How am I supposed to grow up?
I want to grow up. I really do. No, more than that, I need to. I need to grow the fuck up. I'm almost forty years old, but I still see myself as if I were twenty-five. That might sound appealing on some level, at first; "young at heart" and all that. And maybe it would be, if that's what I wanted for myself. But it isn't. I want to grow up. I need to grow up, because I can't keep living like I'm twenty-five. I'm not twenty-five anymore. I can't eat like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't move like a twenty-five year-old anymore. I can't party like a twenty-five year-old anymore. Fuck, I can't even sleep like a twenty-five year-old anymore. It all hurts me now in a way that it never did, and I can feel myself breaking down at an astonishing rate, as if the force of Entropy inside me were being fed by some radioaction of chemical combustion. Accelerated Decrepitude. But on the other hand, trying to live within my almost-forty means, while still feeling like a twenty-five year-old inside, is so monumentally depressing that I can't even fucking bother; I always just end up feeling like I already have one foot in the grave.
A twenty-five year-old trapped in a forty year-old body. How incredibly pathetic. How incredibly modern. How incredibly privileged.
But how am I supposed to grow up? I don't know. My observations tell me that for most people, this happens as a natural side-effect of breeding. That creating a child shifts all perspectives, and forces the new parent into a maturity that cannot be achieved through any other means. That makes sense to me. I can understand that.
But I'm never going to have any children. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to force myself to achieve a state that, for most people, requires quite possibly the single most life-altering event they will ever experience in order to achieve?
Sometimes I think, maybe I don't actually need to grow up? If I don't have any children, then what do I need to grow up for? Why do I feel this need anyways? I can only assume it is because I reflexively compare my life to the model my parents set for me. When I look at myself, and try to judge whether I'm doing well or not, I compare it to the life they lived. And I always feel myself coming up short.
They went to college. They got degrees. They worked hard. (My father still works harder than almost anyone else I know, and while my mother never worked as hard as he did, she still inarguably worked harder than I do now.) They bore and raised children. They owned houses, with yards and multiple floors and everything.
But I dropped out of college. I have no degrees, and probably never will. Yeah, I have a career that doesn't leave me wanting to kill myself, but I still hate it, just because it's work, and I hate work of any kind; I hate being forced to sell myself every day in order to sustain myself. I don't own a house. I own an absurdly tiny condo that I hate and will never be able to sell for as much as I paid for it. I am almost certain I will end up having to live in that tiny little box for the rest of my life, watching it deteriorate around me, with me - and that thought terrifies me on a regular basis.
And even these modest achievements - a well-paying job that I can sort of do well and tolerate, and a tiny little condo I'm trapped in like a prison cell - even these barely note-worthy accomplishments I never actually earned; I didn't work hard to achieve these things. I got this job because some well-meaning middle-aged women that I worked with took pity on me, and talked to their bosses, and told them they knew this kid they thought would do well as a programmer. And they were right - I am a good programmer. At least, I'm alright. But again, not because I try to be, or because I studied or worked hard or went to school or anything else. I just have a natural talent for logic and pattern recognition and symbology, and so I am a naturally decent programmer. I could be a great programmer if I wanted to be; if I tried to be and put forth the effort. But I don't. Because I don't care. I only want to put forth the minimum amount of effort to get by, and save the rest for indulging in my life's pleasures.
And it's a similar story with my "home." I didn't work hard and save money every day so that I could eventually put a down payment on my dream home. My grandfather died, and since my mother (his daughter) was already dead herself, the portion of his life's wealth that should have been hers (and he had worked hard all his life to achieve that wealth) came to me instead. And I used all of that money to buy the apartment I had been living in for almost a decade at that point. The biggest, most "adult" accomplishment of my life - becoming a home-owner - and it only happened because I was in a position to profit off of the deaths of two of my close family members. And so it has never felt like an accomplishment to me. It feels like blood money.
(It's true that I performed magick to get the job and the money and the apartment, but even taking the assumption that my magick worked doesn't help the situation any. Magick is a short-cut. It's easy compared to actually working hard to learn or to save money. And it's fun to do, and for that reason alone I wanted to do it, whether it worked or not. So even assuming that I came by these things through sorcery, it still doesn't feel like an accomplishment to me. It still doesn't feel like I really earned them. It feels like I cheated.)
And I will almost certainly never see that much money again in my lifetime. I can barely maintain a savings of more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time. I live paycheck-to-paycheck, even with my fairly significant salary. I've always been that way. If I have money, I want to spend it on making myself feel good right now, and I can't seem to deny myself comfort or happiness in the present, in order to save it for some undefined future. As I've written here before, I feel like the Grasshopper, fiddling away as the first snow begins to fall.
But why do I determine the value of my life by comparing it to my parents'? They were completely different people, living in a completely different time. And who wanted completely different things from their life than I want from mine. And I know this. But I still can't shake this feeling that I am somehow failing at life, because I seem to remember my parents being so much better off in their twenties than I am in my thirties; or will be in my forties. I just want to be happy, like anyone else. But I constantly and consistently feel that the things that make me happy aren't good for me. That they are self-indulgent, or immature, or masturbatory. That I am a bad person for living my life the way that I do. But trying to live my life any other way always leaves me just as miserable, if only in a different way.
I just want to spend my life relaxing in the bathhouse, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV and movies, sleeping, eating, drinking and getting high, and punctuating the whole thing with the occasional orgasm. That is really all I want from life.
And I feel like a worthless waste of a human being for feeling that way. I hate myself for feeling that way. But even so, I have no idea how to change it; I have no idea how to want anything else.
Okay, sure, I want other things. Bigger things. I want to have a big house with a yard and a basement and an attic. I want to be able to support myself through writing, or some other form of creative expression. (If only I could make a living playing games!) I want a sense of accomplishment. I want to feel like my life mattered, in any way. I want to feel a sense of confidence that when I'm gone, I will have made some mark on the world that is all my own; that I will leave behind something more than a pile of carbon dust. I do want all of these things. But when I think about them, and I envision the monumental amount of work it would take to even try to achieve any of them - with no guarantee of success! - I lose any hope I may have had about ever actually achieving them.
Because I know that I will never do that work. I just don't have it in me. Achieving anything of any real significance requires a single-minded devotion that I just don't have. Have never had.
Because deep-down, I don't want to be great. All I really want is to be comfortable. And I guess I am. So I should be happy, then, right? Then why do I feel this way? I just wish I could learn to be happy with what I have, instead of hating myself for not being able to be great.
I guess what it all really comes down to is this: I feel lazy, and I hate myself for being lazy, but I don't know how to make myself be anything else. And I hate myself for that, too.
+ + +
Or maybe I'm just depressed because winter is coming, and I'm all out of drugs, and I can feel both of these things gnawing at my bones.
Showing posts with label indulgence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indulgence. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Seoul Bath...
I went to a Korean Spa for the first time this weekend.
My friend had invited everyone to spend the day at the spa with him for his birthday, before the party he was throwing that night. A few of my friends showed up, but most people were waiting for the party. I'd been wanting to check out this spa for awhile, so I jumped at the chance.
