Arbor

So glad I read this thread. Thanks for posting JD. I never really thought about this before. It's exciting! I always complained to everyone (especially myself) how little time i had on my hands. Always in a constant state of recovery.

Aellyce

I also had a very paradoxial experience with "living in the present". When I was younger, before drinking became a serious problem (in my early 30's, never had other substance addictions so for me it's about alcohol), I was extremely future-oriented. I tended to lose the beauty of the present moment due to this. Life felt like some sort of school or training for me and my subjective perception tended to be that everything I did was for a sake of a future outcome, that I was just learning, preparing for life, that would someday come... Of course I did a lot of things, but somehow tended to lose the momentum. Very often, when I was traveling, for example, I studied everything about the place I was going to visit extensively, in any way I could - theoretically I knew almost everything about it when I finally visited in physical terms. Then I often found that I was not that interested in it anymore, and my mind ran a million miles ahead of time again... This pattern was also prevalent in my professional life. In each job I would start a brand new line of research, pull a lot of people into it, take it to a certain point when it was ~clear that the direction worked - then I would move on and leave everything behind to the others. And same in my personal relationships.

For me, it was actually my alcoholism that "taught me" to live in the present moment, but it taught me in the most twisted and destructive way. Of course after a while, nothing else mattered. Drinking also disrupted my planning abilities (one of my strengths, not surprising from someone who's so future oriented naturally), which was extremely hard for me to swallow, but again, after a while I did not care much.

So now after these few months of sobriety, I feel that maybe finally I'm on a more balanced track, where I am able to stay in the present and my mind no longer wants to run ahead of myself, everyone else, ahead of time. I appreciate the present much more. And my planning skills are also coming back. All this still needs a lot of work, of course.

And ditto on the emotional maturity. In many ways, I also feel that I have the emotional intelligence of an adolescent who's just learning to navigate in life...

Well, we have enough to catch up and learn for the rest of our lives

jdooner

Well haennie and others we are doing something about it! Very few live a life free from stresses that cause unhealthy coping mechanisms. Just look around at the obesity. New England, where I am from is seeing an epidemic of heroin use from the over medicated mindset of Oxys post op that often activate addicts that were dormant. I believe this has much to do with the nuclear family dissolution and the low recovery rates for people to break this generational prison of addiction.

For me I was raised in an environment of chaos. We did not speak, we yelled - like the SNL skit of the Loud Family. That was us. While my parents loved me to the best of their ability they were unable to protect me. I was tortured at school and broken at six when I was raped and left for dead in an abandon gravel pit by two older teenagers, the brothers of my only friend. What a paradox for a kid - tell someone and and risk loosing my only friend and having my dad taken from the family for killing the kids or pull up my oshkoch overall and repress the horrors. Talk about feeling powerless begging someone not to abuse you. It is difficult to decipher exactly what led to me developing as an addict. I believe it was what ensued post this event and the lack of nurture from my mother and perhaps some genetic predisposition. Who knows maybe it was all me...it does not matter really.

I learned how to survive and isolated into books. I was brilliant but unwilling to show this in school for fear of showing up other students so I downplayed my intelligence. Girls were torture for me and the mass of resentments magnetically attached as time went on. As I came into my own athletic abilities/gifts my strength was how I could fight the World literally. So I would fight and brawl when not on the courts, fields or slopes. I was okay when properly channeled but had no discipline or guidance as I was raised by kids. This took me to dark places when I held my friends throat together for a fight we got in and were surprised when knives came out. Or to get a gun pulled on you - does not matter how strong you are. Yet, I was able to hop skipped over the jail paths and ended up helping invent a technology that puts me in a league of people I don't identify with at all.

Tomorrow I complete my step #5, 6, 7 and 8 with my sponsor and tell another human all of my sordid deeds. My darkest secrets and skeletons. I will pray and feel a weight hopefully lift from this experience. It has already changed me thus far. Next week I begin working with my first sponsee to bring him through the steps. I had a friend ask me a few minutes ago if I miss it, as last year I would be pouring a vodka on the rocks about an hour ago and counting the minutes for the kids to go down so I could get my first cig and finding a way to maybe score some Ritalin or coke for the evening with my wife so we could be with each other and if I failed at those attempts I would get caught up in drunk texting and dialing in the process leading to regret the next day trying to remember what I said.

Nah, I don't miss it. I feel I am growing again and feel childlike in looking at the World. The possibilities are endless and for this I am grateful. I have my family back, I am no longer trying to commit suicide and I am slowly getting my mind back too.