Why am I telling you any of this?!
This isn't a diary, for fuck's sake. This is a MEGAPHONE.
Jesus christ, I'm such an asshole.
Showing posts with label regrets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regrets. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Gaze Deep Into My Navel And Despair...
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Lost In Recvoery...
Ok, so, in hindsight, clearly not the most righteous stance I've ever taken. But I still don't think I did anything wrong. And I just can't help but bristle at the idea that my attempt to view an explicit media with clear artistic merit has caused me to get lumped into the same group as the guy who spends his lunch hour spanking it in his office. And it really bothers me that, because of this, I now have to fear for my job. That just seems wrong to me, but I'll drop the subject now, I swear.
In other news, I think I'm going to go back to a SMART meeting tonight, if I can get home in time. (Yesterday's Inauguration has snarled traffic all through the surrounding area.) I haven't been to a SMART meeting in months. It got to the point where they became more of a hassle then they were worth. I never got very much out of the meetings, and I often felt worse afterwards, which struck me as rather counter-productive. And having to give up every Tuesday night (and Tuesday morning for that matter, as I had to get to work early to make sure I could leave early so that I could get to the meetings on time) became rather tiresome. I wanted to make sure I attended enough meetings on a regular basis to establish myself in the group, and to be sure to give them a fair chance (and not make any decisions based on first impressions), and get a sense of what I could expect from SMART in general, and from this group in particular. And I accomplished that. And if I'd felt as if I was having trouble maintaining my sobriety, or that attending these meetings would help me maintain my sobriety in any way, then I would've continued to attend. But, as neither of those were the case, I decided to take my Tuesday nights back, knowing that this group was always there, should I ever need help again.
And now, I think I do. I had always assumed that, in regards to my sobriety, the only person's reaction I needed to be concerned about, was my own. It never occurred to me that other people that I care about might have as difficult a time dealing with my sobriety as I did. I've known that my wife has been missing her "drinking buddy" since I sobered up; we established that early on, in just the first couple of months. But, honestly, I didn't really think much of it; it just didn't seem that important. She didn't seem all that upset about it, and my focus, frankly, especially in those early months, had to be on maintaining my sobriety, and not on whether or not She had someone to get drunk with on Friday nights. I don't think either of us realized just how important it really was to Her, or that it was actually about much more than just missing Her "drinking buddy" - it was about my entire personality changing, again, and for the first time, changing in respect to the ways that I treat Her. And as the months have dragged on and on, and the situation has remained unchanged, Her feelings about it have apparently grown worse and worse, until we are at the point now where it has become a painful and difficult problem in our marriage.
And I don't know what to do about it. I thought things had unarguably changed for the better. I'm much more even-keeled now than I ever have been before. Yes, I still have my ups and downs, but everyone does. But whereas before every emotion was turned up to eleven, now I never get much higher than a four or five. I used to be full volume every minute of every day. Every high was the highest high possible, and every low was the lowest I could get. And in terms of how I treated Her, that meant that when I was happy with Her, she was the Sun, Moon, and Stars to me, and I loved her more than Romeo ever loved Juliet; my entire world revolved around her. (Which sounds beautifully romantic at first, but try living up to such ridiculous and fantastical standards for ten years. It can't be done. And I did a lot of damage to our relationship trying to keep her up on that pedestal for so many years.) But it also means that when I wasn't happy with her, I hated her, because she was completely ruining my entire fucking life.
Now, my feelings never get that ridiculously, over-the-top intense. I still love her, and I still sometimes get angry with her, but I don't treat her like the be-all-end-all of my existence, nor do I treat her like the worst thing that ever happened to me. All of my feelings for her, both good and bad, are much softer and quieter, much more reasonable and responsible, much more practical; and so completely fucking boring. Because while both of us are clearly glad that I no longer feel such intense anger at her every time she makes me feel anything bad, from her point of view, my world used to revolve around Her. And now it doesn't. And that hurts her. It hurts in a way she has a very difficult time understanding, or articulating. And it's very confusing. Because while she's certainly glad that I don't yell at her anymore, and while she is definitely very proud of me for all that I've accomplished these past eight months, she's also really hurt and upset; she feels rejected, because, from her point of view, I don't seem to love her as much as I used to. Which isn't true at all; I still love her just as much as I used to, I just don't express it as intensely. But how can she be expected to know what I'm really feeling, if I've completely changed the way that I express those feelings?
