I just realized.. I unknowingly designed my own treatment plan. I never wanted a treatment plan. No one does. And I didn’t realize till just now that I had been doing this.
Many things they try and teach you in rehabs, are good life lessons, tips, standard stuff really. Eat healthier, do yoga, talk to people, and so on. I have been forcing myself to do all these things, and get out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone ended up being like one of those sofas, that only fit one person really, because they’ve laid on it so much it’s become the shape of just them. I needed a new sofa.
So I started doing these things.. Stop drinking.. And then coincidentally, I was on facebook (before I quit social media), and then Alena (someone I didn’t know) posted about her yoga classes, so I contacted her via messenger. Well, if you aren’t friends with the person, messages sometimes gets sent to a diff chat list, and you might not even be notified its even there. So she didn’t respond till months later. That serendipitously was when I quit drinking. She told me to come on Monday and I did. I showed up to a persons house I didn’t know, to do something I know at the time I didn’t like to do – but at this point – I’m desperate. Desperate for life.
Yoga, drinking, and smoking
I love yoga now. I love her classes. I made a new friend also, the only other male there. Yoga has helped with my everyday life, but most importantly, it helps with my skateboarding. I say most importantly, not because I love skateboarding, which I do. But because of that love and other loves of my life, it motivated me to make positive changes in my life. I quit smoking, because I loved a woman, and I loved my daughters and they didn’t like me smoking. But what kept me from smoking cigarettes ever again was skateboarding. I couldn’t skate if I smoked. It’s also what helped me quit drinking like I used to. Drinking makes me loose coordination and balance. Both are required for, well, most activities but especially skateboarding. And once I got a little more clarity in my head, I could see it more plainly.
You are what you eat
I eat much more healthy than I used to. I’m not perfect, and I’m no vegetarian (though I’d love to be), but again, perhaps due to some new clarity I’ve been finding, I’ve been making better and more conscious decisions regarding my diet. The same woman that motivated me to quit smoking, also made me see the benefits of eating healthier (she was a vegetarian), among other things. The phrase, you are what you eat, is so true. And when you think about it like that – do you really want to put some chip that looks like it could glow in the dark, that you pulled out of shiny foil looking bag that could equally glow in the dark into your body? I didn’t want to glow in the dark.
You gotta move around
Physical activity is so important I’ve learned. I skateboard, I do yoga, I’m starting to run, and looking into getting in a mens basketball league with one my best friends. Anytime my mood is dropping, and it’s getting more infrequent every single day (I fucking love it), all I have to do is start skateboarding, or some sort of activity and my mood almost instantly is changed. It’s just another small miracle I’ve learned to give myself when needed.
Sleep!
I used an exclamation point there because I wanted to stress how important I’m finding out sleep is. I used to rarely sleep, for a number of reasons, one probably being I was injecting multiple grams of speed per day into any vein I could find, for years. I slept on average 2 hours per day, with many, many (consecutive) days of no sleeping whatsoever, thrown in there. There is physically no way for your body to heal or grow or mature without proper sleep. We just don’t operate like that. Well, I tried to prove that theory wrong for so long, I almost wore it as a badge of honor. I’m here to tell you (which is shocking by itself) that I was wrong. The theory is intact. You don’t need to figure this one out on your own. You’re welcome.
Feeling
I never felt anything before. I may have had some chemical reactions going on in my body that I recognized as some emotion possibly creeping up, but I never allowed myself to feel… anything. To actually embrace a feeling, even pain, with open arms and say its okay I’m feeling this. That never happened. Not until recently. And it’s so important.. It’s what life is. I thought I knew what love was before. I didn’t. I didn’t know what it felt like to embrace someone so tight because at that moment, nothing else mattered. I didn’t know what it felt like to truly and honestly give up anything and everything for someone else, until now. It is such a gift. It’s the greatest gift I’ve given myself.
There’s so many things I do now, that to most of you is probably common sense. But as you’ve probably already figured out, I don’t do common all that well. And sense was thrown out the window before I was 16. All this stuff, despite it being spoon fed to me for years, by many, many people with many plaques on their walls. I just didn’t trust them. I trusted the drugs more. Because the drug were reliable. People were not. That’s what I used to think anyhow. How wrong I was. I have so much love, so much anger, so much trust, so much distrust, so much pain, so much laughter. I’ve learned that it’s all okay. My therapist reminds me of this on a daily basis, and I love her for it. It allows me to be me. To be human. It allows me to accept that others are just human as well. And when you finally get a glimpse of this, it’s like your heart just grew to allow for compassion.
What a world that would be.
