Well I think the goal is to be happy moment by moment as much as you can. So what's the problem with pleasuring yourself? Just strive for getting outside your own ego as much as you can, and then you're still moving forward, I say.
I'm not sure I can agree with that. I'm not sure I should agree with that, for my own safety.
See, my problem is that, more often than not, that instinct or drive or need to pleasure myself, to make myself happy, has led me to do stupid, self-destructive things. On more than one occasion now, it has come close to killing me. And it's a virtual certainty that, if left unchecked, someday it will succeed. So pleasuring myself is my problem. And so I feel that, for my own good, I can't allow myself to just try to be as happy as possible moment-to-moment. Because what happens when the thing that will make me happy is also something that hurts me in some way?
So I feel like I need to do something to correct that behavior, that need to pleasure myself. And right now, I'm not sure that I actually am. Yes, it's true that I'm no longer indulging in those self-destructive pastimes at the moment, and that I've replaced them with more self-constructive activities, but I don't feel that I can take any credit for that. Because I didn't do anything to foster that change. The circumstances around me have changed, but I'm still responding to them in the same way I always have before. I still feel just as strong of a need to pleasure myself, it's just that the methods in which I want to achieve that pleasure are now different. As I said yesterday: before I wanted to get high and get off, so that's what I did, and now I want to meditate and study mathematics, so that's what I'm doing.
The root cause of my self-destructive behavior lies in that need to make myself feel as good as possible for as much of the time as possible. Yes, I'm now indulging that need in a constructive manner, but since I had no hand it actually making that happen and am only following where the flow takes me, then how can I trust in that and believe that I am now somehow "better?" I have put no Will into this. I am not behaving any differently, not really. I'm just responding to different stimulus in the same manner as before. So, what happens when the novelty wears off? What happens when I suddenly find that I'm not deriving the same amount of joy and satisfaction out of these healthy activities as I once did?
What happens when I finally do want to get high again?
Because that day will come, no question. And if I haven't done anything to correct the root cause of that desire, then how will I be able to resist it? And I guess that's the problem in a nutshell: I'm not resisting. Because for me, there's nothing to resist.
Most people in my situation (newly-sober addicts) are in a constant battle against their own desires. They are struggling against themselves to try and resist the urge to do the one thing they want to do more than anything else. And their entire recovery is built around that internal conflict. I know that I am an addict because I have experienced that conflict for more of my life than I care to admit, and because most of the times that I have fought those urges, I have lost. But that is not my experience now; that is not what I'm going through today. I'm not getting high right now because I do not want to get high right now. I am sober because, right now, I want to be sober. I have no urges to resist or fight against. They just disappeared, and I ran with it. And so that makes me feel like I'm not really doing the work. Like I'm not really getting any better. That I just got lucky. That I had a brief window of opportunity, and I seized on it.
But this is not going to last forever. Eventually, the winds of my desire are bound to blow back in the other direction again. And I'm going to need to know ahead of time how to respond when that happens, or else it's going to catch me off guard and I'm going to fall right back into the same self-destructive patterns that I feel so blessedly and falsely liberated from right now. But how can I possibly prepare for that? Should I be resisting every pleasurable desire I have, irrespective of de-structive vs. con-structive? Do I need to be living a monastic life? (Frankly, I'd rather OD.)
Maybe I just need to cross that bridge when I come to it. Maybe there's no point in worrying about it. Maybe I should just accept this period of productive activity for what it is, and be grateful that it came so easily to me. Maybe I should just focus on how lucky I am that I don't have to go through that struggle the way so many other addicts do.
And it would be so easy to do all of that, if only I felt in any way responsible for this change of fortune. If I just felt that I had some hand in bringing this release about, then I would know that I actually am resisting, that I am doing the work - just in my own unique way, outside the range of the typical experience. The same way I seem to do just about everything else.
Maybe that is true.
Could that be true?
No, I don't think so. I've fought hard before, and I've won. And I've fought hard, and lost. But this time, I wasn't even fighting at all. I had given in to my desires 100%. And even though I knew I was hurting myself badly I still didn't try to resist. I just didn't have it in me. But then I hit a bottom I hadn't even seen coming. And it scared the shit out of me. And I responded to that fear by running as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Basically, I scared myself straight.
How can I take credit for that?
I can't. I didn't really do anything. I got lucky.
But what I can do? I can be grateful. And oh, how I am.
And I can look on the bright side. I can make the most of it. I can do everything in my power to get as much out of this experience as I possibly can, for as long as it lasts. And if I'm lucky, and smart, then the things I learn during this temporary reprieve will prepare me to know what to do and how to respond when that inevitable day finally arrives, and my desires shift their poles again.
And that's gotta be enough.
2 comments:
Well I admit the mindset you describe is not one I'm familiar with (I'm more of the "do anything to avoid conflict" sort myself). So my first thought is to suggest you hang with other recovering addicts (if not in person, then perhaps in an online forum) and I suspect you will find support and advice that's better than what I could give in this specific situation. My second thought is to suggest a little more time in nature, perhaps? Staring at screens all day is just...you know.
Tomorrow's my first try at a SMART meeting, so already on that one. And the spending-more-time in nature is a constant on my wishlist. I'd love to spend a long weekend hiking the Appalachian Trail or kayaking down the Monocacy or something. Ultimately, I really want to be able to take just a few limited supplies and go out into the woods and just live by myself for a week or so. Build my own shelter, catch my own food, make my own fire, that kind of thing. That's been on my list for years now. But I can barely find the time to wash my car! So even finding a single day to spend hiking can be a bit of a challenge.
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