Now, when I say "spa," think more, "communal bathhouse" rather than "salon/day spa." You pay $20 to get in, and stay as long as you want. (They're open 24 hours-a-day on the weekends, and they even have a "Nap Room" to sleep in when you want.) There's a restaurant (awesome Korean food); a PC room with computers, video games, and internet; and a gym. But the real attraction is the bathhouse.
As soon as you walk into the place, before you even get to the front desk, you encounter signs indicating "No Shoes Allowed Beyond This Point." So, you have to carry your shoes up to the front desk, where they give you a key to fit a locker there by the entrance, just big enough to hold a pair of shoes. Once you get your shoes off, you can feel that the dark wood floor is actually heated; feels so lovely. Once you pay your entrance fee, they give you another key to a bathhouse locker, and a uniform of simple cotton t-shirt and shorts; men get robin's egg blue, and women get prison orange.
Inside the locker room (men and women each have their own locker rooms, and their own bathhouses, naturally), you can change into your uniform and head out into the communal area if you want. But inside the locker room is the entrance to the bathhouse, and I headed straight for it. Inside were showers (regular and Asian style - a little stool on the ground in front of a mirror, with a handheld showerhead and a large bowl); two large, tiled, bubbling hot "tubs" (they were more like small pools), one of them herbal; two saunas (one wet and one dry); and a cold water pool (only about knee deep and three feet wide, but running the length of the room; obviously meant for bathing, not swimming). In one corner was a massage table, with a naked man getting scrubbed down by an attendant.
In fact, except for the attendant, everybody in the place was completely naked, and making no attempt to cover themselves up, which I found very comforting. I'm used to puritanical American gym locker-rooms, where everyone gets dressed and undressed either with a towel wrapped around them, or in a shower or toilet stall, out of some ridiculous sense of homophobia or something. That environment always leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. It freaks me out to be surrounded by people who are clearly all very afraid of something, and not really have any understanding of what it is that they are so clearly afraid of, exactly. Are they afraid that some "faggot" will see their penis and somehow become aroused? (And if so, why does that frighten them? What does it matter to them at all? And how would they even know that it had happened?) Are they worried that if they get naked the other men will think they, themselves, are a "faggot," trying to show off their penis? (That seems more likely.) Or are American men just incredibly modest and shy? (Haha! Yeah, right!) So I found it incredibly refreshing to be in an environment where nobody had these ridiculous hang-ups that I couldn't understand, and everybody could just relax and enjoy themselves, without getting all squirrely and nervous about something so completely innocuous as being naked in the same room with other men. I think it helped that all the men there were either Asian or Russian. (Apparently, this spa gets a lot of Russians, because it is the closest thing to the traditional Russian bathhouse in the area. They even had one set of their pamplets listing their services up at the front desk printed all in Russian.)
The larger, regular hot bath was empty (presumably out-of-order), so I headed to the herbal hot bath, which probably would've been my first choice, anyways, now that I think about it. This bath has a large cloth sack filled with various herbs hanging off of the faucet so that the water is running down through the bag and into the bath; the bag is also hanging about half into the water, steeping like a tea bag. (They had a sign listing all of the herbs they used, but I don't remember them all at this point; several of them I had never heard of before.) In fact, it felt very much like taking a bath in tea - the water was brown, had little bits of plant matter swirling around in it, and was incredibly aromatic. After about ten minutes in this tub, my skin felt softer and smoother than it has since I was a teenager. In fact, even now, it still feels much softer than usual.
After the herbal bath, I took a quick rinse-off dip in the cold pool (and when they say "cold" they are not lying - it was like ice water!) and then tried out the dry sauna. It was just over 200 degrees in there, and so it wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore, and headed back out to cool off in the cold pool. Going from the hot to the cold like that is the Russian style, and I find it unbelievably refreshing and invigorating and sensually satisfying. (Maybe it's genetic.) The hot opens up my pores and loosens my skin, and then the cold tightens it all back up again. The heat brings all my blood out to my extremities and into my skin, and then the cold sends it all flying away from the surface and down into my core. And the simple juxtaposition between the two sensations is very-nearly overwhelming. It leaves me light-headed, but pleasantly so.
After that I tried out the wet sauna, but I couldn't take it for more than a minute. The air is so thick with moisture that you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Whenever I would breathe in, I would feel like there was more water in the inhalation than oxygen, and since I was already a little light-headed, it wasn't long before I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to get out before I passed out. It's a shame, because, other than that, I liked the room. It wasn't as hot as the dry sauna (only about 150 degrees), and the wet air made it feel more like a bath or shower than the dry sauna, which felt more like an oven. And the water that they used to produce the steam was apparently infused with some herb, as well, because it was, like the herbal bath, incredibly and pleasantly aromatic. (The dry sauna actually had a small wicker basket full of cinnamon sticks in the corner, as well, producing a pleasant aroma as they baked in the heat.) I think next time I'll have to try this steam room first, before I do anything else, and see if that works out better for me.
I spent the next hour just going around between the dry sauna, the herbal bath, and the cold bath. It felt amazing. We had agreed to meet in the communal room at that point, so I dried off, dressed in my powder-blue uniform, and headed out into the communal room, which is between, and connected to, the two locker rooms/bathhouses. The communal room is a large, central room, lined with thick tatami mats on the floor, and little tables to go with them. (At least, they're called "tatami" in Japanese; I have no idea what they are called in Korean, but they are the same object.) There were also large piles of these small, traditional head-cushions used for lying down on the mats. There was a TV on one wall, playing Korean television. There were Korean newspapers and magazines lying around the room. There were boards for playing Go, Chess/Checkers, Backgammon, etc. scattered all around. At one end was a line of massaging recliners, and beyond that was the "Napping Room" - a small, dark room lined with more tatami mats for sleeping. I tried out one of the massaging recliner chairs, expecting a vibrating massage chair. What I got instead was ten minutes of, essentially, being pummeled in the back by a robot at high speed. It was more percussion than vibration. It hurt like hell at first, but by the end it felt fantastic.
Along the walls of the communal room are smaller rooms of varying temperatures, all dry rooms. The hot rooms were each lined with different materials all over the floor, walls, and ceiling. The Himalayan Salt room was lined with pink rock salt, presumably Himalayan judging by the name, and kept at 130 degrees. The Jewel Room was 150 degrees, and lined with smooth cut slabs of green amethyst. And the Charcoal Room was lined with small cylinders of charcoal, and heated to 170 degrees. (I didn't go into the last, hottest room, and don't remember what it was lined with.) There are also two cold rooms. The Cold Room is about 40 degrees, and then inside the Cold Room is the Ice Room, which is well below freezing, and lined with, predictably, ice. (The sign said it was -21 degrees Fahrenheit, but it had to be Celsius; -21 degrees Fahrenheit would be dangerous in just a t-shirt and shorts, and while this room was definitely cold, it wasn't painful or distressing. It felt more like about 25-30 degrees Fahrenheit.) Again, I spent a bunch of time going back and forth from the hot rooms to the cold rooms and back again.
