Always remember...

"Still around the corner there may wait, a new road, or a secret gate" 

- J.R.R Tolkien

Birthday Blues: Drug Residue

"I was 100% sure that I would be dead by now. And I technically did die twice. What other bullshit am I gonna have to go through in order for it to just all end already."

Those were some of my last sentences I wrote in my journal. A few months later I walked into rehab.

Ok, lets rewind a little....

So I just recently turned 24. Its still weird to say this when my birthday comes with each passing year in sobriety. As I look at those pages and read the ink that was thrown down, I can't believe that THAT was me. I wrote those words. But at the same time, i remember feeling and fully believing that. I would not live past 21. I just wouldn't. And that was fine.

Image by: Pink Sherbet Photography

I was wrapped up in the suffocating grip of addiction, and people in my life were disappearing to the left and right of me. I remember thinking that the past few years has been a drawn out game of russian roulette, but, "the excitement of some of the highs were worth the lows."

That was what I was trying to convince myself for the first few years. it was only after having to set flowers at another few graves that I realized lows were all that were left.

Well Back To Now

So as I mentioned, it was just my birthday a few days ago. As much as my view has changed, and trust me they have changed, I once again get the.. birthday blues, I guess you would call them.

Whatever you wanna call it, I slipped into a hole of depression. But its not the same kind of depression that I am accustomed to battling throughout the year. It's something different. My dark passenger seems to be reminding me, louder than usual, about the years that I wasted. About the possibilities that might of been right in front of me, but I was too doped up to even slightly see them.

Once again, my mind was being pulled back into the past, while thinking about the things I most likely fucked up in the future. This is such a reoccurring shit storm that enters my head and brings me down, but usually around my birthday is when it gets the worst.

What needs to happen

For some reason, I have been on an audiobook binge recently, and the latest book I have been listening to is, "10% Happier," by Dan Harris.  Yes, I have ben reverting to self-help books. I know, I know. Keep with me though.

I was stuck in traffic somewhere on the freeway while I heard Harris say something that strangely picked me up and changed my view just a little. But I think it was just that little bit that I needed so that I knew what to do.

I can't remember if this is exactly right, but it pretty much said,

"If you have one foot in the past, and one in the future, you are pissing on the present."

Why this quote sparked something in my mind, I have no idea. But it did. I'm not saying it lifted these birthday blues Im going through, but it is definitely helping.

...I think I know what to do...

Well sort of.

I'm always thinking about the past. One way or another. I know it's impossible to just never think of it again, but what I mean is that I think about it in relation to how much I fucked up what could have been. How much it fucks with relationships I am in because of the flashbacks and insecurities. Stuff of that sort. And if my main goal is happiness, this kind of thinking is definitely not going to get me anywhere. 

So then the easy answer would be to bring that foot from the past, forward to the present... right? Of course when it comes to real life, it is always easier said than done, but I know it is something that CAN be done..though it may take a lot of practice. 

I've heard many say that you need to live completely in the present, and not think about the future or else the only thing you will lead yourself to is disappointment.

I dont know if it is just me being stubborn, but I dont accept that at all. I feel like with a foot being in the present, the other foot (or at least half) should in fact be in the future. I know for myself, I need to make commitments and set goals so that I can work towards something. It brings meaning to the present in those difficult moments when we have trouble finding any. 

And when I think of the future in that aspect, I can spend the rest of my energy figuring out what to do in the present in order to get to where I want to be. 

We all have worked way to hard to let the demons of the past take control of even more time in our lives. 

Stay strong bloggers. My rambling is done for now. 

With Much Love,

D.Z.

Life After Drugs: Brick by Brick

Sorry to have definitely been lagging on the posting. I guess there has been so much going on to where I couldn't even sit down and think of one solid topic to talk about....

And I still couldn't really pick one solid topic yet, but one thing I have been noticing about myself is that my emotions are going haywire lately.

I guess to start off I need to explain a little bit about my past. I don't know if I have talked about any of this before but, more or less I was "trained" to push all sorts of emotions out of the way. So with this in mind, and endless amounts of heroin or some kind of painkillers, this really was not that hard to accomplish. At first, it was difficult to not let some of those emotions squeeze out, but after 7 years of constant practice, it simply became something that was normal.

