I bet your body’s lovin you? 
I bet it is, especially my stomach. I was starting to develop some serious stomach issues near the end there, and I know my stomach’s thanking me now. Yet another reason not to go back.
I finally got my tattoo touch ups today. Check it out:
(Please try to ignore the back hair!)
So again, this not only symbolizes my quitting of drugs and alcohol, but is instrumental in keeping me off drugs and alcohol. I’ve basically branded myself with a statement: I will not do drugs and alcohol. So I can’t just go back now.
It’s not quite the original drawing:
But I’ve learn something about the art of tattooing: not any drawing is transferable. Sometimes, you gotta let the tattoo artist customize it to best suite the purpose. Several things come into consideration: the shape of your body (where the tattoo is going), the thickness of the lines, how the color will fade over time, and generally what looks good as a tattoo as opposed to a drawing on paper. But in any case, my tattoo artist certainly captured the essence of it and I’m happy with his work.
So far I’ve spent a lot of money on this transition in my life. Almost $1000 for the tattoo, $2000 for the Dale Carnegie course, $180 every visit to my therapist… quite the investment for someone who isn’t taking this seriously.
I also wanted to show everyone this:
I have this hanging up on my bedroom wall. It’s to remind myself of all the reasons not to do drugs and alcohol (and it’s not exhaustive… there’s about 5 other reasons on the other side). Note my number 1 reason: Cassidy & Kaden, my two children. ← So again, not very serious.
I also had a talk with my kids the other day about how they like their dad before and after the drugs & alcohol. I asked them:
“Do you guys notice any difference in me before I quit the drugs and alcohol and now?”
Cassidy: “Mmm… no, not really.”
Daddy: “Do you guys feel maybe I hurt you when I was on drugs and alcohol? Like I was abusive?”
Cassidy: “Abusive? What do you mean?”
Daddy: “Well, some people on ILP think maybe I did you guys harm when I was on drugs and alcohol or that I was abusive.”
Cassidy laughs: “Who thinks that?!?!”
Daddy: “Arc does. Some other guy named Pedro. But sometimes it’s true. Some alcoholic or drug addict parents end up abusing their children. Arc’s mom was like that. But she thinks it’s the alcohol itself that makes the parent abusive. The alcohol can exacerbate the abuse but usually an abusive parent is abusive for a much deeper reason, something that was there long before they started drinking alcohol. In fact, the alcohol is usually more a symptom than a cause. But not all alcoholic or drug addict parents are like that. I hope I wasn’t like that with you guys.”
Kaden: “Well, we WERE, daddy!!! You were a TERRIBLE daddy!!! You were just sooo terrible!!!” ← He said it with a huge grin on his face. He likes to joke around like that.
I’m also reminded of something Cas said to me the other day: “You’re an awesome daddy.”
Me: “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
Cas: “Because when I jump into your arms, you catch me and you hold me.”
Me: “Yeah? Other daddies don’t do that?”
Cas: “No, most of them say they’re too tired, or too busy, or some other excuse. But you don’t.”
Now just in case I have inflicted irreversible damage on my kids and we’re all in denial about it (as Arc and Pedro are bound to point out), I’m going to schedule a visit to my son’s therapist probably sometimes in October. She’s a child psychologist who would know the signs of abuse in children, maybe even due to alcohol or drug addiction, and I’m going to ask her if she’s seen any signs of that in Kaden. I’ll report back with the results.
ra ra
what is the connection between these two pictures and this thread?
Good stufflings.
So I checked out an AA meeting Friday night. I was awarded a coin for lasting 3 months! Everyone thought it was a huge deal. And I guess it was, but I think they thought so more than I did.
What was it like? Meh… it was all right. I didn’t really feel like I fit in. Everyone there had much more grueling stories than I could ever tell. Stories about going to jail, about bring caught in a cycle of drinking themselves silly every day just to get over the hangover from the previous day, of isolating themselves from their families, about rehab and detoxification. My alcoholism was never that bad. My weakness consisted of sometimes telling myself: gib, no drinking tonight, and then failing, going to the liquor store to buy 100ml of whiskey. Sometimes, not all the time. Overall, I felt like those guys at the meeting were at a whole other level of addiction than I was.
It made me feel like I shouldn’t be calling myself an alcoholic. Maybe I never really was.