We ate lunch in the restaurant, sitting cross-legged on pillows at low Asian-style tables, eating delicious, cheap Korean food. I reflected on the fact that the place was full of families. I could tell that this was a regular family event; you bring the wife and kids and spend the day. It was a like the Korean version of a community center or a YMCA. There was a father and son in the bathhouse while I was in there, the son maybe six years-old. They sat together, naked, at one of the little Asian-style showerheads, the son laying over the father's knee, as he washed and scrubbed his son's whole body over and over for what seemed like at least half an hour. To my Western eyes, this looked decidedly creepy, and I couldn't imagine an American father and son doing this. But at one point I happened to notice the father try to put the son down on the floor next to him and attend to his own washing, but the boy began to pout and plead until the father agreed to pick him back up and wash him again, which made the boy incredibly happy. I tried to look at it through their eyes. This was a bonding moment between a boy and his father. In our culture, we're taught to sexualize nudity in any form regardless of context, and so something like this instinctively seems gross to us. But this wasn't sexual at all. It was loving. And when I stopped myself from seeing it as sexual, and started trying to see it for what it actually was to them (non-sexual, familial nudity) it became a touching display of affection between a father and son.
I lost track of the hours I spent there, and didn't want to leave. I could easily see how someone could spend all day there. I can't wait to go back. They offer massage services as well (foot massage, body massage, Thai massage, body scrub, etc.) for very reasonable prices, and next time I'm going to book one of those and make a day of it.
My friend had invited everyone to spend the day at the spa with him for his birthday, before the party he was throwing that night. A few of my friends showed up, but most people were waiting for the party. I'd been wanting to check out this spa for awhile, so I jumped at the chance.
Now, when I say "spa," think more, "communal bathhouse" rather than "salon/day spa." You pay $20 to get in, and stay as long as you want. (They're open 24 hours-a-day on the weekends, and they even have a "Nap Room" to sleep in when you want.) There's a restaurant (awesome Korean food); a PC room with computers, video games, and internet; and a gym. But the real attraction is the bathhouse.
As soon as you walk into the place, before you even get to the front desk, you encounter signs indicating "No Shoes Allowed Beyond This Point." So, you have to carry your shoes up to the front desk, where they give you a key to fit a locker there by the entrance, just big enough to hold a pair of shoes. Once you get your shoes off, you can feel that the dark wood floor is actually heated; feels so lovely. Once you pay your entrance fee, they give you another key to a bathhouse locker, and a uniform of simple cotton t-shirt and shorts; men get robin's egg blue, and women get prison orange.
Inside the locker room (men and women each have their own locker rooms, and their own bathhouses, naturally), you can change into your uniform and head out into the communal area if you want. But inside the locker room is the entrance to the bathhouse, and I headed straight for it. Inside were showers (regular and Asian style - a little stool on the ground in front of a mirror, with a handheld showerhead and a large bowl); two large, tiled, bubbling hot "tubs" (they were more like small pools), one of them herbal; two saunas (one wet and one dry); and a cold water pool (only about knee deep and three feet wide, but running the length of the room; obviously meant for bathing, not swimming). In one corner was a massage table, with a naked man getting scrubbed down by an attendant.
In fact, except for the attendant, everybody in the place was completely naked, and making no attempt to cover themselves up, which I found very comforting. I'm used to puritanical American gym locker-rooms, where everyone gets dressed and undressed either with a towel wrapped around them, or in a shower or toilet stall, out of some ridiculous sense of homophobia or something. That environment always leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. It freaks me out to be surrounded by people who are clearly all very afraid of something, and not really have any understanding of what it is that they are so clearly afraid of, exactly. Are they afraid that some "faggot" will see their penis and somehow become aroused? (And if so, why does that frighten them? What does it matter to them at all? And how would they even know that it had happened?) Are they worried that if they get naked the other men will think they, themselves, are a "faggot," trying to show off their penis? (That seems more likely.) Or are American men just incredibly modest and shy? (Haha! Yeah, right!) So I found it incredibly refreshing to be in an environment where nobody had these ridiculous hang-ups that I couldn't understand, and everybody could just relax and enjoy themselves, without getting all squirrely and nervous about something so completely innocuous as being naked in the same room with other men. I think it helped that all the men there were either Asian or Russian. (Apparently, this spa gets a lot of Russians, because it is the closest thing to the traditional Russian bathhouse in the area. They even had one set of their pamplets listing their services up at the front desk printed all in Russian.)
The larger, regular hot bath was empty (presumably out-of-order), so I headed to the herbal hot bath, which probably would've been my first choice, anyways, now that I think about it. This bath has a large cloth sack filled with various herbs hanging off of the faucet so that the water is running down through the bag and into the bath; the bag is also hanging about half into the water, steeping like a tea bag. (They had a sign listing all of the herbs they used, but I don't remember them all at this point; several of them I had never heard of before.) In fact, it felt very much like taking a bath in tea - the water was brown, had little bits of plant matter swirling around in it, and was incredibly aromatic. After about ten minutes in this tub, my skin felt softer and smoother than it has since I was a teenager. In fact, even now, it still feels much softer than usual.
After the herbal bath, I took a quick rinse-off dip in the cold pool (and when they say "cold" they are not lying - it was like ice water!) and then tried out the dry sauna. It was just over 200 degrees in there, and so it wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore, and headed back out to cool off in the cold pool. Going from the hot to the cold like that is the Russian style, and I find it unbelievably refreshing and invigorating and sensually satisfying. (Maybe it's genetic.) The hot opens up my pores and loosens my skin, and then the cold tightens it all back up again. The heat brings all my blood out to my extremities and into my skin, and then the cold sends it all flying away from the surface and down into my core. And the simple juxtaposition between the two sensations is very-nearly overwhelming. It leaves me light-headed, but pleasantly so.
After that I tried out the wet sauna, but I couldn't take it for more than a minute. The air is so thick with moisture that you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Whenever I would breathe in, I would feel like there was more water in the inhalation than oxygen, and since I was already a little light-headed, it wasn't long before I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to get out before I passed out. It's a shame, because, other than that, I liked the room. It wasn't as hot as the dry sauna (only about 150 degrees), and the wet air made it feel more like a bath or shower than the dry sauna, which felt more like an oven. And the water that they used to produce the steam was apparently infused with some herb, as well, because it was, like the herbal bath, incredibly and pleasantly aromatic. (The dry sauna actually had a small wicker basket full of cinnamon sticks in the corner, as well, producing a pleasant aroma as they baked in the heat.) I think next time I'll have to try this steam room first, before I do anything else, and see if that works out better for me.
