Threshold

I was doing my meditation this morning, and as I got started I was thinking to myself "grumble grumble, I don't even know what my HP is...but I'm going to do this anyway because this is what other recovering addicts have said works for them."

So, there I am, thinking about this HP thing, thinking about a new depression med my dr. put me on, thinking about my overdose a few months ago, thinking about how I found a couple bottles of pills after I got out of the hospital, and didn't tell the friend who I had clean out my stash for me so I wouldn't do anything "stupid" again...and how that really is a reservation in my program....an appt with relapse, and most likely, an appt with death.

How are you going to recover, I asked myself, when you keep handy enough pills to do yourself in? And my "logical" reply to myself was " Because I am not going to abuse them, I only keep them there to use when life gets too much and I need to commit suicide"

All of a sudden it was real clear to me what my real HP is. It's Death. My entire life I've been fascinated by it, drawn to it. As a kid I read all about ancient Egyptian religions and practices, I even mummified one of my pet goldfish when it died. I made intricate tiny coffins. I am an artist and a great deal of my art is connected with death and the Days of the Dead, which is my most holy time of the year (I spend weeks preparing, and take days off of work). One of my best "friends" is a human skull (I am NOT making this up). I own a book of photos of dead people in their coffins. I have, since childhood, hung out in cemeteries and studied gravestone symbolism. And in the times of my most out of control active substance addiction, when I could NOT sleep, I would go to a local cemetery and lay on a particular gravestone and speak to the man interred there.

Now, some, people are obsessed with death because they are terrified of dying. I was never that way. I am "in love" with it because I truly believe it is the only thing that can "save me" from the miserable failures, shortcomings, and terrors of this life. The ultimate big sleep. The only thing I truly trust, and can depend upon. I had a nightmare of a childhood, and even as a very small child prayed to not wake up in the morning, and have to do it all over again. Some days, the only thing that gets me through is the knowledge that if life gets too overwhelming, death is always an option.

I had a true "near death" experience when I was in my20's, and that only made me more certain that Death is the great escape.

So, there I am, face to face with something that is so core to my being, that I can't imagine why I never really saw it before. I never truly acknowledged that Death is and has pretty much always been my HP, the thing I most counted on.

So, if I am going to recover from addiction, I need to surrender the things I am addicted to. I have to lay them down, believe that I don't need them any more and that there is a better way for me.

The thought of doing that with the obsession with Death terrifies me. It terrifies me more than living without numbing substance. More than laying down my process addictions. More than facing my eating disorders, and saying no to my obsessive relationships. Yes, HP take them all, take them all away, but leave me with my beloved Death.

I feel pretty haunted right now, truly NO pun intended" this is way bigger and deeper for me than admitting my other addictions, and facing them. I can't tell you how often in an average day the reassurance that this panic attack called life does have something that can beat it...And now what? I need to let loose of that white knuckled grip on Death? I have to dispose of my stash of suicide drugs? I have to be willing to face life, not always snickering behind my hand that I have an ace up my sleeve?

I can't even fathom a life without that. I can't. I feel NO willingness to give this up.

Can I recover from my other addictions when I have this true deep underlying one?

I just wondered if I am the only one. I can't be. I know I am not alone in this.

Yes, I pray to my HP to save me from my other addictions, but it seems the HP I've been praying to is Death itself.

sugarbear1

Death sounds like an Obsession not a Higher Power.

Do you have a program of recovery? If it's aa, are you attending big book meetings and Not whine sessions? Getting phone numbers from people who work a program of recovery? Are you reading the book Alcoholics Anonymous?

Prayers sent to you on finding your Higher Power.

eddie73

Hi threshold.

Thanks for the absorbing thread. The higher power is supposed to be the eternal part of you that wants you to be happy. This is both the case in spirituality and in psychology. The meaning doesnt differ between either field.

Your thing with death is an obsession. Short term it has probably given you some relief but in the long run it has made life even harder than it should be.

I have the same ruminations, but realize that death is only a state of being that we can guess about. Unfortunately life is the only game in town we know anything about and therefore we cant compare it to anything else. Thats just my take on it. Very often I feel suicidal. It gives me a strange kind of serenity to think of it as an option. But it is wrong. We would leave carnage behind that we couldnt start to comprehend.

For me the only thing I can do, as difficult as it is, is to try to plan a recovery rather than a suicide. I think ultimately that is what is at stake for every alcoholic out there.

