First off, thank you my friends for helping me stay sane last night. I made it through the day without using. Days like yesterday are incredibly hard to tolerate.
I came across this sentence recently:
"Fear is the great convincer. Fear overwhelms reason, education, logical thinking, and common sense."
While the article it was in was unrelated to addiction, I thought it fairly relevant to addiction nonetheless.
I think deep down (or hell, maybe not even that deep down) all addicts have a fear of life. I guess I shouldn't speak for all addicts though, so I'll say that I have an intrinsic fear of life.
Fear of success, fear of intimacy, fear of change.....why all this fear? Why the hell do we fear that which can bring us immense joy? Fear of failure. I think that's it. We've convinced that anything we attempt in life we will fail at, so why bother trying at all. Again, only speaking for myself, I am aware that I have perfectionist tendencies, and massive control issues. Which is funny, because only I can control whether I use or not.....but when I'm using I am completely out of control. Irony, you are a bitch.
Change is the only thing you can count on being consistent in life....another irony. I fear change, yet crave it. Immense joy....I fear that too. It doesn't make sense, but I distrust happiness. It doesn't feel right. Maybe because I have experienced so little of it in my life I don't know how to feel about it. It's like putting on someone else's shoes. They might be the right size, and will enable you to walk from point A to point B, but they just don't feel right. So I guess with happiness, instead of waiting awhile to break the shoes in to make them my own, I get out of them as fast as I can. Self sabotage. Sometimes I'm aware of doing this, other times I'm not and only realize it in hindsight when I'm analyzing my life and trying to figure out why the hell I'm in over my head again.
I'm constantly reminding myself of the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Some things are really, really hard to accept though. I get so hung up on the past that I become unable to move forward. Fear of failure. Fear of success. So the temptation is always there to return to at least what is familiar territory, despite the misery of it. I know what to expect, even if I'm taken by surprise. I know how to navigate, while being totally lost. I'm surrounded by like people so that I'm not alone, despite being completely alone. I love it, even while hating it. Drug addiction is a world full of paradoxes.
Thanks, Sue, the log jam has become unstuck.
