Lapse...

So, I think I relapsed.

Accidentally.  Without even knowing it.

That sounds absurd, but it's the most logical assumption to make, given the evidence.

I had no trouble staying sober at Dover, and though I recognized on a couple of occasions that it would've been nice to have a drink or something, I was never stressed by it, and it didn't interfere with my ability to enjoy myself in the slightest.  In fact, the one notable difference between this weekend and past trips was that this one was noticeable easier for me.  I'm normally exhausted by the experience, but this time it was just a nice little vacation; I never realized how much of that exhaustion was apparently due to the booze, etc.

So, I had a great time, and was feeling wonderful.  But then, a day or so after coming home, I suddenly started to feel really down.  It started when I couldn't sleep properly.  But it just got worse from there.  I ended up getting severely depressed, and completely exhausted.  I couldn't sleep enough, and yet I never felt rested.  And I had no energy, no drive, no ambition, no desires; at best I was numb - at worst, I was completely miserable and pissed off at everything.

I had a few different guesses as to what might be causing this condition, but as I resolved them one-by-one, with no change in my mood, I had to try and form new theories.  Which is when I realized that what I was experiencing felt like the exact same depressive period that follows a relapse for me.  And that's when I remembered the sleeping pills.

I took sleeping pills the nights we stayed at Dover.  One pill each night; half the recommended dosage.  I wasn't taking them to get high.  I was taking them for their intended purpose, to help me sleep.  We were staying in a flea-bag hotel, and I was wide awake in an uncomfortable bed, and I had a lot to do the next day, and needed to get an early start.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  Because I was thinking of it as "medicine" and not "drugs."  But in hindsight, it became obvious - of course I got high off of them (they altered my brain-chemistry to the point that I was rendered unconscious, for fuck's sake), and so of course I was going to experience the same depression afterwards that I experience whenever I get high off of anything; the reason why I took them is completely irrelevant to my brain-chemistry.

So, I've been suffering through that since we got back, and am only just now starting to come out of it.  That's one reason why I haven't posted anything for a while.  (Work is the other half of that, but that's a whole other post in and of itself.) This one has been particularly difficult to deal with, because it's been accompanied by strong doses of self-pity and righteous indignation.  Normally, I know exactly what I did wrong, and I know exactly why it was wrong, and so a part of this depression feels like a deserved punishment; I knew what to expect, and I did this to myself, so I really have no right to complain about it, and should just shut the fuck up and take it like a man.  But in this case, I don't really feel like I did anything wrong.  I didn't truly relapse in the sense that I didn't give in to my cravings and desires.  I didn't even have any cravings or desires!  I was just trying to solve a problem I was experiencing by taking a medicine designed to alleviate that particular ailment, and is available at any local convenience store.  And now I have to feel like complete shit for two weeks??

And the worst part is, I didn't even get to get high!  If I'm going to have to suffer through this period of misery, I should at least get the enjoyment of having a drink or something out of it.  That's only fair, right?  But in this case, I didn't get the drink; all I got was the hangover.  And that just feels so wrong.

Those thoughts kept running through my mind, and it became really difficult to not have a drink.  To know that all I would have to do is have one drink, and all this pain would simply vanish for a time, and I would be allowed to feel good again for a short while - that was really hard to resist.  Especially when I felt like I was already paying the price for it; it felt like I'd earned it, in a way.  But I was able to maintain perspective, and remind myself that having a drink would only prolong the inevitable, and make it worse in the long-run.  And set me back a few months.  (I really didn't want to erase all those Sober Days from my tally and have to start back at zero again.)  And, thankfully, a part of me wanted to suffer through it.  I have that stubborn desire to build endurance through gritting my teeth and taking pain lately, and that served me well here, again.  As horrible as the experience was - and perhaps even because it was so horrible - I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, and I knew the best way to accomplish that was just to try and keep my mouth shut and suffer through it.

I also ate whatever the fuck I wanted for two weeks and gained several pounds, but again, that's a whole other post, entirely.

They Come In Three's...

There has been a sudden epidemic of relapses among the members of my SMART group.

