I want to go back to school.  I want to do so many things.  And, I know I can’t successfully do anything productive until I get my addictive issues under control.  I’ve been trying, but the drama at home hasn’t been helping.  But, I really want it, and I think it’ll happen.  I know some of the things I need to do to get there.  (I’ve stopped for good chunks of time before – just, haven’t managed to stick it out, yet.)  I need to get back into therapy.  I also need to fix up my place so I don’t feel like I’m living in a drug house.  (It’s depressing to live in a place that reflects your disordered mental state.)  And, I need to make some new friends.  I don’t really know how to do that anymore, but the friends I’ve made here are pretty cool.  But, I’d like to meet some people who aren’t scattered about this disembodied realm of code and pixels.  Some people I can hang out with…  because, my group has gotten smaller, and being social helps me get out of my ugly inner thoughts. 

I miss my best friend, so much.  He made me laugh, so much.  He was an important part of my happiness.  He was part of me.  I wonder if he misses me as much as I miss him.  I can’t imagine this doesn’t suck for him, because it’s killing me.  I wish we could just talk, already, but that’s a long way off, if it’s ever meant to be, at all.  And, knowing that is like walking around with a corsage pin stuck into my heart.  (Have to focus on Charlie, have to focus on Charlie, have to…)

Someone was suggesting NA, to me, again recently.  I told them that the cats at NA had tried to ram religion down my throat, and this person was like, "no, they don’t do that."  I’m like, "well, they DID do that, so, whatever…"  I like AA and NA, in as much as they’re good organizations that save a lot of lives.  I just don’t like that they tout their way is the only way.  No one thing works for everyone, and there’s almost always another way to do anything.  And, I know people who’ve arrested their addiction (stopped using), without a twelve step program.  It is done. 

I do believe in God, but it’s a very personal thing, and very complicated, and I was never really able to jive my understanding of the divine with the whole Higher Power of the program.  So, I did what I was told.  I picked something else.  I made the group my Higher Power.  The group didn’t really live up to that.  When I’d tell people that I didn’t have a concept of God that I was comfortable slotting into the whole higher power role, as it functions in the group, they’d say that was okay, b/c I would believe, wholeheartedly, in time, if I worked the program.  People would tell me to pray, and they’d say that if you got high, you didn’t pray that morning, and if you did pray that morning, you didn’t mean it.  How ridiculous is that?  It’s like some faith healing evangelist telling you that you could walk again if you really had faith, but since you apparently don’t, you get to stay in the wheelchair.  I prayed.  I was desperate.  I would’ve eaten shit if they told me to.  I did everything I could do to work that program, but it just wasn’t for me.  For one thing, I’ve grown to take issue with the idea of powerlessness, as it functions in NA.  The first step is to admit you are powerless over drugs.  I accepted that, back then, because I felt pretty damn powerless at the time.  So, I admitted that I was powerless, and that I needed some higher power to restore me to sanity.  But, you go to the meetings, and you work the steps, so, it seems to me, that with a lot of help, YOU restore yourself to sanity.  Needing help doesn’t equate with powerlessness in my mind. 

And, when I did AA there was a lot of talk of "to drink is to die" and that just wasn’t what I saw.  Sure, eventually my drinking would’ve killed me (probably decades down the road, but possibly sooner), but that wasn’t the scary part for me.  I was afraid of living.  Of successfully keeping myself drunk for many, many moons to come, and becoming an old, ugly, fat, and lonely version of myself.  The worst Kit ever…  the worst of all possible Kits…  Hell, I’m 28 and I don’t wanna turn around to face what I’ve become.  But, anyway…  at NA, guys tried to sleep with me, and people would get shitty for no reason.  I hit up a lot of meetings.  Not everyone was lame, of course.  Some people were really cool, but the program itself just didn’t seem to fit me.  People would bicker with each other, over stupid shit, and there’d be all this drama.  I had a guy go off on me one night,. after a meeting, until I cried hysterically.  I was so devastated.  It was all b/c he didn’t like the treatment program I was going into.  Such nonsense…  so, I swore that off.

I had some success in an outpatient program that involved meds and extensive therapy, but the program’s funding got slashed, and I"ve been without a therapist for some time, now.  I’m still in an outpatient program, but it ‘s far more limited.  I need to go through my insurance to get a shrink so I can get meds for my bipolar disorder.  Even with everything that’s happened, Charlie has been draggin his feet about making that happen for me.  He says he’ll call the insurance, but he doesn’t get around to it.  I’m gonna get on his case about doing it tomorrow.