One of the heads of the group said he was going to call me sometime this week. Not sure what he wants to talk about, but I’m sure it will involve encouragement to come to the meetings regularly or to keep in contact with him or other members. I might have to go into some detail about my experiences, my intentions, my condition, etc. which is fine, I’ll go through the motions, but I feel uncomfortable about going back there. I went to check it out, see what it’s like, but I don’t think it’s for me.
Now there is another program: the SMART program (Self-Management and Recovery Training). Check it out: addictioncenter.com/treatme … -recovery/. A friend recommended it. She said it was a more hands-off and non-religious approach to recovery. I intend to check it out in the same vein that I checked out AA… just to see what it’s like, to see if it’s for me, but no intention of committing. I’ll post an update here once I go.
I also found my energy specialist (a naturopath), but I’ll report more on that later.
As I said last time, I intended to pay a visit to my son’s therapist to ask if she’s noticed any signs of abuse whether drug/alcohol related or otherwise. I went yesterday. She emphatically said no. She’s seen a lot of troubled kids and she knows the signs of abuse. She said with confidence that she had no reason to suspect my son was being raised by an alcoholic or drug abusing parent. I had never told her about my problem with drugs and alcohol until yesterday. She said my son is just a difficult child by temperament, and that his hot temper is most likely genetic.
In fact, she thinks my ex and I are very caring parents and it’s obvious that we put our children’s needs well ahead of our own. She told me in cases where the parents who bring their children to see her are divorced or separated, usually it’s the mother bringing them in and the father never comes for a visit. While my ex and I don’t go at the same time, I try to make the occasional visit, and she tells me I’m one of the rare fathers who actually bother.
So that puts that one to rest.
Oh yeah, that guy from the AA meeting? Never called.
Perhaps you were just more of a high-end social drinker…?
Since (being able to) going back to weights, I’ve practically gone off alcohol, so substitutions we find pleasurable/enjoying, or in my case… re-substitutions… of which there are still very few, resolve the need for recreational use of social drinking etc.
Went to a SMART meeting. I liked it a bit better than AA. If AA is about relying on others because you are powerless to do it yourself, SMART is all about self-empowerment. They give you the tools to change yourself. Tonight, we talked a bit about strategies for changing your thought patterns. Unlike at the AA meeting, no one there really got a chance to tell their stories, so I didn’t quite feel like a fish out of water. Doesn’t mean it’s a policy. Maybe next meeting will be all about diving into people’s stories.
This won’t be a regular occurrence, but I might go again. And not just because I liked it a bit better than AA, but because I know a girl there who I really, really, really like. Unfortunately, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to date (for reasons I will not disclose), but she seems to like me anyway, and I really enjoy being around her. So if going for my own sake isn’t motivation enough, maybe she is.
I wonder if Arc would approve of this.
My book is done! All three volumes are available online here and here.
Woopie!!! 
So why post this in this thread?
Because, my friends, because! If anyone’s been paying attention, you might have noticed that sometimes I say that my drug abstinence is permanent, other times a year, maybe a year and a half. What’s permanent is my decision to abstain from the three categories of addiction: alcohol, caffeine, and cannibinoids. But strictly and formally speaking, my plan has always included a release valve. After a year, maybe a year and a half, I would return to my decision to quit drugs and alcohol and consider whether I wanted to experiment with other kinds of drugs–you know, rare and exotic kinds, ones no one’s ever heard of–I was sure to satiate my curiosity before July 1 with the usual suspects–cocaine, ecstasy, acid, mushrooms–the only one I regret not having had the chance to try is peyote, but I sadly accept my losses. But there are plenty of rare specimens out there–naturally grown and produced in a lab–and they’re discovering new ones every day.
So a year after July 1, maybe a year and a half, I might end up going back to drugs–not alcohol, not caffeine, not cannabinoids–this time around knowing how not to get addicted… but in all likelihood not. You see, this is only a formality of my plan. Here’s where the other phrasing comes in–the one that goes, “I give up all drugs and alcohol forever” ← That’s the one I’ve really been going with. It’s just not formal. So in all likelihood, in a year from July 1, maybe a year and a half, my decision will be not to experiment with new and exotic kinds of drugs, to stick to absolute abstinence all together and forever.