And then, on top of all of the hurt and rejection she's already feeling, she ends up feeling very guilty, too. She feels guilty because she understands that my sobriety is clearly a good thing for me, and she wants to be able to support me in that and feel proud of me. And by feeling hurt and upset in response to my sobriety, regardless of how else she feels about it, she feels like she is doing something wrong, and hurting me, and undermining my sobriety. Which, unfortunately, I have to agree with, in a sense. It definitely hurts me to know that I'm hurting her. And it definitely makes me want to drink, because I feel like that would make her happy (and I'm kind of hard-wired to want to make her happy). But I don't think she's doing anything wrong; on that point we disagree. I can't blame her for how she feels, at all. I would almost certainly feel the same thing in her place. And I think it can be said that, almost certainly, she has been the one the most hurt, she has been the one who has lost the most, she has been the one who has sacrificed the most, for my sobriety. And I could never expect her to just be a hundred percent happy about that. I feel horribly naive for not anticipating it ahead of time.
But now, what do I do? How am I supposed to respond to this? How should we deal with it? What can we do about it? In the addiction/recovery cycle, most people end up feeling like they lost their loved ones to the addiction side of things, when the addict reaches the point where the only thing they are capable of caring about anymore is using. We're really fortunate that we've never had to face that problem. But I've never heard of anyone feeling like they lost their loved one to sobriety. In all of my experience with addiction and recovery, I've never heard anyone say, "Now that you're sober, you don't love me the way that you used to." And now that we're unfortunate enough to be faced with that problem, I have no idea how to deal with it. I have no experience to draw on.
And, so, back to SMART. I'm hoping someone there has some experience with this, or has at least heard of it before. At the very least, I'm hoping to come away with some perspective.
Will me luck.
In other news, I think I'm going to go back to a SMART meeting tonight, if I can get home in time. (Yesterday's Inauguration has snarled traffic all through the surrounding area.) I haven't been to a SMART meeting in months. It got to the point where they became more of a hassle then they were worth. I never got very much out of the meetings, and I often felt worse afterwards, which struck me as rather counter-productive. And having to give up every Tuesday night (and Tuesday morning for that matter, as I had to get to work early to make sure I could leave early so that I could get to the meetings on time) became rather tiresome. I wanted to make sure I attended enough meetings on a regular basis to establish myself in the group, and to be sure to give them a fair chance (and not make any decisions based on first impressions), and get a sense of what I could expect from SMART in general, and from this group in particular. And I accomplished that. And if I'd felt as if I was having trouble maintaining my sobriety, or that attending these meetings would help me maintain my sobriety in any way, then I would've continued to attend. But, as neither of those were the case, I decided to take my Tuesday nights back, knowing that this group was always there, should I ever need help again.
And now, I think I do. I had always assumed that, in regards to my sobriety, the only person's reaction I needed to be concerned about, was my own. It never occurred to me that other people that I care about might have as difficult a time dealing with my sobriety as I did. I've known that my wife has been missing her "drinking buddy" since I sobered up; we established that early on, in just the first couple of months. But, honestly, I didn't really think much of it; it just didn't seem that important. She didn't seem all that upset about it, and my focus, frankly, especially in those early months, had to be on maintaining my sobriety, and not on whether or not She had someone to get drunk with on Friday nights. I don't think either of us realized just how important it really was to Her, or that it was actually about much more than just missing Her "drinking buddy" - it was about my entire personality changing, again, and for the first time, changing in respect to the ways that I treat Her. And as the months have dragged on and on, and the situation has remained unchanged, Her feelings about it have apparently grown worse and worse, until we are at the point now where it has become a painful and difficult problem in our marriage.
And I don't know what to do about it. I thought things had unarguably changed for the better. I'm much more even-keeled now than I ever have been before. Yes, I still have my ups and downs, but everyone does. But whereas before every emotion was turned up to eleven, now I never get much higher than a four or five. I used to be full volume every minute of every day. Every high was the highest high possible, and every low was the lowest I could get. And in terms of how I treated Her, that meant that when I was happy with Her, she was the Sun, Moon, and Stars to me, and I loved her more than Romeo ever loved Juliet; my entire world revolved around her. (Which sounds beautifully romantic at first, but try living up to such ridiculous and fantastical standards for ten years. It can't be done. And I did a lot of damage to our relationship trying to keep her up on that pedestal for so many years.) But it also means that when I wasn't happy with her, I hated her, because she was completely ruining my entire fucking life.
