The Addiction Paradox

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the revelation

I’ve been addicted to many things.

By this I mean, in some way, shape or form, acting compulsively to do something which may not have been aligned with what I really wanted do. Maybe it’s that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.

Smoking tobacco. Smoking weed. Poker machines. Video games. Compulsive eating. Viewing pornography. For nearly 20 years, I’ve fought the tide of compulsive behaviour in one or all of these forms consistently. Most of these battles were silent. I was gainfully employed. I socialized. To family and close friends there was an understanding that I smoked too much weed and this was a problem, but to everyone else, I was a normal, quiet guy.

The revelation is that it took me over fifteen years to learn that everything I though I knew about addiction was wrong. The concept that you’re prone to do something because somehow you can’t control your own behaviour is a myth. A catastrophic ideal that lead me to believe that somehow I wasn’t in control of my own actions. It’s ok, I’m addicted. I hated this idea. But I was prone, I was consistent, I’d proved to myself over and over again that my behaviour was inherent, it was destined, it was repetitive. No matter how many times I tried to resist smoking more weed, I would end up doing so anyway.

The change in this understanding was actually conceptualizing the action of smoking and how all the talk about it is how difficult it could be to stop. How it’s ok. Everyone finds it hard. Most people can’t stop. But if you really break it down, what that says is you can’t stop doing something which you don’t want to do.

Really?

Well fuck that.

The change was about empowering myself. It was returning from the paradigm where I was governed by all my previous actions to be destined to act again in the same way to – I am in control of my life. Every time I choose to make a decision, I have no fate burdened upon me by the decisions I’ve made in the past.

The past no longer exists, and every time I need to make a decision I’m free to make it regardless of what I’ve chosen in the past.

Ultimately, this blog is about learning about personal power, and how if you change the way you think, you can control everything in your life.

Feelings

I fucking caught them. For the first time since 2018.

I am in love?

This doesn’t happen to the addicted… or does it? I can barely remember the last time I felt love. Or anything stronger than lust (which to be honest, I feel all the time, and is a vacuous and loose emotion).

I.FELT.LOVE.

What the fuck. I didn’t think it existed for me anymore.

Why am I talking in past tense? I feel it now. I don’t know why. What is it, which causes one to “catch feelings”. What is love? We play in these esoteric, undefined personal spaces, with emotions, with spectrum’s that are not confined by the physical world – the explainable world.

What is the purpose of these feelings? On a primal level, is it connection, survival, reproduction? What the fuck is going on with this need? I want it and am afraid of it at the very same rate and it has floored me like nothing else I have felt in 5 years.

The Past, the Present, the Future

I sat and looked at myself in the mirror recently.

I have aged. I have changed. (I was not unaware of this). But it was distinctly obvious. I face mortality. Unlike many my age, I probably have 20-30 years more. What does this time look like?

Will I leave a legacy?

Am I worth a legacy? What do I leave, what do I say? Who do I say it to?

I still see myself as a vessel. I’m not really here. I am a figment of my own imagination. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing to prove.

That’s slightly untrue. As I return, to a draft I started many months ago, I feel differently. Vessel? Maybe. But I am distinctly here.

I have a lot to prove.

I have a lot to live for.

The paths I have chosen (sic), will not define me.

There is life out there, which I am yet to experience, but I would not limit myself to miss out on, or prove that I am unworthy, should I have chosen to give up at any time.

A dogmatic, strength, throughout my own destruction, remains.

I want to succeed and enjoy. I am capable.

If anything I have ever written, at all rings true, it is that I am capable of choosing to be successful in life.

At some stage, one must begin to walk the fucking talk.

And so, there is a future. The past, will become a part of my continuation. Never falter the natural instinct to persevere. Even I, at my most desolate, find hope. Hope – as vague a feeling it can be – is the first to begin and the last to die.

Maybe, it’s want. After all, I’ve never lacked desire.

Take, what you have the strength and will to do so. Not from others, but from the skeleton image you built. You, are more than your past, your actions, your feelings and your imagination.

I am my determination.

All this pain is an illusion. Life awaits those who work for what they want.

