Black And White

I need to remind myself, when I think life is some awful thing that could be fixed or somehow improved by stabbing myself with needles full of soul poison, exactly what I've gained by being clean and living honestly, and exactly what I stand to give away if I use even once. Reading it over in black and white drives home what I can so easily let myself push aside in the heat of inner turmoil.

List ten things you are grateful for: 
1. Life as I now know it- clean.
2. Narcotics Anonymous.
3. My dogs, who never turned their backs on me no matter how sick I let myself get.
4. My family, who drive me nuts and keep me grounded all at once.
5. My boyfriend, Joel, who I love falling deeper in love with every day.
6. My friends, both new and old, who catch me before I fall and know me the way I'm finally starting to know myself.
7. The ability to laugh at my mistakes, learn from them, and then move forward.
8. My job and a boss who is cool with not scheduling me past 5:00 so I can make meetings.
9. The roof over my head, the floor under my feet, the food in my stomach and the fact that I have heat.
10. My higher power, who also has the ability to laugh at my mistakes, force me to learn from them, and then shove me from behind if I try to dwell and not move forward.

List ten things you would lose give away if you were to use drugs again:
1. My home
2. My boyfriend
3. My sanity-the ability to sanely and honestly assess a situation and see it for the surmountable thing it really is
4. My health- hello, abscesses, it's been awhile since we hung out together!
5. My job- I'd either steal, call in sick repeatedly, or come in too high to work (fuck, too high to speak probably)
6. The bits of trust I've worked my ass off to earn from those I love
7. My hope- it's so easy to let it go, so hard to find even a tiny shred of it again
8. My self-confidence- probably the easiest thing to shatter as it isn't too solid yet, it is so new
9. At least a few of my new friends
10. My clean time- I am the only one who can ever take that away from myself

Explain what made you have an urge to use drugs today:
I blew my entire first ever fully legal paycheck on a hotel room and dinner for my boyfriend and myself last night, and felt guilty for spending it all and only saving $2 when my friend in recovery said to put away $5 from each check to build a nest egg so decided to spend the rest of my day today beating myself up and convincing myself I am not worth the air I breathe, let alone the enjoyment of my first paycheck.

Explain how using drugs would have improved that situation:
It would have served only to give me a split second of oblivion- a split second before the reality of what I had done and what I had given away hit me.

What did you learn through staying clean today, or what lesson was reinforced for you today?
No matter what, there is nothing on this earth I will ever face that using drugs can possibly make better- and everything I face can be made unfathomably worse by using drugs. No matter what my fucked up head tells me, I never have to use drugs again, no matter what. I have friends in recovery today who can tell me when my shit stinks sometimes before I am able to smell it myself, and who can give me suggestions to survive anything clean. My recovery is bulletproof, bombproof, and can survive the center of a volcano- if I follow the path laid out for me by those who have fought this fight before, if I allow myself to learn from the mistakes others have made, and if I remain honest, open minded, and willing to change and do whatever it takes to stay clean. And that I can sure make one helluva mountain out of a tiny anthill. I did nothing wrong by spending MY money.