It'll be 5 months on 4/11, but I know it's gone

I'm not psyched up about it, I've been there and done that and being psyched up only gets you so far. And I've had longer streaks before, but my mental state and actually sense of self is very different now. The thing is, it's easy. I'm literally putting no effort into it, I don't use the timer safe anymore. I do have thoughts, but I don't act on them. My volition is just not wired up with those thoughts and urges anymore when they do come up. I'm basically just disinterested now. I don't even stay up late when I have the phone next to my bed.

I've known about this a few weeks after that date, I did something specific which I'm going to just call meditation/energy healing on myself which took a few hours, I don't want to leave room for any interpretation that I'm promoting something on any level since I just want to tell the story. It is quite possible that was just one thing and I was just lucky that other things were in place and it was kind of like the linch pin that dismantled the whole thing. I had some urges for like the first couple of weeks after it happened, and I could feel something gone in my lower belly where it felt like an empty space, which I can only explain like the kind of thing that's always there and you don't notice until it's gone.

I've thought of coming on here to make a post like this but I mean what would I say, and I realize it will sound out there and people may not relate if anything. I've tried the same thing on my AP but it has been more an overall reduction than a complete removal, which I honestly believe is what has happened for me. I wish I can duplicate this and understand it more thoroughly so it can be given to other people, and maybe at some point I will, but for now I just hope some people out there may find it encouraging that this is possible.

So I actually don't have a long epic tale to tell, but to give maybe a little glimpse into my mental state now I had a role playing - actually a cat fishing kind of thought today, where before that would get me excited and I would invest a sense of belief in reality in it, and that just didn't happen. I recognized that difference a few seconds after that came up and thought that's interesting. It's a memory, and it's not totally devoid of feeling, but the inclination to act on it and believe in it are both gone, and that seems to be what makes the difference because it just kind of doesn't come alive without those two factors.

For those involved in traditional recovery, this is not the pink cloud. I certainly have other things to work on, and I still go to meetings, but I don't think I need that to recovery from PMO in particular but it's actually to build community since that's needed for plenty of other things and is actually just part of normal human life. Doing a program and a ton of meetings isn't what did it for me, or didn't play a prominent role in the total process, it may work for others but it's just not what happened in my case. And I'm sure a lot of people who go by time will say four and a half month is nothing in the scheme of things, but honestly if this didn't happen and I'm not experiencing it I would say the time counting counts, but since I've both had a longer streak where my mind isn't where it is now and see evidence that others who have the time and still struggles, who probably have more will power than me it's pretty clear this is some kind of fundamental shift. All I can say is somewhere, somehow it is possible to have a mental shift like this which is seriously interesting I think you'll agree. Actually, going back to traditional recovery I believe 12 Step recognizes something called having the compulsion removed, I guess that's essentially what happened.

It's amazing how the mind can change, and not through will power. It's a valiant effort at certain times of the process, but to have this happen when it's so clearly not about effort at all is just too amazing not to share. I hope it's encouraging and inspires hope for someone out there.

 

I don't mean to make it sound trivial or cavalier, my experience now is that it's easy but I mostly consider myself lucky at having arrived at where I am now. And while the practice I did does seem to be a key in my case, I don't think it's the only thing. It's kind of like having discovered there's a chain lock on the door, the knob and deadbolt etc. also had to be unlocked so there are multiple factors. My AP who is a few decades older and has prostate cancer has found some relief with it but it hasn't led to the same total clearing for him.

I hope we'll get to the point where there's kind of a functional understanding of addiction recovery, not even with experts only but where people who have been in it a while have that perspective an can kind of see what specifically people need to do at a certain part of the process.