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My turning point had several in them in my life. My major one, my last final one, when
it became concrete in my mind was when I ended up in jail.
The day I got arrested, I remember smiling in the back of the cop car, the police officer
actually looked into the rear view mirror and said "You look pretty happy for someone
that got arrested", and I said "I didn't get arrested", and he started going on about "Yeah
I read your rights and this and that, don't tell me you weren't arrested" I said "No,
I wasn't arrested, I was rescued". That's how I felt.
I've had some great support from different services here, but it's been a struggle and
it hasn't. I've had to apply myself and therefore the struggle didn't exist as it might exist.
I do a lot of volunteer work and that really help me I think stay away from feeling stigmatized
or feeling like I'm being stereotyped. Because the places where I do my volunteer work and
I still continue to do it, they've treated me nothing short of royally.
It feels really refreshing. And the abstinence is not the state that I'm heading for. It's
more sobriety. Sobriety have nothing to do with abstinence. It's a clear mind and I'm
getting there slowly. It's been sixteen and a half month and I'm just getting into that
realm now. I feel much healthier, I feel way more balanced. I'm a lot more sensitive to
daily stresses, which I know then to back off in my own way. Wether that's physically,
mentally or emotionally. And I kind of reset myself and that's what's really developed
in me. Is a keen sense of dealing with my own inner stress, which is - everyone has
stress. We need stress to live, but obviously I wasn't dealing with life's stresses very
well.
These challenges exists everywhere. And if this helps one person through an addiction
of any sort, it would be a good thing.
How great it feels? I'm no longer a slave to substances, to behaviours, which were very
toxic to the community in many different ways. I had a criminal addiction so I did a lot
of stuff - I never did hurt anybody directly or anything like that, but I was getting a
bad conscience for awhile.
Before and right after too about knowing not just what I've taken from people and places,
but what kind of stresses have I cause them in their own lives, due to my behaviour, in
many different ways. Wether they were an employee somewhere, well you know what, that affected
them, did they take that home? I started thinking about that, and by thinking about it and processing
it properly, I think I managed to get rid of it. And now I don't have to live that way.
I don't have to go through my daily life thinking about that stuff. Which was for me a continuing
cycle, thinking about these things. It was keeping that circle perfectly. But that circle's
been cut now. Because I can live with myself, I can face myself on a different level that
I haven't faced myself in probably many years. I'm comfortable you know what I mean? With
myself, I'm comfortable with being common now. I really am.