Recovery Recovery Journal

[jb99]

Thanks chinup.

6 weeks sober tmrw. Life is still progressing and I'm feeling more clear-headed. Most days I reverse commute out of NYC to pick my kid up from preschool and make her dinner at my mother's in the burbs before my ex picks her up. Tonight I'm staying over up here bec my ex has wedding photography gigs on the weekends thru October.

So, it's 11pm and my little one is asleep upstairs and I'm enjoying a cup of Golden Yunnan black tea, listening to some music and perusing the newspaper. Life is good.

There are some stresses, I've been asking my ex to send me some simple info I need from her for my daughter's applications to private kindergartens for 2020-21, for weeks now, and she just says ok I'll do it tomorrow and never does. Drives me bonkers.

But all in all things are good. Getting my finances in order to return to Uni next September, to complete my Computer Science degree, seems like a long way off but Spring term is just too soon, it will be a ton of work and I have to get better housing figured out and make sure I'm prepared.

Hope anyone reading this is doing okay too. There is hope after substances. My life was a complete disaster just 6 weeks ago, and you really wouldn't guess it if you met me today. Cheers.

 

[jb99]

7 weeks sober now. Doing well. Ex is in the hospital for a couple days which is stressful, but thankfully I'm here to watch my daughter full time when she isn't in preschool.

I just woke up at 1am and wound up watching some videos of live DJ sets for an hour and that prob wasn't healthy, all the partyers. I listen to a couple house music podcasts, while in the train and driving, but I shouldn't even think about going out dancing, I'm 36 with a kid, im in recovery and that scene just isn't for me. No way. But, temptation is part of life, and saying no to putting myself in harm's way is something I just have to do, now, and at 6 months and 13 months and 5 years and ten years, etc.

So many other important things to live for today. Like my own health and happiness, and that of the little one asleep a few feet away. Gnight.

 

[Jabberwocky]

sweet jb you're doing awesome!!!

haha yeah i get you about certain types of music. i used to go to raves and now i listen to that sort of music it just makes me want to get mashed up. and in my head at least, i didn't use drugs at those to escape anything, i used cos it was fun, so it wasn't unhealthy using. but i know if i let myself have MDMA or anything, i'd be compromising my judgement, and probably find myself with a pipe in my hand and a needle in my arm by the end of the night.

i hope your ex gets better. it is awesome you can step up for your daughter. 7 weeks ago that probably wouldn't have been an option. in early recovery big positive changes can happen quite fast.

 

[jb99]

Yup, there have been many positive changes. I've been clean before, a lot actually, so I think that helps me segue back into healthy habits.

8 weeks now. I've applied to a few private NYC-area kindergartens for my daughter for next year. It's a hectic process but would be a big win, because she would qualify for significant scholarship at our current income levels. Fingers crossed. It's another thing that has happened only because I am sober, because my ex would not have gotten around to it. But our child is bright, so it'd be good for her. Going to school with mostly wealthy classmates can be challenging, but the education at these places is amazing, and besides even the public schools around here have lots of wealth inequality, so there's no escaping it.

Neither my ex nor I own a home too, but if she's at a private school she'd have that stability even if we have to move to different apartments over the next 13 yrs.

Anyway, amazing how the daily focuses of life change so much when we aren't enslaved to substances.

 

[Benzorider]

2 weeks sober today. Met my 15 years sober friend I've known since 2001 today, that was nice. Went to a SMART recovery social gathering, in a park in Manhattan, was fun, good conversation. Then a CMA meeting. Had some nice text conversations with other sober people, some who do 12 step and some who don't.

And this is funny, I found my original bluelight handle, I signed up Nov 30, 1999!!

Read some of my old posts, oh lord I was 16-17 and such a dorky little club kid. Thought I was pretty grown up and cool though. Wish I could go back there and talk some sense into myself

I know the feeling, started this profil in 2004. Fucking embarrasing to read shit you wrote at 18. Would like to go back and slap myself..

 

[jb99]

10 weeks this Sunday. Life is good. Getting cold here in NY.

Found out a friend I'd made in treatment several months ago passed away at age 49. He was a bright soul, a choreographer who brought a lot of joy to the place. Very sad, and i missed the service, if there even was one. It's such a shitty way to go, caught out in addiction.

Reading the news is scary, between climate change and the bit of a constitutional crisis we have on our hands here in the States. I hope Western Democracy can recover from this epic shitstorm.

 

[Trevylianos]

Nice work on 10 weeks jb! Yes the weather is changing drastically now here in NY. I'm from upstate not the city. But keep it up!

 

[jb99]

Thx @Trevylianos.

12 weeks tmrw.

Things are ok. Can't complain really, compared to where I was 3 months ago.

But it's gonna be a looooong slog to get to where I need to be in life.

 

[jb99]

3 months without any intoxicants.

Whew, what a mess I was when I started this journal.

Really hoping I manage to sustain it this time. I just can't stomach another relapse. I get viscerally angry at the "disease" internally, the couple times I've been tempted over the past 3 months.

I love life, and health, peace and sanity. I hate addiction.

 

[jb99]

4 months sober now.

Submitted my application to return to College here in NYC next September. I have 2 years left. Never give up hope.