Recovery My cliché recovery journal

[yubacity]

Happy New Year everyone.

Thanks for opening up, CH, and thanks for your suggestions.

Yeah yuba, I got through NYE, but now have come down with a nasty cold that's left me down for the count. Still though, can't help but think every time I get a virus that it's nothing on withdrawals, and it doesn't seem so bad at all in comparison.

I'll give this thread the attention it deserves when I'm feeling a little better. Just don't have the energy for anything at all right now. Thanks for your support through 2019 guys, here's to a better 2020.

Good going Rio I always seemed to get cold and flu after wd maybe because withdrawals leave the body so battered that we get them. I don't worry about fuck all now after wd because nothing absolutely nothing can be worse then that . I think a person becomes stronger after going through that hell. Keep at it bruv you doing great

 

[Jabberwocky]

happy new year eveyone. well done for getting through the holiday period rio. i hope you get over your cold soon.

also i totally agree about the hypocrisy in NA about cigs. I went on a massive rant about it in a meeting when i was trying to quit last March- 'you guys promise freedom from active addiction then go out and smoke on the break.' i think there are probably some addicts who can use some drugs occasionally in recovery, but maybe the reason they are hardline is that its not possible to identify who can tolerate what, and the one people are most likely to go for- alcohol- is really problematic for the majority of members.

sorry i haven't been around, used my time off to actually spend time with people and read and mostly avoided anything social media-y.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

Thanks guys. Feeling really shitty today - congested, malaise, fatigued - but it just occurred to me that I haven't even considered using for the past couple of days, which must be some kind of record for me. Dragged my sick ass to a SMART meeting last night and was actually really glad I went - met someone who is on the exact same wavelength as me in terms of pro-science anti-AA who also has 12 years sober. I figured I need to make more connections IRL so that I have people I can call when I'm struggling. Can't wait to shake this fucking cold but as yuba said things could be much much worse!

 

[yubacity]

Hope you feeling better rio. That fatigue is a fucker but its just the way it is in recovery you have to try to keep spirits up and just go through. the motions. Keep going to the meetings and just battle through it . Someone said it to you on here about going for walks even when you feel fucked it was great advice it helps alot believe me it does go away.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Thanks guys. Feeling really shitty today

Same; I am going through *another* loss/grief which is gonna happen any day/week now, fun right.

Not to minimize what you're going through but you are NOT alone, I'm hurting/crying at the moment. Haven't used heroin OR bupe in like, 7 + years.

You're doing great man. Don't let anyone/anything in life step on your happiness/optimism, keep it going, you can do it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

how you getting on rio? i feel pretty shitty today too. back to work, trying to quit smoking, annoying stuff with my home NA meeting, and a news story has sent my head in a spin but i've posted about that in the january thread. its so easy to say this will pass when you yourself are feeling ok. much harder when you want it to pass right fucking now. i just keeo asking myself, can i tolerate this right this moment? am i safe? and as the answer to both is always yes i know i need to ride it out. maybe a useful tactic to keep you holding on, works for me. i hope we both feel better soon.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Chin-up it’s going to be OK

the news, as well as any sports/performance-art hybrid is bound to cause upset/depression in an average broadcast. It is by design.

youfeel hence you are human

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I only say “this will pas” because of my never ending belief in causal determinism.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

Hi everyone! Feeling much better now, my cold/sickness has passed.

Hope you feeling better rio. That fatigue is a fucker but its just the way it is in recovery you have to try to keep spirits up and just go through. the motions. Keep going to the meetings and just battle through it . Someone said it to you on here about going for walks even when you feel fucked it was great advice it helps alot believe me it does go away.

