You went back to something familiar that gave you something you wanted and still want: a "sensation of living, of feeling optimistic and energetic". It sounds reasonable, and the desire
is reasonable, but the agent is unreasonable and has all the downsides that made you quit after 40 years. So the question for you is how do you get what you need to feel in life without this faulty provider (meth)? That is the most basic human question, really. We are all trying to answer it, those of us that do drugs and those of us that have never touched a drug. I believe there are two things that can help the lifelong exploration of the question not feel frustrating: the first is a trustworthy relationship with your authentic self. That means you root out self-doubt, self-hatred, self-denial, self-abasement whenever it comes up (and it does come up like weeds after a rain for most people) and you replace those with an honest ability to both criticize yourself and feel true compassion for yourself. You learn to treat yourself like a good parent treats a beloved child--with high but reasonable expectations, encouragement and unconditional love. The second is to create a life that includes non-human concerns. A life that includes a relationship with nature, with animals, with the practice of
being as opposed to the endless confusion of "doing". A dog does not expect you to be achieving anything; a cat is happiest when you sit and do absolutely nothing but provide a lap for a while. Surfing or rock climbing, hiking or taking a walk by yourself through your city, working in a community garden or an animal shelter or cleaning up a beach--any of these provide the opportunity to step out of the solely human-centric world and interact with the bigger sphere of nature. The world is vast. Most of us live our whole lives confined to a very short leash of our own complicity with the larger human (market-driven) culture. So, cut yourself loose. What prevents you from feeling alive, from feeling optimistic (admittedly hard these days living through the blitz of bad news), from feeling energetic? I feel optimistic and energized when I get creative. It might simply be cooking something fresh and new, or trying to get better at drawing or taking photos. Other's art--especially music--can give me those same feelings. Sure, this is temporary but no more temporary than a meth high.
I think it is phenomenal that you quit after 40 years. I also do not think it is a disaster that you used again. You haven't gone far enough into exploring this life to have found what you need inside or out. I'm your age (plus 3 years
) and I still feel like a beginner. We are just here to explore, to create whatever meaning we can create for ourselves, to learn how to navigate our own human hearts within societies of our making that tend to demand exactly the opposite. It can be hard work and exhilarating play at the same time but you have to be willing to try new ways of looking not only at yourself but at the world your own perceptions have told you is the only real world.
