I keep failing and it pisses me off so much, I started seeing a psychologist and it helped me a bit (I stayed clean for 18days) but as soon as I returned home from my vacations, I relapsed. I will try to calm down and to start again properly but after all this time fighting my addiction, I am beginning to think I will never make it
Day 19 The one strike you are out challenge I am half way through, is really helping. You have to be strict with yourself by setting consequences if you mess up.
Don't think that way. You are the sole barrier between your addiction and your desired life. It depends on you. I know it's really hard, but you can make it, it is in fact possible to achieve this desire. Only thing you can do now is to go ahead, steam away and trust me, once you get past a certain point, the urges will just fade away, and be replaced by sheer enthusiasm and serenity.
g While the book Abstinence is a Myth by Adi Jaffe is simply a pitch and introduction to an expensive addiction recovery program, it changed my perspective on dealing with addiction. Addiction is not static. In addition, recovery is not an all or nothing affair. Here is an excerpt from the book that may help you: " The individual nature of addiction has another level that affects our experiences: addiction problems ebb and flow. The way people talk about addiction, you’d think that addicts are always stuck in an incomprehensible mess of a life. But for many, that is simply not true. The different elements involved— spirituality, psychology, biology, and the environment—wax and wane in severity as people’s lives change. As they get in and out of marriages or romantic relationships, surround themselves with different people, get sicker and healthier, face increased or reduced stress, and more, their addiction problem gets bigger or smaller—or disappears for long periods of time. The reality is that most people float in and out of their “addiction” state, but for the most part no one is paying attention when the problem isn’t there. Then all the old stories of addiction replay themselves when the person begins to struggle, perhaps after the death of a loved one, a job loss, or some other turning point. No matter what cycle of addiction we might fit into, without a strong enough foundation, we may return to unhealthy behaviors when a crisis comes along, not because our disease was waiting in the wings, but because of our unique mix of strengths and vulnerabilities. Our lives have changed substantially and we may need help righting ourselves at that particular moment in our lives. What’s more, what worked in the past may not work in the present. The “problems” underlying our addictions are not constant and neither are the solutions. We can think of the analogy of someone diagnosed with cancer. The five stages of cancer describe the condition in terms of scale and impact from small and very localized to larger and beginning to spread, and finally to large and affecting multiple organs. Along the continuum there are different treatment approaches—including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, plasma transfusions, and immunotherapy—and different prognoses. Some types of cancers and treatments even allow a person to control the disease’s progression for many years, not by eradicating it but by managing it. It’s similar to the model used for HIV infection, where a combination of drug therapies allows many people to live healthy lives without ever developing AIDS. With addiction, people travel between the different severities and dysfunction all the time. "
Day 51 The quality of my sleep has improved immensely especially during the past week. I feel more well-rested and have more energy for the day.