Photo by: Rob Patrick

Emotions were mostly all faked. For lies, manipulations, etc. So as you might have guessed, that is what the shrink and I have mostly been working on. Letting emotions back through. Slowly...very slowly taking down the tower I had built, brick by brick. And damn did those emotions flood through.

Going though events slowly definitely helped not overloading a process that was already hard to go through.

Ok so fast-forward a little bit to now where most of those bricks have been taken down and emotions and feelings are running full course in my mind again. At first I always think of this as a bad thing, but I know it is an improvement. With drugs, even when we tried to numb ourselves, the bad and hurtful still got through to us. We still felt the pain and the crushing low points we were at. On the other hand, the happy things that we might of experienced were extremely belittled just because it was apart of the process.

Does any of this make sense to you guys. This was at least what happened in my case. Through the seven years of my addiction, I am sure there are many good moments that I had experienced, but honestly if you ask me to make a list I don't think I could go past number....six? Though if asked to make a list of all the bad, the ink in my pen would run out before I could finish.

Alright getting off track. Anyways, my point was that although it might be painful to kind of train yourself to go back to a place to feeling all emotions, I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

At first I was so stuck, I didn't know how to rip out those bricks I had bound together so tightly. Talking about it got the brick to budge, but it still would not fully give out. It was one day where there was so much frustration building up, and other things stacking up on top of each other, where for the first time, I just broke down. I cried...and cried...and just let it out.

The full emotion was felt for the first time. And for some reason, the brick now came out with ease.

I think all of us have a mentality where we need to be so strong all the time. And let me know if you think I am wrong, but maybe this is actually counter-productive in this case. I feel we all need to let ourselves be vulnerable at certain times and let everything bottled up just come out. Whether it be talking about it, or simply going through whatever "it" is and just letting ourselves actually feel that emotion that our tower has "protected" us from for so long.

Yes, it definitely can be hard, but I felt soon after I let that emotion be recognized and felt, it was something that was easier to deal with. Don't get me wrong, it is no way near a quick fix kind of method, but it is something that has worked for me when I keep at it. I have to remember that it can't just be all better the first time I try to pull that brick out, it takes some repetition.

After some time I notices my wall was starting to come lower and lower to the ground. Emotions, feelings, and all of that stuff was actually being felt on a daily basis, and it wasn't something I hated anymore. It was becoming my new normal.

We all let our tower or walls get so high when we were in the grasp of our addiction. I think that's why it was, and still is so hard for me to just deal with some things, but the point is, that it is getting easier. And above that, I am actually feeling some kind of happiness again. Not synthetic or chemically induced, but real happiness. Maybe not every day yet, but it has definitely been felt. And yes, that is something I am happy about. Knowing it is still possible to feel that for me, and for all of you.

We just can't give up. 

I don't know guys. As you guys can probably tell my mind has been everywhere lately, which will be evident in the next few posts I will put up. But for now, I think this is where I will end this one.

Stay strong.

Drugs.Change.Nostalgia.

Image by: Cliff1066

Nostalgia.

Something that can bring a smile to your face or the exact opposite. I think for the first year or so of sobriety the past shows up quite a bit in your thoughts. At least it most definitely did for me.

I was with a friend today and we both agreed that there are some things from the past that we really miss. And honestly, for quite some time I did not want to move on. I didn't want to let go, or even knew how to. I'm mostly talking about friends and the times that were shared. Maybe I was just young, but I definitely thought that some of the people who I considered  a close friend at the time, were going to remain in my life for a very long time.

I think the reason I wanted to hold on so badly was because right after you get clean, your normal everyday life is so extremely uncomfortable. So badly did I want something I was used to. So badly did I want the group of friends I used to have to come back so I could have just a little bit of that comfortable feeling. Of course, reintroducing them into my life would have been anything but helpful, I just didn't know it then.

Change.

That's all my life was about at that time... and pretty much still is. After some time I knew the only way my life was going to get better was if I not only accepted the change, but also embraced it. That was the part that was even harder. I never really liked change. If I felt comfortable in that moment, I did not see a point of changing anything. But when that change is the only way for you to survive, a choice doesn't really exist anymore.

