Taking Medication Didn’t Make Me Less Sober: A Sober Swiftie on Recovery

In this song, Taylor never apologizes.

The song refuses to grovel.

Most songs about wrongdoing follow a shape: confession, remorse, request for forgiveness. Resolution if you are lucky. The shape is comforting because it says the debt can be settled.

“I Did Something Bad” declines the shape entirely. She names the thing. She refuses to perform contrition for it. She points out that she gets called a villain for behavior that would be read as strength in somebody else, and then she does not soften the point.

This song reminded me you are allowed to do that. You are allowed to have done a bad thing and not spend the rest of your life on your knees about it.

Play

If It Is So Bad, Why Am I Doing So Good?

Here is the bad thing I did:

I took medication.

That is it. That is the crime. For five years, I took a prescribed medication for a substance use disorder, exactly as directed, from a doctor who went to medical school.

And there are rooms where that sentence ends the conversation. Where I am told I am not really sober. Where my time does not count. Where I am welcome to keep coming as long as I understand I am not one of the people who made it. I have sat in those rooms. I have listened to somebody explain, kindly, with real warmth in their voice, that I was still using.

I want to be precise about what that does to a person because it is not a debate. It is a verdict, delivered by people you came to for help, about whether your effort counts.

If it is so bad, why am I doing so good?

That is the question I could never get anyone to answer.

I am a Certified Peer Specialist. I built a recovery community that has served hundreds of people. I hold down a job in city government. I show up for the people who need me. I am, by any measure that involves actually looking at my life, doing well.

All of that happened on the medication. Not despite it. During it. It was the floor the rest of it got built on.

So when someone tells me the medication was the flaw in my recovery, they are asking me to believe that the thing holding up the whole structure was the thing wrong with the structure. That is not a moral position. That is a logic problem.

I am not on it anymore, and that does not mean what you think.

I came off it after five years. I know exactly how that sentence can be read. Let me close the door on it now.

Those five years were not a waiting room. They were the years I built everything in. Coming off was a decision about my particular situation, made the way these decisions are supposed to get made. It is not a graduation certificate. It settles nothing for anybody else.

Plenty of people should stay on their medication for the rest of their lives. Those people are not stuck partway through my story. They are living their own. Theirs is not a lesser version of mine.

The evidence is not ambiguous.

This is the part where I stop talking about my feelings.

The National Institutes of Health has reported that methadone and buprenorphine reduce the risk of death after an opioid overdose and that these medications remain badly underused. In the year following an overdose, fewer than a third of patients receive any medication for opioid use disorder at all.

The wider picture is worse. Roughly *28% of people who need MAT (Medicated Assisted Treatment) actually get it. The average gap between the onset of opioid use disorder and the start of treatment runs four to seven years. In the research, community bias and stigma are named as barriers to entry and retention, sitting right alongside cost and transportation.

(*The NIH finding comes from a 2018 study of Massachusetts adults who survived overdoses in 2012–2014. “Fewer than a third” describes that study population, not a current national rate. nih.gov The 28% estimate and four-to-seven-year delay appear in a 2023 West Virginia University summary.)

Read that again. Stigma is not a side effect of the treatment shortage. It is one of the causes of it.

Researchers are also clear that the protection only exists while you are taking the medication. Retention is what keeps people alive. Retention has been declining. Longer time in treatment is associated with lower mortality. Many clinicians now consider indefinite treatment the safest course.

In 2023, a team conducted a regional survey of 225 people who were actually in MAT programs, asking what they thought of the rules those programs run on. How long medication should be prescribed. How long a person should be allowed to stay. Whether they should be required to work a 12-step program. The answers came back genuinely split, which is exactly the finding. The researchers concluded that individual circumstances and shared decision-making with a provider should drive those calls.

Not a room. Not a chip. Not a stranger’s assessment of whether you count.

So every time somebody pressures a person to taper off in order to finally be counted as really sober, that person is being pushed toward the exact cliff the research warns about.

Accountability is not the same as accepting someone else’s verdict.

I have done actual bad things. I ended my marriage with an affair. I have been sick and cruel. I have been the person who left wreckage. I have made the amends I could make. There are a couple I will never get to make because knocking on that door again would be for me and not for them.

What the gatekeeping actually costs.

I know the argument on the other side. I have heard it a hundred times, and I understand where it comes from. People got sober one specific way, it saved them, they are trying to hand you the thing that worked.

But 12 steps and AA and Al-Anon have kept people alive for 90 years precisely because those rooms are supposed to be for anyone who wants to stop. The moment a room starts issuing certificates of authenticity, it stops being a place people can walk into on their worst day. And the people most likely to walk back out are the ones who can least afford to.

Being alone is the actual risk factor here. Not the prescription.

What I keep.

“Reputation” is the album where Taylor stops arguing with the verdict and starts deciding who holds the pen. That is not the same as pretending she did nothing. It is a refusal to accept somebody else’s summary as the final word.

Sobriety in pop culture usually gives us the redemption arc. The redemption arc always requires an apology. This album offers something rarer. You can be the person who did the thing and still be the person who tells the story.

I did something bad? I took my medication every morning for five years and flourished.

If somebody has told you your recovery does not count, they were describing their own rules. They don’t get to police your recovery. Whatever is keeping you alive is allowed to be the thing that is keeping you alive.

At Swift Steps® we are team whatever works.

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PLAY IT AGAIN is The Sober Curator’s curated playlist of sobriety anthems—songs that capture the essence of recovery journeys and lift the spirit. From timeless classics to modern hits, these tracks inspire, heal, and motivate, no matter what genre of choice. Each song is handpicked for its power to transport you to another state of mind and remind you why living alcohol-free rocks.

Got a favorite sobriety theme song? We want to hear it! Send your picks to thesobercurator@gmail.com and help us keep the playlist growing.

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Sober Say What?

GLOSSARY OF ADDICTION + RECOVERY TERMS: Welcome to The Sober Curator’s ultimate guide to the language of sobriety, recovery, and alcohol-free living—where words hold power, knowledge, and the keys to a vibrant, substance-free life. This comprehensive glossary shines a light on essential terms that offer wisdom, clarity, and connection for anyone navigating recovery.

From the first spark of curiosity to the joyful celebration of milestones, our glossary helps demystify the terminology of sobriety and recovery. Each definition is designed to empower, educate, and support you on your journey toward wellness, self-discovery, and lasting freedom.

If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in crisis and need immediate help, call 988.

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