Now then, what does that have to do with my book? Well, I no longer half to say “a year, maybe a year and a half”–as of December 5, it is officially one more year–not a bad estimate if I do say so myself (you know, Dec 5 of 2019 will be almost a year and a half from July 1). Dec 5 was the official day I completed all 3 volumes of my book.
This is important to my goal and gives you all a larger picture of what I’m trying to achieve here. Giving up drugs and alcohol is part of a larger goal of “letting go”–letting go of unhealthy attachments. Drugs and alcohol were one of them, my book was another. Why is my book unhealthy, you ask? I wouldn’t call it “unhealthy” per se, but it’s been a distraction for me, something that sucked a lot of time and energy from me that could have been, and now can be, put towards more important things. This was the same for the drugs. I now feel like there are no more “selfish” attachments in my life. I will experience one year of what this is like, and see what I can do with my life sans unhealthy attachments and selfish distractions.
I bet it’s a nice book, though.
Good read, Eternal Warrior. What’s it from?
It’s from the ass-kicking that I gave to so many other things after they fallaciously gave me the ass-kicking they thought that I deserved.
As in, I actually wrote it myself and came up with it myself. You’re still struggling. This is where you fall down and go boom and when you begin to realize just how little you actually succeeded in getting off drugs and alcohol because you went about it the wrong way. This is when you begin to realize how right I was months ago and where your failed success gets seen for what it is. Will you redeem yourself by the time your life is over? Certainly, especially since there is no way for you to take back this current course of idiocy that you’ve been on. It’ll help you succeed and when you succeed, you’ll realize how much I knew before you did and how stupid and idiot your gloating and laughter has been. How false your smugness.
You, Pedro, and Arc… three peas in a pod. You all seem to want to send a nebulous message that my success doesn’t count, that somehow it’s really “failure”. I gotta tell you, I really don’t get it. I don’t get the punch line. Was I supposed to stay on the drugs until I’m “ready”–whatever that means–did I quit for the “wrong” reasons? Are you still waiting in the wings for my impending doom? Are you under the impression I’ve already fallen? That I’m back on the booz and the drugs?
Come out with what you want to say, instead of being all vague and mysterious. Then at least I can know whether to agree or disagree with you.
You’re pissing me off. You’ve got an attitude problem about me simply using my own life experience to look at where you are, know by the tone of your body language, how you lay your words, where you are in your life, your experiences, etc. and put it down to you exactly how it was going to be. Your reaction now; petulance; only shows this to be true. Your very emotion as you typed up ‘this’ reply is something palpable and able to be felt. You’re in the moment, instead of distanced and couldn’t help but respond naturally.
When I was younger, I was having trouble in school and decided to go into Job Corps. Before I went in, my step-dad told me I was going to fail. He used his life experiences to size up where I was at as a child and I was a bit upset about him telling me, but he did turn out to be right. It’s one of those things where I learned how to overcome people telling me I was going to fail. That reason coincided with actual emotional growth in my life and made it easier for me to seize success later on for other things.
I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about how the places they grow up in are black holes they can’t escape from. Same concept.
My own experiences with drugs and alcohol… mixed with watching the experiences of others that were going through rehab; the ‘buzz’ or ‘word’ passing around society at the time, etcetera.
When I quit drinking, it was after I wrecked my car. I didn’t wreck my car because I was drinking, I wrecked it because there was gravel on the road. The loss of my car; and I loved that car; coincided with me wanting to get my head on straight and quit doing ‘stupid’ things while drunk. Things that ‘dont exist’, including my own weak emotional psychology and mind at the time (I’ve since strengthened my mind quite a bit) were causing me to do things I wasn’t proud of. My lack of self-worth and insecurities and inadequacies mixed into it had me being able to be talked into doing things that I have been ashamed of and easier for me to be too weak to fight off the other things that I also was ashamed of. Without getting too much into detail about those things, I’m sure you can relate. You don’t see those things the same way I do because you have yet to be broken, which means that you are weaker than I was throughout all the personal experiences I’ve listed in this response. You’re at the point of making excuses for the things you do, even while sober.
My drinking was starting to get out of hand when I wrecked my car and I was starting to turn into an alcoholic. I quit drinking for a couple months before the urge to drink came up again. That’s where you are, pushing off the urges and trying to consider yourself healthy for it, successful. What I did that was different than you? I realized the urge to drink again for what it was and what it could be: I like drinking and drugs, and if I ran from that; like you’ve been doing the entire time you’ve claimed to be clean; then my fall would be worse just like those people in rehab and AA. So, what I did was choose to drink again, to allow myself to face that fear instead of run from it and fought to keep my mind during drinking and using drugs.