I spent the next hour just going around between the dry sauna, the herbal bath, and the cold bath. It felt amazing. We had agreed to meet in the communal room at that point, so I dried off, dressed in my powder-blue uniform, and headed out into the communal room, which is between, and connected to, the two locker rooms/bathhouses. The communal room is a large, central room, lined with thick tatami mats on the floor, and little tables to go with them. (At least, they're called "tatami" in Japanese; I have no idea what they are called in Korean, but they are the same object.) There were also large piles of these small, traditional head-cushions used for lying down on the mats. There was a TV on one wall, playing Korean television. There were Korean newspapers and magazines lying around the room. There were boards for playing Go, Chess/Checkers, Backgammon, etc. scattered all around. At one end was a line of massaging recliners, and beyond that was the "Napping Room" - a small, dark room lined with more tatami mats for sleeping. I tried out one of the massaging recliner chairs, expecting a vibrating massage chair. What I got instead was ten minutes of, essentially, being pummeled in the back by a robot at high speed. It was more percussion than vibration. It hurt like hell at first, but by the end it felt fantastic.
Along the walls of the communal room are smaller rooms of varying temperatures, all dry rooms. The hot rooms were each lined with different materials all over the floor, walls, and ceiling. The Himalayan Salt room was lined with pink rock salt, presumably Himalayan judging by the name, and kept at 130 degrees. The Jewel Room was 150 degrees, and lined with smooth cut slabs of green amethyst. And the Charcoal Room was lined with small cylinders of charcoal, and heated to 170 degrees. (I didn't go into the last, hottest room, and don't remember what it was lined with.) There are also two cold rooms. The Cold Room is about 40 degrees, and then inside the Cold Room is the Ice Room, which is well below freezing, and lined with, predictably, ice. (The sign said it was -21 degrees Fahrenheit, but it had to be Celsius; -21 degrees Fahrenheit would be dangerous in just a t-shirt and shorts, and while this room was definitely cold, it wasn't painful or distressing. It felt more like about 25-30 degrees Fahrenheit.) Again, I spent a bunch of time going back and forth from the hot rooms to the cold rooms and back again.
We ate lunch in the restaurant, sitting cross-legged on pillows at low Asian-style tables, eating delicious, cheap Korean food. I reflected on the fact that the place was full of families. I could tell that this was a regular family event; you bring the wife and kids and spend the day. It was a like the Korean version of a community center or a YMCA. There was a father and son in the bathhouse while I was in there, the son maybe six years-old. They sat together, naked, at one of the little Asian-style showerheads, the son laying over the father's knee, as he washed and scrubbed his son's whole body over and over for what seemed like at least half an hour. To my Western eyes, this looked decidedly creepy, and I couldn't imagine an American father and son doing this. But at one point I happened to notice the father try to put the son down on the floor next to him and attend to his own washing, but the boy began to pout and plead until the father agreed to pick him back up and wash him again, which made the boy incredibly happy. I tried to look at it through their eyes. This was a bonding moment between a boy and his father. In our culture, we're taught to sexualize nudity in any form regardless of context, and so something like this instinctively seems gross to us. But this wasn't sexual at all. It was loving. And when I stopped myself from seeing it as sexual, and started trying to see it for what it actually was to them (non-sexual, familial nudity) it became a touching display of affection between a father and son.
I lost track of the hours I spent there, and didn't want to leave. I could easily see how someone could spend all day there. I can't wait to go back. They offer massage services as well (foot massage, body massage, Thai massage, body scrub, etc.) for very reasonable prices, and next time I'm going to book one of those and make a day of it.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Hunger Pains...
I'm still hungry all the time. And it's really starting to get on my nerves.
I don't know what's causing this, but it started just after I stopped drinking, so I would imagine it must have something to do with that. But is it a biochemical reaction? Meaning, is it my body's autonomic response to being suddenly deprived of the ethyl alcohol it had grown accustomed to? Or is it a behavioral response? Is it just my head trying to fill the "Pleasure Yourself" gap left behind when I stopped drinking, with some new, more readily accessible form of pleasure? I have no idea.
I've heard that a lot of people develop an insatiable sweet-tooth when they quit drinking, because their body is craving the sugar that they used to get from the alcohol. (Our bodies metabolize alcohol into sugar.) But that's not what I'm experiencing. My problem is that I simply never stop feeling like I want to eat. Normally, I would only get that feeling when I needed to eat. And then, once I'd eaten, that feeling would go away, until the next time I needed to eat again. But now, I can eat until I am bloated and feeling sick from the amount of food in my stomach, and I still have that feeling of "I want to eat." It just never turns off! And it's so fucking annoying! It's like when you feel like you have to pee, even though your bladder is empty. It's just this really unpleasant, uncomfortable feeling that will not go away, and that you cannot do anything about.
And I really, really just want it to stop.
I'm so tired of constantly fighting with myself to keep from over-eating. I'm so tired of constantly wrestling with this phantom craving. Every night it's the same thing. As soon as I finish dinner, I want something sweet. So, I eat a little dessert, and then as soon as I finish that, I want something salty-crunchy. If I give in to that craving and eat something salty-crunchy (whole-wheat tortilla chips and 100-calorie packs of cheez-its are my current drugs of choice), then as soon as I finish that, I want something sweet again. And if I give in to that, then I want something salty-crunchy/savory again. And that just keeps going on and on forever until I end up passing out face-first into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels.
I'm currently working out and doing my best to eat as healthy as possible, in an attempt to lose some weight. And I am losing weight, but much more slowly than I'd like. And this shit is not making it any easier.
I've been trying to come up with ways to either satisfy and/or curb this craving that do not involve adding a bunch more calories to my daily intake. Number one on the list is drinking lots and lots of water. And I mean, to the point where I start to feel full. That helps some, but not much, because the whole point of that trick is to curb your appetite by making your body feel full; and, of course, my whole problem is that my body is not currently responding correctly to that feeling. And then there's the further drawback of having my day constantly and repeatedly interrupted by the painfully urgent need to piss violently. I've thought about lo-to-no-cal snacks like rice cakes, but in the midst of these cravings, I can't bring myself to eat something completely tasteless that I am already well-aware I will not enjoy. Still, I've found a couple of brands that are mildly tolerable, and I'm planning to try really hard to make them work. I bought some lo-cal, high-protein jerky, as well, to try and help with the savory cravings. The trick there is to just chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew until either it eventually turns to liquid in your mouth, or you feel like your jaw is going to fall off. That way you get to spend a lot of time eating and enjoying the pleasure of tasting the salty/savory thing you're craving, but overall you don't actually eat that much food, or take in a lot of calories. The sore jaw helps to put a damper on the desire to eat more, as well. And at work, I've been having mid-afternoon Chai Lattes to try and help with my after-lunch cravings. That seems to be working out ok. It's not helping my need-to-pee-every-fifteen-minutes problem very much, though.
And there's one solution I've been trying out this week that is a little naughty.
I stopped smoking cigarettes over ten years ago. And I cannot stand cigars. But every Fall and Winter for the past six or seven years, pretty much as soon as the weather starts to turn cold, I smoke a pipe. I really enjoy a good pipe during the cold half of the year. I love the sweet, rich flavor of the tobacco. I love its aromatic smell. I love the ritual of loading, packing, tamping, lighting - everything has to be just right in order for it to work proper, but when it is, and when it does, oh, sweet ambrosia! I even love the anachronism of it. My grandfather smoked a pipe. It just has this old, retro, even ancient feel to it, and I enjoy feeling like a part of that tradition. And since I don't inhale pipe smoke, I don't have to worry as much about bronchial damage, emphysema, lung cancer, or even nicotine addiction, the way I did with cigarettes. And since I indulge in it so rarely (even at the height of my smoking during that half of the year, I will smoke, at most, two pipes a day), I don't really have to worry about it much, at all. It is a rather safe, and pleasurable, indulgence I can allow myself. Especially compared to all of my other indulgences, which are so many times more harmful and dangerous.
