One of the biggest changes I notice about myself in recovery is the way I’ve been able to regulate my emotions. No longer putting myself through the extremes that I did during and even before I first picked up, life for me has been much less stressful. I mean yeah there’s always gonna be the worries such as, “Is my direct deposit gonna go in?” But that’s almost a healthy type of worrying that teaches us to start saving up for the proverbial rainy day they speak about.
But not all sayings are best learned .
In recovery groups they say that relapse is absolutely part of the process. But why should it be so? What can be gained, other than self imposed pain and suffering when we pick up again? I mean yeah it happens, but that doesn’t make it excusable. Although they’ll insist themselves blue in the face that it does. That’s why they clap for each other, practically giving each other a reach around when one of them relapses and returns.
But is their method or malice in this?
Absolutely! It gives the members of these phony as fake recovery groups an open invitation, as well as a free pass to take a break from clean and sober living any time they wanna get wasted.
But that’s not me anymore.
I knew all along that the life of Meth madness I was leading couldn’t go on forever without any sort of repercussions. I’m just lucky that none of those repercussions ever cost me my freedom, although they did cost me my health. But I’m dealing with it pretty well when you take an enlarged heart, Neoplastic Malignancy and pulmonary embolisms into account.
It’s just the way things panned out.
Playing the part of the “Prodigal Son” isn’t a folly or game that many people get to walk away from without any sort of cost. So I consider myself to be lucky when you take into consideration how many addicts who pick up again end up in jail or dead. And that’s not even mentioning those who end up having to spend time on some sort of psych ward. But still the game goes on, almost like russian roulette. And still they clap for each other, like fools.
And it’s frustrating!
I was never part of the crowd. So what I got instead was hell spawned judgment. But that doesn’t mean it was bad.
Other than the blind eye that was always turned for me by the building’s staff when I picked up back in my Supportive Housing unit, all I knew was hatred.
The judgment and hatred I received in Crystal Meth Anonymous made my life miserable. And even though my recovery was probably the last thing on their shallow minds, I wanna thank them for that,
They really helped me.
I have to be honest. There’s a part of me that’s still kind of angry. It looks back over my shoulder at those who remain in relapse mode and chuckles. And yeah, I realize that feeling this way probably isn’t the healthiest thing for my recovery. So I pray about it from time to time and try to work my way away from it all the others.
That’s where emotional regulation plays its part the most.
While I was in active addiction, I would become angry to the point where the room would seemingly turn on its side because I was so dizzy. To deal with that in the least destructive way possible, I would plan out the other party’s demise, or even death on occasion. But I never acted on those emotions. I just kept them bottled up inside.
And it took its toll on me.
One of the main reasons I wasted away, shrinking to 119lbs in active addiction was that I could barely keep solid food down. So I never ate and I did my best to convince myself that I enjoyed looking like a skeleton. I even went as far as to force myself to throw up while I was calm to avoid doing it if I got upset in front of people. But this is only half the story
Most of the time, all I wanted to do was die.
Not a day went by where I didn’t think about grabbing hold of the third rail, or throwing myself off a building. I’d even step to the edge of the platform every time I waited for a train, hoping someone would give me a nudge. But the way I most wanted to die was while I was high. That’s why I would shoot up the amounts I did. That’s also why I joined a group on “Grandslammerz,” where I would get paid to overdose on camera or in person if the money was right. I’m just glad that’s all behind me now.
But what does my future hold?