You’re still running. When you stop running, when the urges catch up to you again and you ‘binge’ as you’re going to do, it’s going to be worse than you’ve ever had it be before, but it will make you strong enough to start fighting the way that I’ve already been fighting. Since my first response in this thread, I have had time to learn many other things, get my mind to a more cohesive and sharper edge to where now I can pick up on things about you that were impossible for me to do before. My mind is ‘clearer’ even when on drugs and alcohol. Your mind remains fogged and cloudy even while sober.
You also wouldn’t have listened to anybody tell you differently back when you started this project. You can know by looking back at your past that with the ‘blinders’ you had on, people did try to tell you and tip you off and you just blew them off. They let you instead of banging their heads against the wall.
Still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
So now you think you can size other people up–like what goes around comes around; well, tell you what sparky, maybe the reason your step-dad told you you were going to fail is because you are a failure–a big fucking no good failure–at everything in life–maybe what it means that he said you were going to fail and you did fail is not that what goes around comes around but that it begins and ends with you–you are a failure and that’s all you’re ever going to be–you don’t get to pass the buck on, you don’t get to tell me that I’m a failure now–you’re stuck with that buck and that’s the way it will be for the rest of your life.
Again, not being very clear. You really gotta pin down some examples. What excuse did I make for myself?
Well, finally we have some clarity from you. You’re jealous! You couldn’t last two months and here I am six months and still going strong. And of course, you can’t live your life thinking of yourself as the failure your papa knew you were, so you think to yourself: drugs=strength (I guess that’s what you mean by ‘breaking’).
Tell me, did it feel like strength when you caved to the urge to drink? If that’s what you think, then anything can be considered strength. I cave in an arm wrestle, feeling that the will to resist the other guy is just me being too weak to face what I really want: to relax my muscles and just let go… that would feel really good… it takes real strength to just give up.
The mind always feels clearest in the moment–it’s called projection.
Since you bring it up, I think a report on how I’m doing is in order. You mentioned that I’m struggling. Well, that’s probably one of the few things you got right, but that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Struggling is part and parcel of recovery. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an ex-addict who doesn’t struggle. But you’re absolutely wrong about the urges. I said it to Arc and Pedro, now I’m saying it to you. What I’m struggling with is not the urge to drink or do drugs–I can still go to the bar and not even consider whether I’ll just have one beer this one time–I go to the bar and I know I won’t be drinking–I know it so well it’s on auto-pilot–what I’m struggling with are the achievement of my goals–the one’s a set out to meet since July 1; self-esteem and confidence, energy, wakefulness, happiness, true happiness, fulfillment… all these things are still outside my reach. And the reason I’m struggling with these and not with the urge to drink or do drugs is because I keep looking forward–forward towards my goals–and never back. He who looks back to the things he gave up has nothing to live for, no reason to go on without those things, and so always looks back longing for the days when he could at least drown his pain in the soothing comfort of the anesthetic. The only reason you think of yourself as strong is because the drugs fuel that type of delusion. Believe me, I had my fair share of drug-induced delusions of grandeur… so long as I went back to them, it kept the delusion alive and I could feel all kinds of awesome. But in time I came to understand the difference between feeling awesome and being awesome (which I believe I explained somewhere in this thread), and with the drugs, the two are mutually exclusive. You feel awesome (strong) but in reality your not. Strive for awesomeness (strength) in real life, and you may achieve it though you may not feel it. If I were you, I’d have a second look at those two months of your sobriety and consider whether that was really your strongest moment though you may not have felt it.
You can get mouthy all you want, but it’s still you just putting on an act. Know the worst part? You’ve got years before you get on top of even half the things you want to be on top of, and then you still won’t be on top of them at all times and will have to accept that.
Hey man, if I could accomplish half the things I set out to accomplish, I think that would be well worth the effort of getting off drugs.
But enough about you, let’s talk about me!
