Hey guys doing really pretty good.. a little time away to recharge the batteries in preporation for new things.
Hey case and manBC.. you guys may want to look at where you guys are in the cycle..
- Frustration and internal pain that leads to anxiety and a demand for relief of these symptoms
- Fantasizing about using alcohol and drugs or behaviors to relieve the uncomfortable symptoms
- Obsessing about using drugs and alcohol and how his or her life will be after the use of substances
- Engaging in the addictive activity, such as using substances to gain relief (acting out)
- Losing control over the behavior
- Developing feelings of remorse, guilt and shame, which lead to feelings of dissatisfaction
- Making a promise or resolve to oneself to stop the behavior or substance use
- After a period of time, the pain returns, and the addict begins to experience the fantasies of using substances again.
I believe one of the most powerful milestones in recovery from addiction is when we are able to see through the delusion that use of the substance we are addicted to is something desirable. Also remember as addicts we are affected by addictive thinking.. or thinking whose end is use, but whose justification is false. I believe it helps immensely to write down any thinking that is driving use and examine its logic. It is also very beneficial to share these thoughts with others in recovery as for some reason we are always profoundly better at seeing the fucked up thinking of someone else than our own.
A hypothetical idea that i am thinking of that i have tried to design somewhat off your circumstances MBC would be.. I can't handle this any more. I am miserable because I am not and wont be part of my childs life because of my use and the fact that my x unjustly used my use against me and not only that I will never be able to survive because, even though I am prohibited contact, I am required to submit more money than I can clearly afford to support a child I will never see. I cant handle these problems caused by my use so I will use. (this is just hypothetical and entirely made up but i wouldnt be surprised if it has some similarities)
As addicts we often fail to have patience and look at temporary situations as permanent. The truth is that your situation with your child is not permanent. I think it is pretty standard for both the visitation or custody rights as well as the amount of child support to be able to be revisited every two years or so. If you look up the specific time period for your state you will know when your first opportunity to have all the amazing work and changes you have done recognized by the courts and have the amount of child support changed to an amount that reflects your financial situation at this time. It is so important that we keep our heads in the solution.. or keep thinking of and working towards the day when you walk back into that courtroom and are given back acess your child
so please focus on that day and its preparation instead of constantly thinking of the hurt and pain you have over the current situation.
As far as the money thing.. this is also temporary.. yeah you can get another job and spend all your time slaving.. and there is something to be said for that, but is that a solution you will be happy doing.. why not begin to think a little bigger and a little longer range.. having worked in the kitchen I know that our salaries are for shit and working for someone else just means we make the real money for someone else.. I think you are selling yourself short, start to think bigger, where does your hearty tell you to go, what schooling can you get, where is the opportunity, what will get you to a place where you enjoy what you are doing and make enough to get out from under the bills that kill.. a whole bunch of money isn't needed and usually brings allot more problems than the pleasure we think it will, but enough to get past the constant worry is a great goal. quit selling yourself short sir as you can do anything if you put your mind to it
when a goal seems impossible just break it down into really easily obtained tasks, start knocking off tasks at a reasonable rate, give yourself huge credit each time you knock off a task, expect and welcome the setbacks, and watch your life change
And we all find ourselves thinking of solving our problems with the problem
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
. What I do is double think any thought process that ends in use. I remember once I was unable to sleep because I had been lying about drinking to someone, it was bothering my conscious so I couldn't sleep. As I was sitting there unable to sleep the idea to have a couple of drinks to fall asleep. when i ran that through the addictive logic detector it came out as insane.. I was thinking of curing or treating the problems with my drinking by drinking8(.. yeah fkn insane right, so I think its a really good idea to explore any thought process that says drink.. because there is no good reason to use a substance we are addicted to.
IMO one of the most powerful milestones we can get to in recovery is when we are able to see through the delusion that using a substance (s) that we are addicted to is something desirable to do. If we take an honest look at the whole picture of addictive drug use, not even considering the mess it makes our lives, but just in the context of how it makes us feel it is not a desirable thing.. A way i used to get my head around this was to write down a typical day of use.. minute by minute (not every minute but highly detailed of how I felt through an entire day in active addiction) if you are able to do this I think you will find that you actually fell better 98% of the time than you did 99% of the time back then.. that we used to put all this crazy effort in to feel for a little bit just as good as we fell all the time now.. the thing is that addiction takes a snapshot of use, it focusses on when we felt pretty good during use.. it doesn't bring up that the rest of the day we were in some sorta withdrawal, filled with anxiety, because of the constant need to feed the beast with money we didn't have and stay away from the cops, not to mention it never talks about the fact that in a short while we won't even get a pleasant feeling and will have to put all that effort into trying to fell worse than we do all the time now.
Addiction is such a fucked thing.. learn to see through and think through it nonsense.. it fucking lies every time and there is no reason to fall for it again
“Chasing the Dragon”
The term “chasing the dragon” is a term used by addicts in an effort to catch the first high they had on their drug of choice. “Because of the
unique reaction that the genetically addiction prone individual experiences to his drug of choice, he or she programs his or herself belief
system with the deep conviction that the substance is ‘good,’” writes Richard Seymour. “This is where self-help becomes intrinsic to recovery. Unless one deals with the third head, unless one changes the belief system and effects a turning-about in the deepest seat of consciousness, there is no recovery…”
- “The Chemical Carousel”
by Dirk Hanson
The recovery community often is scared to have us look at why we want to use.. but i think if we look at why we want to use and compare it to what really goes on when we use.. we can see through the delusion we carry that use is enjoyable or good.
Nice work to everyone and love to everyone pushing on
But it gives me more reason and motivation to keep trying and get myself off opiates for good.