Now, my feelings never get that ridiculously, over-the-top intense. I still love her, and I still sometimes get angry with her, but I don't treat her like the be-all-end-all of my existence, nor do I treat her like the worst thing that ever happened to me. All of my feelings for her, both good and bad, are much softer and quieter, much more reasonable and responsible, much more practical; and so completely fucking boring. Because while both of us are clearly glad that I no longer feel such intense anger at her every time she makes me feel anything bad, from her point of view, my world used to revolve around Her. And now it doesn't. And that hurts her. It hurts in a way she has a very difficult time understanding, or articulating. And it's very confusing. Because while she's certainly glad that I don't yell at her anymore, and while she is definitely very proud of me for all that I've accomplished these past eight months, she's also really hurt and upset; she feels rejected, because, from her point of view, I don't seem to love her as much as I used to. Which isn't true at all; I still love her just as much as I used to, I just don't express it as intensely. But how can she be expected to know what I'm really feeling, if I've completely changed the way that I express those feelings?
And then, on top of all of the hurt and rejection she's already feeling, she ends up feeling very guilty, too. She feels guilty because she understands that my sobriety is clearly a good thing for me, and she wants to be able to support me in that and feel proud of me. And by feeling hurt and upset in response to my sobriety, regardless of how else she feels about it, she feels like she is doing something wrong, and hurting me, and undermining my sobriety. Which, unfortunately, I have to agree with, in a sense. It definitely hurts me to know that I'm hurting her. And it definitely makes me want to drink, because I feel like that would make her happy (and I'm kind of hard-wired to want to make her happy). But I don't think she's doing anything wrong; on that point we disagree. I can't blame her for how she feels, at all. I would almost certainly feel the same thing in her place. And I think it can be said that, almost certainly, she has been the one the most hurt, she has been the one who has lost the most, she has been the one who has sacrificed the most, for my sobriety. And I could never expect her to just be a hundred percent happy about that. I feel horribly naive for not anticipating it ahead of time.
But now, what do I do? How am I supposed to respond to this? How should we deal with it? What can we do about it? In the addiction/recovery cycle, most people end up feeling like they lost their loved ones to the addiction side of things, when the addict reaches the point where the only thing they are capable of caring about anymore is using. We're really fortunate that we've never had to face that problem. But I've never heard of anyone feeling like they lost their loved one to sobriety. In all of my experience with addiction and recovery, I've never heard anyone say, "Now that you're sober, you don't love me the way that you used to." And now that we're unfortunate enough to be faced with that problem, I have no idea how to deal with it. I have no experience to draw on.
And, so, back to SMART. I'm hoping someone there has some experience with this, or has at least heard of it before. At the very least, I'm hoping to come away with some perspective.
Will me luck.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Identity...
What am I trying to say here? That I'm somehow okay with my regrets? That I've accepted them? Not hardly. Maybe it's that I've accepted the idea of them? That while I might still lie awake at night tortured by all the things I wish I could do differently, I've at least accepted that they are a part of my life now and always will be. That my life will not be a life free of regret. That I will eventually die feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied and wishing things had turned out other than they did. And, again, I'm not okay with that. I don't think it's fair and it pisses me off and I'll fight it until the last speck of light has gone out of my eyes. But I've accepted that it is going to happen. It's too late now and there's nothing I can do about it. I'll still fight it, because what else is there? But I don't expect to change it. And I won't feel like I've failed when I don't. It's the fight that is important. The struggle. Not victory. There is no victory over a life of regret. Choices made cannot be un-made. Roads taken cannot be backtracked. Who we have decided to become is who we are and we cannot become someone else no matter how much we may want to. And we have no one but ourselves to blame. Our choices have led us here and so here we are. Like it or not. And if you don't like it then fight it but don't ever hope to change it. Regret has swallowed you whole and the best you can hope for is a candle to light the darkness awhile. We all live with regret. A constant companion with claws in our neck. Life is ignoring those claws tearing at our skin. Life is shrugging our shoulders and saying "Yeah? So what? That the best you got? Fuck you. That ain't nothin'. And you ain't gonna stop me. Fuck, you ain't even gonna slow me down."
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Disappointments & Failures...
How's that for a title, huh?
I was in a pretty good place the last time I wrote here, almost a week ago. But the past week hasn't gone well for me, and I've swung myself over to the opposite end of the scale since then.