I wanted to show you guys this video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs[/youtube]
Johann Hari, in this video, explains how Portugal almost completely got rid of their drug and alcohol problem by not only legalizing all drugs and alcohol but astonishingly cured, more or less, almost all users of their addictions by “connecting” them to their communities and reintegrating them into society. It is a lack of “connection”, Johann explains, that most makes an addict–the nearly wholesale deprivation of human interaction or sense of belonging and trust–not just in the physical sense of being secluded from people but in the psychological sense of having no real deep or intimate connections with others. He furthermore points out that people who have strong and healthy bonds with friends and loved ones can take copious amounts of drugs and not get addicted (he gives the example of hospital patients who can be drugged up on morphine for weeks and not become addicted upon their release).
Now, I find this very interesting because it really resonates with me. I’ve always been a loner. I don’t have a lot of strong ties with other people. I live by myself, I don’t see my kids as often as I’d like, my best (and only) friend lives 500 miles away, and my immediate family lives all over the globe (my oldest sister lives 200 miles away). I don’t socialize much, don’t feel that comfortable around people, and frankly don’t trust anyone a hell of a lot. I am, for all intents and purposes, disconnected. It’s no wonder I used to booze and smoke up all the time.
It was the agony of the deafening silence. When you’re at home with no one around, the quiet can be loud enough to drive you mad. Getting drunk and high really took the edge off that. Now I just listen to music and watch youtube videos all the time.
So my drug and alcohol problem may have been caused (or at least allowed) by a severe lack of connection with people. But you know what the truth is? I still don’t really want to socialize all that much. It’s not quite the same thing as filling the void of loneliness, just the void of under-stimulation. Even though I still go to the bar and order non-alcoholic drinks, I’ve been going less frequently, and when I go it’s to bars where the staff don’t really know me so that I don’t have to socialize.
The only exception here is that I long for love. I’ve said before in this thread and I’ll say it again: I would have given up the drugs for love. And I mean deep love. Intimate, sexual, absolute trusting love. But alas, girls won’t even give me the time of day. Nonetheless, I’ve given up the drugs anyway. Now I’m just left with loneliness and emptiness.
Hello everyone…
Forgive me, I’m a little distracted… watching my all time favorite late night talk show host, Craig Ferguson. You won’t notice that I’m distracted because my moments of distraction have no way of being recorded in this post. I just stop writing for a brief moment. But rest assured, I’m distracted.
^ This is absolutely unimportant and has no place in this post… but there it is.
You know what else is unimportant to this post? Mexican cuisine… so let’s not talk about that.
Anyway… today is July 1! Which is not only Canada Day, but the 1 year mark since I quit drugs and alcohol. I’ve been clean for 1 year.
How am I feeling? Idunno, kinda bored. Not feeling like a superstar the way I wanted. I’m not terrible but the “blah” I was hoping to get rid of is still with me. Some days I get depressed. Other (much more rare) days I feel good. Most of the time, I feel nothing (blah).
At least with the drugs, I had the occasional day of fun and ecstasy.
(God I love being miserable 
)
But I do have to admit, there are tons of benefits that come from not being on drugs. Most of which I can’t feel, so it comes down to that motto I made up earlier in this thread: feeling awesome without being awesome vs. being awesome without feeling awesome. I’m not feeling that awesome, but I’ve taken many strides towards being awesome… successful strides.
My business is taking off. I still have to maintain my day job, but I’ve got a couple clients I work for on the side (evenings and weekends). And this eats ALL my time. I’m swamped with work. I live, eat, breath, and fuck my work. It’s exhausting but also rewarding. I’m going to be presenting an estimate of work for one of my clients pretty soon, and if she accepts it and has the means to fund it, I’ll be hiring a couple coders under me (which will hopefully free up some of my time). Then I’ll network for more clients. At some point, I’m gonna have to give up my day job, and that’s gonna be a huge risk. Ideally, I can simply work less hours rather than give it up wholesale, but the day will come when I have to make a move like that. Maybe I can get a government grant. Maybe a bank loan. ← That would really help.
I’m also getting pretty good at public speaking (er, comfortable at least). I frequent toastmasters every Thursday (or I try to). I’m not nearly as nervous as I used to be.
I’m also taking Udemy courses–React and SASS–great place to learn a whole bunch of new skills.
Making a shit ton of money, none of which is being spent on booze.
No hangovers.
Finished my book in December, but you know that (if you read my previous posts).
All these things are making me pretty damn awesome, but I’m still not satisfied with myself. I want more out of myself.
