Well the bad news is that I slipped up today. The good news is that I'm gonna keep trying. The even better news is that I had an intense breakthrough today regarding my recovery, I figured out EXACTLY what I need to do in order to stay clean!! The thing that I'd been missing before. I thought that finding something I was passionate about and changing my environment would be enough, and they're HUGE don't get me wrong!!... but I was always missing purpose - having those small, productive, daily goals to focus on. I have passion for things other than drugs, and it's great and gives me something to focus my energy on, but it's not the same thing as having a purpose... it's just random. I was still putting off looking for a "real" job, finishing up school, paying off debts, etc. I wasn't really accomplishing anything, and so I still wasn't seeing tangible improvements in my daily life.
Today I believe I found the secret formula (or at least *my* secret formula, different things work for different people after all ;p) I started thinking about what was missing, and I came up with that, and it led me to wonder... what would happen if I combined those three things - passion, change, and purpose - and integrated all three of those things into my day? Even better, what if I can find passion IN my purpose? So I thought of something I'd been procrastinating on doing but that needed to be done and finally settled on cleaning my room (purpose) and clearing/rearranging my living space (change in environment), and then I thought of all of the benefits that would come of cleaning my room and how it could help me improve myself and my life overall, which is something I actively try to do anyways (passion). That gave me the motivation to do it, and once I started, it provided the momentum to keep on going. I still had some gear left, and I told myself it would be my reward for making progress in my room (yes, progress... trust me, cleaning the whole thing entirely is going to be a HUGE task that cannot be done in one day haha)... but once I had been at it for a couple of hours and I had made a good amount of solid visible progress, the most amazing thing happened that has never happened to me before!! Well, it HAS happened, just never so strongly. I had absolutely NO desire to "reward" myself with the dope... I wanted to reward myself by putting off doing it for even longer and doing something else that would naturally make me feel good instead. And so I took a hot shower, washed and conditioned my hair, washed my face, shaved, the works. And after I was done, another amazing thing happened... I still didn't really want to do the dope!! And yet for some reason I still felt the compulsion to do it. It was a compulsion I could have controlled maybe, but it was SO incredibly strong. I REALLY didn't want to do the dope - I wanted to smoke a bowl and go clean my room some more actually, and even looking at the dope felt different/wrong to me, it was like looking at death (as morbid as it sounds) - and yet I still felt compelled to move forward. It's like my body was on autopilot as I was getting it ready. I even came *thisclose* to throwing away the little bit I had left... I didn't, but it was closer than I've ever come before and to me that's progress!! I didn't want to do it, and yet it's like I was doing it anyway almost against my will.
Anyway, I'm not sure how to explain it better than that or if I did a good job of explaining it at all, but this whole day was just such a HUGE breakthrough for me. Not only do I FEEL differently at my core about the drug itself now, but I also figured out the key to my recovery. I truly believe now that once the rest of what I have is gone and the immediate temptation is out of the way, I'll be able to use what I learned today to give myself a MUCH better chance at staying off this horrible drug, for good this time. All I need to do is find and follow my passions while living my life with proactive purpose, and change up my environment to give myself a fresh start and again every so often to keep things from getting too stagnant. I honestly believe change is the spice of life and for me at least, a key ingredient to real recovery. I feel that with all of those things combined with the right exercise routine, diet, and social circle/support system, I can finally say with more hope and faith than ever before that I'm going to be able to beat this thing once and for all and that I'm gonna be just fine!! I'm feeling really really good about this now you guys :D
everyone