Several people, one right after another, taking their turn to share their story of falling off the wagon.  Some people have put off talking about it for a week or so, because they didn't want to add yet another relapse story into a meeting that was already crowded with them.  Some of these people are new to recovery, and are still struggling with it, and so that's to be expected.  But others have been sober for years.   And those are a lot harder to deal with.  For everyone involved.

Relapses are a part of recovery, as they say.  But though they happen, they're still rare enough that it feels very bizarre for them to be happening in a cluster like this.  It feels improbable, bordering on paranormal.

And I can't help thinking about this, as we get ready to go to Dover for the NASCAR race this weekend.  I normally have a six-pack all to myself during the race, plus a few other fun enhancers and reality lubricants both before and after.  It's always been a party weekend for us.  This will be my first time at a race completely sober.

I'm honestly not worried about my sobriety right now.  I don't feel I am in any danger of getting fucked up in any way this weekend.  Nor am I concerned about my ability to enjoy myself this weekend sober.  This weekend is a blast, period, and there's nothing about it that I need to get fucked up in order to enjoy.  I know I'm going to have a great time.

But with the way things have been going lately, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a little bit like tempting fate.

Good SMART...

Another part of getting back into my routine, was getting back to a SMART meeting last night, after missing the previous two weeks.  Rather surprisingly, this one actually made me feel a little better.

Talked about my recent relapse and depression, and my struggle to learn endurance, and to allow myself to simply accept unhappiness in those situations where I can't find any relief, rather than falling back into the habit of using drugs to create a synthetic happiness to relieve those feelings.  (I feel like I've made progress, because drugs used to be my first response to those feelings, and now they are only a last-resort when all else has failed.  But, still, it's unhealthy, and more to the point, it doesn't work - it doesn't actually relieve the feeling or make me feel better - and I'm tired of it, and I want to break this habit and learn to accept pain and unhappiness when I have to.)  I tried to keep it brief, because one of the last times I talked, the Facilitator actually cut me off after fifteen minutes for taking up too much time.  But despite my efforts, my check-in seemed to spark a rather intense and lengthy discussion that involved almost the entire group, and ended up lasting for a full half-hour.

And in that thirty minutes, I actually got some good advice.  For instance, not to even bother to give people a reason that I'm not drinking, etc.  And if they press me for a reason, to just say that I don't feel like it right now.  There's no need to say any more than that; and, in fact, often times giving people a reason will only invite them to debate said reason in an effort to try to convince you to join them.  So, don't give them a chance.

Someone described my condition as a "relief-seeking missile," which I thought was rather amusing.

Also, someone suggested that these past two weeks of depression are actually an example of the endurance I'm struggling to learn.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  In thinking about it, it occurred to me that I'd been able to endure these past two weeks because I felt like I had no other choice.  I wanted it to end, and the only way to do that was to let it run its course, and then jump up at the very first sign of emotional elevation.  And at the cabin, I hadn't been able to endure, and (probably not coincidentally) I believed then that I did have a choice; that I could choose to get high and that would make me feel better.  And, of course, that's not really true.  It made me feel a little better, sort of, for a very short time, and then made me feel much, much worse for a good, long while after that.  So, I think part of the key to getting through those triggering situations like the cabin, is to tell myself that I don't really have a choice.  I want to be happy and healthy right now, and the only way to do that is to endure those periods of suffering when they arise.  Just like I did for the past two weeks.

I was also reminded of the simple truth that the good times only exist because of the bad times; they only exist in relation to one another, so one can't exist without the other.  And therefore, the bad times only serve to make the good times that much better.  And that if I ever want to be happy, I have to allow myself to be unhappy once in a while, too.

And there was also a lot of general encouragement and congratulations and I'm-proud-of-you's just for being honest and telling my story.  (I guess this is difficult for a lot of people?  Because everyone seemed to be particularly amazed by it and proud of me for doing it.  But it's just really easy to be honest when you're shameless and generally don't care what people think of you.  Besides, if I'm not honest during these check-ins, then I'm just shooting myself in the foot and wasting my time, so what's the point of even being there?  If I'm not going to be honest, then I've got much better things that I could be doing with my Tuesday nights.)

