One of the most important things we need to remember...

“I’ve made mistakes in my life. I’ve let people take advantage of me, and I accepted way less than I deserve, but I’ve learned from my bad choices and even though there are some things I can never get back and people who will never be sorry, I’ll know better next time and I won’t settle for anything less than I deserve.”

~Unknown,

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.

A small reminder to save your day

When you listen to your ego, you will never be good enough, someone will always be better. Your ego will never let you rest. 

Being able to ignore that voice may just be the most valuable lesson one can learn. 

-You are always good enough & the only one we should be comparing ourselves to, is ourselves-  

Life, Fear, & the Ego

It has been a long time since I have actually been able to sit down, write, and finish by posting whatever my mind threw at the screen. I have... quite a lot of drafts saved up that I couldn't get myself to post for some reason. For a while, I think I felt that I didn't have anything positive or good enough to say.

So many things were happening that were dragging me down. So many negative things kept flying at me, slowly breaking me apart. I know, I ignored my own advice, and kept quiet about it all. All this led to me, once again, falling back to a place where I felt numbing out my emotions was what I needed to do.(WHY?!) 

So now that I am in the process of climbing out of the dark hole I threw myself in, I can't help but be a little disappointed in myself. Then again, it is just one more lesson that was thrown at me so that hopefully, I learn from my mistake...that was made multiple times. 

Anyway, over the past few months, I was asking a lot of people a few questions; some of them I knew, others I didn't. Mostly the questions were for a book I am writing, but there is one thing that was present in almost everyone's answer that I wanted to talk about. (Stick with me here, it all ties together)

Fear. In one way or another, when I asked about certain subjects, such as how they make decisions, their goals, their personality, they were all influenced by fear. I guess that is the main reason I couldn't get myself to post all that I had written too. "It's not good enough," or, "I should be doing better," or any of those bullshit thoughts, are all the voice of the ego.

All of us, or at least most, are guilty of letting fear control the decisions we make almost every day. Whether we know it or not, I feel like fear has become so deeply instilled in us that we honestly don't even recognize it anymore. I know for me personally, this has been true for a long time now. Don't get me wrong, if you are one of the few that has been able to shut it out, my hat is off to you. But for the rest of us, and I know this is 100% true for myself, it is going to take a lot of work to not only ignore the fear, but recognize where the fear is lurking.

"So many choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality" 

This is the quote that made me think about all of this. When I first heard it, I must of repeated it about 10 times in my head. I flipped through some of the responses I had written down from those who had answered my questions, and many had said something along the lines of, "I'm more of a practical person," and,  "I don't let emotions effect me." Even many of the people I know or grew up with have a kind of mindset that blocking out emotions is something that betters us, or protects us in some way. 

I mean, shit, isn't this kind of what I was doing the past few months? 

So then it got me thinking, how much of that "practical" way of life, is one that is really based on fear. Where we make decisions based on past experiences where the end result was pain. Is it understandable? Hell yeah, and sometimes I don't think it is even something that is bad. It is when we let ourselves build it all up inside so that we get calloused to not only the bad, but the world in general.  

Picture by: Cuito Cuanavale

I think that is the cycle that I am trying to break right now. I think it is definitely good to be weary about some things, but not to be so numb and calloused towards so much that this world has to offer... and with the many years of my life that I already gave away to addiction, I want to experience all I can and not let fear or ego control my choices. Because when you think about it, once you let fear move in and start changing the way you think, it starts taking over almost every decision that you can make. Whether it be debating on doing something that day, some other choice, and especially in relationships and love interests. I think it is with the latter that I really need to remember this quote and try to push that fear as far away as I can.  

I think it is a part of that complete feeling of peace that so many of us are constantly trying to achieve. But, in order to get there, we have to let that armor go. Let the real you decide, not fear. 

"There are two choices in this world: Love, or Fear. Choose love, and don't ever let fear turn you against your heart."

What do you guys think?

"We all have a few failures under our belt. It's what makes us ready for the successes." – Randy K. Milholland

And just to add on to what this man said, I don't think they only make us ready.

Those failures are what make you appreciate the successes so much more.

I mean, I think it took 8 years of addiction and constant f*cking up and failing at things when I was using to appreciate and feel awesome about even just getting an A in a class this semester while sober and going to school.

I mean it definitely took a while to see some things like that, and I think I still have a while to go to take this quote and put it to all the failures under my belt...but I am damn willing to work, wait, and see what success will be greater than some of these failures.

It is something we all deserve to see.

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

Who Am I?

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."
- Henry David Thoreau

Yeah... I could say I agree with that. When we are busy doing...whatever really, life seems to pass by so fast. Whether it be working, playing,or blogging. When things are mostly going right, we never really look to deeply into ourselves. We simply hold on to that good feeling as long as we can. So then what happens when the good goes away and is replaced with horrible?

When those moments come along where we feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere to be found, it is then that we learn so much about ourselves. I know for me personally, I learned more about myself in a few months than I had my whole life. 

It is in the moments where we feel we are drowning that we learn what we want in life. It is in those moments where we learn to appreciate those people close to us, and most importantly, we learn to appreciate the little things in life that make us happy. 

Although it might be hard, the next time you feel you are at the bottom of the pool gasping for air, think of that quote. When the time comes and you are looking back, what were you able to take away from the experience. I know it is a lot easier said than done, but still... try to learn something from your next "down." As corny as it might sound, what you take away may actually could change your life. 

For me I didn't think I was going to make it out alive, and now that I have I feel like I know so much more about what I want to do than ever. There are still so many questions I have that are unanswered at the moment, but no one should ever be in a rush to finish their own story.

I guess it just really is up to us to decide on how we look at everything going on. In a few years when I look back and ask myself who I am, I hope to have an answer that includes the lessons I learned to make all the times I hated going through worth it. 

Will you? 

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.

Life Quote

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle. "

- Albert Einstein  

“Even if you are falling on your face, you are still moving forward.”
- Victor Kiam

It might  not be the best quote out there, but this one really spoke to me for some reason. I heard it from some counselor while I wan in rehab and it just stuck with me. At that point of my life... lets just say I just face-planted pretty damn hard. But it was that fall that gave me the courage to get up and wipe the dirt off. I had to learn. If I tripped over my shoelaces, or over a crack, I now know what not to do to keep me on my feet. You know? Or maybe I just interpreted it in a weird way haha, but hopefully you guys will like it.