"You can't cling on to the past because no matter how tightly you try to hold on, it's already gone."

    - Ted Mosby          

Yes, it is a quote from one of the main characters in How I met Your Mother. You have to agree though, he had a damn good point. The more we try to hold on, the further back we are going to have to reach. The further back we reach, the harder it is to keep our balance and move forward like we need to.

Happiness.

That is where I wanna be. I am not yet completely there, but I feel I am on my way. I definitely realized it was nowhere to be seen in my past. Actually, it was just the opposite. My past was full of despair, loneliness, death, tragedy, danger, and more death. I know most of you who have struggled with addiction can definitely relate to that. And I was definitely sick of all that. So I wanted to try...I needed to try to change.

It is now a little over a year and there has definitely been lots of changes. For the most part, things are... OK right now. Just kind of trying to figure out what it is I really want to do with my life. My hope for the future is definitely what keeps me going though. I want to prove myself wrong when I kept saying I'm always going to be the Addict. I know I can become something I will be proud of. We all can.

At the end of the day, all that matters is that we keep going. The past contains nothing but broken memories and numbed out emotions. So it is the future I look forward to. It will be a damn long journey, but I already know it will be rewarding. We all know what our lowest point was like, but we still have no idea what our highest point 

can be.

And that is something that we all deserve to find out.

Drugs, Present, Happiness

I found myself thinking a lot of my past. Reminiscing on the times I thought were good times, and trying to cope with the times that were the darkest. I don't know why the past has been on my mind so much, but I didn't like it. I find that in my down time is when the thoughts come to attack , and lately I have had a lot of down time. I keep trying to busy myself in someway, but it just wasn't enough.

The thoughts of the last seven years kept rushing through my mind. It was more though that I was blaming everything on my past. I am now a little over a year sober and the struggle is still a daily one. It isn't that I expected this to be easy, but I guess I am still used to getting the "quick fix" that I thought the drugs gave me. Having to slowly process things and work through the pain is still something that I am getting struggling with.

When I was sitting in my room, wallowing in my self-pity, I was watching some show when I heard:

"You might be dwelling on the past because you are unhappy with the present..."

I really thought about that for a good minute. I mean, it is not that I am generally unhappy, I guess I just wanted to be completely somewhere else in my life entirely. I am now 22 and I feel I am so many years behind. This has been one of my worries ever since I stepped out of rehab.

I think it all just goes back to having to fight your own thoughts. I have to remember that I am still alive and that I am sober. That is the most important part. And like I said in my last post, being alive means that we have the chance to better our lives for ourselves. We have the chance to change our present and work on it until it is something that we are happy with. And as long as we keep doing that, I don't think it matters how old we are. As long as we keep doing that, we truly are alive.

If we are in a time in our life where we think all we see is ruins, there are a few things we can do. We can either concentrate on the bad and just stare out in misery, or put in the work and build something we are happy with.

Picture by: Nico Nelson

And for me personally, I would much rather put in the work and get rid of the ruins.

I think I had the idea that after some time of sobriety, I would just be done working on getting back to a "happy place." I would just be in a place of content. I was wrong...but now that I think about it, I am happy that I was wrong. It means that we have a constant opportunity to improve.

And whatever "improving" means, is up to you. And.. well, to put it simply, that is pretty damn cool.

Simple Works.

Do you ever get in those moods. I feel in my recovery, that feeling has visited me a number of times now. I was reading a fellow bloggers post and it just really made me think. To summarize his post, it basically covered the topic of lack of motivation. Being completely, "underwhelmed by life."

(Photo taken from: Scott Robinson on Flickr)

I automatically knew exactly what he was talking about just because of how common it is for me to feel that way. Talking to some other addicts has told me they go through this (not so exciting) period quite often as well. Alright... so how do we fix it?

If I had that answer, I would be doing my happy dance right now (yes I have one). But I don't have the answer, so I won't get to do my longed for victory dance.

What I did figure out though, is something that at least gets my ass out of the chair and pushes those feelings back a little. And when you are at that point ( where you don't see the point of getting dressed, the curtains have to be closed, and you are watching episode after episode of whatever you haven't seen on Netflix yet), it only really takes a little to make you feel a whole lot better.