Twenty Years

Many years, it took, to train my brain to dig, fight and yearn for the dopamine high. It’s not a disease. It’s a habit. A learned behaviour. Like a mouse to the buzzer. Repeated rewards. Repetitive chasing. Longing for that hit. It wasn’t always drugs. It may have been a video game. It may have been a lolly. But it is the SAME HIGH

it may take me twenty years to reverse this habit

It’s not even about getting high. Or getting off. Or chasing dreams. It’s just the pleasure centre all fucked up in my head. I fucked it up. Genetics, maybe. But, behaviour, for sure. I can’t do anything unless there is instant – or short-term – gratification.

Saving over time? Fuck that, I struggle.

Planning for the future? Planning is fun. Letting it eventuate is not.

Waiting until tomorrow? Get real, I’ll take now thanks.

Go to sleep to make tomorrow better? I’ll fight that idea.

Now. I want it now. I need it now.

Even progressive music which builds slowly is comprised of small additional changes over time which give me short term rewards while it builds to climax.

Twenty years it took to get here. I don’t have twenty years to come back from this. I’ll need to do it faster than that.

I need to do it now.

The Descent

Sometimes, it happens really quickly. A few things kind of turned against us and before we know it, we are coping in ways we used to see as acceptable and comforting.

But they aren’t

When you are descending, the time for reflection becomes poignant. You’ve been here before. You’ve felt this before. You are still in control.

Not everything is a disaster. Sometimes, things feel like a complete catastrophe. Sometimes, we don’t know where we are or how we got here. What the hell lead us to be in this position? The reality is, we’ve had choices along the way which would have helped lead us elsewhere.

Recognize your part in your descent. Shit fucking happens. Deal with it.

I recognize my part in my descent. And I also recognize the choices I have to help me back out.

Don’t give up, or you may fall further. You’ve been there and you’ve been here! You’re literally on the edge, any progress you’ve made is up for contention. Fight for it! Do not make the same mistakes which lead you down this hole. Every step on the descent is a choice to turn around.

Every step during the descent provides an opportunity to turn around.

Choose. Right now.

What do I want and how will I get it?

is it a disease?

I have always argued that it is not.

I have been stoic in the fact that I make choices at times, often taking the easiest route. The most hedonistic route. The familiar route. Because a new route is hard. Change – for the new and improved – is hard, if not to start, then certainly to maintain.

Yet, having overcome (in relative terms) a major obstacle, in my final, successful, divorce from Mary-Jane, I find myself simply addicted to something else. Like a swinging pendulum alcohol has always had a somewhat inverse affect on my life with weed – I’m either getting high or getting drunk. But this post is not about alcohol.

The same withdrawal signs, the disaffection, the stuck in a rut framework, the I can’t control my behaviour during, the chronic need to continue, to say fuck it and make bad decisions. They’re not all listed, but if you opened a DSM and listed negative behaviours associated with addiction, I’m right up there to the tee.

This is the paradox. I am aware. I know what is happening. I know why its happening.

And I know how to fix it. But I don’t.

I won’t.

I cant?

Is my psuedo-knowledge of neuroscience accurate, in that I am just falling into old synaptic routes? The dopamine highs. Am I fulfilling a void of connection in my life with this activity? Both seem so, however I am no expert, even on myself. I am desperate. That’s a fact. It’s a mentality which is certain to lead to wrong decisions.

The only way I know how to change things is to exercise. Focus on taking my breath away through exhaustion. I know it’s helping my brain on a neurological level, and psychologically I find it easier to overcome the compulsive need to chase. I become more in the moment.

Start again I must. Start again tomorrow I must. Start from experience, not the beginning. But somehow, I need to remember all the lessons I have learnt.

The spiral may Always be Close

You’re doing ok. You’re building something. You’re making changes. And then all of a sudden you’re not. You’ve stepped in the wrong direction, and classically, you’ve gone too far before you realize where you are.

You’ve spiraled.

You’re up shit creek without a paddle.

The current is strong.

It’s going to take some fortitude to remember how to get out.

You can do it. I can do it. I’ve done it before. It’s the same old story. Starting from scratch. Well, someone once said you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience.

Does this experience count if you are not maintaining the lessons learnt from your past?

The edge is always close. Toe the line. Dance on the precipice. But remember how you got back up that river in the first place. Never get complacent with your attitude, this is how you got stuck in the first place.

You must be your own paddle. No one is going to throw you a life raft.

Lose Yourself to Find Yourself

It’s not true. Well, some profundity may be experienced in the realm of delving into your mind, altering your consciousness to a point where your perspective changes. But, at some stage, you’re going to need to stop trying to lose yourself, otherwise, simply put, you will never find yourself again.

