Addiction & Cravings - Day 142

Opening up more on cravings, continuing from Addiction & Consequences of Behavior - Day 140.

Cravings "may be triggered by seeing objects or experiencing moments that are associated with the drug or usage of it, and this phenomenon, termed post acute withdrawal syndrome, may linger the rest of the life for some drugs." 

How did I come today to see my relationship with food as an addiction? When I was driving, and the car approaching behind me was a particular shade of grey, and this reminded me of a telling sign of what I believe to be an especially delicious cookies n cream milk shake, where the white of the ice cream turns grey because the milkshake is so saturated with oreo cookies. Then, I wanted a milkshake. Of course, this wasn't the first craving I had in the last couple days. 

Similarly as I have tried on and off to quit drinking wine, I'll have a moment in my day where I can taste the wine on my own breath, even though I've not had wine that day, and then I will crave it.

Or craving the feeling of smoke in my throat, or the exhalation of smoke into the air. Even coughing, and the feeling of the chemicals taking effect after the exertion of coughing, and the tightness in my chest.

Various things will trigger these cravings, where within my mind I am always looking for that drug, that chemical and behavioral fix.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in the creation and engagement of images, tastes, smells, and other sensory experiences within my mind where my reaction to these images is positive and I think / have the energy that I want to partake of that image in reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within and as memories of past experiences with various substances, from this desiring to relive that experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to monumentalize moments of experience in memory as desiring to relive that experience through craving.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine specific consistencies or coloration of food, such as a milkshake, and also the temperature and texture, and imagine this as something which I wish to have in reality based on my memories of my experiences with this food.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to remember experiences with smoking where I had specific bodily physical experiences and to feel nostalgic about those memories and want to relive them because of what those experiences represent or because I am nostalgic about the period of my life during which I lived those experiences or I miss the people with whom I had those experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not even go into craving really but simply to as a thought-energy want to partake in a particular substance based on my emotional state / how stressful my day has been, where here I see that today was somewhat stressful and at one point today I thought about how I could come home and just "let loose" and drink some wine.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to focus only on positive / feeling memories where my cravings are only informed by the "positive" "pleasurable" and "enjoyable" experiences I have had. Here I see that I would not say to myself, "Wow I would really like to feel really overwhelmed and paranoid and out of control right now! That would sure be fun!" or, "I want to feel sick to my stomach and very full right now!"

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to enact and live out something in the physical that is based on my imagination of that experience within my mind, where here I see that not only am I only remembering the positive / enjoyable experiences while failing to recall the negative experiences, but I also see that this desire is created purely within my mind through and as my memories and associations with that substance.

I forgive myself also for not accepting or allowing myself to be here in each moment of experience so that, for example, as I am eating a milkshake, I am not necessarily fully experiencing it in the moment, but am instead eating it quickly, or am focused on something else at the same time, so that actually I am not really living within and as that moment, so that when that moment passes, I have not satisfied myself as my desire to experience that moment.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself not to crave actual physical reality experiences, but instead to crave my idea of those experiences manifested into reality, which is not possible anyway, because my idea of those experiences is not based in real actual physical experience but is constructed through and as my reactions, associations, emotions/feelings, etc.

I forgive myself also for not accepting or allowing myself to really be here in each moment of experience so that I can see for myself how that experience does or does not serve me so that, for example, as I remember smoking, I can remember clearly the paranoia that sets in or the sense of being out of control, instead of only remembering the idealization of the experience within its associations of what is "cool" or what my friends did or what experiences with it I did enjoy in the absence of remembering any of the other experiences which were equally valid and real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create these relationships with these substances such that I have difficulty engaging in their use in a balanced manner, but instead easily slip into abuse of these substances, rather than allowing myself to enjoy them responsibly and in self-honesty, instead frequently giving myself over to the substance and my experience / associations of the substance. I realize that these substances are not the "problem," per se, but that my relationship with them and my abuse of them is the "problem."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to listen to my mind as my idealizations of experiences as cravings rather than listening to my human physical body as what it actually requires in any given moment or how I can best support myself through what substances I use.


