NEOMARXIST

I am just listening to an album at the moment that I got in 2006 when it came out.

It's funny because I was just thinking about the period when I was 20 years old. That was a period where I really got into drugs, psychedelia and hedonism and all that. I was always into that sort of stuff from 16 really and smoking weed but when I got introduced into heavier stuff then it really took off.

I was living fast during that period of my life and that summer felt like a sort of summer of love for me. Though I was way too much of a whirlwind for most of my previous mates and lost touch reallly. I discovered pills that were also really psychedelic and I thought I had found the ultimate drug. I could drink and drink because of the stimulant properties but also I would be able to sit alone in my room and watch my posters on the wall dance and groove. I remember my Jimi hendrix poster vividly well and he literally used to dance around and stuff. Real intense trippy visuals but no anxiety or paranoia. I spent many nights lone just tripping all night with my headphones on and pushing the trip harder and harder. Booze was always my staple throughout though. I always loved the booze and used to feel so ecstatic that alcohol was legal because I loved it so dearly.

I then got introduced into Cocaine and that really took for 18 motnhs when I turned about 21. There was no peace and love trippy stuff with Uncle Charlie. No that was a selfish- B*stard of a drug and knocks all of peace and love out of you. This is around the point where I also got introduced to drinking alcohol at 6.00am whilst still awake by my best mate. This was the beginning of the end for me with drink and drugs. Drinking like an alcoholic and not being able to physically or mentally not take a drink upon waking. I remember my first LSD experience when I couldn't believe that 'mates' actually had acid. I was really drunk as usual and they gave me a tab for free. I remember just lying down outside my frontdoor at home and must have been tripping for 3 hours or so and can't recall much but then the amazement and wonderment of all of the psychedelic visuals. Again I thought I had discovered the ultimate drug... But only as long I had loads of alcohol and cocaine and cigarettes.

What followed was a real heavy period of over about 9 months of Cocaine and alcohol abuse. This is where my drinking got real dark and my cocaine use out of control. I felt like an addict and alcoholic in my binges. I was totally addicted. I began to lose everything. Arguably I had been a mess for a long time before prior but I was OK with it and was living fast. But this was different. I became desperate and a total depressive state and mess.

I would fight and wrestle between knowing that I couldn't carry on but being unable to deny myself my alcohol and drug binges. I was hooked on the feelings of escape and at times pure exhilaration and loss of control. It was a terribly destructive period. Losing lots both materially but mostly mentally and emotionally. I was lost and empty and searching for salvation in a bottle. Needless to say I would think I found it for a fleeting moment but it would fade as soon as I reached out to touch it and then I would chase it in a desperate and hopeless addicted mind.

I can look back on my years of drinking and drugging and I don't feel sadnes or anything anymore. I see it as my journey to getting to where I am at now. I am grateful for my 'hightimes' and for my 'lowtimes' in that they have enabled me to get where I am now. I wouldn't be the person I am now without all of my experinces that I gained.

I am grateful for my story with drink and drugs and can think back to memories and experinces and smile contently. I am at peace with my journey and for that I am truly grateful.

peace

Lionne

Great post Neo, it's really great to hear that you are in such a good place now, and it sounds like you have genuinely found some peace of mind regarding your past experiences- a kind of content sobriety that is very inspiring. Some of what you described strikes some chords.

The destructiveness and the fleeting feeling, being lost and empty- it describes very well the last year and a half before I quit drinking. I agree with you- to some extent, I am grateful for my experiences too, As far down as they took me, it's also because of them that I was probably able, in recovery, to develop as a human being at a much faster pace that if I hadn't made these experiences.
But I gotta be honest, "lost time" has been an issue for me, and I'm not sure if it's entirely resolved, but I'm getting ther. My last episode of drinking preceded by 5+ years of "not-quite-so-full-blown" alcoholism that nevetheless had some impact on my life. As a result I still feel sometimes like there is a lot of time I have lost while other peers around me progressed. I can learn to accept this as a part of my journey, but I had to grieve for that time first in order to progress. Some days I feel at peace, and some days I still feel like I have to catch up on some things, maybe because I've realized how much I can achieve sober in a relatively short time. But in the end, the past is still past. What I'm doing now is more important than what I didn't do in the past.