Thanks mate. How have you been? I can TOTALLY relate to "going through the motions" - some days I am so full of energy and so engaged in life and just so fucking happy, and then other days it's as if all the color has drained out of the world, and I have to fight an uphill battle against an overwhelming feeling of "What's the point?". It's not like a cognitive thought, I feel a hopelessness in my fucking gut deep inside of me that is difficult to fight against, but I've been trying to follow the principle that motivation often follows action instead of preceding it and every day getting up and doing what I planned to do in the day, and though some times its easier than others it always helps me feel somewhat better.

The day before yesterday I had the most beautiful day. I just felt alive, like I was charged with electricity. I felt really authentically in touch with myself in a way I haven't for a long time. I even stopped before getting to work and gazed up at the sky and in the fading daylight I saw the moon behind a pink sky and I was just filled with a sense of awe and wonder. Then yesterday happened - a whole day where I felt like I was wading through syrup just to do the most basic tasks. I'm trying to take the good with the bad and not get too fixated on them.

Same; I am going through *another* loss/grief which is gonna happen any day/week now, fun right.

Not to minimize what you're going through but you are NOT alone, I'm hurting/crying at the moment. Haven't used heroin OR bupe in like, 7 + years.

You're doing great man. Don't let anyone/anything in life step on your happiness/optimism, keep it going, you can do it.

Jesus man, aren't you due a run of good luck yet!? You seem to have more than your fair share of negative events - enough to last a life-time I'd wager. You're so strong man - I'm over here feeling great about 27 days, but when I think about 7 years it stuns me. Hope you're feeling OK today, man.

how you getting on rio? i feel pretty shitty today too. back to work, trying to quit smoking, annoying stuff with my home NA meeting, and a news story has sent my head in a spin but i've posted about that in the january thread. its so easy to say this will pass when you yourself are feeling ok. much harder when you want it to pass right fucking now. i just keeo asking myself, can i tolerate this right this moment? am i safe? and as the answer to both is always yes i know i need to ride it out. maybe a useful tactic to keep you holding on, works for me. i hope we both feel better soon.

Totally with you on how the effect of "This too shall pass" is all relative. What's been helping me cling to a little bit of sanity is reminding myself of that not just when I'm feeling bad but even when I'm having a great day too - I think my unconscious expectation for myself to never have to go through discomfort and the hope that every time I have a good day that that will become my new baseline just makes the bad days so much harder. If I'm prepared for the good and the bad then I think I have a better chance of making the most of the fleeting good days and battling through the days where I just want to lock myself away and take heroin. How have you been these past couple days? How are you quitting smoking - cold turkey?

I am feeling a lot better generally. I have gotten into the habit of keeping a detailed urge log where I write out every craving I have, no matter how minor, and I find that merely the act of transcribing the thought onto a word document helps me see the insanity in front of my eyes and lets me put it into perspective. I also have been detailing what works - looking myself in the mirror and re-affirming my commitment to find out who the fuck I am without the substances has also been a great help. I am pleased that I'm this far in - the longest I've gone since July - and am navigating the usual pitfalls right now. For example, my friend just told me today on facebook that he has £1000, and that always used to mean that we would get wrecked together, and though him telling me that could have planted the seed, I quickly identified where my thinking was going and put a stop to it before it could bloom into a full-blown relapse. Reminding myself of how much better my life has been these past weeks compared to when I was using has also been invaluable.

Thanks a lot for all your support guys, I finally have some optimism again that I'm actually going to make it this time!

 

[Captain.Heroin]

You are right and I literally just hit the "good luck" jackpot. I think 2020 is going to be the year I make it. A lot of good things happened, can't really say what.

 

[Jabberwocky]

awesome CH! well overdue.

yes i definitely get the not wanting to feel any discomfort ever- its part of why i used. i used to actually think people who didn't just take something when anything remotely negative is going on were stupid. now i realise they were growing emotionally and i was stunting myself and entrenching my dependence on substances.