Best wishes

LoftyIdeals

Threshold...I think I get your obsession with death. Since I was a child, I have had a pre-occupation with death as well. However, mine was born out of the church. It seemed to me that mostly the church taught what we need to do and believe to assure our disposition at death. I didn't take it as just nice, moral ways to be, but that we must believe this to assure our peace and comfort in heaven in the afterlife. Needless to say, it messed with my mind, and still does. I do believe in God, life after death, and in the Triune God, but I sometimes wonder if my convictions are from tradition, teaching, and repetition, or are my true heart. I'm not sure how much that matters, though.

This, however, I do know. Because I have not placed a high value on my human life on earth, I have welcomed the possibility of death into my life on numerous occasions, including numerous suicidal ideations throughout my entire life. But, on the occasions, early in my life as a child, that I did truly contemplate suicide as a course of action, I learned to always "give it one more day" to see if my outlook on my problems or sadness would be different/better. It always was.

I still take that step when it seems like sadness or darkness has enveloped me. But I also now can see life through the eyes of others who I'd leave behind in ruins, as Eddie points out. I can now, soberly, see that suicide is as selfish as alcoholism is. And, I am of the mind that my life doesn't belong to just me. I was created by God to play a part on his stage; without my part, the show, as planned, doesn't go on. As such, I am His to use, for His will and purpose. Given my fearlessness over death, I think I can accept that without fear as well, no matter what He brings to my life.

Great thread. I could talk about this for days...

ajangel

This thread is so sad. During my last relapse, although I was not suicidal, I did at several points welcome death. I was in so much despair that I felt that death was the only way I would ever find true peace. I am with lofty though. I believe my life was given to me. I have held the hand of many a dying person and told them they are loved. Some were very peaceful, some were not. Showing a perfect stranger love and compassion is why I was put on this earth. I guess that is a pretty good reason to stick around. You can feel the same peace in life that you feel you would have in death.

Threshold

A little more info. I am in NA and working the steps with a sponsor. Just finished writing my 4th step. Have been in the program nearly two years, two relapses, and my latest episode, a suicide attempt by overdose in May of this year.

My sponsor reminds me that I don't have to court death, it will come to me soon enough. But, like a typical addict, I want to control the when and how.

I really appreciate all the responses and am giving them all deep consideration. I think this is the key to my recovery, to really face this addiction/obsession with Death.

ajangel

I think I am addicted to life. If I am not now, I am damn sure going to try to be.

HuskyPup

What an intereting post. I don't think a fascination with death is too unusual, after all, it is something we must all face, that great unknown...some just seem more engrossed by the idea!

I was thinking of a Poem, by Anne Sexton, where she uses the line, 'Death, I need my little addiction to you...' Some yeras after winning the Pulitzer Prize in poetry (an almost unheard of accomplishment for a woman in the 1960s), she did go on to kill herself, after a life of mental struggle. But from this, she crafted some amazing poems, a body of work which has endured in a stark, timesless way, free of flowery sentimentality.


Letters to Dr. Y

Dr. Y.,
I need a thin hot wire,
your Rescue Inc. voice
to stretch me out
to keep me from going underfoot
and growing stiff
as a yardstick.

Death,
I need your hot breath,
my index finger in the flame,
two cretins standing at my ears,
listening for the cop cars.

Death,
I need a little candle,
to carry me out
a boxcar for my books,
a nickel for my palm,
and no kiss
on my kiss

Death,
I need my little addiction to you
I need that tiny voice who,
even as I rise from the sea
all woman, all there, says kill me, kill me.
My manic eye
sees only the trapeze artist
who flies without a net.
Bravo, I cry,
swallowing the pills,
the do die pills.
Listen ducky,
death is as close to pleasure
as a toothpick.
To die whole
riddled with nothing
but desire for it
is like breakfast
after love.

Anne Sexton, 1960

~


Well, morose or not, she certainly has the ability to express extreme states. People have accused her of ‘glamorizing’ death along with Plath; but what glamour in going in and out of mental hospitals, and having moods like a yo-yo, manically up and down? To me, she merely paints a sobering, honest picture of extreme states, for which I am grateful she had the courage.

And she does have her positive notes:

From The Fury of Rainstorms:

“Depression is boring, I think,
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave.”


Well, time for me to strike a match, and light up my own cave. Oddly, her allegedly gloomy works are a tremendous source of fuel in keeping it lit.

She reads wonderfully, as well:

Rare footage, 1963?

CarolD

I find much comfort and peace with Psalms 23....I hope you will meditate on the meaning ..

Working with hospice got me over any fear of death and an opportunity to help others who were dying.