The Most Difficult Drug Addiction to Overcome is That Of…
The most difficult drug addiction to overcome is in my opinion, an irrelevant question for those of us that have battled addiction. The answer is subjective. Addiction isn’t the catalyst, it’s the result.
The Truth is, the most difficult drug addiction to overcome is any substance, activity, or behavior used to mask the unresolved and the disconnect within ourselves. The hurt for most of us, that hole or void felt deep within us, began long before the first hit.
If we have any hope of overcoming our addiction, then we must work on the healing of ourselves and the mending of the disconnect that we have been running from for so long. We need to be there for each other and acknowledge and have empathy for the challenges each of us has faced.
Enough of hiding our struggles of addiction in the dark. In this post, I will open up and share some of my own struggles of mental health, addiction, and how I have come to terms with myself and begun to heal.
The Most Difficult Addiction to Overcome: My Own Tangle of Mental Health and Addiction
“No One is Told Any Story But Their Own” – C.S. Lewis
My story is my own. It started with what I thought was innocent enough. Just a sampling of cocaine or meth. But in the end, I attempted to end it all and take my own life.
My drug addiction is one of a dual diagnosis. I didn’t recognize it or know enough about mental health when I was young. When I reflect on my childhood, it is obvious that I struggled a great deal with Anxiety and Self-Esteem. This struggle has continued into adulthood.
Somewhere along the way, I became convinced that the only way to ever be good enough was to be perfect. It became an obsession for me to achieve a 4.0, to win every swimming event, and to do so while giving the appearance of it being effortless and from natural talent.
This type of thinking instantly set me up to despise myself and to have low self-esteem. I never achieved a 4.0, I never won every single swimming event, and neither were done effortlessly.
My mental state became so self-defeating, that I protected myself from my own disappointments by choosing to never try. This was easier for me to handle at the time so that I could be shielded from my own absurd and unrealistic expectations.
I remember when I would finish a swimming event and it didn’t go my way, I would throw a tantrum, curse, throw things, yell at myself and berate myself. My mom would watch me do this and I could see that she was worried for me. I was so emotionally charged, sensitive, and I could not get a handle on myself or my mindset.
The same thing would happen with report cards. I would cry and beat myself up for not getting straight A’s. Life was hard for me. It was a struggle of mindset and perception.
School was lonely for me. I was an introvert and I liked to be alone. But I could also be extremely passionate and outspoken when something moved me. When I did speak, I was so passionate about certain subjects that I didn’t ever feel like a could quite fit in.
It wasn’t just my introversion but the extremes I felt. There was a disconnect between the moments of wanting to self-reflect and be alone with my thoughts and those of wanting to express my passions for subjects and topics. There was no middle ground, and it was an uncomfortable feeling.
Spending time alone seemed the easier option. I liked spending time with my dogs. But other kids? I didn’t know what to do with kids my own age. Frankly, it was a lonely and anxiety filled childhood, and it was exhausting.
This all came at an enormous cost. I know now, why I was such a concern for my mom and later on my dad. By hiding away, I missed out on the practice of socialization. The social skills so many others take for granted; I just couldn’t wrap my head around.
All of this was left unresolved as I entered adulthood. Barely graduating from High School, I had a dream of the future that was undefined. The only thing I knew was that I wanted the future to be nothing like what I just came from. But the lack of clarity in my dreams and goals mirrored the lack in understanding of myself.
With no clear destination in mind, my life’s journey meandered in every direction. I was lost; more lost than I had ever been in my whole life. I fell into addiction easily and methamphetamine in the short run, provided me with blissful moments of feeling loved, capable, and worthy of a good life.
And so began a journey of 10 years or more that brought me to the very edge. I made an inexplicable attempt on my life that is still hard to enable others to understand. It was drawn out just over a month and it speaks to how far gone my mental state was.
I wanted to be released from my life so terribly, and yet could not come to terms with the final act. It was my life’s ultimate point of reaching a place I can only speak of as a form of insanity.
I was lucky and was found just in time. Rushed to the hospital and awakened to my dad looking at me. Those eyes, the way my dad looked at me. I had broken his heart. What had I done?
A Great Unlearning
We must challenge the truths taught to us that we assumed were true and never questioned; and we must challenge and question our own perception of what truth is for ourselves.
“Our thoughts are powerful; Our perspectives are suspect”
https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/301337?ver=277
Much of what must be unlearned was taught to us out of love but was born of fear generations before.
We compounded the problem by thinking that the solution was defense and self-preservation. Building barriers around ourselves that isolated us and severed the connections to those around us.
We hid from ourselves. The idea that we deserved more and were more than this began to terrify us. We used addiction to grease the wheels of our self-deprivation.
We lived a life on the run from ourselves. Allowing addiction to train and wire our brains in a way that caused us to stray from our true selves and the self-actualization we deserved.
A Strong Sense of Self – Mending What Was Broken
It is not just about an unlearning. If it was, what would be left of us once we abandoned the addictions we clung to?
We deserve more than to live a life that consists of all that we must NOT do. To live a life filled with new rules comprised of don’t and can Nots is still no life at all.
We must find new purpose by revisiting and uncovering our strengths. Laying down the foundation for a life reborn and newly discovered. To discover all that we can and must do. This is how to heal and to bring purpose and focus to the mind and spirit. That is what we deserve. It is what we must lean into.
I won’t go into best practices for a recovery program. It is not my expertise. My recovery journey is my own just as your recovery is yours.
However, I will say this. You and I deserve more than a life that is about avoiding the bad and obsessing over what we can no longer do.
Let your life’s journey lead you to the establishment of a strong sense of self. You deserve to achieve self-actualization. We all deserve to feel as though we belong here. And we deserve not just to feel, but to know deep down, that we are loved, needed, and here on purpose.
The Most Difficult Drug Addiction To Overcome…Final Thoughts
So where am I at with myself and my life now? My anxiety is still there. My addiction, even in recovery, is still there. They both will always be there. But they are no longer running my life. I am the ruler of my own life now.
I am grateful that life is not a straight line or flat and boring. Without mountains, there would be no view; without darkness, light would seem so plain. If the sun never dimmed, there would be no sunrise and no sunset. And right after the rain, the sky is the clearest it will ever be and the light protruding through a break in the storm adds drama to the story. All of this ultimately adds beauty to what I see as life’s narrative.
My mental health, anxiety, and story of addiction are my narrative. Because I was in the dark, the light is so much grander. To forget the story completely would be to forget my gratitude and also my perseverance and strength.
I can run from it. Or I can use it and rewrite it’s meaning in my life. In this way, I have regained the power over my own journey and it’s meaning. I am the narrator and no one else.
My life has a bit of an edge to it, and I like it. Instead of a mundane calm, it’s enough turbulence at the margins to enable my sails to carry me across the sea. I wonder what distant island is out there, waiting for me to discover?
There is now a mission to my life. It feels good to say, for it was not always so. I am no longer lost and meandering through the muck and the mud.
I am working on taking life on, one event at a time. And as each event transpires and unfolds, I take care to craft and narrate a meaning that adds beauty to our shared story. I pray that I continue to do this for myself, and so inspire you to do so for your own life.
Thanks for Reading. Sincerely,
Kurt Petersen
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