Originally Posted by
thomas11 
What I am coming to realize at this moment is that I have a choice to dwell on the past for forge a future for myself. I will say this, no success in my future will exceed the depravity of my past. I never killed anyone, but I have done some bad stuff. And got rich doing it. I need to bury those thoughts and try and salvage what is left of my life. I look at it as phase 3.
The first sentence is 100% true - we all have that choice but don't always realize it. As to the rest of it, I don't agree. I'm not sure what I would've said three weeks ago before my last relapse, but I'm a different person today. A person with hope, wishing I could take a piece of it and magically transplant it to you. This hope is rising from a certain special place of desperate brokenness that sounds familiar to where you've just been and perhaps still are.
Only you and your therapist-to-be will be qualified to determine the best path forward, but my humble suggestion is that perhaps you might consider that the healthy thing to do now is to
excavate those thoughts (face your demons head on) and
create a future.
Your phase III could absolutely be the best one yet. I believe that for you because I believe it for me.
O