When and as I see myself experiencing a craving, I stop and I breathe. I realize that cravings are figments of my imagination created through my reactions to experiences, my internal emotional/feeling experiences, and the associations I have created through my experiences. I realize that these kinds of cravings are not real in that they are not based in what my physical body needs. I commit myself to breathe and to reflect on the craving, and then to let it go. I commit myself to check in with myself as my body in self honesty and to communicate with myself about how I can best support myself physically.

I commit myself also to not get "ahead of myself" in the sense that here I see that I wish this was not an "issue" or "problem," I wish that I could simply engage in these activities responsibly -- because I want that badly to engage. But I realize I am not there yet, and in fact I only see where I am now, I do not know if I will ever be "there" in terms of being stable in these relationships, I can only be here and now. So I commit myself to focus on now, who I am today, and how I can support myself in self honesty and self responsibility today as my actions and what I put into my body.

My Mother, Myself (Part 1) - Day 134

I had to deal with some familial "issues" today and one point that came up related to the irritation I often experience with my mom, which was a new realization to me as to why I become so irritated, so that was cool.

I mean one of the things that I have learned with Desteni is that the things that irritate you about another person are usually the things that you can see in yourself.

And so, even though this is sort of a backwards / reversal of that phenomenon, when I am in any given situation and see myself behaving like my mom, I often become very upset with myself, because I do not want to be like her. There are obviously many layers to explore here. And so then, when I am in the presence of my mom, I project that anger onto her, and blame her for the way that I am, even though nothing has passed between us that would indicate such a reaction from me. So we're both left kind of confused as to why I am so upset.

This can be little things like vocal tonality that reminds me of my mom, or bigger things like me behaving in a co-dependent way in a relationship or interaction.

So I made the perhaps rather obvious connection during my phone conversation with her today that I am angry with her for having taught me these things through modeling. I mean as much as some of the behaviors I see in her are things I do not want to do, ways that I do not want to be, nonetheless I see myself living them out. Co-dependency is the major mal-adaptive example.

So this was the point that I realized, as I have been resisting looking at myself as my relationship with my mom, and my extreme irritability and moodiness around her, that this experience of seeing her in myself as I live, even apart from her, creates a reaction in me, and adds fuel to the fire of the friction in our relationship. So to further define what is happening in that dynamic was helpful to see.

And actually for at least half my life, I would actually say, "If I could be half the woman my mom is when I grow up, I will be awesome." Then I grew up and my perspective expanded, and I went to the opposite polarity wherein I wanted to be absolutely nothing like her. I have gotten somewhat stuck there; I am still coming out of that reaction which only occurred within the last 6 years or so. This reaction has not helped anything. I am glad now for the opportunity facilitated today to see more of this, because I have resisted looking at it, I have resisted solving this obvious problem.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist solving this problem because I believe "I already know" what the problem is and so I resist looking at it in detail.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist looking at this problem in detail because I know that I am ashamed of my behavior and my moodiness and irritability. I realize that I am taking advantage of my mom within these moods, that I am like pushing the envelope of how bad I can treat her and she will still love me, and that I am not respecting either of us as life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be moved by my reaction to my reactions, which is shame, rather than seeing a problem / point and addressing it.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to realize that there is more to this problem than what I think I already know, because I have never really allowed myself the time and space to look at and consider this relationship and who I have been within it, and how this relationship has impacted who I am at all times

So anyway, this point of having an example, and knowing it is not who I want to be. Knowing only then what NOT to do. I learn this all the more in my job with the students, where the disciplinary system in place has previously only ever punished the undesired behaviors, and yet never at school and very unlikely at home have there ever been examples presented of adaptive positive desired behaviors to replace the negative behavior.

