Hard drugs and rivers of alcohol left scars that are permanent. I can feel it. There’s still this giant black hole in my memory — almost a year and a half gone. Not “hazy.” Gone. I woke up one day and realised a whole season of my life was missing. It happened after the second time I technically died — clinical death, resuscitation, minutes I will never remember.
When I woke up I felt fine. Normal. Until I didn’t. Until I realised all those memories simply were not there.
I was stupid. I had to learn things the hard way, and the price was high. And sometimes I want to tell people not to use drugs by telling them what happened to me. But it doesn’t work. People don’t hear warnings — they hear comparisons.
When you say, “Look what happened to me, this might happen to you,” they hear: “He thinks I’m like him.”
And the response is always the same: “Yeah, but I’m not you. I know what I’m doing.”
That sentence alone is the core of addiction:
“I know what I’m doing.”
If you can’t understand that you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s no chance of succeeding. And no, for me this isn’t about the whole “submit yourself to a higher power” thing from AA. I’m not against AA — it works for millions. But the idea of saying alcohol or drugs are somehow superior to me, that I have no chance unless I hand myself over to a god — that’s not my perspective.
I don’t need to give myself into God’s hands. He already has me. Always did.
But that’s not the point of this post.
The point is: I’m two years clean.
Last year I did the things I love — design, develop, shoot. And now I started something I never expected: I’m writing. Publishing wasn’t on my list, but I know I can help people by opening my head a bit. Not everyone — I’m not a therapist. And what I write here isn’t therapy. At best, it’s guidance. At best, it’s experience translated into something someone else might recognize in themselves.
And that’s enough for a first post.
If you want to read more
The last two parts of my longer article series dive deeper into recovery, memory, addiction, and the internal world. They continue where this short post leaves off.
Part 1 – Who Am I?
Read Part 1 in English
Also available in: NL · PL
Part 2 – From Weed to the Street
Read Part 2 in English
Also available in: NL · PL
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Thanks for reading and for being here at the very beginning of this experiment.