It started when my weekend vacation in the woods didn't work out as anticipated. I got some writing done (expect to be reading my crappy work off and on for the next week or so), but nowhere near as much as I had wanted. The mosquitoes and other bugs were simply relentless, so I couldn't do any meditating out in the peaceful forest setting, either, which I'd been looking forward to a great deal. (We are both covered in itchy, red bites from head to toe now.) And the hot tub out on the back deck, which is one of my favorite features of this cabin-in-the-woods, and which might've provided some needed respite from the bugs, was broken. So, while the weather was beautiful, and the setting serene, I couldn't really spend any time outside to enjoy it. Oh, and somehow, we only managed to have sex once all weekend. So pathetic. What a waste.
And to top it all off, after all of these disappointments, combined with all of the stress of getting everything ready for the vacation, and then not being able to find any way to relax once we got there, I ended up succumbing to my addictive desires, and relapsed again. So much for "looking forward to spending this weekend sober." I somehow managed to justify it with the fact that I was using a drug I'd never used before, and not one of the ones that I'm currently trying to resist because I've had problems with them in the past. (Basically, I told myself it was okay to use this drug, because it wasn't alcohol or pot or painkillers, and because I'd never used it before. Which is such complete bullshit. Same old pattern I'm trying to break: avoid using one drug by using another instead.) I'm not going to name the drug here, but it's legal (or maybe it'd be better to say that it's not yet illegal), and while not actually a painkiller, one of the active chemicals in the plant bonds to the opiod-receptors in the brain, producing the same physical sensation, without most (if not all) of the harmful side-effects of true opiates (liver damage, chemical dependency, respiratory failure, withdrawl, etc.)
So, basically, it's a safe, cheap, legal way to get an opiate-like high. How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?! The horrible, deadly, sickness-inducing side-effects of opiates are what I use to convince myself not to do them in the first place! Without them, I'm reduced to telling myself, "Well, you shouldn't use it because... well, because you've committed to a year sober and you don't want to feel like a failure. Oh, and don't forget that if you get high, on anything, at all, you'll end up feeling depressed and lazy and unmotivated and emotionally unbalanced for a week, remember?"
All of which is true, but I couldn't bring myself to give a shit at the time. And now I'm paying the price. I just wanted to enjoy my vacation, and I had run out of other options that I could find. Somehow, sitting around the cabin watching DVDs (two of the three movies we watched ended up being really awful) and snacking (which just made me feel fat - I could feel all of my workouts being undone with every bite) just weren't going to do it for me. And that's my problem in a nutshell. I couldn't bring myself to stay sober, knowing that it meant not enjoying myself on my vacation. Because when I get in a situation where I feel like I need to have a good time, and I try and fail to find any other way to do it, I always know that I've got this sure-fire method right in my back pocket. And, sure, that shortcut comes with a heavy price to pay, but I can never seem to bring myself to care about that in the moment. I'm always willing to pay almost any price later to enjoy myself now.
Like I said last week, a lot of what I'm trying to work on right now is learning how to suffer; how to allow myself to be okay with something like having a shitty, sober vacation, rather than feeling like I have to get high in order to avoid it (which only ends up making for a shittier vacation anyways). And this was put to the test this weekend, hard. And I failed that test, completely and utterly.
Anyways, then I got home and found out that my wireless had broken, again. So I had to take the laptop back to the shop and have them fix it, again, less than a week after I got it back from them and spent two days frantically trying to restore all my files and programs. But before I took it back to the shop I wanted to make another back up, since my previous one is corrupted. I decided to back-up to disk this time, since every other method I've tried has failed. After three hours, and three failed attempts, I had to give up on that method, as well. (I have never, not once in my entire life, successfully backed-up a computer. Every single attempt I have ever made using any method has failed. Either it crashes while creating the back-up, or it doesn't restore from the back-up properly. Why the fuck do I even bother?)
Then the depression from a weekend spent getting high kicked in full-force, and (combined with all of the other things I was already legitimately depressed about) totally knocked me on my ass, and I ended up calling out sick and spending two days on my couch playing video games. (I am such a fucking child!) I'm chemically exhausted from the coming-down, and so it takes me hours to get up and out the door in the morning. As such, I haven't worked out in almost a week, and I know I've managed to completely undo most of the gains I've made with all that hard work in the last month. I finally managed to make it into work today, but an hour late, only to find out that I missed an important assignment while I was out, and my boss had to take care of it for me. (I didn't know about it, because I couldn't check my work email, because my computer is still fucking broken!) Then my boss had a "talk" with me about the fact that I never seem to have any internet at home. (For years, this was because our building's internet sucked. And now that we have finally managed to fix that, my computer has been broken for a month!) And my story of why I never seem to have internet at home sounds ridiculous (even to me, and I know it's true!) so she didn't believe me, and I can hardly blame her.