Here is a cool article about that: Getting to the Bottom of Social Skills Defecits

So as much as I have gone through life seeing in my mom or dad or other exemplary people how NOT to be, I have not had many examples of how TO be. And so amid my suggestions for how my mom might proceed in a certain complicated familial issue, I also told her that it would really mean a lot to me, as her daughter, to see my mother, as an exemplary figure, getting help and assistance for something that she clearly cannot handle. I mean there is a situation right now, and for the past many many years, where it is like the blind leading the blind. And my mom knows this, and yet she persists in trying to do it herself, even though she cannot see. So I expressed to her how much it would mean to me to have an example of someone actually standing up and taking responsibility for themselves in terms of what they are or are not capable of doing in a given situation. Right now she is not capable of doing what she is trying to do by herself -- in large part because she is too emotionally invested, and because she has her own deeply ingrained issues of co-dependency. I mean how is she supposed to navigate that in real-time without any space or time to reflect and correct? And then too it is like this vital crucial situation in which she is in way too deep becomes like her guinea pig to be irresponsible within, because she is not taking responsibility to find a point of stability until she herself is stable and able to respond in common sense. She is ir-response-able, literally.


Another cool point that came up was just seeing again how any kind of change has to be a slow and steady grind, or else it just a reaction as a "solution" or a "cure" that will soon crumble without the consistency and stability and true lived learning experiences. Also to see how the best thing I can do is set an example by my behavior. The words I speak are very important, but so is how I say them, and what specifically I choose to say and when. So I see how my approach to any of these family "issues" has to be slow and steady, or none at all, because anything else is detrimental to myself and to the cause. So it was really cool today how in both familial interactions I had today, I was able to express myself clearly, slowly, and steadily, not allowing myself to become so emotionally invested / divested that I would exhaust myself and then be of no use.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to myself in disgust basically when I identify certain aspects of my behavior, thought process, or vocal tonalities as being similar to those of my mom.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only react within these points, never investigating who I am within that reaction or who I am within that behavior.

I forgive myself then for accepting and allowing myself to carry over that disgust and project it onto my mother in anger and disgust, not wanting even to look at her because I so do not want to see myself in her.

I realize from experience that when I push myself to actually look at her and make eye contact with her, I am better able to equalize and see her and myself as two human beings.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid eye contact with my mom because I am angry, I do not want to see or look at her, and I do not want to see or look at myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project anger toward my mom and express anger and irritation in our interactions because of reactions I have had in myself not even in her presence.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to disrupt my relationship with my mother because of my own reactions.

When and as I see myself reaction to what I identify within my own behavior as reminding me of my mom, I stop and I breathe. I commit myself to investigating these reactions more. I commit myself to investigating myself as co-dependent. I commit myself to follow through on my agreement to attend Al-Anon meetings with my mom so as to support her and myself and other members of our family. I commit myself to explore my relationship with my mom as a dimension of who I am. I commit myself to take responsibility for my moods and reactions in relation to my mother. I commit myself also thus to not let my relationship with my mother be the last point I address, as it has thus far continued to stay at the bottom of the "list" of points. I commit myself to making it a priority as a central point within my life, given how often I see and communicate with my mom. I realize if I do not walk this point, then I am likely to miss the point in other points, and therefore ignoring this point is self sabotage. I also realize that I am accountable only to myself, and so even if my mom lets me "get away with" treating her poorly and being irritable around her, I cannot allow this in myself, and I cannot be self honest, self supportive, or self responsible if I do not walk this point that I see and have seen clearly in front of me. My process will be sabotaged if I continue to ignore this point.


What is cool is that just yesterday I also wrote on my relationship with my mom, privately, and now there has been a facilitated opportunity to address the relationship and open up the point. I will share here:

Simple questions lead to actual answers.