After it was all over, I found that I felt a lot better about the past few weeks, and a lot better about myself.  Enough that I was actually surprised by the feeling.  I realized I'd actually made some progress with this experience, and that it wasn't just a setback.  And I felt a lot better about this process going forward.  I realized I was more hopeful about my chances of success now.

And all that made me realize that, for once, I was actually glad to be there.

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say...

Finally got back to the gym this morning.  I was so excited and so happy to finally be working out again!  It's been over two weeks since my last workout, and I've been feeling like a giant, fat, useless slug of a human being the whole time.  I'm really, really happy to finally be back in my routine.

I'm tired of getting high, quite honestly.  I'm really fucking tired of this cycle, and I want out.  I get clean for a few months, and then I use again.  Ultimately, this is what I would like - to be able to use on occasion.  But years of chronic abuse have made that impossible for the time being, because right now, whenever I use at all, even a little bit, even after several months clean, I'm immediately plunged into a multi-week depression.  Part of it is simply chemical - the drugs have caused my brain to stop producing the chemicals that would make me happy.  But part of it is also situational.  I enjoy my routine.  I like getting up early, I like working out, I like getting home and to bed at reasonable times, I like writing here and meditating and all the rest of it.  When I'm doing these things, I'm happy, I'm strong, I sleep well, I have energy to spare, and, most importanly, I feel good about myself.  But when I'm depressed, and have no focus, and no energy, and no creativity, I can't do any of those things, and then that depresses me even more.  And then I eat, because it seems like the only enjoyable thing in my life that I can still control, but even that ends up depressing me more, because I swear I can actually feel myself getting fat.

My only saving grace so far has been that I hate that feeling of depression so much, that the second it begins to wane at all, I immediately start clawing my way out of that hole like my life depended on it.  Which, I guess it kind of does, without being too dramatic about it.  Maybe not my actual living, but certainly the quality of my life.

Oh, well.  I'm re-hashing old material at this point.  Learning the exact same lessons over and over again.  Maybe this time it'll stick.

In the meantime, I'm just glad to finally be climbing out of the hole of the last two weeks.  Glad to be back in my routine, and glad to finally be doing something other than sleeping, eating, or playing video games.  (Have to say, though, God of War 3 and Bioshock were pretty fucking fun.)

It's only a first step, and one I've taken more times than I'd like to admit, but still, it feels good.  And here's hoping it's the beginning of a trend; a sign of what's to come.

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.

Status Report...

I'm feeling much better now.

Last week I started taking some herbal supplements.  Sunnaswort (aka St. John's Wort) for mood, Ginseng for energy, and Ginkgo Biloba for focus.  And I started feeling better almost immediately.  Which could be due to the herbs, or could just be the placebo effect, or could be due to the fact that my depressed period was simply coming to an end all on its own by that point anyways.  But, regardless of why, I've definitely been feeling better lately.

I've been much more relaxed and happy.  Still not quite the happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow of the pink cloud, but still a significant improvement over the last couple of weeks.  No more getting angry or upset about little things and then not being able to let them go.  I managed to get in both my mathematics lessons and a meditation session this weekend, and really enjoyed them all.  More to the point, I found myself excitedly looking forward to them, like I had been up until Walpurgisnacht.  I was worried I might've lost that.

And the sluggishness and lack-of-motivation are gone now, as well.  The last few days I've woken refreshed and ready to go, rather than feeling like I still needed several more hours of sleep.  It's been no trouble to make it into the gym on time the last several mornings, either.  I even managed to stay up late on Saturday night into Sunday morning playing my new video game, without feeling tired and drained the next day.  And I even managed to get a little bit of work done this weekend.  (Not as much as I'd like, but it's a start.)

So, we'll see how the rest of the week goes, but I'm optimistic.  Things seem to be improving.

Will me luck.

Damn, That Slope Sure Is Slippery...

I think I fell off the wagon last night.

No, that's not right.  I know I fell off the wagon last night.  Just hard to say it, is all.

