Having a Good Day? Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Take it Easy!

I’ve felt pretty good about myself and my quit these past couple of days. I’ve had moments of being refreshed and excited. I wanted to shout it to the world! Only to take a step back and say “slow down fella, at any one moment you’re about 2 seconds from caving, take it easy.” It may sound harsh, but at day 46 it’s the truth, and it will be the truth on day 100, day 1000 and day 10,000 (I had to check my math there to make sure that I could actually live 10,000 days, 28 years, no problem.).

I’ve had a couple of pretty good sized quits in my life as an addict. One of more than 2 and a half years and more recently an 8 month quit. After those two failures I needed to realize and accept a hard truth if this quit was going to be different. I am an addict. I will always be an addict. When it comes to this I have zero self control, once will never be enough, I can’t stop at just one. This is a tough pill to swallow. Especially for someone who always thought that he could mentally overcome anything. Hell, I just up and quit drinking one day and never looked back, and I was well known for my drinking prowess, certainly in college. But this is something different and I had to realize it.

It’s a truth, a fact about myself that I have to realize every second of every day. For the rest of my life. Eventually I’ll be comfortable enough to exclaim to the world that ‘I am quit, I don’t dip’ but that is not day 46. I still have the fear, as I should. However, I also have a cautious optimism. I look forward to day 50, 100, 365, and beyond. I look forward to the day when I can say ‘I do not dip.’

jjprice
Day 46