Thanks for sharing your introspection with us, and a great sober day to you

RiverBoat

I tell myself not to regret lost time, or regret anything I do. This is strictly logical, I have never intentionally hurt anyone and any past mistakes make me who I am. I still get stupid bloody memories and guilt of accidently brushing against someone ten years in the past etc

Zencat

I hear "not regretting the past" from others I meet along my recovery journey. It was what it was...as I was doing what I knew to. I don't regret being stuck in my past addiction. For I made my amends, learned about my weakness and now build my strengths from my experiences.

Thankx for the share. Alone I cant, together I can.

RobbyRobot

Great post, Neo. You're in a wonderful place!

Please take what I'm sharing now with a good heart, you know i stand with you, i mean no offense. You may find yourself revisiting your being at peace with your journey as you walk through future challenges, accomplishments, and failures. Speaking for myself, i have felt like you several times in my journey and those times always passed into tougher times. Actually tougher times that i could ever have possibly known in my early sobriety. Times returned again to peace and happiness and then cycled again. Always cycling.

My experiences throughout the years is although we as alcoholics can be peaceful with ourselves that does not mean we will have no future sadness, regrets, or remorse for our past alcoholic deeds. I have witnessed very sober men and woman wrongly believe the peace and gratitude they had reached was the true motherlode they had been earnestly seeking. Ever so sadly, life decided for them otherwise. They were unaware that their alcoholism was like a peeling onion with layer under layer of experiences which arose at some of the most unfortunate times of their new sober life. They were unprepared for the rush of the clarity of those new realizations of their past alcoholism. They struggled to accept the new mornings they found themselves waking up to and suffered in new ways they had not considered part of their sober journey. Alcoholism is a cunning, baffling and cruel illness. Beware. Always beware.

I am one of those that i am speaking about, Neo. I went from a useless street drunk to a happy working man helping others in a great life with friends and a wonderful [at the time] girlfriend in just under a year of sobriety. I was feeling, imo, like you are speaking about today. Life was good and i could see my challenges were well in hand. I was at the top of my game.

Little did i know that deep inside were life issues of immense anger, sadness, aloneness, and for lack of better words: alcoholism. It was actually my enduring happiness and gratitude, my ongoing successes and my good fortunes that had me not prepared for those harder times ahead of me. I have since learned that we can share again and again about our past and our present good and bad times and still until the future arrives in our lives we can not share a future that has not yet happened.

Even though i know my alcoholism is arrested, i have not solved every alcoholic challenge i am pressed to face. Looking into the future is an uneasy task and best taken with healthy spoons of honesty knowing none of us can really predict what will be day to day in our future times. Life happens both good and bad no matter we are sober or drunk.

Anyways. I'm sharing this because i have myself experienced my hopes and beliefs crushed by alcoholism again and again and i never took a drink for many years since 1981. I had to struggle to get back to a sober life from those times. I didn't drink but simply not drinking is not what sobriety is, as you know. As well i have witnessed others struggle like me and also make it back to the sober life. Sadly, i have watched others continue to slide into oblivion. We are none of us yet perfect. I have learned its never really worth saying we are cured and so forget about alcoholism. I'm not at all saying you are saying you are cured, fwiw. I'm also not saying this is about you. I'm just sharing my ESH.

So for me when things get going really well, i cautiously peel back another skin of that alcoholic onion and take a good look at myself. A real good look. I always find something that needs looking deeper into if i'm to continue on my sober journey. I find that doing so just makes me all the more happy , peaceful, and grateful for my good fortunes with living a sober life. For me, the song by Bob Dylan "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is often very helpful in keeping me grounded. The last part is below:






Enjoy your recent accomplishments with finding peace and happiness Neo, you have indeed earned them and they belong in your journey. Godspeed.

Robby