Recovery YO Pt. I

I am sorry for my absence. I have no excuses. I am weak right now and writing outside of what only I can see, seems very difficult. But I'm gonna give it a shot and we'll take it from there. Seems appropriate to pick myself up and make some changes when this week we will celebrate the album release of Recovery by Marshall Mathers(Eminem). If you don't already own Relapse, we'll be covering a couple tracks on there as well. If you look into my archives and read the blog from the beginning you will see what this blog is truly about. It's about my struggles before and after rehab and my journey on becoming this new person. You can pretty much see when I am having good times and when I am having bad times. You can also notice my recovery status by the music that is mentioned in my writing. More than anything in the world, sitting in a room with a pen and paper and my music, is usually my favorite place to be. There's something about being alone with your thoughts and just letting yourself actually feel, is something that is very moving. Because as you know, many of us recovering addicts, always want to still be numb and feel nothing.

Tonight I would like to talk about addictions. Addictions that you pick up to make you focus on something that distracts you from whats going on in your real world. Something that makes you forget. Makes you feel that your "new" addictions are all that matter. Something else to completely consume your mind. And the best part is that all of your addiction are in YOUR control. Nobody can mess with them. They are yours and life can't pop in, steal them, wreck them, or ruin them for you. But the addictions can ruin you. They can steal and lie to you, and ultimately kill you. I'm not saying that all addictions are bad because they are not, but nothing should ultimately run your minute to minute thoughts. That's when you know your in a bad place.

Addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disease. Brain imaging shows that addiction severely alters brain areas critical to decision-making, learning and memory, and behavior control, which may help to explain the compulsive and destructive behaviors of addiction. (www.hbo.com/addiction)

*I love/hate this definition. Very true and straight to the point but can also lead those who don't know thinking that people with addictions are uneducated and dumb. Some of my favorite artists, musicians, dancers, actors, therapists, etc. were all addicts and they are some of the most genius individuals in the world. Especially the man we are dedicating this week to.....Marshall Mathers.

What I want to say is that addictions are things you do to avoid or try to numb what is going on with or around you. In the addiction process, or most likely before, you will experience depression. To me, everything stems from a depressive state of mind. You are hurting inside but you found something that numbs it for you. For a while you are fine then it comes on like a lighting bolt and you are a full on addict and what you used to control how you felt now controls you. It's a horrible experience and those who have been through it are really the only ones that understand what it feels like or why you chose that. Addiction is also a disease of the brain where you can see, we'll use alcohol for example, figure #1 have three drinks and stop for the next hour till he goes home, or you can have figure #2 that cannot stop drinking once started and will proceed to drink the entire night.

I'm not going to proceed to write down what substances stood in my way but I will say my best friends don't even know some. And if you look through these writings I bet you can figure out or at least get an idea of some. I'm not ashamed nor am I quiet about everything. But those are my memories and don't really feel like having story time right now. None of this is fun and none of this is easy. It's a horrendous process. The addiction, the rehabilitation, the recovery and all the many "slips" and "relapses" that will come and go throughout this life long battle. For some reason this was given to me and as the old saying goes "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle, but I wish he didn't trust me so much." I will say this much about addicts and that is-We ARE the strong ones and WE are the fighters.

**those who do not know much about the subject please visit www.hbo.com/addiction where you can learn literally everything you've ever wanted to know, print out pages, and even watch documentaries from addicts themselves.
Peace and Love

S