THAT DAY AND FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

What do you think is the reason that you keep going back to using and just can't stay clean is?
The consequences are always the same if not worse but we just keep using over and over. I would want to quit one day and the next day I would be calling the dealer and repeating the same thing over again.
I think you have to be realistic, you have to figure out what makes you go out and buy. Make a conscious effort to figure the reasons of when you buy, whats happening at the time, did you just get paid, did you go out and borrow money, what time was it, when is the time your most likely to use. I myself would start to romanticize about the next high until everything that I was building up to fight the cravings were gone only to realize that there really was no romance and that the nightmare was just about to begin again.
I want you to start one day when you have just had enough and give it your all. Don't give in so easily, you never did when you wanted to get drugs you would put every effort in to get something I know I did that's for sure. Figure it out, you know when your getting money so don't tell me you don't. Tell the people you love not to lend you money and the reason why( remember now you really want to quit) Stop yourself when you know that you are getting money and you start to come up with b.s reasons of people or bills that you need to pay so that you have enough left to buy drugs with.
I just want you to wake up the next day with the feeling that of power, power of having a little control of your life again.
Play it through, that means the good part too, the rewards remember. You woke up with the money in your pocket, in your bank account or you might of even have bought groceries or paid your rent... THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH DRUGS TO LET YOU LIVE A NORMAL LIFE AND MAKE YOU HAPPY BUT THERE IS ENOUGH MONEY TO LET YOU LIVE A NORMAL LIFE AND BE TO BE HAPPY BUT ONLY IF YOU BITE DOWN AND FIGHT. Fight the pain , fight the cravings and be the person you want to be.

GOT A LITTLE EXERCISE FOR YOU

OK here we go. I want you to get a piece of paper and a pen and sit down. Now I want you to think of something that you do that has negative consequences. It can be anything that you are struggling with right now.
OK just sit down and start to write out the day from the beginning and don't forget the feelings that you are experiencing at the time. Write out how the day is going as I did (were talking about the negative part right now) and try to get everything you can remember in there. Write how your feeling at the time and how you feel during, then finish with the consequences.
When I read mine I realized how exhausting it was for me and the chaos that went along with it.
I want you to then write a day without the struggles that you are dealing with. Share the good feelings that you experience, the difference the day is without the chaos and just enjoy it.
I want you to put this in your wallet or purse or where ever and just keep reading it, over and over. It will eventually stay in your head and you will learn to love the good and hate the bad.
The funny thing is that we just kept repeating the same thing over and over again and if we do that for the negative consequences then we can do that for the positive can't we.
We had more practise with the positive anyways because we weren't born that way we just choose to live that way.
So much to live for, share the good part of yourself with the people that care about you.

OH HOW PROUD AM I

Just talked to my close friend that is trying to get off crack, she is 21 days clean today and she has a lot on her plate right now having a husband who she recently left( he is also struggling) and a young son. She told me after I asked her how she was that she was doing great and that she was going to a meeting tonight. Wow is that girl amazing isn't she?
I could hear something in her voice that was a bit off so I asked her again how she was and she replied that she just got off the phone with her husband and that she was pressed for time and that someone was coming to pick her up.
OK now I said to her, then your doing just OK right? and that you are making do but everything is not good. You have to be realistic in recovery, we always think that since someone is not doing drugs anymore that they better answer with they are good or look out.
She just like anyone else, me you, have struggles everyday and we sometimes mask it and pretend that everything is fine. Well that is not life and that is not how we are feeling so voice it.
Today might be going kind of tough for her right now as I know it was for me at an early time in recovery but I had the support of the councillors and she doesn't.
It is just alright and everything isn't good but that doesn't make me think that you are going to go out and use so express your true feelings and be fine with that.
I am a true believer that if we just learn to set boundaries and to express ourselves in a healthy way that we can overcome this addiction and you are an amazing woman.
Keep up the good work and I'm proud of you all (do you mind if I'm a bit proud of myself too)
Just don't worry when the road gets bumpy, eventually it will smooth its self out and you will know that you are on the road to a great life because all the people that you love will be travelling it too.
I love this saying that I heard at a meeting one day and it was.
I just want to be better than I am because I'm better than I was.

ANOTHER DAY CLEAN AND LIFE CAN ONLY GET BETTER

I was asked the other day how long it has been since I saw my children and the answer is 7 plus yrs. I try to contact them to talk or to show them that I am still alive but they don't respond. I am waiting for that day when they finally show up at my door to say that they want a relationship with their dad. I haven't always made the right decisions and I definitely messed up when it came to them. What was I thinking when I continued to do drugs, did I not know that they finally grow up and they would see and hear the obvious. They are the most important people in my life and I don't even know them anymore and I can't do anything about that, or can I? I wake up wondering what they are doing, what they look like, and wanting to let them know that I love them with all my heart.
My day will come with my children again but only if I stay clean, I need to for mine and their sake because if I don't they will never want to see me again.
I am fine with the way things are right now and pray that they will one day forgive me. I will stay clean and my life will get better with the thought of one day being together with my two daughters again.
We made mistakes with our drug use in the past but we can change that and write a new page of happiness for our future. You have to want it and I do, do you?
The road that I am on now goes by their place and hopefully they will get a glance of a father that they thought was gone but I was only away for awhile and now I'm back with more love than a father can have for his children. Another day clean and life can only get better, I believe, do you?

