I know this is going to sound nuts but I feel like I lost 10 years somewhere. It's like my mind stopped growing 10 years ago, when I started using. But now that I'm clean I'm starting to think and feel the way I did 10 years ago. It's very very strange.
I can't explain it but sometimes I feel like I'm that person from 10 years ago not the person I am today. Anyone every feel this way?
If you used for 10 years, you were lost for 10 years. For 10 years you were under the conrtol of your disease. You were not you. I get what you are saying. I feel the same way sometimes and I had two kids that I barely remember them as babies. I tell myself that TODAY is the most important day. As long as I am living in today, the past doesnt bother me and the future doesn't scare me. As I grow in recovery (and cont. to write my 4th step) I find that a lot of the qualities I possessed before using I am noticing in me now.
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Danielle 10-14-04
"Lost dreams awaken and new possibilities arise"
Glenn, One of the things they told me in treatment is that we stop growing spiritually and emotionally when we begin to use. It was kind of intimidating to think at 35 that I was in a way still 13-14 years old. Just don't let the disease of addiction tell you that since you are feeling different you must be cured! I like to think of addiction as a predator hiding in the bushes, waiting for me to stop paying attention, so it can drag me back into the bushes and kill me. Complacency kills. In all truth I know that I will never again be the person I was before I started using, and that is a good thing because that person's best thinking led him into addiction. As far as lost time, I don't remember much of the 80's or early 90's, but thats another subject.
Lon
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Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.----Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Glenn, ive been thinking a lot about this lately. I used to be a different person. as i try to recover my every move, in everything i do, i notice that old person whom i lost a couple years ago somewhere within me. its scary but i feel like im getting close to that person i used to call me. i was a different me when i used. i wasnt me at all. i was evil. and this is what my unsupportive friends tell me now. only they want me back. i hope ill fight them tonight and not join them. in all honesty i may want to join them . this is killing me. thats old person seems like a wuss now. though she is also the one who helped me trust my hp who i chose to call my god of understanding , letting me get closer to that old me who didnt lie or cheat or manipulate. inventory.
Thanks for the reply. I guess we are all searching for our former self, which I ran from by using. But the truth is that person is so much better than the person i was when I was using. You found your HP, use your HP. I've yet found mine. Find your supportive friends in NA, your friends that are still using aren't going to be able to support you, they may not be friends at all??? You will never be alone in NA. Hang in there and keep coming back it does work.