In my usual indecisive fashion I've been struggling to decide if I want to go to Tahoe this weekend or not. I was sharing this with a friend and said that one of the reasons I am weighing is that lately I am pretty irritable around my mom, and right now it is just my mom and grandparents in Tahoe. So I have been irritable on the one hand, which is a reason not to go, so as to not be around her, but on the other hand I am not irritable with my grandparents, so maybe I could sort of break down the irritability by spending time with the three of them together. My friend asked why I was irritable, was I mad at her for something?

I could only say No. I mean I'm not mad at her really. She hasn't done anything "wrong" per se. My friend asked if I disagreed with any of her decisions she's making, and so I then explained that I'm not really mad about any of her decisions presently, but that I am holding onto anger about past decisions. And it's not necessarily that present decisions have changed or been much different, I've just detached myself from being invested in her decisions presently. So I've let go of the present, but I haven't yet let go of the past. And of course here my friend pointed out that we cannot hold onto the past, we're not in the past, we're in the present, here and now. All I could say is "yeah, you're totally right" and see myself. She pointed out too that maybe this means I have not yet accepted some facet of reality of what happened in the past. I am still wishing it had gone another way. And so here then I see that if I am wishing something had gone another way, then I am blaming the past, and another within the past, for who I am, or how now is. Still living in the past, not now. Not taking what is and working with what is and walking through what is.

I mean this is so simple, but it took some simple questioning by a friend who was simply trying to understand me to actually realize it and admit it and see it. Because I'd been ignoring it. Like the elephant in the room I don't want to address right now. "I'll get to that later." I knew perfectly well it was happening. I just wasn't facing it.

(Which is interesting because, as I will share here soon, this point manifests in part as a not-facing and lack of eye contact.)

It was actually the last time that I was in Tahoe that I last wrote about my relationship with my mom, but I didn't post it here. So now I will look at that writing again and bring some of it here, and also walk some self forgiveness on the irritability in general and my resistance to changing and walking this point.

This also relates to what I have mentioned in some of my recent previous posts about holding myself hostage to my own "failures" as a way to punish the person onto whom I project blame for who I am.


---


I still want to edit the writing mentioned for sharing, but due to time I will not today. But here I can see what some of the ways are that I renew my anger with my mom through my reactions to behaviors that I see her in myself.

But I also see that I am also still holding onto the past interactions and past "infractions" that I've not really forgiven her for. And she has said this actually. Like sometimes I will bring it up trying to make her understand why I am so irritable, why our relationship suffers. But what am I expecting of her? She goes into a guilt-trip kind of reaction, and this frustrates me more. But really, what do I want? Neither of us has a time machine. She has apologized. I guess I want her to change. I want her to be less this, more that. I want her to change the ways she deals with certain "issues." I get irritated by quirky idiosyncrasies. But why that? Why the quirks? Is it a fear that I will be like her, that I too do those quirks? Or a knowledge from experience that I do in fact also do those quirks?

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to investigate who I am and why, and I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take absolute responsibility for who I am, which means changing myself, and directing myself, so that if I am any way that I do not "like," I change it, rather than react or project blame onto my mom for having shown me this way of being.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not forgive my mother.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame my mother for who I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see the error of having thought for so many years that my mom was perfect, the best, blameless, and then to react in polarity and get stuck in polarity of now believing the opposite, and justifying it through anger at myself for not having seen who she is sooner. I still do not see who she is, because I am still in reaction. So here I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to ever really see my mom, or myself, as life, as beings, and to accept and love each of us unconditionally. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold angry emotional energy against my mom, again holding myself hostage in this energy, and also locking myself into that which I judge, where when I judge my mom I realize I am setting myself up to be locked into that judged behavior.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become reactive when my mom enters a kind of guilt-trip reaction when I bring up issues from the past, rather than actually hearing her when she asks if she can't ever be forgiven. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to believe that my mom deserves to be forgiven, that she must do something before she can be forgiven.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continually use other people in my life as a scapegoat for who I am, so that if I can hold anger and resentment against them, I never have to take responsibility for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continually live in the past of "infractions" others have "committed against me" or otherwise just the reasons I have been mad "at others" in the past. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to look at my anger in this instance with my mom in the same way I have examined it in grudges, where I can see that anger against another is always at least in part really anger against myself. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to see the ways I am angry with myself for who I was in the past, things I have blamed on my mom that really I chose to be, I accepted and allowed.


