If I was an NA I would have been able to stand up in front of my peers and say 'my name is .... and I am 8 days clean'. The facilitator of the group would congratulate me and rouse a token applause from the room. I would collect my reward quickly, trying to look nonchalant but instead am clumsy, flustered. Slinking back to my seat glad that the next person is talking and I am no longer the focus of attention. My face would not reveal the sense of achievement I felt. It would be afterward and alone when I admire the #######5, cheap little white keytag that says 'One Day At A Time' on it.

I had one of those keytags. I remember being simultaneously thrilled I had 'won an award' and disappointed that it wasn't something a bit less like something out of a Christmas cracker. But I was pleased with my achievement and given NA is a free service, they cannot afford to be giving out gold pens and such (plus they could get sold to buy drugs). As you get further and further along the keychains are different colours (like belts in karate, except its not something I would show off). I imagine the white ones are the cheapest. They will give out more white than any other colour because it's the point where you are going to drop out or not. If you are saying 'I didn't use for a week and all I get is this piece of $#%^ plastic!' then you are not ready to face that it is not about what the reward is, or what it is worth but what it REPRESENTS.

If I were to complete the 12 steps I would hope they had updated their tokens. How many keytags does one really need anyway? It would ruin my ignition and be very bulky in my handbag.My name is Redrob and I am 8 days clean. Clean from what? Not drugs, I haven't been able to stop using medications or marijuana. Am I addicted to love? I don't know. Probably.

Though to compare love to substance addiction seems to cheapen the meaning of love right?

It's not like smoking where I can say 'I only had 4 smokes today'. I can't measure it that way. It's not even like I don't still feel love and think about my recent ex more times than I care to mention, but I am clean of contacting them or looking at them online or reading over old messages to see where I went wrong.I am clean of wanting their attention (good or bad, just any), I am clean of the need to beautiful for someone else. I am clean of the thrill I would get when he said he loved me which he claimed he had trouble saying to anyone.

I realised that the times he was affectionate, he was drunk. Yet I lapped it all up like a dog waiting for scraps at the table. I needed someone to say they cared, that they wanted me, that they loved me yet ironically the only time he could say it was when he was pissed. How foolish am I not to have noticed he was drinking (a big sticking point in the relationship, as he was 2 years clean and then relapsed shortly after us getting together......um massive red flag there redrob? In my denial I tried to pass it off as a dark pink or even burnt orange. But a blind person could have said it was red (no offence to blind people.)

I had this realisation about 'old sayings'. They stick around over the years because there is truth in them. You know the ones (and please add more if you have some)....phrases such as - it gets easier each day (yes. It does. Because each day is another little victory)
-time heals all wounds (OK, lets take it on an emotional level, cause I don't think Leprosy has a cure yet)
-if you set someone you love free, and they return it's meant to be' (debatable!)
-you can't love anyone else until you love yourself (completely true)

So this has been a bit of a ramble of a post and who knows who reads it or whether it makes any sense at all. I love to write so am also using this as a way to improve my writing skills in such a way that I can make a connection to the reader (any suggestions/comments welcome). I think that the best way is to tell my truths. My life has been a crazy ride and...

[ Continued ]

Occasionally, I stay awake all night and all day.

Not strung out on drugs or partying. Not because I am an insomniac and cannot sleep and not because I don’t like to sleep. There is no noise keeping me from sleeping.
Its not missing the sleep that I desire but those dark, silent 8 or more hours completely free for me to do with what I want.

There is no one telling me to go to bed and its my choice to sleep when I like. This is a real perk of not having children. I can get up late, I have no school lunches to prepare. I am totally devoted to my dogs, but they too, can have a sleep whenever they like.

My most favourite time is the break of day, although find this expression of quite amusing. I imagine If the word was literal. That the morning ‘breaks’ the day by changing the darkness to light, by revealing the colours thrown from the imminently rising sun banishing the shadows. It does not appear the day is broken whatsoever. If anything, it’s brand new, unblemished and ready for me to hit the ground running (it makes a change from waking up and not realising for that short time that we are through).

Day flows to night as night does to day and what could be more special than seeing the sun set than to witness it rise once in a while. The sunset is the ‘ending’ of a day. It may not be a day you want to end or it may be a blissful release from a day you want to forget. You know you will see the sun close upon a day. But a lot of us don’t witness the dawn, we just take it for granted it happens.

If you are one of the lucky to see witness both the sunset and the first morning light, you may see why I believe that it is the night is the break of the day, like a comma or space between when we sleep to let our mind subconsciously work through prior day . Breaking it down, discarding the superfluous. Yet the dawning of a new day is more than the physicality of the sun rising, it’s creating new life, it warms me, cheers me. Makes me feel part of the evolving environment. Becoming par of its tune.

With just the sounds of a few birds starting to awaken and flowers nodding toward to the morning sun, I think .......there is nothing broken this morning

Whenever someone asks me what my favourite body part is (of myself or of others), I always answer the same. The Brain .

I'm not saying I don't appreciate physical attraction, but it's what is in their head that makes the difference between utter fascination and total disinterest. Their mind is what attracts me. If they can captivate me in conversation my interest will be piqued. A wealth of knowledge for me is like a yacht is to a gold digger. I don't care if his pants are threadbare or if he only has $2 to his name. Obsevers would probably say that is part of my problem.

Some might say I think with my heart and not my mind. I used to think it too until I really thought about it. The heart is a muscle. It does not think. It is an involuntary motion which pumps blood around our body and most importantly to the brain.

That small grey ball is the most mysterious and complex organ of the body. For our brain is able to control every inconsequential action, everything we do, from waking to sleeping has been instigated by the brain. There's nothing that bypasses the brain. Our legs do not suddenly start walking of their own accord, the hand does not write by its own perogative. It has all been past the brains desk, approved and signed off before actioned. So efficient is this office in our head that it can make many decisions simultaneously and automatically without you even realising it is doing so.

The interesting thing about the brains function is that it is both voluntary and involuntary. We can choose what we want our mind to contemplate at our own will yet we can't help being startled by a loud clap of thunder, or yawning when another yawns or even laughing at something funny.

But if we choose, we [b]can[/b] control some of our ingrained reactions. For example, you might undergo hypnosis to become completely relaxed at the sound of thunder. There is so much in our mind that we have the power to change that I wonder exactly how much of our mind we have the capability to transform?

I guess the answer is 'as much as you want to'. for how can we possibly measure the mind? There will never be a point in time when I think "I am 100% confident that I have thought every thought that could ever be thought. I have learned all there is to know about everything that ever was, is and will be. There is nothing that can be new to me"

I know I can never say that.

And nor would I want to. For then there is nothing left in life.

I don't NEED him.

I did not look online at him yesterday. I maintained NC.

And I survived and I feel like I have taken a little bit of my power back.

The fear is gone. I cannot worry he will leave me , he has left. I don't fear his interest in me is fading, it has faded. I no longer fear my heart being broken. It is broken.

"When a heart is broken, there's nothing to break"

A line from a favourite song that rings so true.

And that's alright. I am alright with my broken heart. I am alright with ME.

Today I decided to take control back.

He broke it off with me one too many times and I am done flattering his ego by chasing him, making a fool of myself trying to contact him when he wants NC and pathetically, seeing what he is up to online.

This has to stop for me to move on.

For me to stop I have to admit that he is gone, it is over and I am wasting my tears on someone who does not care. I must surrender control of the broken relationship to regain control over my heart, mind and spirit.

It is 8.40pm and the first day since we split on 22 October I have not made any attempt to see what he is doing.

I will not let this break me like so many times before.