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Can you describe a moment of clarity? How can you tell its real?

M

MrsGamp

Bluelighter
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Apr 3, 2020
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I was originally going to post this in "mindfulness", but then I thought that the "moment of clarity" phenomenon deserves its own thread.

Please share if you have had a moment of clarity ...or even if you haven't, or aren't sure.
 
I believe I have... But they've all been slow burners and I don't think you can rightly tell until afterwards.

In regards to alcohol I have had many of times where I recognized quite clearly how alcohol turns me into an ugly person and I would die if I continued using it. And I don't generally to this day.

I think moments of clarity are slightly mythologized in recovery communities, and there may not be one particular moment that everything clicks at once. For me it's been many different moments.
 
IDK too much about what a moment of clarity is, but I'll reply based on context clues.

I think i had one when i went to my 8th hospital and put on lithium, when i was put in jail, and when i zoomed my family.

Sadly, none of them stopped me from repeating bad behaviors, except for i now never drink alcohol and i will never go off my meds again.
 
Do you mean moments of clarity induced by drugs or moments of clarity when sober about drugs? I’ve had both. Certainly, the rush from injecting amphetamines seems to create a sense of “I see it all so clearly now” when it happens. I get that same feeling the days after a big LSD trip - the sense that all the confusion about life has dissipated and that you see the truth about the life, the universe and everything.

On the other hand after binges of drugs and during the comedown I also get great moments of clarity about how appallingly stupid taking drugs is and how damaging my behaviour is. That moment of clarity comes with a huge amount of existential anxiety - it’s not always pleasant to know the truth up close when one is totally exposed and emotionally defenceless.

Using the techniques of CBT and mindfulness I also can achieve a more comfortable sense of understanding about myself - without the shame, guilt and anxiety of the drug induced awareness.
 
I suppose I mean "moment of clarity" in the AA sense. When you've given up on giving up, but have a sudden flash of ... "It doesn't have to be this way". Or even just a feeling that you've got a place, a home to go to, that's waiting for you no matter how far you're sunk in your habit.
The other night I was feeling sad and distressed about not only my addictions, but about the horrible violence of my last relationship.
And I was getting back into bed after using the bathroom, and this sentence suddenly popped into my head:
"After all, he bit your face."
Which referred to an event I'd forgotten (my face was ferociously bitten by my ex) but also seemed to refer to everything in general .. sort of like, "it's time to come in now, isn't it? You've been bitten enough ..."
And for about two seconds I had this feeling of total calm and objectivity. Like a door opened, and there was a place and a feeling of peace and common sense and respite and above all, NONE of the past MATTERED - why should it? It wasn't about "healing": it was more like a glorious and steady conviction that I'd never been hurt, and couldn't be hurt.
But sadly it was only a couple of seconds.
I've got the intellectual recollection of this feeling, but its emotional quality - which is very hard to describe - has gone.
 
ghostandthedarknes said:
took me a year of puking back up my first 3 shots of 80 proof every morning as soon as i woke up just to stop the shakes. i finally figured it out. clearly i shouldn't drink.
Click to expand...
You made me smile ... but that's sort of what I mean. The blindingly obvious solutions are suddenly not just "obvious", but actually desirable! No ifs ands or buts .... you mention a year of puking up your first 3 drinks ... actually if it only took a year of abject morning puking to convince you that "clearly you shouldn't drink" that's pretty enviable!
I've had various monkeys on my back, including booze, to a greater or lesser degree for 25 years! Even when I've had sober interludes and have felt proud of having a real life, with work and children etc, I've never been rid of the sick nostalgia for the other life, which from experience I know is always just utter shit. The existential equivalent of pouring petrol on yourself and lighting a match.
 
MrsGamp said:
You made me smile ... but that's sort of what I mean. The blindingly obvious solutions are suddenly not just "obvious", but actually desirable! No ifs ands or buts .... you mention a year of puking up your first 3 drinks ... actually if it only took a year of abject morning puking to convince you that "clearly you shouldn't drink" that's pretty enviable!
I've had various monkeys on my back, including booze, to a greater or lesser degree for 25 years! Even when I've had sober interludes and have felt proud of having a real life, with work and children etc, I've never been rid of the sick nostalgia for the other life, which from experience I know is always just utter shit. The existential equivalent of pouring petrol on yourself and lighting a match.
Click to expand...
35 yrs every day drinking here. last 5 year was drinking a half gallon of 80 proof a day. I'm a slow learner i guess
 
ghostandthedarknes said:
35 yrs every day drinking here. last 5 year was drinking a half gallon of 80 proof a day. I'm a slow learner i guess
Click to expand...
You know, although I have other addictions, booze has always been the spookiest .... it's like a person. A very manipulative sneaky person ...but at least it's "always there for you".
I just posted this on another thread about "what drug caused you problems", it sums up why booze has brought me the most problems, and been the hardest thing to escape from:

"Alcohol has been in my life since I was about 13. Good ole booze. Many people, for sound reasons, don't like AA, but AA is on the ball when it describes alcohol as "cunning, baffling and powerful". Maybe because it is legal and socially acceptable, booze will easily persuade you that it's benign, that it's your friend, and that you are damned well entitled to its very loyal friendship, even if your life has been ruined by things you've said and done while drunk. Fuck that, and fuck what everyone says, booze loves boozers and loves to get its way. Booze is the only drug that seems to me to have a "personality". "O thou invisible spirit of wine/if thou hast no name/let thee be called Devil!" (misquoting from Shakespeare, but you get the drift)."

Another confusing thing with alcohol for me is that its not always my drug of choice. I've had years of being unable to go longer than 2 days without getting drunk, but also years of no drinking at all, but the most damaging trick is years of moderate drinking, when I don't ever want more than 2 or 3 drinks and don't like the feeling of being tipsy. This is the most damaging trick because then I'll get confident, convince myself I've grown out of being an alcoholic ...all the better to set up very sophisticated denial mechanisms when, inevitably, I revert to really heavy boozing again. And all that goes with it: at best, embarrassment: at worst, atrocious behaviour and regrets that make you want to die and can only be remedied by ... more booze. C
 
MrsGamp said:
I suppose I mean "moment of clarity" in the AA sense. When you've given up on giving up, but have a sudden flash of ... "It doesn't have to be this way". Or even just a feeling that you've got a place, a home to go to, that's waiting for you no matter how far you're sunk in your habit.
The other night I was feeling sad and distressed about not only my addictions, but about the horrible violence of my last relationship.
And I was getting back into bed after using the bathroom, and this sentence suddenly popped into my head:
"After all, he bit your face."
Which referred to an event I'd forgotten (my face was ferociously bitten by my ex) but also seemed to refer to everything in general .. sort of like, "it's time to come in now, isn't it? You've been bitten enough ..."
And for about two seconds I had this feeling of total calm and objectivity. Like a door opened, and there was a place and a feeling of peace and common sense and respite and above all, NONE of the past MATTERED - why should it? It wasn't about "healing": it was more like a glorious and steady conviction that I'd never been hurt, and couldn't be hurt.
But sadly it was only a couple of seconds.
I've got the intellectual recollection of this feeling, but its emotional quality - which is very hard to describe - has gone.
Click to expand...

It's a univeral struggle that's goin on, who says how to behave someone? Why silence people? Where's the retribution? Why all this useless hive mind thinkin? It boils down to symbolic pressure. The trick is to do things natural, in a steady organic way. Don't be a ball. Now the thing is that we all went to detox ourselves, we all had relapses, we all had those moments when we were sober we craved for purple, we craved for our stupidity. The golden rule is to not attack your addiction/obsession but embrace it, be a open book and break it like a sunflower seed. Once you developed this state of mind you will not fail, I think if you really want this then let's your words be seeds and wipe the slate clean. On the more life side regarding ''relationships'', well we all got poisoned by someone who's someone else, we all got poisoned in a way or another but that means a lesson, people are lessons -- everyone you see in your journey will be a lesson, sometimes the same but different other times a whole new thing, that's with all of us. We all got lessons from others, we can't learn on our own because mental knowledge doesn't always means philosophy, it means how to act in certain environments, certain words, how to read between the lines. Long short story, how to be a sharp pencil -- to have a persona balance. By violence you could mean verbally or psychically, both are bad but the worst one it's verbally, words are weapons. There's light at the end of tunnel, belive it or not, there's light. Talkin' about your personal issues helps you more because as you maybe know but chose to ignore it anyway, that's the light at the end of tunnel, most people get stuck like a detinst when they get there. Now, you are a detinst because that light isn't a reflection of the Sun, it's a reflection of a train beacon. You aren't missin on anything else, belive me. You're just confused and you know it but again, talk about it. That's what Bluelight it's about, it's about helpin eachother becomin' a better version of themselves. All love, hope you're catching some sleep and eatin well.
 