So, it occurred to me, perhaps an after-dinner smoke would fill the void left behind by the absence of my customary after-dinner drink. And, perhaps also help curb my appetite for my after-dinner snack - and my after-after-dinner snack, and my after-after-after-dinner snack - that is currently replacing my after-dinner drink. I know, it's still not the healthiest solution in the world, but tasting (not inhaling) a little tobacco smoke is a lot less unhealthy than drinking, or over-eating. So, I'll take what I can get. (And everyone needs some sort of vice, don't they? What's life without at least a little indulgence?) But the problem is, as soon as the weather starts to warm up, I immediately lose all interest in smoking a pipe. I don't know what it is, but it has been that way every single year since the very first. It's not something I'm trying to do, intentionally. That's just the way it works for me, for some reason. I always want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year, and I only want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year.
But on Sunday, I found a solution to this problem. There's a brand of small "cigars" (or "cigarillos," which is a rather annoying word) that are filled with pipe tobacco. It's not the greatest pipe tobacco I've ever had, but it still tastes sweet, and smells nice, and it's infinitely better than cigar tobacco. (I would rather eat old sushi than smoke a cigar. Ugh!) So every night so far this week I've smoked at least part of one of these "cigars" after dinner. And I've enjoyed them alright, but not as much as my pipes. And they've seemed to help with the cravings a little, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'd hoped that they would come close to putting an end to the cravings, but I've found that just a little while after putting out the "cigar," I'm hungry again. Still, the whole time I'm smoking, I don't want to eat. And the cravings are a lot easier to resist for a while after the smoke. So, all-in-all, one "cigar" seems to equal about an hour or so of not snacking. So, it's not as much as I wanted, but it's not nothing, either. We'll see how it goes. I'm glad to have something enjoyable to do for now that seems to help at least a little, but I could also see myself getting bored with this very soon.
Alright, that's enough for now. I'm starting to get hungry.
Time for my Chai Latte.
I don't know what's causing this, but it started just after I stopped drinking, so I would imagine it must have something to do with that. But is it a biochemical reaction? Meaning, is it my body's autonomic response to being suddenly deprived of the ethyl alcohol it had grown accustomed to? Or is it a behavioral response? Is it just my head trying to fill the "Pleasure Yourself" gap left behind when I stopped drinking, with some new, more readily accessible form of pleasure? I have no idea.
I've heard that a lot of people develop an insatiable sweet-tooth when they quit drinking, because their body is craving the sugar that they used to get from the alcohol. (Our bodies metabolize alcohol into sugar.) But that's not what I'm experiencing. My problem is that I simply never stop feeling like I want to eat. Normally, I would only get that feeling when I needed to eat. And then, once I'd eaten, that feeling would go away, until the next time I needed to eat again. But now, I can eat until I am bloated and feeling sick from the amount of food in my stomach, and I still have that feeling of "I want to eat." It just never turns off! And it's so fucking annoying! It's like when you feel like you have to pee, even though your bladder is empty. It's just this really unpleasant, uncomfortable feeling that will not go away, and that you cannot do anything about.
And I really, really just want it to stop.
I'm so tired of constantly fighting with myself to keep from over-eating. I'm so tired of constantly wrestling with this phantom craving. Every night it's the same thing. As soon as I finish dinner, I want something sweet. So, I eat a little dessert, and then as soon as I finish that, I want something salty-crunchy. If I give in to that craving and eat something salty-crunchy (whole-wheat tortilla chips and 100-calorie packs of cheez-its are my current drugs of choice), then as soon as I finish that, I want something sweet again. And if I give in to that, then I want something salty-crunchy/savory again. And that just keeps going on and on forever until I end up passing out face-first into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels.
I'm currently working out and doing my best to eat as healthy as possible, in an attempt to lose some weight. And I am losing weight, but much more slowly than I'd like. And this shit is not making it any easier.
I've been trying to come up with ways to either satisfy and/or curb this craving that do not involve adding a bunch more calories to my daily intake. Number one on the list is drinking lots and lots of water. And I mean, to the point where I start to feel full. That helps some, but not much, because the whole point of that trick is to curb your appetite by making your body feel full; and, of course, my whole problem is that my body is not currently responding correctly to that feeling. And then there's the further drawback of having my day constantly and repeatedly interrupted by the painfully urgent need to piss violently. I've thought about lo-to-no-cal snacks like rice cakes, but in the midst of these cravings, I can't bring myself to eat something completely tasteless that I am already well-aware I will not enjoy. Still, I've found a couple of brands that are mildly tolerable, and I'm planning to try really hard to make them work. I bought some lo-cal, high-protein jerky, as well, to try and help with the savory cravings. The trick there is to just chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew until either it eventually turns to liquid in your mouth, or you feel like your jaw is going to fall off. That way you get to spend a lot of time eating and enjoying the pleasure of tasting the salty/savory thing you're craving, but overall you don't actually eat that much food, or take in a lot of calories. The sore jaw helps to put a damper on the desire to eat more, as well. And at work, I've been having mid-afternoon Chai Lattes to try and help with my after-lunch cravings. That seems to be working out ok. It's not helping my need-to-pee-every-fifteen-minutes problem very much, though.
And there's one solution I've been trying out this week that is a little naughty.
I stopped smoking cigarettes over ten years ago. And I cannot stand cigars. But every Fall and Winter for the past six or seven years, pretty much as soon as the weather starts to turn cold, I smoke a pipe. I really enjoy a good pipe during the cold half of the year. I love the sweet, rich flavor of the tobacco. I love its aromatic smell. I love the ritual of loading, packing, tamping, lighting - everything has to be just right in order for it to work proper, but when it is, and when it does, oh, sweet ambrosia! I even love the anachronism of it. My grandfather smoked a pipe. It just has this old, retro, even ancient feel to it, and I enjoy feeling like a part of that tradition. And since I don't inhale pipe smoke, I don't have to worry as much about bronchial damage, emphysema, lung cancer, or even nicotine addiction, the way I did with cigarettes. And since I indulge in it so rarely (even at the height of my smoking during that half of the year, I will smoke, at most, two pipes a day), I don't really have to worry about it much, at all. It is a rather safe, and pleasurable, indulgence I can allow myself. Especially compared to all of my other indulgences, which are so many times more harmful and dangerous.