I commit myself to continue on this path of my process of walking these points in relation to my mom over time. I commit myself to writing on this point when and as it comes up, because it comes up often, and I do not need a "facilitated opportunity" to walk these points.


I will come back to this point in the future.



Previous Pertinent Posts:

• Evolution of My Relationship Dynamics from Childhood to Young Adulthood - Day 3
• Responsibility in Family Dynamics - Day 29

Showing Up for Myself Part 6: Substance Abuse - Day 120

It's been over a month since I first wrote this post about showing up for myself, wherein I was brain storming and problem solving an experience of depression, and I have revisited every point since then except the last one:

I also know that there are points which I do not wish to change, and that there are ways I am actively not supporting myself which I could easily write about but have not because I have not wanted to make commitments to myself to change. For example, eating very unhealthy foods in the absence of anything healthy or nutritious (which obviously is going to contribute to this problem of tiredness and lethargy).

• I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to face myself within certain points and write out certain points because I already know that I do not want to change them, because I want to continue to indulge in these self abusive behaviors and continue to avoid responsibility for myself. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to realize the benefit of supporting myself through self change, through taking responsibility for myself. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to continue to self sabotage because "I like it" or "it's fun" or even within an awareness of punishment where I know that this behavior will push me further into negative experiences that will cloud and stifle my ability to direct myself within self honesty and self responsibility. 

• When and as I see myself avoiding walking a point out of a fear of having to change that point, or a resistance to changing that point right now/yet, I stop and I breathe. I realize that even if I do not change the point right away, I can support myself in seeing who I am within that behavior, how it does or does not benefit me, how it is or is not what is best for all, how it does or does not serve to support myself in self responsibility. Within facing and seeing and writing out the point I can see why I should change and thus support myself to actually change. So I commit myself to seeing myself always in self honesty and self responsibility, to writing out who I am in various behaviors/points, and to making practical commitments to myself that I can keep, building on commitments so that I do in fact change. 

Here's the problem:

I came home every single day this week, except one where I had plans with family, and drank half a bottle of wine and a cookies n cream milkshake. I do this generally as the last item on my "to-do" list for the evening, within the realization that once I've had wine I won't be expecting myself to do anything else, because it has such a strong effect / I drink so much. I did this also back when I smoked every day. I would come home, do whatever I absolutely had to do, and then let it all go and (ab)use substance. With smoking there would sometimes be things I would do while high (chores, art, yoga, hang out with friends, etc., and, of course, watch TV), but for the past week with drinking, I pretty much just sit there and watch TV. I stopped smoking before I began my JTL blog so that was never an issue, but here now with drinking I would not expect myself to write a blog after drinking.

So, basically, this means that all day I am looking forward to that moment in time when I will allow myself to abuse substance, to drink, or, in the past, smoke. Work is work, it's fine, I'm there, I'm doing my job, it's cool (and actually I am really enjoying my new job a lot so far!). Then I come home and I start looking at the clock. How much time can I preserve to basically waste while under the influence of some substance? I better run this errand fast. My dog doesn't need a very long walk. My blog, ehhh, whatever, that's good enough. Maybe I can read other blogs later tonight, after doing my "relaxing." I'll transcribe later. I want to draw, but, eh, not tonight, I'd rather drink.

I'd rather drink.