I skipped SMART last night, because I'm too depressed, and too much of a coward to face all those assholes and admit what a stupid fucking failure I am. And I skipped my therapist appointment today (which I should be at right now, actually) because I couldn't bring myself to leave work early to go to my appointment, after missing two days and then coming in late today.
So, basically, my vacation sucked, I relapsed, I'm chemically depressed and exhausted, my computer is still broken and back in the shop again, I haven't worked out in a week, I'm way behind and in trouble at work, and I feel like a miserable, worthless, piece-of-shit excuse for a person right now.
And it is ALL. My. Fault.
I was in a pretty good place the last time I wrote here, almost a week ago. But the past week hasn't gone well for me, and I've swung myself over to the opposite end of the scale since then.
It started when my weekend vacation in the woods didn't work out as anticipated. I got some writing done (expect to be reading my crappy work off and on for the next week or so), but nowhere near as much as I had wanted. The mosquitoes and other bugs were simply relentless, so I couldn't do any meditating out in the peaceful forest setting, either, which I'd been looking forward to a great deal. (We are both covered in itchy, red bites from head to toe now.) And the hot tub out on the back deck, which is one of my favorite features of this cabin-in-the-woods, and which might've provided some needed respite from the bugs, was broken. So, while the weather was beautiful, and the setting serene, I couldn't really spend any time outside to enjoy it. Oh, and somehow, we only managed to have sex once all weekend. So pathetic. What a waste.
And to top it all off, after all of these disappointments, combined with all of the stress of getting everything ready for the vacation, and then not being able to find any way to relax once we got there, I ended up succumbing to my addictive desires, and relapsed again. So much for "looking forward to spending this weekend sober." I somehow managed to justify it with the fact that I was using a drug I'd never used before, and not one of the ones that I'm currently trying to resist because I've had problems with them in the past. (Basically, I told myself it was okay to use this drug, because it wasn't alcohol or pot or painkillers, and because I'd never used it before. Which is such complete bullshit. Same old pattern I'm trying to break: avoid using one drug by using another instead.) I'm not going to name the drug here, but it's legal (or maybe it'd be better to say that it's not yet illegal), and while not actually a painkiller, one of the active chemicals in the plant bonds to the opiod-receptors in the brain, producing the same physical sensation, without most (if not all) of the harmful side-effects of true opiates (liver damage, chemical dependency, respiratory failure, withdrawl, etc.)
So, basically, it's a safe, cheap, legal way to get an opiate-like high. How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?! The horrible, deadly, sickness-inducing side-effects of opiates are what I use to convince myself not to do them in the first place! Without them, I'm reduced to telling myself, "Well, you shouldn't use it because... well, because you've committed to a year sober and you don't want to feel like a failure. Oh, and don't forget that if you get high, on anything, at all, you'll end up feeling depressed and lazy and unmotivated and emotionally unbalanced for a week, remember?"
All of which is true, but I couldn't bring myself to give a shit at the time. And now I'm paying the price. I just wanted to enjoy my vacation, and I had run out of other options that I could find. Somehow, sitting around the cabin watching DVDs (two of the three movies we watched ended up being really awful) and snacking (which just made me feel fat - I could feel all of my workouts being undone with every bite) just weren't going to do it for me. And that's my problem in a nutshell. I couldn't bring myself to stay sober, knowing that it meant not enjoying myself on my vacation. Because when I get in a situation where I feel like I need to have a good time, and I try and fail to find any other way to do it, I always know that I've got this sure-fire method right in my back pocket. And, sure, that shortcut comes with a heavy price to pay, but I can never seem to bring myself to care about that in the moment. I'm always willing to pay almost any price later to enjoy myself now.
Like I said last week, a lot of what I'm trying to work on right now is learning how to suffer; how to allow myself to be okay with something like having a shitty, sober vacation, rather than feeling like I have to get high in order to avoid it (which only ends up making for a shittier vacation anyways). And this was put to the test this weekend, hard. And I failed that test, completely and utterly.