Things I still have to work on:
-
Still tired. I still need my nap in the afternoon. I thought getting off the caffeine would get rid of this but it hasn’t. It has gotten rid of the all-day tiredness I’d experience during withdrawal, but typically between 12:00 and 4:00 every day I’m drained of energy. I’m currently explaining this as SCT (more on this below). I went to see a naturopath about it–we tried dieting, vitamin B12 shots, acupuncture, and other stuff–but nothing worked. I remember once reporting in this thread that getting off the caffeine helps with the afternoon naps–like I only need half an hour instead of a full hour–don’t know where that went.
-
Deal with confrontations more effectively. I need to be able to handle confrontations with people without buckling. Right now it’s too nerve racking and I just succumb to the fear reaction. Within the next several months I might look for a confrontation therapist.
-
Think on my feet. I need to be able to come up with the right responses at the right times. I’m still too much of a reflective person. This especially ties into my inability to handle confrontations. People who handle confrontations well are fast. They know how to whip up come backs to snappy comments right on the spot. They also know how to deliver wit right on the spot. They also know how to answer challenging questions with bang on answers. I need a faster brain, something like what caffeine gave me.
-
Something else.
-
More stuff.
-
Yada, yada, yada…
I am now being distracted by Rob Zombie videos.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-AmU6Nbgk[/youtube]
I completed the Dale Carnegie course at the end of October. At that point, I figured I need to narrow my focus, and public speaking became that focus. Thus, I joined toastmasters soon after. That’s paying off (thank God).
I also found a hypnotherapist whom I’ve been seeing since January. I can’t tell if it’s working. If it is working, it’s very slow and not that effective. Confidence and self-esteem is one of the things we’ve been working on, and I think that’s been improving. Instead of being so hard on myself when my boss gives me a hard time at work, I now just get pissed off at him (not to his face). She’s promised me that when she’s done her work, I won’t even feel anger towards my boss, but that hasn’t happened. Still, I think I’d rather be pissed off at my boss than down on myself 'cause at least that means I don’t think I’m the one doing something wrong. My boss is just an asshole.
More recently, I’ve been seeing an ADHD specialist. I went to her to get a measure of my cognitive functions. She gave me the WAIS and confirmed that one of my weak points was processing speed (I’m slow). On the other hand, a nice boost to my confidence was supplied by the other measures. 95th percentile in perceptual reasoning, 90th percentile in verbal comprehension, and 96th percentile on the general ability index. So not too bad. I came to her with the suspicion that I had sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), a condition characterized by sluggish/slow thoughts. The jury’s still out on whether this is a subtype of ADD or a different (but very similar) disorder. The slow cognitive processing confirms this. However, she thinks I’ve just got ordinary ADD (which could still be comorbid with SCT). Some of the symptoms of SCT match up perfectly with what I experience:
- Excessive day-dreaming
- Behaving lethargically and sluggishly
- Poor memory retrieval
- Trouble staying alert or awake in boring situations
- Slow processing of information and confusion
- Acting apathetic or withdrawn
- Negative emotions
- Makes mistakes more often than normal
I’m not sure if I day dream more than other people (but I wouldn’t be surprised if I do), but all the other symptoms are bang on.
Every therapist I’ve been to in the last handful of years (including my son’s) has been plugging this theory about the rational brain vs. the primitive brain. It goes like this: the primitive brain, which is responsible for the fight/flight response, works antagonistically with the rational brain, which is responsible for our rational thinking and (uh) being happy. They are antagonistic in the sense that when one is active, it shuts off the other. This is why one’s mind goes blank when one is nervous (for example, stage fright). This is the primitive brain undergoing the fear response and shutting off the rational brain, thereby making it difficult to think and therefore speak. This is also why people in an angry fit become incredibly irrational, and why depressed people become totalistic and defeatist–they aren’t thinking straight because their primitive brains have taken over. They also say that if you can engage your rational thinking, you can overcome the negative thinking of the primitive brain. Rational thinking means more realistic thinking, which (usually) means recognizing that your life, or the world, isn’t nearly as horrible, scary, menacing (or whatever) as your primitive brains makes it out to be. The rational brain releases serotonin which is responsible for our happy moods, which is to say rational thinking tends to make us happy.
This has never worked for me. I give positive/rational thinking a good try every time I hear the negative voice of the primitive brain, but it feels more like holding my breath than a relief from my misery. I feel like I’m just suppressing the thoughts of my primitive brain, and I don’t notice any improvement in my mood. As soon as I take a break from positive/rational thinking, the negative thoughts come back in full force.
