( i have found that i suffer from a disease, not a moral dilemma )
Posted: Wed, Sep 5, 2012 08:36:50 AM
i was critically ill, not hopelessly bad. if you read this space with any sort of regularity, you know that i take an issue or two with the whole disease concept. as it is often used by some as some sort of alien being that controls their behavior. so it might be a surprise, that right off the bat, i start with diseased as my seed.
where i have been coming to lately, is that schizophrenia is a mental illness, and is something that those who suffer from it have to accept as [part of their lives, as part of them, as what makes them what they are today. i purposely chose that example because, like schizophrenics who often hear voices, suffer from delusions of grandeur and become unnecessarily paranoid, addiction afflicts me similarly, especially when i am living in active addiction. as i think about it, i certainly like that example better than diabetes and cancer, for me because it just fits. their treatment is a pharmaceutical regimen, coupled with therapy. mine, TOTAL abstinence, coupled with close association with my fellow members and the cognitive therapy found in living the STEPS. when they stop their treatment, they revert to a full manifestation of their disease,, and the same thing happens to me, as evidenced by the many who have walked that path before me. their disease, distorts reality and they live in a fantasy world concocted by their minds, just as i do, when i live in active addiction. there is no cure for them, or for me, and like them, if i choose to stop my treatment for any reason, i will slip back into the abyss of looking hopelessly bad, when all i am doing, is getting my next fix.
when i have days like yesterday, when i was working in a home office, and totally frustrated, sometimes a slip into the comfortably numb world, looks attractive to me. after all there were bottles and bottles of booze behind the wet bar, and i was unsupervised for most of the day, so a quick nip would have been something that i might have got away with, at least in that moment.
today, i am grateful, that fleeting thought was quickly dismissed by that part of me, who has FAITH that the will of the POWER that fuels my recovery, is for me to stay clean, just for today, as well as just for yesterday and likely just for tomorrow as well. i am a responsible productive member of society, who has a bit of yard work to get done before the trash is hauled away. today i am grateful to be clean and once i frame addiction and the part of me i call addiction as being similar to a horrendous mental illness, i get why i never want to go back. as painful and frustrating as the real world may be, it is a better place than i ever believed possible and today i can live in the here and now, and be part of something greater than i ever imagined, the reconstruction of my mental and spiritual health, one day at a time.
where i have been coming to lately, is that schizophrenia is a mental illness, and is something that those who suffer from it have to accept as [part of their lives, as part of them, as what makes them what they are today. i purposely chose that example because, like schizophrenics who often hear voices, suffer from delusions of grandeur and become unnecessarily paranoid, addiction afflicts me similarly, especially when i am living in active addiction. as i think about it, i certainly like that example better than diabetes and cancer, for me because it just fits. their treatment is a pharmaceutical regimen, coupled with therapy. mine, TOTAL abstinence, coupled with close association with my fellow members and the cognitive therapy found in living the STEPS. when they stop their treatment, they revert to a full manifestation of their disease,, and the same thing happens to me, as evidenced by the many who have walked that path before me. their disease, distorts reality and they live in a fantasy world concocted by their minds, just as i do, when i live in active addiction. there is no cure for them, or for me, and like them, if i choose to stop my treatment for any reason, i will slip back into the abyss of looking hopelessly bad, when all i am doing, is getting my next fix.
when i have days like yesterday, when i was working in a home office, and totally frustrated, sometimes a slip into the comfortably numb world, looks attractive to me. after all there were bottles and bottles of booze behind the wet bar, and i was unsupervised for most of the day, so a quick nip would have been something that i might have got away with, at least in that moment.
today, i am grateful, that fleeting thought was quickly dismissed by that part of me, who has FAITH that the will of the POWER that fuels my recovery, is for me to stay clean, just for today, as well as just for yesterday and likely just for tomorrow as well. i am a responsible productive member of society, who has a bit of yard work to get done before the trash is hauled away. today i am grateful to be clean and once i frame addiction and the part of me i call addiction as being similar to a horrendous mental illness, i get why i never want to go back. as painful and frustrating as the real world may be, it is a better place than i ever believed possible and today i can live in the here and now, and be part of something greater than i ever imagined, the reconstruction of my mental and spiritual health, one day at a time.
∞ DT ∞