Anyways, then I got home and found out that my wireless had broken, again. So I had to take the laptop back to the shop and have them fix it, again, less than a week after I got it back from them and spent two days frantically trying to restore all my files and programs. But before I took it back to the shop I wanted to make another back up, since my previous one is corrupted. I decided to back-up to disk this time, since every other method I've tried has failed. After three hours, and three failed attempts, I had to give up on that method, as well. (I have never, not once in my entire life, successfully backed-up a computer. Every single attempt I have ever made using any method has failed. Either it crashes while creating the back-up, or it doesn't restore from the back-up properly. Why the fuck do I even bother?)
Then the depression from a weekend spent getting high kicked in full-force, and (combined with all of the other things I was already legitimately depressed about) totally knocked me on my ass, and I ended up calling out sick and spending two days on my couch playing video games. (I am such a fucking child!) I'm chemically exhausted from the coming-down, and so it takes me hours to get up and out the door in the morning. As such, I haven't worked out in almost a week, and I know I've managed to completely undo most of the gains I've made with all that hard work in the last month. I finally managed to make it into work today, but an hour late, only to find out that I missed an important assignment while I was out, and my boss had to take care of it for me. (I didn't know about it, because I couldn't check my work email, because my computer is still fucking broken!) Then my boss had a "talk" with me about the fact that I never seem to have any internet at home. (For years, this was because our building's internet sucked. And now that we have finally managed to fix that, my computer has been broken for a month!) And my story of why I never seem to have internet at home sounds ridiculous (even to me, and I know it's true!) so she didn't believe me, and I can hardly blame her.
I skipped SMART last night, because I'm too depressed, and too much of a coward to face all those assholes and admit what a stupid fucking failure I am. And I skipped my therapist appointment today (which I should be at right now, actually) because I couldn't bring myself to leave work early to go to my appointment, after missing two days and then coming in late today.
So, basically, my vacation sucked, I relapsed, I'm chemically depressed and exhausted, my computer is still broken and back in the shop again, I haven't worked out in a week, I'm way behind and in trouble at work, and I feel like a miserable, worthless, piece-of-shit excuse for a person right now.
And it is ALL. My. Fault.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Vow...
I Love you.
More than I ever thought I could Love anything.
I will never stop Loving you.
I COULD never stop Loving you.
And, as sure as I am that the Sun does not shine on my world
without your permission,
I am sure that I want you
to be the last thing I ever see.
I want your voice to be the last thing I ever hear,
and I want your hand holding mine
to be the last thing I ever feel.
And if you would consent to hold me,
even only as my last breath whispered from me,
then I will vow to protect you
from anything and everything that threatens or disturbs you;
to worship you
as if you were the god who gave me life, breath, and soul;
to adore you
as the most beautiful,
the most sexy,
the most compassionate,
the most Loving,
the most brilliant,
and the most magnificent woman that the Gods have ever seen fit
to grace our world with.
And I will vow to Love you
more than any person before or after us
has ever been able to do.
You are Light,
Life,
and Love to me,
and you ALWAYS will be.
+ + +
I confess, as the years have passed, I haven't done a very good job of living up to this oath.
You should hold me to it.
Please hold me to it.
This is who I want to be.
This is who I thought I was.
Help make me this man.
Let me be him, again, for you.
More than I ever thought I could Love anything.
I will never stop Loving you.
I COULD never stop Loving you.
And, as sure as I am that the Sun does not shine on my world
without your permission,
I am sure that I want you
to be the last thing I ever see.
I want your voice to be the last thing I ever hear,
and I want your hand holding mine
to be the last thing I ever feel.
And if you would consent to hold me,
even only as my last breath whispered from me,
then I will vow to protect you
from anything and everything that threatens or disturbs you;
to worship you
as if you were the god who gave me life, breath, and soul;
to adore you
as the most beautiful,
the most sexy,
the most compassionate,
the most Loving,
the most brilliant,
and the most magnificent woman that the Gods have ever seen fit
to grace our world with.
And I will vow to Love you
more than any person before or after us
has ever been able to do.
You are Light,
Life,
and Love to me,
and you ALWAYS will be.
+ + +
I confess, as the years have passed, I haven't done a very good job of living up to this oath.
You should hold me to it.
Please hold me to it.
This is who I want to be.
This is who I thought I was.
Help make me this man.
Let me be him, again, for you.
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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