Tales of Recovery from Crystal Meth Addiction
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2008.
I was going to pay my rent early, because I could, sort of. I have the money, but not the cash. And I intended to get up early this morning and go to the bank before I went to work today, but that didn’t happen either.
Yesterday was an incredibly long day. Now that I’m back on Planet Look Something Shiny (ADHD and unmedicated) I lose everything I put down. It’s incredibly frustrating just getting through the day right now. Read the rest of this entry »
Seriously? That was border line rude. Me dissing you would have been having no plans, received your offer, and then made other plans.
It wasn’t borderline. What I did wasn’t borderline. It was rude and stupid and, seriously, I should be put out of my misery. First of all, I blame Oprah, because if I hadn’t been watchin’ the Oprah show I probably wouldn’t have been concerned, and therefore do what I did.
You see, Dr. Oz says that if you’re having less than 200 orgasms a year you’ll die. I’m kidding, but he did say that if you’re getting it that regularly your “real age” is about 4 years younger than your actual age. I’m fine with that. I got it pretty early that there were two ways to chance how I feel that, as a recovering person, are pretty safe: meditation and masturbation. Oz did say that it is preferable to have those orgasms with someone you love, That hasn’t happened since, like, 1993, which astonishes and horrifies me.
The girl who suggested that I go apply at the place I’m working now is having surgery (complicated female surgery) today. Prayers for her.
Sure, it’s tragic, but when you build your house at the edge of a sagebrush field, why would you have your roof made from wood shingles and not have protective landscaping? Those houses bured to the ground, completely leveled, in a matter of minutes.
Am trying to conserve my last few Provigil tablets. Had Monday and Tuesday off work so I didn’t take any at all. The first day was OK till the afternoon, when I required a lengthy nap. Same yesterday. Took half a tab this morning. Don’t want to crash at work.
I am really interested in learning more about Jill Biden; by all accounts the most interesting person in this campaign.
Mama Mia? The Sing-along Edition? Brilliant!
My friend Alix asked me about what recovery topics might make good topics for a moderated online chat forum. And I couldn’t think of anything. Nothing. Except I always think a newcomer’s meeting is a good idea; a place where people without much experience can feel safe asking anything, but apart from that. . .
Got to spend a little time with my dad last week. He suggested that I start looking for property as a way to increase my capital. Not sure how to do that exactly, one of those missing skills things, but I have some idea about where to start askiing.
I haven’t turned my phone on in 2 days. Guess I should do that today, but I don’t want to.
I just hate it when I suddenly realize the truth behind those stupid things we say to each other in meetings. Keep it simple, stupid? Don’t you dare call me stupid. Motherfucker.
But there you go. I am making too hard a work of a simple thing. Recovering addicts and alcoholics everywhere, from every walk of life, no matter how far down the scale they have gone, get up in the morning, go to their jobs, do their dishes and laundry, make their beds, go to meetings, sponsor people, return to school, save money for things they want. They even find time and energy in there to have relationships with people and a life outside the rooms.
I actually have done a load of dishes today, taken out the garbage, flipped my mattress. And here it is only 9:30. So there ya’ go.
Keep it simple, stupid. (Would it be too much to ask for ‘studly’? Keep it simple, studly? Seriously.)
I learned about this tool from my Irish friend because she put up a link to an online version of it on her blog.
I like tools like this, though I don’t often pick them up. Like much of what is available to me to grow spiritually. I seem to have been so desensitized to pain that I only notice that it is pain when it becomes overwhelming. I don’t work for growth until growth is the only option. I think about it a great deal, but I rarely work for it in earnestness the way I did in the beginning of my recovery. Read the rest of this entry »
There is a fantastic post over at the Trudge Report about being careful about the difference between our needs and wants as they relate to others.
When I did my 4th step, I recognized that my needs are not met by other people, but by God. I don’t think it’s overstating that case to say that I need some washer & dryer from somewhere. It is God’s determination where that comes from. This takes him off the psychological “hook” for me. Now of course I don’t like debating all this stuff, but it passes, and I need to not develop a resentment from it.
Now some reader out there is thinking, “But M, he’s trying to screw you!” Well, maybe he is (finally), but that’s not the point. Other people are going to disappoint me in this life, even though I am trying to stay sober. I don’t get some sort of pass on assholes because I like alcohol too much. I have to stay sober in spite of what life presents me.
And that, by the way, is an appropriate use of the phrase “have to”.
Since shortly after I got sober I’ve bee taking modafinil, a drug that has been shown to improve cognitive function in people with many kinds of brain injuries and CNS disease, is suspected to be an effective treatment for methamphetamin dependence, and is incredibly effective as a treatment for ADHD; basically this is the drug for me. I’ve done really well with this drug.
For the last year I’ve been on the Provigil patient assistance program, administered by NORD, because Provigil is pretty expensive. The price has come down by about 50% in the last year so that means that a month supply is about $250.
I contacted NORD yesterday because it is time for me to recertify for the program and they told me that the program is closed, even to current participants. They said it may be open again after the first of the year.
My first reaction was panic. I know that days I don’t take modafinil that there is much less of me to work with. The other drugs that are used for ADHD are not indicated in stimulant addicts or I don’t tolerate well (Stratera makes me ill). Perhaps it is time to find out if I can live and thrive without pharmacological support.
I don’t like it, but it is what it is; an opportunity to grow or change. If I start falling apart 8 days from now, when I run out, please say something, because I may not notice.
Whatever 12 step program (or programs) we come from, we are a fellowship; “an elite group of experienced people who work together as peers”*, sharing our experience, strength, and hope with each other in the pursuit of a solution to our common problem and to help others to recover.
My sponsor/mentor/adviser/friend, a man who has been sober for 38 years, told me that there have been times when he’s shared at meeting level something painful he’s going through that other people have told him that he must not share things like that at meetings because he’ll scare off newcomers. They’ll think this thing doesn’t work. The fact that he’s managed to go through life sober for decades won’t speak for itself.
I couldn’t disagree more. One of the reasons that I chose Joe as my sponsor is the fact that he talks about what is really going on in his life, how difficult it is sometimes to pick up the tools, how practicing this program works, both in terms of how we practice it and in terms of the results we get. By sharing more than just his drunk-o-logue and letting people know what’s really going on with him, I was able to see that at the level of recovery we are peers. None of us are better or worse. Some of us just have more experience staying sober.
I also saw the power that sharing our experience has to help others step out of our personal dungeons of despair and into the solution.
I started keeping this blog on January 9, 2007. It was my 5th day clean. I relapsed 6 days later, right before I got on a bus to go to treatment. Through all of that and since then I have used this blog as a means to share my experience, as a meditation, as a prayer, as an inventory, all with the secondary objective of showing others that people like me do recover, if only for today.
I don’t spout too much 12 step history here. It’s not my history. I haven’t found that I need to rewrite my story or to deny what I’m experiencing in life in order to show that we recover. I share my story because I’ve learned that when I do, when I write about what’s really going on in my life, I get the support I need to make it through another day sober, I get closer to being the person my Creator intends me to become, and sometimes, someone says, “I wanted to thank you so much for posting about [that]. It’s given me the courage to finally start posting about [my] issues. And that has been good for me. Not only that, but other people have been reaching out to me [for help].”
And isn’t that our primary purpose?
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