dis·tressed
/disˈtrest/
Adjective
Suffering from anxiety, sorrow, or pain.
Impoverished.
Synonyms
sorrowful - afflicted
I have been very distressed! But like stress, with distress smoking is not the solution! In the last 3 weeks I have certainly been tempted! Yes, at 3 Years, 4 Months, 6 Days it has taken everything I've learned at BecomeanEX to keep me from smoking! Yes. even though, maybe especially because I have COPD and smoking would be an act of suicide, I have come soooo close to walking into a gas station and saying "those magic words!" And yet, nothing that I would like to change would be changed for the better! And much that I've fought so hard for would be lost!
Addiction sure is a strange creature! I am an addict and my distress comes from my best friend's relapse into addiction - not sickerettes - alcohol! But it's really much the same! He's killing himself for his "best friend!" He's lying and deceiving himself about his brain dis-ease! He's fooling himself with Addictive phrases - "just one won't hurt!," "I can quit whenever I want!," "At least I'm not addicted to XXX!" - ladadadadada.....
So how does my crazy Addictive Mind feed off of his relapse? "Well, if he can do it, why can't I?," "Misery loves company!," "What are friends for, anyway?," "At least I'm not addicted to alcohol!," "I deserve a smoke! I would feel so much better!" LIES, LIES, LIES!!!! - just shut up already!
Remember that fundamental question? Since smoking is not an option, what can I do instead? What I have chosen to do has not worked! I chose to blow up my addiction support base! I chose to hide my feelings from my Wife! I chose to just use willpower to somehow forge my way through because after all, I'm still an addict and when my dis-eased brain has been stimulated it will follow the old brain maps and repeat the same old mistakes that never did and never will work! "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and EXpecting a different result!" Now, replace the word insanity with Addiction!
It's time to stop spinning my wheels! It's time to put to use the knowledge that I have gained here over the last 3 + years! I'm here as a supplicant - please help me! Please be for me that freedom loving voice that is at the moment drowned out by the addictive voice! Please tell me all the things I probably already know but honestly, can't think of a single one of them! Please help me to not just understand but to believe that if my friend wants to drink himself into an early grave there is absolutely nothing whatsoever I can say or do to change that! I need you to be the voice of quititude because, frankly, I've lost mine completely! The only thing I haven't lost is my quit! So far....
