On The Way To Recovery

As I drive to my place of cold

Morning sun streams
Over frosted fields

Recovery is a wing
Pierced by blades

Of winter grass.

The Needle Returns to the Start of the Song...

... And we'll all sing along like before...
Goes the song.

Irritating when your internal MP3 is stuck on the same track and no matter how hard you shake it, it won't stop. Trying to get away from it is just about as effective as trying to go on holiday without your head. And don't we all wish we could do that at certain times in our life. Take enough hallucinogens and it's possible, but they're not exactly cost effective and the insurance you'd take out is ridiculous.
No.
No way around it but to play enough music to flush this one out of the system.
This particular musical ghosting is a song by... (I pause, not for literary impact, but because my memory function is compromised by malnutrition, although, it could just be that my powers of recollection are as shite as they ever were)... 
Where was I? Okay. (Breathe) The music... 
It's a song by Del Amitri (who for some unknown reason, I always confuse with Dire Straits). An especially depressing number, aptly named, 'Nothing Ever Happens'. For those who like to listen, go ahead.
Indulge.



I guess it's the theme of repetition that lends the song to my worn out inner ears; and for good reason.
On Monday, I retrace my tracks to the unit where it all began. Back to the beginning.
March 2011, the agonies of which, I captured on this very blog.
Yep.
That's right.
Monday will see me standing outside the gates of hell itself.
And to be clear, it's not that nothing will have changed, because I have. My illness has. My way of thinking has. Three years of various treatments, including seven months as an inpatient, and rather a lot of medication, have put me on a markedly different rung of the ladder.
What is hard, is that it's the same hole. The same darkness. And, pretty much the same distance to the light.
Hence, 'we all sing along like before'.

I want this to work... which means that I will have to work. Very hard. 

It will be bearable, though it won't feel it.
It won't kill me, though the process of recovery will involve the slow death of the illness, so it will feel like it.


In all the darkness, I must somehow manage to fix my eyes on a light I will not always see. 

In order for recovery to take place, you have to believe that, just as there is always a sun and a moon, there is a new life beyond, and there is a different person behind, the illness / addiction. 
The courage it takes to make this leap of faith is immense and for me personally, I don't know if I can sustain it. 

A World Beyond Our Imaginations

…Maybe there IS. Maybe there isn’t.
Either way, if we don’t allow ourselves to entertain the possibility that there COULD be a different way of living life, and there MIGHT be a different way of thinking about things, we will never know.

I’m not the hippy type. I promise.

I don’t hug trees, I don’t take herbal hayfever tablets, I ‘m not a vegetarian, I’m not a member of Greenpeace, I don’t do yoga, I don’t wear clothing woven in South America and I’ve never tried Arnica.

But (there had to be, right?) BUT, I do believe that we get into certain patterns of thinking. Even scientists report that there are certain ‘neural pathways’ in the brain, which is a technical way of saying that our thoughts get used to travelling along particular alleyways, leading to familiar places, default settings, if you like. Humans are creatures of habit, brains follow suit.

What are the implications of all this for those of us in recovery?

A friend recently told me that, although they’d like to believe in something bigger, they just COULDN’T and I sympathised because I, of all people, understand doubt, cynicism and unbelief. I battle it everyday in order to keep the faith I DO have, alive. Later, I returned to our conversation in my mind and came to the realisation that the word ‘couldn’t’ would probably act as a barrier in her mind.

To be truly open to something, like the possibility of recovery, is to allow it to rattle round our minds without any thing as concrete as ‘words’ attached to it. Just as if you are rolling a ball round a clean floor; no mud, no dust, nothing to stick to it…

Sometimes, I wonder if it’s in this act of ‘allowing’, that hope filters in… unseen… unheard and then… suddenly:  there.

Opening up old wardrobe doors. No thoughts. No can’ts, cans, couldn’t, wouldn’t, must, should or shouldn’ts.  Just opening something up.

It has to be worth a try.

Redundant - A reflection

re·dun·dant  

/riˈdəndənt/

Adjective No longer needed or useful; superfluous. (of words or data) Able to be omitted without loss of meaning or function.

Synonyms superfluous - unnecessary - needless - excessive - spare

It's Bad News I'm Afraid

You've been made 

REdunDANT

a haze

empty space

where words were

Of Course You'll be Paid

... sentences fade

REdundant

RE - DUN-dnt

rephrase 

News

new

phase

new 

ways

So Sorry

she says.

Later I thought
outside the daze
I'm out of a job

but I haven't fought 
this long
this hard
to be 
redundant.

I'll leave dun
and duh nt
take the re
thanks

re start
    re view
        re fresh
           re new

Thank you.