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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Something else.
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More stuff.
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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.