Prior to this, these behaviors occurred, but not with as much consistency. There were periods during the last month+ that I abstained from both of these, although I typically find a way to fit sweets into my diet either through ice cream or baked goods. If I have a look at my neat app I have for keeping track of my behaviors / habits (Way of Life if you have an apple product -- this app is the only reason I have held onto my iphone since making the switch to android), I can see that I actually went 3 months without drinking any wine at all. Then, in July, just 1 instance. Now in August I have had a large glass of wine, or two, 10 out of 16 days, and eaten sweets 9 out of 16 days (I started tracking sweets in the middle of July so I don't have much data prior to August). I have also recorded binge behavior 6 out of 16 days, where I have allowed myself to basically eat mindlessly and well beyond the point of being full. I've not tracked my TV watching behavior, but I know that for the past week I've watched more than just the usual one episode of a show per day. This past week is really representative of problematic self abusive behavior. I have watched myself lose sight of myself through my consistent participation in these behaviors over the course of this past week.



Now, I'd not reported feeling "stressed," "depressed," or "anxious" on any of the days that I partook in drinking wine or eating sweets. And yet at the same time these have served as excuses within my mind in the moment of abdication where I have thought, "oh, I'm so stressed with this new job! I need to let loose," or, "there are so many sad things right now, I need to relax and have fun," or, "I'm anxious, I should distract myself from my anxiety" -- so that each of these served as an excuse in the moment but then later when I was reflecting on my day and recording my behaviors in this app, these experiences didn't stand out anymore (perhaps because by then I was drunk / buzzed?). And this was true when I lived in Colorado and smoked every day, too. Sure, it was a pretty stressful job at times, but for the most part I really enjoyed it, and yet I used it as an excuse to check out every night by drugging myself.

However, I see that as I have consistently participated in these behaviors recently, I have become more and more depressed and stressed and anxious because I have (1) judged myself, (2) abdicated responsibility for myself, (3) resisted accomplishing things that I want to accomplish / am obligated to accomplish, and (4) have lost touch with myself and reality through evasive behaviors of avoiding seeing myself or seeing reality for hours at a time. So here I am actively through my behaviors as what I accept and allow myself to physically do creating an experience of depression.

I am also engaging in "addiction," which to me at this point means simply that even when I am not partaking in these activities, I am thinking about these activities, and I am thinking about the next time I can engage in these activities, and I am throwing a little tantrum within my mind if I consider the possibility that perhaps I should abstain from these activities, perhaps I should change. These "activities" meaning drinking, eating / eating sweets, and watching TV -- and this used to also be very much the case with smoking.

And last night, vision slightly blurred, belly bloated, I glanced down at myself and thought, "I hate myself." That was it, it stopped there. But that was enough. Something is wrong here Kaitlee, and it's happening because you're allowing it to happen. It isn't "just the way it is" and it doesn't not matter. It isn't such a slippery slope that I have to now go down it. I am here in every moment, here to direct myself. So now, to stand, to see, and to make a choice.

 So there is a plethora of "problems" here:

