Author: Romeo
Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:29 am
Hey TJ,
Congratulations on not using, I know the chaos that was swirling through your head as you were trying to do the right thing and it’s not an easy task to unlock and unload yourself from an incident like that…..way to go.
In my experience, you’re going to have to be extra careful in the minutes, hours and days following that near miss too. You got all revved up to use and sometimes it takes a little bit to really "come down" from being all revved up. It’s like you woke the dragon up and it’s going to take a little bit for that SOB to go back to sleep.
I understand your 2 month cycle of slips that you were getting too. I was on about a 3 month cycle for a while. I had many of the same thoughts and feelings that you mentioned as my drug use neared. IMO, those thoughts and feelings appeared because weeks prior, I had already opened the door to a relapse and it all just became part of the mechanism of a relapse for me.
After having been through a few relapses, I can now pick out those "feelings and thoughts" pretty quickly and come to terms with the fact that I may have opened the door to a relapse again and believe me, that door is a LOT easier to slam shut when you catch that shit early.
You already know this about me, but I’m gonna say it anyway…..I find talking out loud or writing about my "secret" thoughts helps to minimize their impact on me. It’s like it gives the logical part of my brain a minute to evaluate what the hell I was considering doing AND by telling someone else what I was thinking of doing, it provides me with some accountability. I don’t seem to quite have that accountability to myself to not use, not yet anyway.
Lastly, I also found when I first got into recovery that everything seemed so damn complicated. NA threw so much crap at me that it overwhelmed me and I was basically just sitting there paralyzed because I didn’t really know where to start. I don’t know too many people who have the recovery knowledge that you do and I honestly wonder if all that crap up in your head is just too much?? For me, the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle has been working pretty well for me so far.
I think you are changing and I wish you the best of luck in your continued pursuit of being clean.