It sounds like you're doing really well Rio, i'm glad the urge log is working out. i think just anything that forces you to insert some time, and therefore the possibility of the thought not to score, is useful, but having something informative like that is a double win. and well done for not cracking due to your mate on facebook. if they're anything like the people i used with, you don't really enjoy their company once the initial excitement of a decent score has worn off. its really good that you had a properly decent day too, just to know its actually possible without using, did it help when you were feeling down the next day?

i weaned myself off cigarettes. i still gotta actually jump off, been having 1 a day since saturday, nearly out of baccy and badly don't wanna buy more. i did 3 days of 4 a day, then 3 days of 3, 2, was intending to do 3 of 1 but i'm not beating myself up for having a couple days extra. i figured cos nicotine has a 3 day half life, reducing like that would help, and it really has. still not easy but its going much better than my last attempt to quit. i have motivation of hiking booked for summer, last year i was out of breath going up hilll and everyone else was chatting and it made me feel awful. they'll never be perfect after what i done to em though.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

awesome CH! well overdue.

yes i definitely get the not wanting to feel any discomfort ever- its part of why i used. i used to actually think people who didn't just take something when anything remotely negative is going on were stupid. now i realise they were growing emotionally and i was stunting myself and entrenching my dependence on substances.

It sounds like you're doing really well Rio, i'm glad the urge log is working out. i think just anything that forces you to insert some time, and therefore the possibility of the thought not to score, is useful, but having something informative like that is a double win. and well done for not cracking due to your mate on facebook. if they're anything like the people i used with, you don't really enjoy their company once the initial excitement of a decent score has worn off. its really good that you had a properly decent day too, just to know its actually possible without using, did it help when you were feeling down the next day?

i weaned myself off cigarettes. i still gotta actually jump off, been having 1 a day since saturday, nearly out of baccy and badly don't wanna buy more. i did 3 days of 4 a day, then 3 days of 3, 2, was intending to do 3 of 1 but i'm not beating myself up for having a couple days extra. i figured cos nicotine has a 3 day half life, reducing like that would help, and it really has. still not easy but its going much better than my last attempt to quit. i have motivation of hiking booked for summer, last year i was out of breath going up hilll and everyone else was chatting and it made me feel awful. they'll never be perfect after what i done to em though.

Exactly! I think the willingness just to face discomfort in the service of higher goals is a huge part of breaking out of addiction for me. Good job on nearly quitting cigarettes! I hope you manage it. I couldn't do CT without some kind of substitute but the fact you've managed to go down to just 1 a day is really encouraging. Have you been having many cravings yet?

I've had a pretty good couple of days. I realize that I make my own mood swings worse by feeding into them. If I remain open and aware then I can let go of them as they immediately start to ebb away, rather than clinging to the entrenched negative thinking patterns that a bad mood can bring on. Yesterday was a perfect example - I woke up feeling miserable and down and inside myself, but I meditated and stayed mindful of my thoughts, and by the time 4PM rolled around it was already fading and by the time I got to work I was feeling great, whereas if this had happened before I would have clung onto it, resisted the change in my mood, lingered over my negative thinking and stayed closed off. I think that's real progress for me - just accepting in my core the impermanence of my moods and being ready to let go of them when they're fading.

My life is going pretty good. I can't believe how far I've come in 31 days. When I think back to me a month ago it's like thinking about a stranger. However, I am NOT getting complacent! I know all of my relapses that happened after getting a decent bit of clean time came during times where I "couldn't imagine going back to it", so I'm staying aware. The SMART tools are proving to be more invaluable every day - they take some getting used to, but the more I practice them the easier they're getting to use. I'm starting to catch my emotions in the moment and challenging irrational thoughts behind them as they arise, rather than afterwards.

So yeah, I'm feeling positive! The only thing I need is a woman. It's been way too long! Do you guys think a 19 year old is too young for someone who's 26? ....just asking for a friend

 

[Captain.Heroin]

So yeah, I'm feeling positive! The only thing I need is a woman. It's been way too long! Do you guys think a 19 year old is too young for someone who's 26? ....just asking for a friend

My last long term (meaning years) relationship was 9 years of difference.. but I was the younger one.

