Bloodletting

Summer of 1991.

You, topless, smoking a joint.

Your lips curl up in a smile, beckoning me.

In the Darkening Of The Light we join.



Copyright Steven Clark 2012

Falling

Falling through the ether, light and sound filtering through me like smoke
Thoughts are here too, they crash against me
Sometimes holding me up like a buoy
Sometimes pulling me under like crashing waves.

Reason and purpose taunt me but are out of reach,
slipping through my fingers like water through a sieve

I twist and turn in the current
undulating like a dancer to music
Sometimes going with the flow,
Sometimes fighting every movement.

I need something solid to grasp.
Something to anchor me in the swaying movement that is my mind.

You reach in and take my hand,
knowing you could be pulled in, too.
"Rearranging the deck chairs, are we?" you say.
"I have to try," I say back.

Copyright Steven Clark 2012

Pointless

What is the fucking point of anything?

We're all going to die someday, and until then all we have to do is muddle through this pointless existence as painlessly as possible.

Which, as each day goes by, seems more impossible to do.

Don't give me fucking platitudes about how I could "give so much back" and "help others."  So what?  So what if I might help others?  Help them to what?  Live?  Why would anyone want to live in this hell hole?  There is nothing but pain, and despair, and death.  No minute points of light or joy can impede that fact.  No religion can "save us" from it.

Fear

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.

Mind Games

I want to use so badly right now I can barely concentrate on keeping my fingers on the keyboard.  My thoughts, every emotion, every sense is consumed by this desire.

I know I can't give in to it.  I know that if I give in to this compulsion I would be throwing away everything that I have achieved in the last 8 months.  I know this.  I know that the older I get each relapse gets harder and harder to return from.  Always the knowledge is there, this time I might not come back at all.


And yet sometimes, like now, the desire to use threatens to overpower all logic, all knowledge and all reason.  Feeling like this is horrible.  I feel stupid, weak, dirty, cheap, ashamed, and a failure for feeling this way, and yet I can't make it stop.  I'm embarrassed to write and admit this.  After battling addiction my entire adult life, after everything I've been through and put others through, after acquiring all of the tools necessary to beat this....I still haven't beaten it.

I don't think it's a war that can be beat.  I might win battles every day by making the right choices, but the overall war will never be won.  I'll never not be an addict.

I just needed to vent while I was in the thick of things.  I know this craving will ease up eventually.  But goddamn fuck it's hard to not obsessively think and feel all of this while it's going on.

Today I choose abstinence but the devil monkey on my shoulder is trying to convince me that I'm being silly.  Mind games.  It gets to the point of not being able to trust myself, my judgement or anything I know to be right.  When in the thick of it, all memories of the pain, desperation, degradation, and misery conveniently fade away and detach from my brain as if it were someone else's memories, and surely *I* would *never* allow that to happen to *me* because I'm so much stronger and smarter now.  Surely just once in a while would never hurt, eh?  After all you still drink and can control it, that proves the point!

Mind fucking games.  This is what opiate addiction is like.  Doesn't matter if it's heroin, vicodin, morphine, codeine, oxycontin, percocet, or any of the rest of them......opiates fuck up and permanently rewire your brain for life.  Last night in a group conversation on facebook we contemplated if we could travel back in time, where would we go - I would go back to that fateful night in 1994 where I was offered to try heroin for the first time and stop myself.  Fanciful thinking, that.  It has done nothing but make my life miserable and yet I still. fucking. want. it.

Vent over.

Word Association

Ok Sue, here ya go.

Carnival
clowns
scary
Poltergeist
movie
Roadhouse
seedy
drugs
thugs
crime
time
time out
score
game
board game
Life
bored with life
escape
free
free from responsibility
spiral
danger
barrel
log
log jam
too many thoughts
attention
attention deficit disorder
manic thoughts
ping pong
calm
balm
drug

GBE 33: Work.

Work for a living.
Work for the paycheck.

Work to pay the bills.
Work to stick to the budget.

Work at your relationship.
Work at not telling her that outfit really does make her look fat.

Work around the house.
Work to clean the toilet at least once a week.

Work at remembering to return the library books on time.
Work at remembering to call your auntie to wish her a Happy Birthday.

Work to unwind at the end of a long day of....work.
Work to rid your mind of all the unceasing worries that keep you up at night.

Work to stay clean, one day at a time.
Work at remembering why you need to stay clean, one day at a time.

Work to paste the smile on your face at a family gathering you'd rather not be at.
Work to keep from retorting back to the rude comment made at your expense.

Work to look at yourself in the mirror everyday and see a lifetime of regrets look back at you.
Work to keep plugging on and pretend that you have hope for the future.


Posted for GBE #33, topic:  "Work"