****** weekend...

[Blake]

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **** **** **** !!!!!!

I'm feeling like crap. I have started my step work out of the step working guides and now I feel really bad about the **** I used to do to get loaded. When I was useing I could do all this bad **** without thinking twice about it b/c I needed to use above all and I saw my behavior as a survival trait. Now that I'm clean and I have to think back over **** I did, it hurts. It feels like all the guilt I should have felt the whole time is hitting me all at once. I am not in a good place, last week I kept thinking how great recovery is and how I'll never use again and for the last few days I have had to tell myself I'm not going to use this hour. My sponsor told me that the feeling will pass, but **** it has been 3 days of self-loathing and I'm starting to think that I don't deserve recovery, maybe I do deserve to die a junkie. I really don't like the feelings I'm feeling and my natural instinct is to run and get loaded. Can anyone here relate to the jumble of **** going on in my head right now? I thought step work was suppose to make you feel better, not worse. I guess I'm a lot sicker than I originally thought.

Sorry, I needed to get that out,
-Blake

[Time2Surrender]

Thats why some people dont aggree with using the NA step guide.Myself.I use it too.Thats how my sponsor has me working the steps.I have felt the same way you do right now.It does pass.It can be painful working through some of this stuff.But,its what I need to do.And eventually it pays off.

[godsonmyside]

We have a didease that places us at Dis-Ease with ourselves. It will pass, and if you dont use you will see just how simole this really is. I would suggest reading Step 1 in the Basic Text everyday while working step !, it helps and you will come to an understanding for youself. Lean on your sponsor for guidance, you will walk through this storm and it will become part of you Experience, Strength and Hope. A Miracle defies the laws of nature. To not use is a miracle for an addict. Doesn't mean we have to keep swimming up stream. the first part of the step in the working guide is pretty intense, Disease and Denial. It will pass.
Todd J.

[Kahlia]

I also use the NA step book...I hATE it because it reminds me of who I was....NOT who I am now.....If you can get past the self-loathing...we all do it, BTW...it will get better. You need to get through all the ****as you call it to recover and be healthy. This too shall pass.....(sigh).....Kahlia

[Blake]

Good morning all,

Thanks for the responses, they helped. Yesterday after I got off work I went to my relapse prevention group and I talked about being in a bad mood and where I'm at in my step work. The group leader guy told me that as an addict we beat ourselves up alot and that I need to let that stuff go...easier said than done. Well then I talked to my sponsor at the meeting last night and I figured out that kicking my ass over **** I did isn't going to change anything I did. I just need to accept my past as what had to happen to get me to where I am today. I woke up in a much better mood today and I"m soooooooooooooooo glad I didn't pick up b/c I was sad!

Thanks,

-Blake

[windysan]

Hey Blake

Regret is a hard one. We have no choice but to go forward. It is hard to not regret the past when we want to SLAM the door on it. Just keep moving forward and work with your sponsor to keep the regret monster at bay. Share it at meetings then listen to what the old timers have to say.

Your Buddy Down the Road

Boula Boula

[Recoveree]

Originally Posted by Time2Surrender

Thats why some people dont aggree with using the NA step guide..

Can't imagine why.......unless the truth hurts!! hehe

The thing about the first step is that we have to start to acknowledge what we have become and what we did, before we can begin to change anything.
To do less than a complete examination will only come back to haunt us.

Richie

[KelKel]

(((Blake)))
Spiritual growth can be painful at times, but the rewards are well worth the growing pains...

Pain and discomfort, whether physical or mental (or both) really is just a part of life for one and all of us whether we suffer from addiction or not.

I am reminded of my beautiful boy when he was younger, waking in the night with growth spurts and massaging his legs until the discomfort subsided and trying to explain that his body was growing and changing.

[mackat]

yeh blake

three of us were doing step work at the same time , we used to sit together at meetings- they called us murders row- always ANGRY!!

it does past- that really deep fear and self loathing. i still get regrets that slam me at the most unpredictable times but within a day or so i come to realize that, like has been posted above, i am no longer that addict.
and that i can get grateful

we are living proof that you can get there as well
hugs
mackat

[WNY Addict]

Originally Posted by Blake

Can anyone here relate to the jumble of **** going on in my head right now? I thought step work was suppose to make you feel better, not worse.

I think everyone here can relate to you, Blake. We're addicts, and confronting our past actions isn't a very pleasant thing. Those past actions make you feel like s**t, but yet your disease is telling you you're not worth recovery... telling you that you "deserve to die a junkie", as you're said. All the misery this disease dealt us, yet it's powerful enough to make you want to go out and cause more grief for yourself and others.

Just remember, that's your disease that is talking to you... it wants to make you feel like s**t... like using. The best way to make ammends for our past actions is by staying clean today. That's for yourself, number one, and also for the people you may have hurt with your past actions.