Are they mature, etc. I'm going to say at some point y'all are going to be going in 2 separate directions. I'm making lots of assumptions though; if you're the older one and more immature/have "catching up" to do that might help. I don't know.

Other's opinions are likely to be of more value here.

 

[Jabberwocky]

how you getting on rio? hope you're still feeling positive.

ha i'm not sure about 19 vs 26, in terms of the motives of girls at that age. from the age of 14 i realised i could effectively exchange sex for drugs and the older the guy (i'd lie and say i was 17 and was tall and well developed), the more money he was likely to have, so if she's anything like me, steer well clear.

yesterday was my first day with no nicotine and it went ok. cos i've cut down so slowly the cravings have been pretty easy. and its similar to when i first quit heroin, it kinda pisses me off when i actually get through a craving cos then i have less justification for not doing next time. i have one tiny cigs left in my baccy and i expect i'll have that at some point over the next day or 2, but after that i'm not buying any more.

its a really positive sign that you were able to actually use the tools you've been learning to make yourself feel better, hopefully it'll make things easier next time you feel down. though at some point you're likely to get into a mood that just wont shift and when that happens to me i get more and more desperate then more and more despairing as it won't shift. that's part of why i really wish i had the time and motivation to do way more meditation, years of serious practice can give much more control over your mind!!!! its frustrating and disappointing to find out sometimes we just need to ride out negative moods.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

My last long term (meaning years) relationship was 9 years of difference.. but I was the younger one.

Are they mature, etc. I'm going to say at some point y'all are going to be going in 2 separate directions. I'm making lots of assumptions though; if you're the older one and more immature/have "catching up" to do that might help. I don't know.

Other's opinions are likely to be of more value here.

I am definitely really immature for my age. I feel as if my development was frozen when I started doing drugs and every time I get a significant amount of sobriety I emerge back as that 20 year old that started taking heroin and then have the work of growing emotionally ahead of me. Maybe I should find someone my own age or more mature than me so that their energy helps keep me on the straight and narrow?? Are you single, CH? (that question isn't related to my statement about needing a mature partner by the way, haha)

how you getting on rio? hope you're still feeling positive.

ha i'm not sure about 19 vs 26, in terms of the motives of girls at that age. from the age of 14 i realised i could effectively exchange sex for drugs and the older the guy (i'd lie and say i was 17 and was tall and well developed), the more money he was likely to have, so if she's anything like me, steer well clear.

yesterday was my first day with no nicotine and it went ok. cos i've cut down so slowly the cravings have been pretty easy. and its similar to when i first quit heroin, it kinda pisses me off when i actually get through a craving cos then i have less justification for not doing next time. i have one tiny cigs left in my baccy and i expect i'll have that at some point over the next day or 2, but after that i'm not buying any more.

its a really positive sign that you were able to actually use the tools you've been learning to make yourself feel better, hopefully it'll make things easier next time you feel down. though at some point you're likely to get into a mood that just wont shift and when that happens to me i get more and more desperate then more and more despairing as it won't shift. that's part of why i really wish i had the time and motivation to do way more meditation, years of serious practice can give much more control over your mind!!!! its frustrating and disappointing to find out sometimes we just need to ride out negative moods.

I'm still doing well! I keep forgetting you're a woman haha, I assume everyone to be a guy on the internet unless they say otherwise. Congrats on quitting cigarettes! How are you finding it now? I hear day 3 is the worst and after that the cravings should get milder. Is there any truth in what ex-junkies say about quitting cigarettes being harder than quitting heroin? I was always really dubious about that one, would be interesting to get your take on it having gone through both now, or nearly.

