Now Playing: Kendrick Lamar “Swimming Pools (Drank).”
There isn’t much to say except I’ve been out of rehab for 7.5 days and I’m already slipping back into my ways. If I try to find a reason why, I can’t. All I can do is notice what I’m doing.
I started fighting with my dad, just little things, nagging and trying to hurt him, overall just argumentative. I’ve been contemplating using for the sake of using because nothing much has been happening. But I’m isolating too. Haven’t gone to any meetings even though I want to. It’s more than that. It’s not a want but a need — something to hold me accountable because I’m not a place where I can function without it. It’s the little things that I’ve reverted back to, the irritation, the frustration — I just did something for my coworker because it frustrated me that she couldn’t figure it out herself.
It all boils down to this one question that I’ve been scared to ask myself: why did I come back when I knew this was going to happen? Coming back to work with less than 30 days under my belt, with 12 meetings that I barely made, with no community built, with lies that I still told — I knew I wasn’t ready but I did it anyway. And I knew the perfect things to say to have everyone believe I could do it. I still do. I could relapse and fake it for a little while. No one would have to know. Only I would. I’m learning that maybe I can be alone, or should be, because I’ve lost friends that I’m trying to get back but maybe they don’t want me back. That’s their right.
Maybe it’s not really drugs that I want. I want something more. I want to be better already and I’m not and I knew that I wasn’t going to be and everyone was treating me so gingerly. Everyone at my program was acting like I was so fragile, like I could break at any moment, like my efforts weren’t going to be enough. Like I’d need more time. Those 14.5 days helped me so much. I learned invaluable information. But I’m me and I will always self sabotage because I don’t want to stop.
I’m frustrated at the repercussions and consequences of my using but not the using itself. At this point I’m just feeling. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling but I don’t want to feel it anymore. I looked up a list of feelings and I’m fucking bored and I always said I wanted to come back to work so I wouldn’t be but I am. I’m so bored and lethargic and depleted and disappointed and desperate for a change that I don’t know how to bring about.
I can’t maneuver this life anymore and I want it to end. Not end life itself, I’m not suicidal. But I want to end this lifestyle, feeling so stuck, useless, immobile, envious of those who are actually following their dreams. I am doing nothing with my life and seeing those people who have moved on hurts me so much. I’m hurt and heavy-hearted and alienated and just want something more to get me through the days that won’t send me to an alternate reality where I’m happy. I almost wrote artificially happy but it’s not artificial. It’s real, so fucking real that my brain isn’t supposed to feel it and gets so tired it can’t handle it and needs time to heal. And yeah it’s bad and takes a toll on my body, and I’m glorifying it right now, but when I’m such a helpless and insecure state, I will do anything to escape. I’m not at the point of physical relapse, just emotional and behavioral; withdrawn enough to spend my time preoccupied with it — which is part of the definition of addiction — but just the slightest bit hesitant.
The feelings list helped me to identify what I truly felt and putting a name to all of the desperation building inside. I’m still shaky and frazzled, trying to pull up any of the skills I learned to get me away from this thought process — which ironically is what they told us to prepare before we got to a moment. Maybe I need to “ride the wave,” and “wait it out.” Because feelings and moments pass. Somehow I will make it through this. Ideally positively and drug free. Tomorrow I’ll have 30 days and I haven’t had that in a long time. If the motivation can’t be living a sober life, then maybe for today it can be making it to 30.
From June 10th, but I like it. “When we finally get our own selfish motives out of the way, we begin to find a peace that we never imagined possible.”
The Sun Came Up 