• Abusing substance as alcohol - escapism behavior and seeking positive feelings
• Also in general with substance abuse comes a belief pattern that I cannot engage in activities such as chores for example unless I am under the influence of a substance, because the substance will make that chore "more fun" or "more interesting" or "more bearable" -- so this stems from how I set up for myself a pattern of always smoking before engaging in certain non-preferred activities as a way to compel myself to complete the activity. 
• Abusing substance as sweets (ice cream, baked goods) / food in general (binge behavior) - escapism behavior and seeking positive feelings
• This of course has consequences of increasing my self consciousness of my body and body image and the subsequent self judgments with that, so a behavior which brings up more points to face or avoid / self sabotage by over eating because I know my reaction to the physical consequences of this is negative and promotes further self abuse / is not a point I have walked to completion yet. 
• Abusing time as zoning out with watching multiple episodes of a TV show in a row - escapism behavior and seeking positive feelings
• Continued use of routines as rules wherein I reinforce through my behavior that eating and watching TV must coincide, although in the past week I have eaten dinner during one episode and my ice cream during a second episode, then on a couple occasions still watching a third episode without eating anything. 
• I used to do things with friends; now I don't, now "I don't have any friends." 
• I am skeptical of most people, judgmental, etc., but also noticed that when coworkers indicated they wanted to get to know me more this week, aside from work related topics, I immediately threw up walls within the thought "you don't want to know me, I'm not interesting, shit what do I even have to share? why would anyone want to know me?" 
• So, skeptical and judgmental of myself. Would not be surprising if this experience was compounded by recent substance abuse / escapism behaviors, where if I was not so busy hiding from myself recently, I wouldn't be so frantic about hiding from others. 
• Even when I am not yet physically under the influence of any of these substances or activities, I am still under their influence within and as my mind, looking forward to my participation in these behaviors, and not allowing myself to be HERE in the NOW of whatever is in front of me, instead wishing to rush through it because I am focused on what I would rather be doing, what I plan to eventually be doing. 
• So I plan to abuse substances. I fit it into my schedule, and it takes priority of importance, but because it is a last stop in the day, the other priorities become rushed and careless and less important aside from being able to check them off a list. 
• So substance abuse is "pre-meditated," and what I run into sometimes in this instance, as well as, for example, with taking naps, is that I will plan on doing something like this, then when the time comes to actually do it, I check in with myself, see that I no longer wish to participate, and then do it anyway basically because I planned on it, so I might as well still do it, eh why not. 

With most of these there is like an immediate "reward" of escapism and positive feelings, and a long-term "negative" consequence in terms of abdication of self honesty and self responsibility as well as other forms of self abuse. So I can see that I am primarily focused on the instant gratification at the expense of long-term self abuse. 

So I will be going to the grocery store in the next day or two, and I will have the opportunity to walk past the wine, and I will have the opportunity to make a decision at that point (aside from the decisions I presently make constantly to not go out explicitly to purchase alcohol). So here I commit myself to abstain from even purchasing alcohol until I write out more on this point and also to give myself the opportunity to remain sober and present within and as myself within and as the physical, rather than escaping and seeking positive feelings through the abuse of alcohol.

When I first stopped smoking and, temporarily, stopped drinking about 7 months ago, I took it one breath at a time, one moment at a time. I made no commitments to myself to stop "cold turkey," but simply allowed myself to exist honestly in each moment, and then make a decision in each moment in honesty what I would do, and I found that in self honesty, my decision was not to turn to drugs. In self honesty, I was actually enjoying being aware and being here. Now I do not think that I need to take it moment by moment, so broken down. I think I can make a commitment to myself to not drink for a week, basically from the starting point of "seeing how that goes" so that I can show myself the consequences of the accumulation of my actions, where drinking every day for a week has led to one thing, so what does not drinking at all for a week lead to? My guess: clarity, and a sense of connection with myself in the physical. We'll see.

--- later ----

I wrote this post this morning and now that I have come to the middle of the day I have already faced the point again, "what am I doing later tonight?" I'd actually already had a pretty solid plan, but instead of that plan I by default thought, "I'll get some wine, and..."

The day hasn't been "bad" by any means but I can pinpoint a few reasons I might want to escape, and none of them are really valid or even a big deal at all. Small little things that I transform into excuses.

And I also see myself thinking, it's the weekend, it's okay, just don't drink during the week. And that may be fine if I am able to partake responsibly. But I have shown myself that right now I cannot. So here's to day 1.

I will continue writing on these topics in posts to come, mainly self forgiveness and self commitment statements. 