Thanks for the reminder that sometimes I will just have to endure. It's difficult to prepare for but I am trying to mentally ready myself for the next time I get depressed - I can handle the bad moods as long as they don't coincide with intense cravings. Thankfully so far the two have been uncoupled and have yet to occur together, but I know at some point it will happen and I am trying to ready myself to deal with that, especially considering I'm a week away from the point in time where I've relapsed twice after similar "long" (for me!) stretches of sobriety. How are you doing??

 

[Captain.Heroin]

delib. single but am going to consider asking this guy out like for real because.... heart crushes. I can't help it. so easy I'm such a lover. I don't want to ruin a good thing though.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Hey rio how you getting on? hope things are going well? what have you been doing to keep busy? you keeping up your smart meetings? i hope all is going well and you're starting to get kinda used to not using. its a long process but to me even though when i see people blatantly waiting to score on the way home and sometimes part of my brain is like 'go score now!' the idea of using is mostly completely alien to me when things are going well.

I've not had a cig since thurday. people who say about cigs are harder to quit than heroin are full of shit imo. honestly i've been able to control my cig intake to cut down before quitting. i remember buying a teenth of dark less than a year in with plans of tapering it to get off. instead i massively increased my habit cos i'd got no control whatsoever. like i was completely incapable of stopping gear no matter how genuinely i wanted to. maybe i'm somehow less addicted to cigs than other people? somehow doubt it i've smoked for 20 years. every attempt i made to stop gear i failed by this length of time in. i think not cold turkeying it has made a huge difference to me getting this far in with stopping the cigs, so much easier!!!

 

[Rio Fantastic]

Hey rio how you getting on? hope things are going well? what have you been doing to keep busy? you keeping up your smart meetings? i hope all is going well and you're starting to get kinda used to not using. its a long process but to me even though when i see people blatantly waiting to score on the way home and sometimes part of my brain is like 'go score now!' the idea of using is mostly completely alien to me when things are going well.

I've not had a cig since thurday. people who say about cigs are harder to quit than heroin are full of shit imo. honestly i've been able to control my cig intake to cut down before quitting. i remember buying a teenth of dark less than a year in with plans of tapering it to get off. instead i massively increased my habit cos i'd got no control whatsoever. like i was completely incapable of stopping gear no matter how genuinely i wanted to. maybe i'm somehow less addicted to cigs than other people? somehow doubt it i've smoked for 20 years. every attempt i made to stop gear i failed by this length of time in. i think not cold turkeying it has made a huge difference to me getting this far in with stopping the cigs, so much easier!!!

hey chinup. Congrats on quitting smoking! That's a fucking huge achievement and you should be proud of yourself! As for why it was easier than you expected - maybe you have been flexing the "resisting gratification" muscle via quitting H so that turning your strengthened discipline to quitting smoking has made it easier because of the practice? Regardless of how or why, you have made a giant step towards being healthy. As you probably know, quitting smoking is the single action that can improve someone's health the most and add years to your life, so I hope you stay strong. I'm getting my vape back myself next week, so this tobacco I have will be my last pouch. Really looking forward to swapping back to vaping - once I get used to it it's just a far more pleasant experience and I'll have more endurance, get my sense of taste back and not smell like an ashtray all the time. Can't wait!

I'm doing really well. After getting through yesterday I finally beat my previous "record" of 42 days, so I know I haven't been sober for this long since like 2017, so it feels really good. I've been taking on as many shifts as I can because my poor financial situation has been *really* holding me back, and my Mum deserves to be paid back after all she's done for me and it helps to occupy me. I'm still doing my SMART meetings - I do 1 or 2 a week and have now added a local group that's run at the drug counselling service called "Foundations of Change" that has also been really helpful. Just connecting with other addicts in the same boat is an enormous boost for me, and when I make myself go it kind of signals to myself that I'm still serious about sobriety and helps me keep cravings at bay.