So, it occurred to me, perhaps an after-dinner smoke would fill the void left behind by the absence of my customary after-dinner drink. And, perhaps also help curb my appetite for my after-dinner snack - and my after-after-dinner snack, and my after-after-after-dinner snack - that is currently replacing my after-dinner drink. I know, it's still not the healthiest solution in the world, but tasting (not inhaling) a little tobacco smoke is a lot less unhealthy than drinking, or over-eating. So, I'll take what I can get. (And everyone needs some sort of vice, don't they? What's life without at least a little indulgence?) But the problem is, as soon as the weather starts to warm up, I immediately lose all interest in smoking a pipe. I don't know what it is, but it has been that way every single year since the very first. It's not something I'm trying to do, intentionally. That's just the way it works for me, for some reason. I always want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year, and I only want to smoke a pipe during the cold half of the year.
But on Sunday, I found a solution to this problem. There's a brand of small "cigars" (or "cigarillos," which is a rather annoying word) that are filled with pipe tobacco. It's not the greatest pipe tobacco I've ever had, but it still tastes sweet, and smells nice, and it's infinitely better than cigar tobacco. (I would rather eat old sushi than smoke a cigar. Ugh!) So every night so far this week I've smoked at least part of one of these "cigars" after dinner. And I've enjoyed them alright, but not as much as my pipes. And they've seemed to help with the cravings a little, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'd hoped that they would come close to putting an end to the cravings, but I've found that just a little while after putting out the "cigar," I'm hungry again. Still, the whole time I'm smoking, I don't want to eat. And the cravings are a lot easier to resist for a while after the smoke. So, all-in-all, one "cigar" seems to equal about an hour or so of not snacking. So, it's not as much as I wanted, but it's not nothing, either. We'll see how it goes. I'm glad to have something enjoyable to do for now that seems to help at least a little, but I could also see myself getting bored with this very soon.
Alright, that's enough for now. I'm starting to get hungry.
Time for my Chai Latte.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Hope and Regret, part 3...
On the heels of all of these thoughts on my addiction and
recovery and sobriety, I started thinking about how I feel about my
history of using. And I feel a need to state here, strongly and
clearly, and in no uncertain terms, that I have no regrets
about my past behavior. None. If I could do it all over again, I
wouldn't do it any differently. Even the very worst moments, where I
hurt myself badly or scared myself half-to-death or nearly died, I'm
still grateful for. Because each and every one of them taught me
valuable lessons that I wouldn't have learned any other way, and I have
in each instance become a better person for having learned them.
And those scary moments were few and far between. The vast majority of the years I spent drunk and high, I laughed my ass off and just had a wonderful time. I learned a lot about myself through those experiences, and I feel lucky and privileged to have had the chance to spend so much of my life feeling happy and stimulated and satisfied. I've had a great run of it up to this point. But it's just becoming a little old, a little stale, a little tired. And so am I. After all these years, it's taking more and more of a toll on me than it ever has before, right as I'm getting less and less out of it than I used to. And as I get older, and my priorities for what I want out of life shift from more immediate pleasures to bigger-and-better things, it's just becoming less and less worth it for me to keep going like this.
And I always knew that it would have to end one day. And I always knew there would be a price to pay for all those years of self-indulgence. And I always knew that this was that price. And I always knew that one day I would pay it. And now that this day seems to finally be coming around, I am paying it. Gladly.
But I'm still glad I did it, too.
And I wouldn't change a thing.
And those scary moments were few and far between. The vast majority of the years I spent drunk and high, I laughed my ass off and just had a wonderful time. I learned a lot about myself through those experiences, and I feel lucky and privileged to have had the chance to spend so much of my life feeling happy and stimulated and satisfied. I've had a great run of it up to this point. But it's just becoming a little old, a little stale, a little tired. And so am I. After all these years, it's taking more and more of a toll on me than it ever has before, right as I'm getting less and less out of it than I used to. And as I get older, and my priorities for what I want out of life shift from more immediate pleasures to bigger-and-better things, it's just becoming less and less worth it for me to keep going like this.
And I always knew that it would have to end one day. And I always knew there would be a price to pay for all those years of self-indulgence. And I always knew that this was that price. And I always knew that one day I would pay it. And now that this day seems to finally be coming around, I am paying it. Gladly.
But I'm still glad I did it, too.
And I wouldn't change a thing.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Hope and Regret, part 2...
And speaking of breaking the cycle, the 2nd, and possibly most, important thing
I learned in my session this week, was the existence of an organization
called SMART Recovery.
I've considered going to AA or NA meetings before, but having some past experience with them and knowing the gist of what they're like and how they work, I've never really felt like they would be a good fit for me. The central core of the X-Anonymous twelve-step programs starts with two things: 1) submit your will to a Higher Power, and 2) admit that you are powerless over your addiction. The rest of the program builds off of those two ideas, so if you can't do those, then the rest of the program isn't going to be much help for you, either. And neither of those ideas really work for me. More to the point, they're basically the exact opposite of what I feel I need in order to get and stay sober.
I don't believe in a sentient being that controls the Universe, so the entire concept of "Higher Power" would be difficult for me right from the start. I could use Tao, but that wouldn't really work, either. Because Tao is not a sentient force, it's just a pattern. It's the pattern of Nature seen throughout the Universe. It is the Set of All Things. It is the Universe, and everything it in, and everything outside of it (if there is anything outside of it) and the motion of all things that repeats in the same way from the spinning of galaxies down to the spinning of electrons. It is the cyclical pattern of motion that is all creations, that spurs all nothings to become some-things. So, it's not really a Power, and it's not really Higher, either, since there is nothing that is not Tao. And how would I "submit my will" to it, exactly? How can I submit to something that I'm already a part of, merely by virtue of my existence? And then there's just the whole idea of submitting my Will, at all, which I'm not real keen on.
Which actually ties in with the 2nd step, admitting that you're powerless over your addiction. Submitting my Will, admitting I am powerless... these are not things that I've ever been good at. In fact, I have spent the majority of my adult life strengthening my Will, to the point that I was able to convince myself that I can actually bend Reality to it. "Powerless" is not something I ever want to feel, or believe I should ever have to feel. And more to the point, it's not something I believe I am.
I'm not powerless over my addiction. That fact is self-evident. If I were powerless, then I would've ended up deranged and out-of-control, like my mother, or her mother before her. Or like one of those poor, pathetic people on Intervention, who are incapable of caring about anything beyond their drug use. I have never been like that. Throughout my entire history of using, I have always carefully monitored myself, my cravings, the amount of my intake; constantly limiting the amount I use to "just enough;" never letting myself use as much as I really want; dialing back my use whenever the cravings started to become more intense; etc. I used always knowing that I was an addict, and that I was walking a fine line between having fun and losing it all, and always on the lookout for signs that it was getting out-of-hand. (That's one of the reasons I'm actually feeling kind of done with all of it at this point. That kind of constant self-intervention takes a lot out of you, and it's getting to the point that getting high is no longer worth the effort it takes to maintain anymore.) In my entire history, I've only ever let myself use with abandon, to my heart's content, a couple of times. And every one of those times, things quickly got out of hand, and I scared the shit out myself, and ended up getting my shit together in a new and better way as a result. And even at my worst, even when I've hurt myself badly with liver damage and ulcers and near-overdoses, I've still never been even half as bad as my mother, or my grandmother, or the sick souls on TV, or any of the people whose stories I heard in those church basements as a child. So, if I have to start that program by admitting that I am powerless over my addiction, then I have to base that entire program on a lie. And what is the point in that?