I’ve been making sense out of this with SCT. If SCT is supposed to be a disorder of slow thinking, it could explain why my rational brain has such a tough time suppressing the primitive brain. I think most therapists imagine that the primitive brain and the rational brain are on an equal footing–like two men with equally beefy arms arm wrestling–and it’s the therapist’s job to supply the tools to the one man necessary for beating the other man. But what happens when the first man’s arm is weak. He doesn’t stand a chance against the other guy no matter how hard he tries. Therefore, at least with me, the primitive brain tends to take over more often than the rational brain, which not only explains the frequency of my bad moods, but why moodiness tends to be a symptom of SCT.
It helps to think of SCT not only in terms of “slow” thoughts, but “weak”, or “ineffective”–some term that means it doesn’t exert as much power as it otherwise could. This is why caffeine was such a crux for me–it “hyped up” my rational thinking such that I became more like your classic ADHD than SCT. And surprise, surprise, it never failed to put me in a good mood. You can also see similar effects with marijuana–while it doesn’t seem to increase one’s “rational” thinking, it does increase the power of one’s thoughts such that one is prone to believe whatever thoughts enter one’s mind–suggesting that the more powerful one’s thoughts, the more believable–and if they’re positive, this might be enough to override those of the primitive brain.
For this reason, I’ve been considering medical treatment.
Now this goes against my conviction to do this drug free. On the other hand, this is why I’m limiting this trial to a year and a half–I need to come to a point where I can look back and reassess–and I’ve always kept this in the back of my mind: what about drug therapy? Should I consider that an exception to my convictions or not? And what are my convictions in either case? If I don’t consider drug therapy an exception, then my convictions are to avoid using drugs as a crutch. If I do consider drug therapy an exception, then my convictions are to avoid unhealthy attachments (or addictions). I’ve been careful not to attach myself too soon to the one conviction or the other, principally because such an attachment could be dangerous if based on a mistake. This way, I at least allow myself the option of a treatment that could be good for me and might possibly solve a lot, if not all, my problems. One of the early therapists I went to visit not long after July 1 last year echoed this sentiment: “drug therapy is not the same as dropping acid.” So if I do decide to take the drug therapy rout, my convictions will have to be to avoid unhealthy attachments/addictions.
Having said this, my resolve has weakened a little. Ever since I started taking the prospect of drug therapy seriously, thoughts of returning to the drugs and alcohol at the end of 2019 have been surfacing, thoughts that this whole project has been a failure and that I’d be happier on the drugs and alcohol. These are obviously very rash thoughts that aren’t really grounded in anything solid, so I’m not worried about them fully destroying my resolve. I think it’s just the introduction of the idea that drugs (some drugs) can, under certain circumstances be ok, and maybe also the idea that if I turn to drug therapy, it means I couldn’t do it without a crutch. My unconscious probably sees this as an opportunity to submit its cravings for the excitement and the rush I used to get from the drugs to consciousness for consideration. But my better judgement knows better. None of this means anything more than giving drug therapy a chance.
And at the end of the day, the benefits of a drug/alcohol free life are still there–it’s just that the majority of them are not about feeling good–they’re about being good. I just miss the feeling.
But all that’s still half a year away. I’m thinking of quitting the hypnotherapy pretty soon–probably at the end of July–if my mood doesn’t improve by then (I’m trying to focus on something consistent–mood–so as to get as good a measure as I can on the effectiveness of the hypnotherapy). Then, until the end of 2019, it’ll just be me and the other therapist (the ADHD specialist), and we’re gonna try to work out ways of finding happiness without the drugs, and also ways of ramping up my brain so I can have more energy.
I guess if getting rid of the drugs and alcohol is supposed to be a journey to find the true source of my problems, so far it’s yielded the fact that SCT seems to be the culprit. And if SCT can’t be overcome except through some kind of drug therapy, this is really fucking ironic. Before July 1 of last year, I couldn’t wait to start my drug/alcohol free life, thinking that the drugs were the only thing holding me back from true awesomeness and happiness. Now I can’t wait to start my medication dependent life, thinking that drug therapy is the only thing holding me back from true awesomeness and happiness.
The never ending cycle of despair keeps spinning.