Some days, I honestly don't even think about using. Other days are a fucking battle to get through still, but I am getting used to the techniques I have developed for getting through days like those, and keeping an urge log and being disciplined about it and typing exactly what goes through my head during a craving has been enormously helpful. It's true what they say about thoughts losing a lot of their power when they're translated into the open - when they're rattling around my mind they can gather momentum and emotional weight, but the minute I start to transcribe it they immediately are seen objectively for the nonsense that they are. I'm so used to logging my cravings now that when I have one, just the fact that I know I'm going to have to type it out immediately changes the way I relate to the thought, giving me that immediate mental distance I need to objectively evaluate them and re-frame them so instead of them seeming like something I'm doing - i.e. "I'm having a craving", it straight away changes to "A craving is happening to me", which also takes a lot of the power out of it.

I have been using the SMART technique of personifying the voice of craving in my mind to help me to deal with it, and it's helped me notice how starkly different it is from all of the other thoughts I have. There literally is a junkie in my mind who does nothing but distort situations, exaggerate my emotions, try and find ways to make me feel bad and who has just one solution to every single situation I find myself in and that's to use. Since realizing that it's become easier to turn it down. I've been trying to approach it with curiosity. Three days ago I was having a bad day and had to go to work, so rather than dreading the potential for cravings I just said to myself "Hmm, I wonder what the junkie in me is going to throw at me today to try and break me? I wonder what bullshit it's going to manufacture to tempt me into using drugs?" That thought really helped me to deal with it, and once I have contextualized it then the cravings, urges and mood swings become so much easier to let go of and they fade so much faster.

I'm learning about myself in this process. I can't say it's all easy, rainbows & butterflies but it's so worth it. I have come so far in a mere 6 weeks, and I remain excited to see where this journey is going to take me. One minor setback is that my plan to reduce my buprenorphine kind of went pear shaped - I decided to ask my doctor to change the script from 4mg to 5.6 mg. I only take 2mg a day, but I like having a stockpile and a friend buys the extra off me every so often, so I wanted to have it increased to 5.6 so that I could reduce my dose in increments of .4mg whilst still having the extras. Well, they decided instead to change the form of buprenorphine to something called Espranor, which apparently is just like subutex but it's a film tablet that dissolves in 15 seconds rather than the couple of minutes a normal tablet takes. My doctor thinks that because of this quicker absorption it's functionally like having a higher dose, which I really fucking hope it isn't - that will be the opposite of what I want to achieve! Serves me right for lying though, I guess. I'm trying the Espranor on Monday, if I feel like it's a dose increase I can always have it changed back.

I'm excited to be in "new territory", so to speak. I've had a roadmap of the first 42 days because I've been through it before and kept a journal to refer back to, but it's all uncharted now. I am going to try and update this thread a bit more often since I've neglected it a little recently, but I'd love to hear from you all. How is everyone?

 

[Jabberwocky]

alright rio, i've done a week with no cigs!!! that's longer than i've done in over 20 years. still not like easy all the time yet but its getting better.

well done!!! you're doing really well. i hope you're patting yourself on the back. it sounds like everything you're doing is really helpful. honestly as long as you are giving some time for the psychological stuff that is inevitably going to come up, which you are doing by the sound sof it, keeping as busy as possible is an absolute necessity imo. especially if it brings in cash and you're capable of not letting that fuck with your head. tbh i'm still routinely amazed to have cash in my bank account. i got so used to being absolutely penniless and just incapable of holding on to money for so long that its still weird that i'm not like that anymore.

is your foundations of change the one where you have growth, then life after? i did them, life was really really good. its a big commitment but i think it makes a statement about how you feel about recovery, similar to NAs 90 in 90.

it sounds like you're actually using some decent tools. very impressive, i'm shite at actually doing any of the stuff i know would help me to this day, it just doesn't occur to me in the moment. your brain will continue to pull random shit. like i can not even remotely think about using for ages, then see someone looking like their off to score and suddenly get a bit flustered thinking maybe i hsould get them to get me one. like what the fuck, it makes no sense, but that junky will always be there.

that sucks about the script!! does kinda serve you right though lol.

i'm still loving my kitten, and thats about it really. he just needs so much attention i don't have much time for much else apart from work. he's got so much more independent since i got him, watching him develop physically and emotionally makes me feel like i must be doing something right, but he needs a lot of love still. which is cool cos i love him, and my friend whose coming in in the day is really enjoying looking after him.