So back to what helps me. I'm sure many of you already do this, and for some it might not do anything, but if you know this feeling and haven't tried this, I hope it helps.

Mini-Goals. 

Yup. Small daily or weekly goals. For me it helps if I write it down somewhere. Specifically I write it on a small whiteboard I got. I guess it is something about the weird satisfaction I get from crossing or checking something off....is that weird? Well anyways, that is what I do.

Oh and for the goals? It can literally be anything. For me it has been a lot of studying, or chores and errands, or photography, or cleaning..literally anything. If you need to go somewhere on a certain day, write it down. When you come back from whatever it was, check it off.

So yes, it is definitely extremely simple, but it helps. It gives me that satisfaction of knowing I am getting something done. I am actually accomplishing something. It makes me feel like I am not just sitting around and wasting away. Then, that little bit of motivation I get helps me set bigger goals for my future that I actually really want to reach.

Again, it might seem lame or overly simple, but we all just need that little bit of a push to get us back in the swing of things.

So if this is how you have been feeling lately, think about doing it. It really is the small stuff that actually helps quite a lot. Besides, Netflix will always be there later. Don't worry I checked ;)

Addiction and Missed Opportunities

At first when I got out of rehab, I wanted so badly to be happy. But I couldn't help but think of everything that was laying in ruins because of my addiction. There were so many people I had taken advantage of, lied to, and there were so many missed opportunities. The safe barrier that had been felt in the rehab facility was nowhere in sight.

Did anyone else have this kind of reaction after getting clean and rejoining the world?

Anyway, it is safe to say that over the last 7 years of my addiction, I have become increasingly more negative towards...everything really. My overall outlook was that there was no way out of the deep hole I had dug myself in. I was trapped at the very bottom, watching all my opportunities pass by.

So some guy a long time ago told us to, "be the change we want to see in the world." As hard as it was for me, I tried listening to this Gandhi fella.

From there on out I tried changing the way I had been thinking. Catching myself and stopping my negative rants, and so on. Mainly being positive about life again.

To my surprise it was starting to work. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely hard and is still something I am trying to control, but it works.

Just like if you are at the bottom of the hole, if you keep doing what you have been, you will either dig further down or simply stay stuck. I had to change how I thought, and look for ways to get myself out of the muddy hole in the ground I was in.

The more I tried, the more I saw opportunities that were available to me. So instead of looking up and wishing you could make a ladder appear to make it an easy climb, put in more work to dig some kind of edges in the walls to climb up.

 With each step we are proving to ourselves that it IS actually possible to rebuild our lives. It just takes training your mind and your eyes to see those hidden opportunities that are in our reach.

The crappy, annoying, hard things in life

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well to put it simply today has been a...well a shit storm. Excuse the language. To sum it up, the past was on my mind today a lot due to it being the two-year-anniversary to a good friends death. Then just a whole bunch of little things went wrong and everything just added up. You know that point where you are so frustrated you don't know whether to scream or cry? Yeah, that's what it felt like. 

Anyway. I saw this quote and it kinda just made me think. 

After quite some time thinking about this on my patio, I finally felt a little better. We have all been through hard times in our life. Not just addicts, but everyone. The thing is, whatever happened in our past is...in our past. We can't do anything to change that it happened. Same with the things that are going to happen right? Whatever those events may be, we won't really see them till it is happening. 

Still with me?

While we don't really have control over some event that will happen in our future, how we choose to react to them is completely in our control. In no way am I saying we should all be completely positive about our pet dying, or getting fired, or some other crappy thing that might happen (personally I think that would be kinda weird), but is there some way we can learn something or take something away from whatever already/will happen?

Trust me, I know it is a lot harder said than done, but I would rather be trying to find the light than to dwell on everything bad in the world. Asking ourselves why this or that happened will only lead to more frustration, and in my case more tubs of Toll House cookie dough. 

We can choose to grow with every thing that happens in our lives, the good and the bad. That is what we do have control over. Whatever you take away from it that helps is your choice. In the end the corny saying is true, we DO only have one life. 

So while dealing with our not so pleasant emotions is a good thing, just try to not get yourself stuck there for too long. 

'nuff said

Addiction Recovery doesn't have a timeline

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." 

