Wrestling with my addict

[varkam]

For the past couple of weeks or so I've been wrestling with my addiction. I'm still sober, but it's been exhausting. Maybe it's all the changes happening in my life right now, but I just feel so isolated and cut off from everyone at times - even the people closest to me in my life like my family, my sponsor, and my higher power. So I've been white-knuckling it, and I know I'm going to fall at some point unless I reconnect, but I'm at a loss of how to do that. I need help.

[NMDemDist2]

1. I know you don't 'pray'

but what the heck, give it a try anyway :shrug:

and reach out to others, nothing insures our recovery as much as working with another addict

:hug:

[varkam]

2. I do, actually.

It's a long story :D

[NMDemDist2]

3. amazing isn't it?

but the 12 step does promise us a 'spiritual awakening' doesn't it?

:hug:

[varkam]

4. Whether you want it or not.

Even though I'm still an atheist, I pray. Sounds weird, I know, but it is a long story. And yes, the 12 steps does lead to a spiritual awakening and like my subject suggests, whether you want it or not. Eventually you start to find it.

[NMDemDist2]

5. you know

I think we all have a 'spirit' inside that animates this corporal piece of meat and bones that are our bodies.

I don't think you *have* to believe in a "Big Daddy in the Sky" to recognize that we are more than just a sum of our parts.

But that's just me, your mileage may vary.........

[varkam]

6. I don't know.

I have trouble even accepting that. Maybe we really just are meat machines, but even then that doesn't rule out spirituality.

[NMDemDist2]

7. one suggestion then

quit 'wrestling'

accept you are going through a rough patch, don't fight it. don't use, but quit fighting.

here's one I use when I 'keep taking it back'

I apologize.

I give the situation over to my HP (I call him BOB) and then when the thought returns, I immediately apologize to BOB and give it up again. Eventually (days or weeks later sometimes hehehhe) I get tired of apologizing. I think it works because it gives me something else to switch my mind to instead of obsessing about the situation.

Try it, maybe it will help :shrug:

[varkam]

8. Excellent idea.

I'm going to try that. Thanks!

[Kajsa]

9. Hi Varkam,

I'm sorry you're going through a rough time.

The reconnection will happen if you don't drink/use.

We disconnect only to find our way back.
I don't understand it completely, I just know
that it is temporary, which helps me get through it.

Also, meditation will help.
Even if you don't feel connected at first, it will come.
Meanwhile, it will help to center you.

I wish you the best.
;-)

:hug:

[SPKrazy]

10. Hang on Varkam

one day... just one day

that's all man

:hug:

[demosincebirth]

11. Try working with others.

When I start getting in a funky mood like yours, I pickup the phone and call someone I know that is having a hard time.

[LearnedHand]

12. So stop quitting for 24 hours at a time right now ...

... and fall back on quitting for 15 minutes at a time. Also -- and I don't believe in a Sky Daddy, either, although I don't consider myself an athiest (how could anyone say?) -- when I was going through what you're going through, I used to hit the trails and talk to the rocks and cacti and birds and lizards. "I cannot do this alone," I'd say."I need help from something bigger than myself," and it comforted me to know the rocks had been there many thousands of years before I stumbled along. It really felt as if I left parts of my grief and struggles behind, hanging in tatters on those rocks and cacti. And the birds and lizards? Purely for hilarity, I guess. Peace to you through these struggles. There absolutely is the other side, and as Alanis Morissette says, "The only way out is through."

[varkam]

13. Thanks for that.

Cultivating my spirituality is...well...hard work. I've spent so many years neglecting what it means to be human...a part of this condition that we're all in - addicts or not. It's really something that I've never done before, and so I have no idea if I'm doing it right. I suppose, though, that there really is no right way to do it and the only wrong way is not to.

Thanks, again.