Per a Facebook post this week (which marked a chemical free milestone for me):
Today’s my one year anniversary of taking no meds to deal with back pain, no alcohol to deal with life pain, and no benzos to deal with pain in the ass people.
I’ve also resumed jogging, started yoga, and even limited how frequently I play frisbee with the dishes against my kitchen wall for stress relief. But I suppose the best thing about being clear headed is that most of the time I feel like being nice – but when I *do* need to activate bitchmode, I’m much better at it than before! Ya know, no one tells you this part and it’s a shame because I feel like it’s a real selling point for anyone considering clean living.
So, I suppose I’ll celebrate with another year, starting with another day, starting with this cup of Starbucks mainlined into my face. #hypocrite
Have a beautiful day! Love you all!
Even those who made this week’s deletion list for constant game requests!
It took a bit to get here, and yes it was hard won.
But I feel like a fear of going back to a shitty lifestyle of sleepwalking through life wasn’t the only thing helping me. It wasn’t even half of what’s helped me because by the time I made the decision to flip my world, I was pretty sick of the one I was living in already. Plus, going through Valium withdrawal is a schizophrenic experience that lasts approximately 5 million years. If I ever feel weak, I need only remember that prolonged agony to realize I’d rather eat a croissant filled with nails.
You wanna know what has gotten me through?
You.
And me writing to you.
By ruminating online about life (whether it’s mine or Nietzsche’s or some rando’s who made the news), looking for the comic silver lining in every situation that arises is a perception changer. An affirmation that life can be amusing – not just miserable. It tweaks the filter I wake up with and lets me bring it into the day – into my interactions with other people.
I understand that finding the snicker-lining is tougher for some people trying to rehabilitate themselves. In fact, there are a lotta folk I’ve encountered who are struggling a bit more to stay clean and who don’t appreciate me making a joke outta recovery (even though it’s my recovery and not, ya know, theirs). But you know what? That’s my way of coping. It always has been – altering reality to entertain myself, even if only within the privacy of my own mind. I say it’s better than altering my reality with chemicals. I also say that (though you can do as you like), I invite you to also quit taking yourself so seriously the same way you quit your drug o’ choice.
I only say that because it probably isn’t serving you if you’re unhappy enough to start judging how other people are coping on their paths. In a way, seriousness is just another manifestation of the disease of addiction if you don’t know when to employ it versus when to lighten up. You didn’t get clean to wallow in your condition – or mine – did you? If the pain of living’s truly overwhelming – don’t ignore it. Do a meeting, call your sponsor, do a step. But otherwise – seek out that levity, man. Soon as you wake up each day – have a laugh about something.
You realize you cannot use drugs or alcohol and to keep the enemy close by talking to people who’ve suffered the same. That’s good – but for me, that is serious enough. It represents just a parameter and fence you keep up for your own safety. However, it doesn’t mean you need to treat the area behind it where you reside like a prison yard. It’s too big and vast and filled with awesomery for that nonsense. So, I say this as much for anyone suffering with a less than stellar past (regardless of what it entailed) as I do as a self-reminder each day upon waking:
You don’t have to live your present like a ghost just because your past is haunted.
And on that note, I’mma go eff life in the face today.
Even though it’s already, like, nighttime o’ clock. #TheOnlyTimeIsNow