Imaginative Function

This is a phrase I learned from my many visits to Cuan Mhuire Residential Treatments. I’m a dreamer, I think big. I think I’m exposed to this trait significantly due to my gambling addiction. I’m always thinking of next week’s win which never comes. I fantasize a lot, even this website is a fantasy in it’s own right. Without putting the work in I envision it to be a huge success. Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way. In addiction we are always imagining a world beyond our wildest dreams yet in my case I’m just a bum sitting in a park getting wasted. I can’t see beyond the fog around me that addiction has created.

Abstaining from imaginative function is the equivalent of living in the real world. Life will be shit, it will throw you curveballs. Life isn’t easy, at present I am only beginning to be responsible. I’ve stopped asking for handouts from my family which I’m very proud of. I pay my own bills now. I own up to my mistakes and try to reflect on them. I am no longer a burden on society. I no longer think that ‘every little thing is going to be ok’.

They say in addiction your maturity stops the minute you drink, use or gamble. I believe this to be true today. I’m only beginning to learn that life can suck. Emotional maturity is halted too, as I have quoted before ‘I’m a thirty five year old child’ (I’m actually thirty six now).

It’s ok to have dreams too, just not as far fetched as mine. If I do the lotto I’m already spending the millions in my head until 8pm when I realise my numbers didn’t come in this time. I then fantasize of how it is God’s will that there is a rollover so I can win even more millions. There’s a fine line to insanity. My imaginative function is just that. Insanity.

There comes a time in life where you have to live in the real world. I still have fantasies of winning on a lucky fifteen or getting five sevens on a slot machine. It’s a habit of a lifetime I’m trying to change. As I spoke about in a previous post too ‘If it takes you twenty five days to walk into the forest, it will take you the same to walk out’. 

I can see clearly now how delusional addiction is. It’s a false comfort, over a long period of time it becomes habitual. I would ask anybody, are they really happy in their addiction? Is it something you dreamed of being growing up? 

Today for me was real. I enjoyed two meetings too, I binged on some food (progress not perfection) and most importantly of all I wasn’t a burden nor did I offend anyone. Today was real. Today I made progress. I will continue to work on my imaginative function.