MrsGamp said:
You know, although I have other addictions, booze has always been the spookiest .... it's like a person. A very manipulative sneaky person ...but at least it's "always there for you".
I just posted this on another thread about "what drug caused you problems", it sums up why booze has brought me the most problems, and been the hardest thing to escape from:

"Alcohol has been in my life since I was about 13. Good ole booze. Many people, for sound reasons, don't like AA, but AA is on the ball when it describes alcohol as "cunning, baffling and powerful". Maybe because it is legal and socially acceptable, booze will easily persuade you that it's benign, that it's your friend, and that you are damned well entitled to its very loyal friendship, even if your life has been ruined by things you've said and done while drunk. Fuck that, and fuck what everyone says, booze loves boozers and loves to get its way. Booze is the only drug that seems to me to have a "personality". "O thou invisible spirit of wine/if thou hast no name/let thee be called Devil!" (misquoting from Shakespeare, but you get the drift)."

Another confusing thing with alcohol for me is that its not always my drug of choice. I've had years of being unable to go longer than 2 days without getting drunk, but also years of no drinking at all, but the most damaging trick is years of moderate drinking, when I don't ever want more than 2 or 3 drinks and don't like the feeling of being tipsy. This is the most damaging trick because then I'll get confident, convince myself I've grown out of being an alcoholic ...all the better to set up very sophisticated denial mechanisms when, inevitably, I revert to really heavy boozing again. And all that goes with it: at best, embarrassment: at worst, atrocious behaviour and regrets that make you want to die and can only be remedied by ... more booze. C
Click to expand...
i just don't like sobriety. i don't feel any happier when I'm clean. just know it's the right thing to do......
 
i go to extremes until recently. stay drunk for 5 years. same with all drugs i like. once i start, i wanna feel that way forever. we all know that's like chasing a phantom. iirc
 
ghostandthedarknes said:
i go to extremes until recently. stay drunk for 5 years. same with all drugs i like. once i start, i wanna feel that way forever. we all know that's like chasing a phantom. iirc
Click to expand...
ghostandthedarknes said:
i go to extremes until recently. stay drunk for 5 years. same with all drugs i like. once i start, i wanna feel that way forever. we all know that's like chasing a phantom. iirc
Click to expand...
Yeah...I've been chasing a phantom for so long now I don't know what else to do. I had 7 months in and out of hospitals and women's shelters (on opiates too, for smashed knee) until february. Since February I've been on a bender. Booze and stims. Dunno how to be normal anymore, and oh dear, so lonely tbh
 
MrsGamp said:
Yeah...I've been chasing a phantom for so long now I don't know what else to do. I had 7 months in and out of hospitals and women's shelters (on opiates too, for smashed knee) until february. Since February I've been on a bender. Booze and stims. Dunno how to be normal anymore, and oh dear, so lonely tbh
Click to expand...
it's a hard cycle to break but not impossible. I'll just keep trying if i fuck up again.
 
I have experienced many moments of clarity in my life. Unfortunately, they do not always translated into lasting solutions though.

It can be quite overwhelming and terrifying when you have the truth thrust into the light. Seeing the truth about yourself and your life can hurt like a bitch! The longer and deeper the denial, the most painful it is to face and as an addict, I have often continued to live denial because it's more comfortable.
 
I did after my last heroin overdose. After heart surgeries, losing everything, it was that last and final overdose - it was a bad one. Something about it just changed me to my foundation. Would take way too long to explain it, and honestly it was probably all just a result of misfired neurons during the overdose and oxygen deprivation, but regardless - it changed my way of thinking and led me to sobriety.
 
Deru said:
I did after my last heroin overdose. After heart surgeries, losing everything, it was that last and final overdose - it was a bad one. Something about it just changed me to my foundation. Would take way too long to explain it, and honestly it was probably all just a result of misfired neurons during the overdose and oxygen deprivation, but regardless - it changed my way of thinking and led me to sobriety.
Click to expand...

That's great man, you are lucky. I wish that was my experience but it just seems like over dosing has become normalized due to so many. I have no idea why I am still alive but if I dont find a way to beat my addiction for good , I'll be dead soon. Its sucks and its not worth shit.
 
tracedwards313 said:
That's great man, you are lucky. I wish that was my experience but it just seems like over dosing has become normalized due to so many. I have no idea why I am still alive but if I dont find a way to beat my addiction for good , I'll be dead soon. Its sucks and its not worth shit.
Click to expand...

That's how I was. Overdosing to me was normal - until that one. What saved my life finally was after that overdose, with myself deep down actually wanting out, I checked into an inpatient rehab, and I really tried to work it. I avoided the toxic people like the plague, stayed in my lane, and wound up making life long friends. I wanted it this time and nothing was going to get in my way. It was unlike the million prior attempts I had made to get clean, I wanted it - no, I needed it so bad I could feel it in my bones.

Then HA/CA after rehab to keep the support system going and fixing my root cause issues that kept reinforcing my addiction.

It took over three years of hard work, but it was well worth it.
 
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