And, honestly, if we're really "powerless," then what are we even doing in recovery? If we were truly powerless over our addictions, then wouldn't we be out getting drunk and high right now? For me, my sense of my own power, my sense of my internal strength, my strength of Will, is exactly what I've used to keep from going off the deep end my whole life, and exactly what I've relied on to get sober. So why on Earth would I want to just abandon that?? The whole idea just seems completely counter-productive to me.
And adding to all that the fact that my mother used to take me with her to AA and NA meetings when I was a kid, and that she left one of those meetings and went straight to the hotel room where she took her life, it would be a significant understatement to say that I have some emotional baggage associated with those programs. And if I went, the only reason I'd be going would be to try to get and stay sober. I really wouldn't want to also have to work through a bunch of my childhood mommy-issues at the same time. So, for all of these reasons, I've never really considered the X-Anonymous twelve-step groups to be a valid option for me in my recovery.
So I always assumed I would just have to do this on my own. I thought that the X-A groups were the only ones out there, and since those wouldn't work for me, then it must be up to just me doing the work, and the best help I could hope for would be the occasional 1-on-1 counseling session. And I was ok with that, honestly. But then my counselor tells me about this other recovery group called SMART Recovery.
They're basically an alternative to the twelve-steppers, that emphasizes scientific methods of recovery (constantly evolving as the science of recovery evolves; none of that watered-down, psuedo-JudeoChristian psychology "Higher Power" bullshit), self-empowerment as the main recovery tool (as opposed to submitting your Will and pretending to be powerless - more pseudo-JudeoChristian nonsense; and none of this Will-undermining "my addiction is a disease and I am sick and I will always be sick" crap, either), and recognizing that there is no one right way to become sober that will work for everyone - that everyone is unique and different and that each individual has their own best method of recovery - and so the key to recovery is finding your personal method and working it (which is completely in-line with the way I have lived the entire rest of my life; SMART Recovery is to traditional recovery what Chaos Magick is to traditional Western occultism - find what works best for you, and use it). They try to get at the root of addictive behavior itself and deal with that, using modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy methods, rather than focusing on the particular substance or thing one is addicted to. (SMART stands for "Self-Management And Recovery Training".) As such, they aren't just for alcoholics or drug-users, but accept any kind of addict at all. A meeting could include people ranging from alcoholics, to drug-users, to sex addicts, or gambling addicts, or hoarders, or anyone else who would fall under the category of "I'm exhibiting compulsive behavior that I would like to stop."
I was astounded that I'd never heard of this before. They sound perfectly tailored for me. I found out there's a meeting in my area, and I'm going to attend my first one next week. I'm going to try to reserve judgement, though. In my experience, things that sound too-good-to-be-true usually are. And while the base description sounds fantastic, some of the material I've found on their website absolutely screams "MOTIVATIONAL SEMINAR," and that could be a big turn-off for me. So, I'm going to keep my expectations low, attend a few of the meetings, and get a sense of what they're really like. It'd be nice if they turned out to be even half as great as they sound, and it'd be nice if I could actually get some extra help from them. But it would be just that - extra. So if they turn out to be not-quite-right for me, then oh, well. I still have no problem doing all of this on my own.
And no reason to believe that I can't.
concluded in part three tomorrow...
I've considered going to AA or NA meetings before, but having some past experience with them and knowing the gist of what they're like and how they work, I've never really felt like they would be a good fit for me. The central core of the X-Anonymous twelve-step programs starts with two things: 1) submit your will to a Higher Power, and 2) admit that you are powerless over your addiction. The rest of the program builds off of those two ideas, so if you can't do those, then the rest of the program isn't going to be much help for you, either. And neither of those ideas really work for me. More to the point, they're basically the exact opposite of what I feel I need in order to get and stay sober.
I don't believe in a sentient being that controls the Universe, so the entire concept of "Higher Power" would be difficult for me right from the start. I could use Tao, but that wouldn't really work, either. Because Tao is not a sentient force, it's just a pattern. It's the pattern of Nature seen throughout the Universe. It is the Set of All Things. It is the Universe, and everything it in, and everything outside of it (if there is anything outside of it) and the motion of all things that repeats in the same way from the spinning of galaxies down to the spinning of electrons. It is the cyclical pattern of motion that is all creations, that spurs all nothings to become some-things. So, it's not really a Power, and it's not really Higher, either, since there is nothing that is not Tao. And how would I "submit my will" to it, exactly? How can I submit to something that I'm already a part of, merely by virtue of my existence? And then there's just the whole idea of submitting my Will, at all, which I'm not real keen on.
Which actually ties in with the 2nd step, admitting that you're powerless over your addiction. Submitting my Will, admitting I am powerless... these are not things that I've ever been good at. In fact, I have spent the majority of my adult life strengthening my Will, to the point that I was able to convince myself that I can actually bend Reality to it. "Powerless" is not something I ever want to feel, or believe I should ever have to feel. And more to the point, it's not something I believe I am.
I'm not powerless over my addiction. That fact is self-evident. If I were powerless, then I would've ended up deranged and out-of-control, like my mother, or her mother before her. Or like one of those poor, pathetic people on Intervention, who are incapable of caring about anything beyond their drug use. I have never been like that. Throughout my entire history of using, I have always carefully monitored myself, my cravings, the amount of my intake; constantly limiting the amount I use to "just enough;" never letting myself use as much as I really want; dialing back my use whenever the cravings started to become more intense; etc. I used always knowing that I was an addict, and that I was walking a fine line between having fun and losing it all, and always on the lookout for signs that it was getting out-of-hand. (That's one of the reasons I'm actually feeling kind of done with all of it at this point. That kind of constant self-intervention takes a lot out of you, and it's getting to the point that getting high is no longer worth the effort it takes to maintain anymore.) In my entire history, I've only ever let myself use with abandon, to my heart's content, a couple of times. And every one of those times, things quickly got out of hand, and I scared the shit out myself, and ended up getting my shit together in a new and better way as a result. And even at my worst, even when I've hurt myself badly with liver damage and ulcers and near-overdoses, I've still never been even half as bad as my mother, or my grandmother, or the sick souls on TV, or any of the people whose stories I heard in those church basements as a child. So, if I have to start that program by admitting that I am powerless over my addiction, then I have to base that entire program on a lie. And what is the point in that?
And, honestly, if we're really "powerless," then what are we even doing in recovery? If we were truly powerless over our addictions, then wouldn't we be out getting drunk and high right now? For me, my sense of my own power, my sense of my internal strength, my strength of Will, is exactly what I've used to keep from going off the deep end my whole life, and exactly what I've relied on to get sober. So why on Earth would I want to just abandon that?? The whole idea just seems completely counter-productive to me.
