Reshie, hoping it's O.K. to address this here. You can "unload" anything at anytime here. That's why we're here. Support.
You've been a strength to Lost and I can't speak for her, but it's apparent she wants to help.
Meanwhile, those tiny bits of sleep you're getting with the dreams maybe you can journal. Even though it's the same one over and over with your dear girl there'll be others.
The puddle in the dream was especially intersting to me being that water symbolizes emotion usually. So perhaps you're not "old" in the puddle but "feel old" presently. If that makes sense.
You have an interesting life. I'm sorry about the elderly home. See, people all yapping and gossiping, but you told the truth. You were honest and that's the best thing you could have done.
Meanwhile, I recall the pacing, no sleep, no eating. Horrific. I used to hate hearing "This too shall pass". It will though. Can you get some pudding? American pudding? LOL Like Jello brand. That's good stuff and stays down.
Do hang in there, Reshie. You can do this thing. Keep going. You can do it.
Thanks for what you wrote Brynda.
I was near breaking point that much is for certain. I spoke with some people at NA for a fresh perspective. Whilst I did not agree with everything all of them said, they all had something useful to contribute and from my own reflections, have come to my own analysis of the situation.
One of them was recounting his experiences in rehab and strongly suggested that I consider it as an option or if not full rehab, then at least a trained drugs counsellor. He said that the purpose of rehab was to prepare the individual for precisely this sort of situation. I disagreed in the sense that what I lacked was not knowledge or self-awareness but coping mechanisms. As every individual is different, so every person has different coping strategies. For a counsellor to be able to help, he would first have to get to know me and that would involve going over my whole addiction history, when and how I got clean, what the motivating factors involved were and are and so on. I just have no desire to do this. It would be different if I had started my recovery that way but I chose to do it on my own seeking out support as and when and where I saw the needs arise. Had I gone down the route of therapy, I doubt I would even have bothered looking for this site. there simply would have been no need to.
Having said that, he is right in my needing to find a way to cope with life's problems. All the time I was an addict, those problems were there but my coping mechanism was the drug. It insulated me from the stresses of life. The irony is that in all that time, the problems never went away but became compounded by the length of time spent in addiction. I have come to realise that drugs are a kind of prison. A prison of the mind. And just as individuals who have spent too many years in prison become institutionalised where they mentally become dependant on their prison and can no longer even contemplate life on the outside, so it is with drugs. The longer one stays in that state, the less likely it becomes that he or she will be able to live and succeed without it. I liken myself to a bird who has lived in a cage for a long long time. The door to the cage is now open. What I lack is the courage to spread my wings and fly out as that cage has come to represent safety and familiarity.
I think one mistake I made was when I was going through withdrawal and PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome) I immersed myself in all the material I could get my hands on about addiction. Biograhies of people who have been through it, a lot of books by the medical profession, literature, anything. I lived, breathed and slept addiction and it was constantly on my mind. I think it may be time to take a step in a different direction. Focus on something different. I'm doing that. The other thing is time. Everything just seemed to take off so quickly and fall apart just as quickly that I got caught unawares. I wanted to move on and up, the quicker the better. Perhaps that is the other mistake. I started building a house without laying down the foundations and when galeforce winds blew, the house rocked and almost came apart. A relationship,friends, a job...all the trappings of normalcy. I suspect that I am in reality not ready for all these things. Which begs the question, do I just sit back and let things come to me? Well hardly. That isn't a strategy that will work because even an addict has to work. He has to get up every day and make the raise (money) so he can get his supply. So how will I know when I'm ready for what? The honest answer is I don't know. I'm just working on calming down and staying that way. First things first. I'll post more when I know more.
Reshie.
I was near breaking point that much is for certain. I spoke with some people at NA for a fresh perspective. Whilst I did not agree with everything all of them said, they all had something useful to contribute and from my own reflections, have come to my own analysis of the situation.
One of them was recounting his experiences in rehab and strongly suggested that I consider it as an option or if not full rehab, then at least a trained drugs counsellor. He said that the purpose of rehab was to prepare the individual for precisely this sort of situation. I disagreed in the sense that what I lacked was not knowledge or self-awareness but coping mechanisms. As every individual is different, so every person has different coping strategies. For a counsellor to be able to help, he would first have to get to know me and that would involve going over my whole addiction history, when and how I got clean, what the motivating factors involved were and are and so on. I just have no desire to do this. It would be different if I had started my recovery that way but I chose to do it on my own seeking out support as and when and where I saw the needs arise. Had I gone down the route of therapy, I doubt I would even have bothered looking for this site. there simply would have been no need to.
Having said that, he is right in my needing to find a way to cope with life's problems. All the time I was an addict, those problems were there but my coping mechanism was the drug. It insulated me from the stresses of life. The irony is that in all that time, the problems never went away but became compounded by the length of time spent in addiction. I have come to realise that drugs are a kind of prison. A prison of the mind. And just as individuals who have spent too many years in prison become institutionalised where they mentally become dependant on their prison and can no longer even contemplate life on the outside, so it is with drugs. The longer one stays in that state, the less likely it becomes that he or she will be able to live and succeed without it. I liken myself to a bird who has lived in a cage for a long long time. The door to the cage is now open. What I lack is the courage to spread my wings and fly out as that cage has come to represent safety and familiarity.
I think one mistake I made was when I was going through withdrawal and PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome) I immersed myself in all the material I could get my hands on about addiction. Biograhies of people who have been through it, a lot of books by the medical profession, literature, anything. I lived, breathed and slept addiction and it was constantly on my mind. I think it may be time to take a step in a different direction. Focus on something different. I'm doing that. The other thing is time. Everything just seemed to take off so quickly and fall apart just as quickly that I got caught unawares. I wanted to move on and up, the quicker the better. Perhaps that is the other mistake. I started building a house without laying down the foundations and when galeforce winds blew, the house rocked and almost came apart. A relationship,friends, a job...all the trappings of normalcy. I suspect that I am in reality not ready for all these things. Which begs the question, do I just sit back and let things come to me? Well hardly. That isn't a strategy that will work because even an addict has to work. He has to get up every day and make the raise (money) so he can get his supply. So how will I know when I'm ready for what? The honest answer is I don't know. I'm just working on calming down and staying that way. First things first. I'll post more when I know more.
Reshie.
Knowledge is power, Resh.
You're certainly on a path. Path to where we don't know, but it's not in the drug lane.
Thinking of you.
You're certainly on a path. Path to where we don't know, but it's not in the drug lane.
Thinking of you.
