Deflection (The Elephant in the Room)

This could be my last rant, I’m coming up to my target of articles and I believe I have kept the most important topic for last. To be truthful I was in such a fog of addiction I didn’t even realise how often I do it. Even this website for me at times can be my own unique way of deflecting from what’s really going on. I have always tried to keep myself so busy in sobriety that I have no time to go on an inward journey. To this day I fear it. It’s unknown territory for me. I need to remind myself that the time has come to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I don’t like reliving traumas I have experienced, I don’t like being told of the stupid things I have done in addiction. The utterly disgraceful stuff too. I need to learn to sit with myself. This weekend I will try to achieve just that. I’ll start slowly, giving myself thirty minutes to just think where I have come. I never pictured my life turning out the way it has. I need to start looking at as a whole where my drinking and gambling career has brought me. What it has taken from me too. I need to look at my behaviours, the role I played in how things have turned out.

I have no qualms today that I am an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler. It has led me down a selfish path. I need to dig deep and come to terms as to how selfish I have been. How little I have cared for others. All my life I have run and hidden from these questions. Today I feel like it’s time I answered them. I now need to man (or woman) up and come to terms with the chaos addiction has brought to my doorstep. An early warning sign for me that I’m about to relapse is I go looking for a job, I’m fearful as I did just this yesterday. At least I’m aware of it at present. Again, a job would just be another way for me to deflect on who I am and who I have become. I’ll take up running next week and start developing the core infrastructure of this website. Again this is my way of deflecting, I just hope I have enough courage over the weekend to give myself that thirty minutes a day to reflect rather than deflect. Maybe next week I can increase it to an hour.

The realities I’m facing are that I cannot pick up a drink safely. It will kill me. They talk about Jails, Institutions and Death. All that’s left in a bottle for me is jail or death. I cannot gamble safely either, it makes me very suicidal. It is by far one of the worst mood altering substances I have ever experienced and it’s not even a substance. It has led me down a path where my rent is in eight hundred euros arrears and my electricity has been cut off. My broadband gets cut off regularly too. These are the two elephants in my room at present. I need to be weary of cross addiction too. I can get addicted to anything. I’m impulsive by nature. I tend to run with things rather than enjoying the walk. Again as I’ve posted before ‘This is a marathon, not a sprint’.