i smashed my pipe, and i don’t need another one.

“In time we might walk the straight line/But with memories of a grapevine”
the radio dept., Pulling Our Weight

I just read a really great post about gratitude. It was short (which I don’t know how to do, apparently), and honest (which is all I do, even when I might appear to contradict myself), and so nail-on-the-head for me.

I am so grateful that I can imagine a life without meth today, because I am living it. It’s been over 18 months now since I touched the stuff, and that seemed so totally impossible then, and for years before that. I think I really thought I would be long-dead by now (or wherever it is the shadow people take you when they finally come to take you away).

I didn’t really think I could or would make it, or that whatever “it” was, was worth living for. I thought I was beyond help, beyond hope. I didn’t think I would be capable of loving or being loved again. I know today that isn’t true.

I’m beginning to try to understand what sanity means for me. When did I come to believe that I could be restored to sanity?

I’m not sure, but I know that for me part of keeping what I have gained is in not forgetting the insanity that was my life. I didn’t just act crazy when I was high…. My brain was fried. I was diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder because that’s how my brain was functioning at the time.

When I made the decision to stop using meth, I don’t really think I was planning to join the human race, or become a functional or productive member of society.

I just wanted the insanity to stop. Day after week after month after year of just not being, and yet being exhausted all the time to work so hard at accomplishing…. what?

I don’t remember exactly how I managed to live life, to get bills paid, to not get fired, to not burn every fucking bridge in my life. I did fuck up a lot. But I got through alive somehow.

So happy to be alive today. So grateful. I never have to use again.

Don’t use. Go to meetings. Get a sponsor. Work the steps. Let soak. For best results, rinse & repeat.