My voice isn't back yet, my body is still enthusiastically ejecting tar and who knows what other gunk from my lungs, but not so much and not so often, and I breathe deeper more or less without restriction. My body found its boot recovery disk and is acting accordingly. I'm tired and sleepy, but it's a good tired and quality sleep after many years of insomniac wanderings and middle-of-the-night "fixes" that just made my insomnia worse. I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted from me. The existential doom and gloom thinking that constantly traded hopelessness for guilt, and guilt for hopelessness is gone! The first crocuses of Spring are appearing! I don't want think too far into the future and possibly jinx myself, but *knock on wood* it seems like I'm on a roll here. It also seems there are so many more possibilities than when everything revolved around being able to feed my addiction. I'd like to write a novel. I haven't the foggiest idea where to start, but I'm seriously contemplating it. I looked up travel websites just because. No plans to go anywhere, but I feel the freedom that I could now that I'm not dragging around that ball and chain. I have to beware of relapses though. Yesterday I was helping my husband assemble a raised gardening bed for me. You know how you're a great team in everything else except for assembling mass-produced products that are all like IKEA's now, extra bits, missing bits, and pictorial instructions seemingly written on another planet supposedly so anybody can understand them. I don't know who this anybody is, but it seems they're expected to have an engineering degree and microscopic eyesight! It wasn't long before patience was wearing thin and craving for a cigarette running dangerous high, we're talking way up in the red zone ready to tilt off the charts! Instead of stress-shedding and saying something regrettable, I popped half a lozenge in my mouth and read through some of the EX community's green zone Positive Affirmations (https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/positive-affirmations-and-support )! Thanks to all of you who have submitted your experiences and self-coaching tips!
So it's onwards folks, here we go...
