Originally Posted by mirrorball
Originally Posted by GerandTwine
Since it takes the same amount of time (less than five seconds) try saying “never, I will never use cocaine again.” It’s perfectly ok to repeat your Big Plan to yourself.
OK, I will try.. but what's the difference between saying that and saying 'I don't do that anymore'. Is there something about the word Never?
That’s what I was going to ask you?
Originally Posted by mirrorball
Originally Posted by GerandTwine
What are the similarities and differences in your feelings and thoughts between the last week or so with a Big Plan, and the first few weeks of your 9 month plan while pregnant?
Interestingly once I found out I was pregnant, on both occasions, drugs were completely off limits and I barely thought about them.
There’s absolutely no reason you are incapable of giving your Big Plan the same moral right and wrong urgency that you clearly gave your pregnancies.
Originally Posted by mirrorball
I felt relieved that my pregnancy had 'saved/cured' me from drugs -in my first pregnancy I thought that would be it, and indeed I did not have any nor feel the need to until about 8 months after the baby was born and even then it was occasional - every few months or so.
“saved/cured me from drugs”? ...nor feel the need to until...” a year and a half later? What’s all that REALLY about?
Originally Posted by mirrorball
With my second pregnancy I knew I'd probably go back to it ... I certainly wasn't going to even think about endangering the baby ...
This is what AVRT does. YOU don’t even THINK about endangering the baby while at the same time you RECOGNIZE that desire to go back to it. When that desire comes to your consciousness, you simply Recognize IT, detach, call it your AV, and stand firm that it is not even YOU who is THINKING about snorting cocaine again sometime down the road.
Originally Posted by mirrorball
I do remember feeling a sense of relief that I had a guaranteed 9 months clean.
This “relief” is interesting. It is a deal struck between you and your BEAST. IT is willing to wait, because IT knows that you are the gatekeeper and it doesn’t want you to do what you did the first time and make IT wait twice as long as ‘necessary’. Do you see that YOUR relief by having made a Big Plan is different from that relief? That relief was based on later. YOUR relief today is based on NEVER.
Originally Posted by mirrorball
I guess the big difference is that I knew that it was only a temporary thing and once the baby was out, drugs would be an option again.
Yes, there, you see it, too.
Originally Posted by mirrorball
I was still using only occasionally and didn't have a local dealer so the drugs were not taking over my life, like they did later on.
OHHhhhh. So, it’s the local dealer that screwed up your moderate cocaine use. I see.
Originally Posted by mirrorball
It was very easy to say 'I can handle this' and to a certain extent that was true as I was getting wasted maybe every 2-3 months, no more.
Its only in later years, and since I got local connections, that I reached the tipping point where it really was affecting my life to the point I needed to stop. So I didn't have that dilemma earlier in my coke-taking career around the time of my pregnancies and shortly after.
Ahhh, yes. The dilemma of the local dealer. It reminds me of Sohard, who has a liquor store right across the street from her home (although I think she’s moved to be near a new job). You can imagine that the BEAST has a very acute sense of territory. Territory is a feature of ancient proportions to all life. A place worth fighting for to be safe with food and shelter. Life or death. Your BEAST is the one who is SO dependent upon ITs territory. But YOU?
With a Big Plan you could be alone in the same room with a giant mirrorball on top of which has been carefully tapped out three nice big lines of cocaine and you could go up close and look at it, Recognize your BEAST simply SCREAMING at you “DO IT” and then shift back to YOU and blow it off and walk away.
In fact, the idea that the BEAST has power over territory (ease of access) is false. IT is a paraplegic blob the size of your midbrain that you drag behind you in a little wooden wagon. In the past YOU have always chosen to turn around and shoot it up because you would hear it bawl out “WAhhh, WAhhhh, WAhhhh!”
IT knew to fall silent during your pregnancies. IT knows to work on a new strategy, now that your here.
Have you made a Big Plan? “I will never use again.” What do you feel/hear right after you say to yourself, “I will never use cocaine again.” ?