-Confucius 

It's definitely a simple quote, but I think that it relates a lot to how I look at recovering from addiction. Just like my last post stated, no one plan works for everyone. The one thing that everyone though will have in common is having to fight your way through the wreckage our addiction has left behind.

In my own recovery there were so many times that I questioned if this was even worth it. I just wanted to feel so much happier than I was. "It's been (X) months and I still feel crappy," went through my mind so many times. What about you guys... have you ever felt that way?

It was around that time I saw this quote. I read it over and over again just so it would really be engraved in my mind.

Everyone heals differently. We all have our own little ways of getting through something. Our own coping methods. So when I read stories online about people being clean for six, or even three months and they were saying how happy they were, I no longer questioned what I was doing wrong.

Everyone's war they are fighting has different durations, different obstacles, and so on. Does that make sense or am I starting to ramble again? I tend to do that.. sorry :p

Well on those bad days, we just have to remember to take it slower than usual. Definitely keep fighting on, just at a slower pace so no overwhelming can happen.

Never compare your recovery to anyone else's in a sense that you aren't feeling like (insert name here) was at 5 months. All we need to focus on is getting better. At whatever rate we are comfortable.

Overcoming Addiction: What's better for YOU?

Recently I was asked by a fellow blogger if I personally believe someone can beat addiction on their own. This really made me think for a few minutes. There was no way I could give a simple 2-3 sentence reply to that question so I decided to try to unravel my thoughts here.

Addiction is something I believe to affect everyone differently. The drugs we use differ, our habits are different, our routines, but most importantly, the methods that work for one to get clean and sober definitely are not all the same.

Back to the question. There are several ways I took this question, but in each version it all came down to one thing:

It depends on the person

For some people the only thing that makes it possible to stay clean is the AA/NA programs that are out there. By going to meetings and working the steps, many get the relief and support they need. For others though, it simply just is not for them. Working the program just doesn’t give them what they need, for some reason or another.

That was the case for me. I tried it out for a few months but quickly realized I needed to go a different route. What continues to work for me is seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist. With them, a specific plan was created just for me in a way that I was most comfortable with. This included some SSRI’s for example, along with hour-long sessions with the shrink to have the opportunity to talk some of that “stuff” out. Like all addicts, I wasn’t sure if this was going to work but at that point I was willing to try anything.

Now here I am 14 months later, still sober, and doing better that I ever thought I would at this point. For me the programs just made me constantly think of addiction which made me want to use. I figured out that going back to living life in a “normal” way was the only thing that was going to work for me.

Support is always crucial.

If you are working the program, doing what I did, or doing something else…I can not stress enough how important it is to have at least some kind of support group. Whether that be some part of your family, a few friends, or even an online community, just have support.

There is still many other ways I could answer this question, but I feel like I have already wrote half a novel. But again, it really just depends on the person and what works for them.

To anyone still struggling to find what works for them, please do not give up. It is hard but it IS possible. This, I am sure of.

Feel free to contact me to chat about anything.                   libordanny@yahoo.com 

Sober Complications: Part 1

There comes a point in sobriety when the time that we were addicted seems like a completely different life. All the sudden my worries were in a completely different category. For the first time I was thinking about the future...and it really scared me. At first all I could think about was all the time that I had wasted. Everyone I had graduated high school with was just getting out of college and moving on with their professional life. So badly did I want to be at the same place as they all were.

I beat myself up for quite some time before I mentioned it to my counselor. His exact words escape me at this moment but he basically told me that my life just went down a different path. The experiences I had gone through, and the lessons I have learned could not of been taught in school or anywhere else. I thought about this for quite some time before I learned to appreciate it.

It is still a struggle sometimes for me to stay positive with this, but I have to remember that the one thing that truly matters was that I got sober. The reason I wanted to talk about this was that I found out many felt the same way.

No matter what time in our lives we managed to get sober....well, that should be all that matters. We got sober. Yes, many mistakes were probably made, but by getting clean, we have avoided making so many more. We now have the chance to make our lives better than ever before with a new appreciation for life in general. I think I am starting to ramble, but if you ask me... learning to appreciate life again in a whole new way is something that makes up for the time we struggled with addiction.

Our lives may be different, but it is up to us to decide if we want to make that something positive, or something negative.