 

[Rio Fantastic]

alright rio, i've done a week with no cigs!!! that's longer than i've done in over 20 years. still not like easy all the time yet but its getting better.

Holy shit, congrats! fucking cold turkey as well!! You're really strong, well done, that's a giant achievement!

well done!!! you're doing really well. i hope you're patting yourself on the back. it sounds like everything you're doing is really helpful. honestly as long as you are giving some time for the psychological stuff that is inevitably going to come up, which you are doing by the sound sof it, keeping as busy as possible is an absolute necessity imo. especially if it brings in cash and you're capable of not letting that fuck with your head. tbh i'm still routinely amazed to have cash in my bank account. i got so used to being absolutely penniless and just incapable of holding on to money for so long that its still weird that i'm not like that anymore.

Oh my God, RIGHT!?!? It's such a weird novelty to actually have money! I too was used to being broke 95% of the time, and now that I have money and have been able to buy things like my vape stuff back, my gym membership and even little luxuries like coke zero instead of squash - it feels really good. In the beginning, money had lost all its appeal - when I wasn't spending it on drugs when I was so used to having any and all money just be "tokens that can be exchanged for immediate chemical pleasure" and then have that association broken it was like money had lost all ability to bring joy to my life, but now with a bit of sobriety now I'm finally feeling the positive effect that extra cash that doesn't get immediately changed to drugs can have I've been really enjoying it.

is your foundations of change the one where you have growth, then life after? i did them, life was really really good. its a big commitment but i think it makes a statement about how you feel about recovery, similar to NAs 90 in 90.

Yeah, exactly that. I've been really enjoying the group (that may or may not be directly related to the hot girl in there that I've been getting on really well with, but I digress). I've started this group in the past like 12 times and always dropped out by now, so it's cool that I'm actually seeing it through!

it sounds like you're actually using some decent tools. very impressive, i'm shite at actually doing any of the stuff i know would help me to this day, it just doesn't occur to me in the moment. your brain will continue to pull random shit. like i can not even remotely think about using for ages, then see someone looking like their off to score and suddenly get a bit flustered thinking maybe i hsould get them to get me one. like what the fuck, it makes no sense, but that junky will always be there.

that sucks about the script!! does kinda serve you right though lol.

i'm still loving my kitten, and thats about it really. he just needs so much attention i don't have much time for much else apart from work. he's got so much more independent since i got him, watching him develop physically and emotionally makes me feel like i must be doing something right, but he needs a lot of love still. which is cool cos i love him, and my friend whose coming in in the day is really enjoying looking after him.

It sounds like you haven't really needed them, but if you do find yourself hitting a rough patch then tools can be a lifeline to help get you through it. An urge log is a really simple one that I wouldn't have expected to be working so positively and yet it has, so if you ever feel that you're struggling then I'd recommend giving it a go. Can't hurt right?

That's lovely about your kitten! Do you have any pictures?? It must be nice having a responsibility like that though, something that makes you stay on the straight & narrow. How long have you been sober now???

I've been having a really good day today. It's my 27th birthday, so I've seen a couple friends and will be seeing my family in a couple of hours and we're going out to eat tomorrow. Had some cool gifts, went running, meditated, finally got a mattress delivered that I've been waiting on. I've just had a really pleasant day and it wasn't till I stopped just now that I realized I haven't even thought about drugs all day! It's been really nice. I really hope this feeling of stability and optimism lasts - I'm preparing for it not to, but I'm secretly hoping that my baseline is somewhere around this level, since it's just been so great these past few days to not have mood swings and just be reliably in a good, stable & happy place.