HUMILITY

I use to sit in meetings and they would have topic discussions and ofter humility would come up. I would always be sort of worried that they would ask me to speak when I wasn't sure what I would say on that topic. I am no longer worried but I am very embarrassed.
I was down at a restaurant and I saw a man that had lent me 320 dollars for car insurance, as though that is what I really needed it for. I never did get that insurance.
The next was an old landlord that I went out of my way to bother for money for gas.
The worst is my uncle that I love very much. I saw him down the mall and ran up to him and said hey uncle, the response that I got was as though I just kicked him. I left after a brief talk (all cold and meaningless ) and was quite upset. I thought about why he would treat me like that and wondered what I could have done then all of the sudden it dawned on me, money.
The next time I had a chance I went by his place and knocked on his door, he answered with a little bit of being glad to see me but not as he would normally. I asked him if I owed him some money and he replied yes, and that he was disappointed in me and mad. I didn't owe my uncle all that much money but it was the principle behind it.
You see we get so lost in the drugs that we forget the values of what we were taught and how we were brought up, my uncle just trusted me to pay him back or to at least acknowledge that I owed him money but I forgot because I borrowed from everybody and I couldn't keep track of who I owed money too.
I am so happy that I could pay him back today and I brought him out for breakfast and had a really good talk. I told him the truth about the drugs and he accepted my apology. I have the chance to fix any of the mistakes I made while doing drugs and I never would have if I was still using.
Please won't you give yourself a chance to live your life without the chaos of drugs, for you and your family.
I'll tell you one thing though . The embarrassment I feel when someone tells me that I owe them money now is know where in comparison to the embarrassment I felt when I would go around trying to borrow money off of everyone I know and they work just like I do.
Play your day through.... the chaos of drug use to the serenity of just being you.

PLAYING IT THROUGH?

I often use the phrase, play it through in my writing and I just wanted to explain what that means to me. I was talking to someone that I love very much and she is struggling with addiction herself. I told her that she needs to play the day through in order to help her stay clean for the day. It is a very powerful tool to use when dealing with cravings.
Let me use today as a for instance. OK it is Friday and I have about 200 dollars, I wake up and get ready to go to work but my mind is on drugs, all through the day I am on the phone trying to get the dealer to meet me after work, you see he has a busy schedule. I get off work and meet him and I pick up. I would pick up a 20 or 40 dollar rock of crack cocaine. When I got home I could hardly wait to start on it, that is when the chaos starts.
If my girlfriend wasn't home I would phone her and leave a message to call me because the paranoia is starting. If the phone rings I definitely won't answer it because I would have to talk.
I would bent over looking for something I might have dropped on the floor (this is something that crack addicts do when high ) The crack is now running out so I make that phone call to the dealer but it is traffic hour so he can't come for an hour or so. I start to scrape my pipe to get one toke out of it and keep repeating this until I am smoking metal shavings. The dealer phones and says he is on his way and now I get totally paranoid because my girlfriend is coming home so I keep phoning the both of them to see if they are going to be here at the same time. The dealer finally arrives and I buy another white which is a 40 dollar rock but since he has to come here he charges me 50 dollars ( what a guy ) I run into the living room and take a toke and the paranoia starts all over again. My girlfriend phones and says she is going to a movie because she knows something is up. I sit and keep doing the drugs until it is gone and I am totally messed up the whole time, I run out of the crack and make another phone call the whole time being paranoid, by the end of the night I get a front of 50 dollars if I am lucky( ya right) my girlfriend would get home and would go straight to bed. I would finally finish about 5 am after scraping the pipe.
Now lets play today through. I woke up and thought about the car I just bought and how nice it was going to be to drive into work today without over heating, as I started to get into the town where I work the only thought on my mind is how good the Starbucks coffee is going to taste.
I do my work and it is getting close to the end of the day and I can't wait to get home to walk my dog. We both went to the park and sat their and talked, I am up stairs right now writing this and my girlfriend is painting. We might go out later or just sit in and rent a movie.
I am just relaxed and content and tomorrow I will wake up early and take the dog for a long walk with a Starbucks coffee in my hand and about 198 dollars in my pocket.
Please do me a favor and play your day through and after a thought I bet you know which of the two you want to live through.

ITS ALL UP TO YOU, WITH A LITTLE HELP

I just wanted to tell you a little more about myself and the road that I have been on for the last two years. In order to continue with the company that I work for I had to sign a contract to go to a drug and alcohol counselling company that would monitor my progress and has the power to send me to get tested at any time they wanted. I would have to go to a lab that day and submit a urine sample. If I failed I would lose my job, I have been tested about 10 times through out the 2 yrs. On May 15Th/2007 I had completed my 2 yr contract.
My last meeting with the counsellor was very empowering, he asked me, now that you are done with the contract that the company had on you what do you think is going to stop you from picking up again? I thought about that question for awhile now and it dawned on me that it wasn't the testing or the job that kept me clean it was the love of me and my love of life. There are other jobs out there if I had wanted to continue to live that life of lies and chaos but I don't want that. The life and outcome of a drug addict never changes except for death then there is no hope.
It was great having the support of the counsellor there to talk too and the way they really seemed to care about me as a person.
I have had the chance to use since with no consequences but the guilt I would feel or until I would hit bottom again not to mention letting myself and everyone else I know down.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know that you really want to quit this messed up life and live again and you can, you really can do it I have faith in you.
We as addicts are very strong determined people and we are survivors so SURVIVE.
Just remember to start to compare the two sides of drugs, using and not using and play it through and that hopefully will keep you on the right path. I hope we can walk awhile together.