And adding to all that the fact that my mother used to take me with her to AA and NA meetings when I was a kid, and that she left one of those meetings and went straight to the hotel room where she took her life, it would be a significant understatement to say that I have some emotional baggage associated with those programs. And if I went, the only reason I'd be going would be to try to get and stay sober. I really wouldn't want to also have to work through a bunch of my childhood mommy-issues at the same time. So, for all of these reasons, I've never really considered the X-Anonymous twelve-step groups to be a valid option for me in my recovery.
So I always assumed I would just have to do this on my own. I thought that the X-A groups were the only ones out there, and since those wouldn't work for me, then it must be up to just me doing the work, and the best help I could hope for would be the occasional 1-on-1 counseling session. And I was ok with that, honestly. But then my counselor tells me about this other recovery group called SMART Recovery.
They're basically an alternative to the twelve-steppers, that emphasizes scientific methods of recovery (constantly evolving as the science of recovery evolves; none of that watered-down, psuedo-JudeoChristian psychology "Higher Power" bullshit), self-empowerment as the main recovery tool (as opposed to submitting your Will and pretending to be powerless - more pseudo-JudeoChristian nonsense; and none of this Will-undermining "my addiction is a disease and I am sick and I will always be sick" crap, either), and recognizing that there is no one right way to become sober that will work for everyone - that everyone is unique and different and that each individual has their own best method of recovery - and so the key to recovery is finding your personal method and working it (which is completely in-line with the way I have lived the entire rest of my life; SMART Recovery is to traditional recovery what Chaos Magick is to traditional Western occultism - find what works best for you, and use it). They try to get at the root of addictive behavior itself and deal with that, using modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy methods, rather than focusing on the particular substance or thing one is addicted to. (SMART stands for "Self-Management And Recovery Training".) As such, they aren't just for alcoholics or drug-users, but accept any kind of addict at all. A meeting could include people ranging from alcoholics, to drug-users, to sex addicts, or gambling addicts, or hoarders, or anyone else who would fall under the category of "I'm exhibiting compulsive behavior that I would like to stop."
I was astounded that I'd never heard of this before. They sound perfectly tailored for me. I found out there's a meeting in my area, and I'm going to attend my first one next week. I'm going to try to reserve judgement, though. In my experience, things that sound too-good-to-be-true usually are. And while the base description sounds fantastic, some of the material I've found on their website absolutely screams "MOTIVATIONAL SEMINAR," and that could be a big turn-off for me. So, I'm going to keep my expectations low, attend a few of the meetings, and get a sense of what they're really like. It'd be nice if they turned out to be even half as great as they sound, and it'd be nice if I could actually get some extra help from them. But it would be just that - extra. So if they turn out to be not-quite-right for me, then oh, well. I still have no problem doing all of this on my own.
And no reason to believe that I can't.
concluded in part three tomorrow...
Friday, May 11, 2012
Hope and Regret, part 1...
(When I originally wrote this piece, it turned out to be a lot longer than I'd anticipated, and it just seemed like way too much to include in one posting. So, I've decided to break it up into three parts.)
I learned at least two really important things at my counseling session this week.
First of all, I was reminded of something that I had previously known, but apparently forgotten. That this thing I'm going through right now, this period of depression and low-energy/motivation, is a really common psycho-emotional/bio-chemical reaction in addicts, in response to a relapse. It's almost textbook. Basically, once you've sobered up a bit, then the crash from even just a little bit of use is much more pronounced, and much more noticeable. (It's always there, really - it's just that when you're getting high all the time, it's a lot harder to notice it.) And so that's what's happening with me right now.
I've learned that lesson before. I used to know this. So I kind of felt like an idiot for somehow managing to forget it. But I was also very glad to be made aware of it again. Oddly, it made me feel better somehow to know that this was a common phenomena, that many other people have gone, and are going, through it, that it's been studied and cataloged. Made me less sad about giving up what I'd lost.
Speaking of which, I was reminded of something about that, as well. That period of time in early sobriety, where life is beautiful and being clean just feels so good and everything comes so easily and naturally - that period that just ended for me after Walpurgisnacht, what I've been calling my "state of grace" - in recovery-speak, that period is called "the pink cloud." Also common, also well-studied and cataloged by men in white coats.
And also another trap. At least for me, anyways. Because, when I think about it, I realize that the pink cloud is just another high. I can see the pattern in my behavior so clearly now. I use until I get bored with it, or until it becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of health, energy, etc. Then I sober up and ride the pink cloud for all it's worth for as long as I can. And then as soon as that wears off, as soon as that becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of effort and sacrifice, then I start using again. And round and round we go on the merry-go-round of rotating knives. Basically, I've been cycling back and forth between being high on drugs, and being high on life. But no matter what, I've always been high.
So, that's what I'm trying to work on now. Breaking that cycle. And not just learning how to live a life without using, but learning how to live my life, truly sober - meaning not high on anything at all, completely regardless of whether that thing is seen as a positive or negative influence. Figuring out how to live my life completely down to earth. (And figuring out what "down to earth" even means for me.)
Takin' it back to formula.
continued in part two tomorrow...
I learned at least two really important things at my counseling session this week.
First of all, I was reminded of something that I had previously known, but apparently forgotten. That this thing I'm going through right now, this period of depression and low-energy/motivation, is a really common psycho-emotional/bio-chemical reaction in addicts, in response to a relapse. It's almost textbook. Basically, once you've sobered up a bit, then the crash from even just a little bit of use is much more pronounced, and much more noticeable. (It's always there, really - it's just that when you're getting high all the time, it's a lot harder to notice it.) And so that's what's happening with me right now.
I've learned that lesson before. I used to know this. So I kind of felt like an idiot for somehow managing to forget it. But I was also very glad to be made aware of it again. Oddly, it made me feel better somehow to know that this was a common phenomena, that many other people have gone, and are going, through it, that it's been studied and cataloged. Made me less sad about giving up what I'd lost.
Speaking of which, I was reminded of something about that, as well. That period of time in early sobriety, where life is beautiful and being clean just feels so good and everything comes so easily and naturally - that period that just ended for me after Walpurgisnacht, what I've been calling my "state of grace" - in recovery-speak, that period is called "the pink cloud." Also common, also well-studied and cataloged by men in white coats.
And also another trap. At least for me, anyways. Because, when I think about it, I realize that the pink cloud is just another high. I can see the pattern in my behavior so clearly now. I use until I get bored with it, or until it becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of health, energy, etc. Then I sober up and ride the pink cloud for all it's worth for as long as I can. And then as soon as that wears off, as soon as that becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of effort and sacrifice, then I start using again. And round and round we go on the merry-go-round of rotating knives. Basically, I've been cycling back and forth between being high on drugs, and being high on life. But no matter what, I've always been high.
So, that's what I'm trying to work on now. Breaking that cycle. And not just learning how to live a life without using, but learning how to live my life, truly sober - meaning not high on anything at all, completely regardless of whether that thing is seen as a positive or negative influence. Figuring out how to live my life completely down to earth. (And figuring out what "down to earth" even means for me.)
Takin' it back to formula.
continued in part two tomorrow...
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