Showing Up for Myself - Day 83
Showing Up for Myself Part 1: lONEliness - Day 85
Showing Up for Myself Part 1.5: Abandoning Myself through Participation in My Mind - Day 86
Showing Up for Myself Part 2: Walking Through Points in Writing & the Writing Process - Day 87

Showing Up for Myself Part 3: Self Support through Reading Blogs - Day 89
Showing Up for Myself Part 4: Am I Doing a Good Job? - Day 91

Showing Up for Myself Part 5: Suppression, Depression, Mania, & Writing - Day 95

Urgency - Day 8

I feel urgent sometimes because:

- I have unanswered questions
- My emotions/feelings are overpowering and uncomfortable
- I desire something or someone
- I feel unsure within myself and need validation, ie I feel "not okay" and need someone to tell me I am "okay"
- I don't like whatever present circumstances I am experiencing and I want to "fast forward"

I want to break down this sense of urgency that comes with desire and strong emotional energies. Why do I feel so urgent? Here's how I see it panning out:

• exist in mind through imaginary hoped-for futures/unrealities
• experience cognitive dissonance between mind and reality
• experience anxiety due to discomfort of cognitive dissonance and desire to merge reality with imagination
• experience sense of urgency to resolve uncomfortable anxiety
• engage in impulsive thoughts and behaviors which are based on a frantic, frenetic search for relief from anxiety & cognitive dissonance and NOT based in reality or breath
• engage in escapist behaviors such as sleeping, zoning out to TV, or drugs/substance use/abuse

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to be okay with not having answers.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify myself as being unable to handle intense emotions/feelings such that I feel an urgency to have them end.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek validation outside myself when I feel unsure of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want a fast forward button for life and situations/relationships when all I would be fast forwarding into are new experiences with their own challenges for which I would not even be at all prepared because I fast forwarded.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resort to the answer of a fast forward button in the first place because it is like giving up on now. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to experience and engage with a sense of urgency, which is not being present with what is here and is not trusting myself to withstand/stand within it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to engage with my mind through imagining potential hoped-for futures, interactions, and unrealities that do not exist. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to play out entire scenarios of interactions and conversations in my mind and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to experience the emotional/energetic charges that accompany those scenarios.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not fully recognize the dissonance between what is happening in my mind and what is happening in reality. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to cling onto whatever real-life evidence I have for what is happening in my mind and disregard whatever real-life evidence I have against it or to show me that what is happening in my mind isn't even actually ideal as a future or potential reality. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live in my mind, placing priority over what happens there above what happens in real life. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be so disconnected with reality for whatever reason (fear, boredom, feeling aimless, confusion, you name it) that I would prefer to endure the dis-ease that is my mind existence.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move from a place of cognitive dissonance into a place of anxiety wherein rather than seeing the cognitive dissonance as an indicator that I am lying to myself, I instead feel out of control, frenetic, and in need of some kind of resolution to the feeling of anxiety. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, rather than stopping the energy of my mind and coming back to my breath and reality, embracing my mind unreality as what I want like a young child who wants a new toy, and engaging in fear of not getting what I want.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move from a place of anxiety to a place of urgency wherein I feel I desperately need a resolution to the discrepancies between my mind and reality. From this place I go to a kind of fight or flight: either impulsive thought & behavior, or depressive paralysis / suppression / numbing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move from a place of urgency to a place of impulsive thoughts, behaviors, and reactions. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can solve the urgency, anxiety, cognitive dissonance, and achieve my imagined unreality as reality through impulsive thoughts, behaviors, and reactions. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes act on my impulses and effectively fuck shit up and tailspin into regret and more of this same cycle.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move from a place of urgency to a place of depressive paralysis / suppression / numbing. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to let the urgency be so overwhelming that I give up on taking any self-directive responsibility over my life at all and instead retreat into a disconnect from reality. This does at least tend to prove more productive in the long-term than acting on impulses, simply because the numbing tends to also numb my mind which takes me away from the imagined futures and urgency, but it's pretty roundabout and ineffective/unproductive as something to do every time this cycle occurs and doesn't actually solve anything or better prepare me for my next encounter.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to engage in this cycle which takes me far and away from my breath, from feeling "grounded" and "centered" within myself and reality.