Like my great-grandsponsor says... "Look at what you did and where you came from. Remember it, but don't stare at it." It's all about living in the here and now. If you have one foot in yesturday and the other in tommorrow, all you can do is **** on today.

"We did many people great harm but most of all we harmed ourselves."

Remember that. Keep working the steps and stay clean... all will be well

[lafever chris]

It`s probly overwhelming the things you used to do but as your sponsor has, i hope, informed you, that alot of your survival skills that you used to get high stem from childhood, we have in many ways become products of our invironment. Try not to be so hard on yourself, and look at the time before you used to see what led up to you using, thats the key to your freedom from self, your not blaming the past, just giving it an honest look, there might be alot you`ve put on the shelf. Give yourself a break and don`t blame yourself over somethings that might originat from the inoccence of childhood. I just put a new post under confused, check it out, and maybe it`ll give you a new look at the fourth step.



chris



P.S. god bless

[woodchip]

WE WILL NOT REGRET THE PAST--""NOR WISH TO SHUT THE DOOR ON IT""...I know Blake, easier said than done sometimes..Just remember that Your are now entering TODAY once again...Im sure the rewards will out-wiegh the pain...Thanks for reminding me to get busy with my step work-book........woodchip

[Paulie]

I am glad you are feeling better today. See, you used the tools that we learn in the program. You reached out and talked about what was going on with other addicts.

I just want to add to this that I felt exactly the same as you the first time I did my first step. And I would cry to my sponsor about how horrible I was. It was suggested to me (and I did it) that I get a large poster size piece of paper and write on it "IT JUST HAPPENED" and put it on the wall where I would see it each morning when I woke up (that is when I worked on my step) to remind me that the things I did are just that, things I did, they are things that happened, they are not who I am.

I think it is very common for us to get the 2 things confused. We are not what we did we are kind loving people who have the disease of addiction and when our disease is active we do things that we otherwise would not do.

Thank you for sharing your recovery with us today.

[Jared112987]

Blake I'm really feeling like you right now. I too did soem really ****** up **** when I was using. And up until now I've felt so good about being clean. Now I'm sitting in my room so depressed, I totally hear ya on not careing about what you did at the time you were using and now its all hitting you hard. I'm not the type that cries at all I bottle it all up and it comes out as anger and it's probably a reason I started using. Since stoping using I havent really gotten angry with the exception of a couple times and I had control over my actions which is incredible because when I used to flip out while using which was all the time I hurt alot of people with my actions. It isnt even just that though I did some really horrible things, not like hurting anyone physically but I did some really bad things. I really dont know what to do with myself right now I like you hope this passes...I thought the utter sadness was over when I went back to school and saw how good I was doing but omg I just feel so sad. Keep in touch hopefully we can help each other through this.

[Blake]

What up Jared,

Yeah dude...it passes. I had to go through all that **** and feel it instead of running away from it like I'm conditioned to do. I worked my first step with my sponsor and it helped me realize that all the bad **** I did while getting loaded or trying to get loaded was a result of my disease running rampant. He asked me if I would do the same stuff now that I'm clean, **** NO!!! I'm not responsible for my disease, but I am responsible for my recovery. I own up to the **** I did in my past, but I take comfort in the fact that clean Blake isn't a moral deficient dregg of society like useing Blake was. I choose not to get loaded today b/c I never want to do that ****** up **** again. Don't pick up and things will get better...I promise.

-Blake

[Jared112987]

Yeah I made it through it got better but it still comes and haunts me at times but like you I know not to go pick up because it'll just cause my addiction to become so much worse. It will also cause me to go to jail which I never want to happen. Staying clean it the most important thing for me and I live each day to do it, I can tell you do too. I do get the urge to use again but never the desire. After my second arrest it only made the stomach quessyness go away and not the sadness. I was talking to a friend last night and I said "drugs never did one good thing for me." His reply was "you're right they didn't except they did stop you from doing some really stupid things when you were angry." This is true because when I would get angry I'd use I used even if I wasnt angry but if I smoked weed when I was mad the angry would leave me and I would have no desire to do wut I wanted to do. But then he also said "you were angry before you used, but I dont think you would have ever gotten to the point you were at while you used" and he's right if I had dealt with my angry way back and not used to make it go away I know it wouldnt have bottled up the way it did and make me like a maniac. Keep up the good work Blake.

[sturpin]

[quote=godsonmyside]We have a didease that places us at Dis-Ease with ourselves. QUOTE]

WOW...that is a wonderful way of putting it....I totally agree...I think we all feel "worthless" or as you so elequently described it "Dis-Eased" with ourselves...

Thanks for that godsonmyside!!

Sue