She and I and her friend went out to our bar.  I had my first non-alcoholic beer.  I assumed that would be safe.  It was even recommended to me as an option by my chemical dependency therapist.  But the weirdest thing happened.

I got a little drunk!

There's this feeling you get when you first take a drink.  It's more emotional and perceptual than physical; not like getting high.  It's just this feeling of suddenly being happier, more relaxed, more interested in what other people are saying, feeling more outgoing and talkative.  And it's an immediate reaction - you can feel it after just a few sips.  And it's more pronounced and obvious for alcoholics like myself.  Anyone can notice it, but it's really, really obvious to us.

And halfway through my first supposedly non-alcoholic beer, I felt it, clear as day.  It must've been the Placebo Effect, there's no other explanation for it.  After that one, I had two more, and thankfully, the feeling never went any further than that, but still, that was enough.  Even just the beginning of the feeling of getting drunk was apparently enough to trigger me.

After we left the bar, my leg was really killing me.  So I decided to take a pain pill.  It's hard to say how much of that was legitimate and how much of it was just my desire to continue the feeling of getting high that had started with the near-beer.  Yeah, my leg hurt really badly, but I probably could've suffered through it if I really wanted to.  And there's no mistaking that I really did want very badly to get high right then.  More so than I have in recent memory, actually.  So, if I'm honest, I'd have to say that the sore leg was probably just a convenient excuse.

We got home, I took my pill, and the girls went back out again to hit another bar.  I plopped down on the couch and started playing video games.  It took almost two hours for the pill to kick in, but when it did, it felt like a long, low-intensity, sustained orgasm.  Less than thirty minutes later, I took another one.  And then I started drinking an energy drink, so that I wouldn't pass out and could stay up and enjoy the pleasure of the pills all night long.  This is one of my favorites of my old ways to masturbate myself to death.  I call it my "poor man's speedball."

In the span of three hours, I had gone from comfortably sober, to neck-deep in the exact same hole I almost died in just two months ago.

And I didn't even feel guilty about it.  I enjoyed every second of it, playing my game and feeling so fantastic, until I finally started to nod off around 3 a.m.

And I still don't feel guilty about it, which I think is even scarier.  I feel responsible, to be sure, but not guilty.  I feel like I did this to myself, but somehow, I also feel like it was an honest mistake.  (WTF??)  I had no way of knowing that drinking a motherfucking non-alcoholic beer could possibly affect me in a way that was so unbelievably similar to drinking an actual beer.  Yes, I totally let my guard down, and ended up fucking myself because of it, but I really don't think I could've possibly known that I needed to have my guard up in that situation.  I mean, it's non-alcoholic beer, for fuck's sake!  Its entire purpose is for alcoholics to be able to drink it safely!  How could I have possibly known?!  Yes, it's still my fault for taking it much, much further after that.  But that's how addiction works.  Addicts aren't like "normal" people.  An addict can't just have a little taste and then simply walk away.  That's what makes them an addict.  And last night, I had a little taste, without realizing it until it was too late, and I wasn't at all prepared for it.  And then I couldn't walk away.

I feel like I should be beating myself up about this.  Feeling like a failure.  But I know that's a trap.  You let yourself feel like a failure, or get down on yourself too much for not being perfect, and then it's just a short step to saying, "Fuck it, why even bother?"  Addicts relapse.  That's just a fact.  And believe it or not, the healthy response to relapse is to accept it, dust yourself off, and climb back on the wagon, resolved to hang on tighter next time.  Accept responsibility, yes - but don't hate on yourself for not being perfect.  Just try again, and try harder.

Learn the lesson and keep going.

I ended up not being able to sleep at all last night.  And I mean that literally and sincerely - I laid in bed, awake, and gloriously high, for six hours, and did not fall asleep for even a moment.  Whether from the pills or the energy drink, I can't say.  It could be either.  But I'm choosing to interpret it as my penance.  And I'm accepting it gladly, and with humility.  (I hope so, anyways.  I'm trying.)

And I know one thing for certain:  I'll never take non-alcoholic beer lightly again.