Stop trying to lose your sense of self. And start trying to find it.

At some point, when the motivation for finding yourself takes over, and you exert energy to this guise, learning and becoming who you want to be will be inspiring and fulfilling.

It takes action. And it takes motivation. Don’t wait for the motivation, because it will often not show up until the action has begun. The change will start when you choose it. It starts, with action. It’s just around the corner. But it will never come to you. The changes you desire will lie in wait for you to find it.

Change is inevitable, but the change you want will need to be found.

We have the power to decide our destiny. It takes a choice to do so.

Redemption

It’s possible.

We might even, crave it.

Many years, people looked over us. We were passed us over. Occasionally someone took notice. Fuck, what you could be. There’s some kind of potential there, who knows where, but it’s somewhere you could go.

There’s a crutch, there’s a niggling injury. Something which holds us back.

We’re inconsistent. Stunning and outstanding at times, relegated and obtuse at others. At odds with our own progress.

One step forward: four steps back. Four steps forward: three steps back. Repeat.

They’re not even sure you want it. They don’t really know you. You’re not even sure you know much at all, but you listen. They guide you. You make choices based upon this assessment. You don’t really know yourself.

Metaphorical movements…. it’s not really like this. I’m learning. I’ve learnt. There is always more to learn, but honestly, I’ve grown. I’ve moved past this paradigm. There’s a mould I struggle to no longer fit into.

They’re looking at your shadow.

Suffered through rejection, and learnt. Change, it is a beast. It’s the unavoidable nightmare. What will tomorrow bring? A fresh face, with the power to stave off the ghosts.

Those are not even real

You’ve watched lesser people move forward. You have inside, a desire, a want, a need. You have the strength to get there. You have the power to be what you want to be. Sometimes, people see it. They tell you. You can be more than you are. It will not be easy, to challenge the view of those around.

Fuck those people.

They don’t know you.

Your redemption is for you. Redeem yourself in your own eyes to let go of the past. It’s ok.

You’re going to make it.

SHAME

I feel it often. It’s an insidious feeling that I cannot quite understand. I am ashamed of my past. I am ashamed of my progress in life.

Ashamed to be, by definition, stuck in the same place.

I cycle through phases, round and round through old routines, and rarely break the mould.

Actually, it’s a combination of shame, regret and embarassment.

I’m not overtly morally reprehensible. But I’m ashamed that for many years I’ve hidden behind my addictions. In the midst of the weed swamp, I see mist all around. Mist, dampens the detail, but it doesn’t completely hide reality.

Ashamed that I didn’t want to focus hard enough to see through the clouds

I saw through, I saw my errors, I felt my neglect. Is there an excuse? What level of awareness am I responsible for? Can I be absolved for knowing that I’ve been neglecting responsibility and duty, neglecting people I care about, because there are clouds obscuring the view?

How do you properly explain that I just wanted to get off. I suppose, I was self-medicating. I just wanted to forget. I just wanted to feel good.

I just wanted to avoid the challenge life was presenting. It’s been easier to hide and avoid and get high than it ever was to face the reality of what I might need to do to progress. Shame becomes a cycle. I’m ashamed to admit it.

I REGRET that I’ve let relationships sour. I REGRET that I’ve not been present. And I’m fucking embarassed to still be here.

It’s not too late to turn up. The people who care, they’ve been waiting. Some, not on the whim, but maybe just the hope, that one day, you might come around. That you might you show up. That you might give it another go.

Fuck shame.

It’s a thin veil that does not comfort. Nothing can come from entertaining this feeling. But there may be people close by who can help you past it. They are probably worth the attempt. Give it a go.

Broken record, I am

I could write a paragraph about the same shit. I could write a paragraph about the possibility of change, about how it’s right there waiting for me to grab it by the horns. But this blog is for me. And the truth is, I want this to be reality. That reality is probably not mine. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be going on about the same shit again.

It’s because of the pandemic.

It’s because I’m out of work.

It’s because there are other things to focus on right now.

It’s because it’s momentary.

It’s because I choose.

That’s it.

I’m in control. I choose this.

Growth and change are painful.

So is life.

If I am in control, why do I choose this?

I treated the pandemic as an excuse to do fuck all. What a waste of the time I would’ve given something to get, had I not been given it for free.