25 days

I haven't had a cigarette in almost a month. I have to take time to remind myself I didn't feel like that would be possible more than a month ago. I was smoking in the middle of a massive fire that left the town I live in decimated with thick orange smoke. It looked like armageddon outside, the air quality was completely unhealthy to the point I stopped exercising outside and joined a gym with a basketball court in the middle of the pandemic just to be able to maintain the physical progress I had been making. With all that, I couldn't stop myself from taking down cigarettes, and unlike previously in my life, I was doing so at an alarming rate. I didn't think I would be able to stop, but here we are. I felt a lot of shame about this. I felt defeated about this. But, I was able to overcome all these feelings and follow through with a lofty goal I had for myself. I've come to realize that while the circumstances to accomplishing this goal may have changed to make things "easier" or "harder" It was ultimately on me whether I wanted to do what was necessary to fulfill this goal in my life. Such reflection comes courtesy of being able to look inwardly/outwardly simultaneously in order to maintain the progressions I've made and analyze the journey of my partner. Our settings while similar do have differences, and I am able to not entertain that or those which may be detrimental to me extending my streak and continuing with my progress. It is frustrating watching something abusive- for lack of a better word, take place that you can't directly prevent or influence. The thing I don't understand is why the people that are in your life can't be anchors and or buffers that keep you where you need to be, and forestall you from the things that are toxic. Why can't addiction be taken as serious as it should be by the people that should care enough to do just that?

I am happy with my progress. I am frustrated with the lack of such by others around me. I would remove those people if that meant I could feel some form of solidarity but I'm not ready yet, and neither is she. Definitely not her. I didn't ask to be anchored down by family that isn't mine, but I guess I knowingly engaged with the outcome without seriously considering what it would mean for me. Now the only way for me to regain control or some semblance of it, is to exercise that with the people in my life. Whether that can affect others by proxy is a mystery I'd like to know the answer to, but whether or not that is the case, I know that as more time passes the decision will be made for everyone. And I've seen time heal a lot. It's said it will heal all; something I'm willing to believe because I'm living it. 

An aside when it comes to the battling of addictions. It wasn't something that just happened over night. There was a process that involved thinking about the change I wanted to make. There were things that I implemented to provide myself with tangible proof of progress.  Things that had nothing to do with he action at hand. Exercising. Consistently meeting smaller goals. And while I have stopped doing some of those things as consistently I would hope (while undergoing a period of essentially recharging my own battery), I have maintained the focus and discipline not to continue to do the things I don't want to do. I guess I can look at it like I developed a muscle and now I'm strong enough to lift that weight without too much strain or effort. I don't think about what I'm not doing so much as I think about why people around me aren't able to follow my lead. With all that said, I know I just want to be at a certain point when I'm able to see my family again. Not just with my wellbeing concerned but financially as well. Here's to another 25 markers on that trip. 

_ _ 

    -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)

Clean Living on The Straight Edge

I had to let my thoughts collect before I could figure out why I was bothered so much. The argumentative behavior. The borderline abusive manipulation of random aggressive negative emotions. It became clear quickly that I had been riding shotgun (literally in most cases) to someone's own losing battle with sobriety, and I didn't like what that ultimately meant for me. I found myself being berated at an alarming rate in an even more alarming way. The things said didn't just ding my sense of overall accomplishment having just completed another hard working week at my job. They hurt my sense of well-being. The image I had felt all week dealing with coworkers, not to mention the energy transferred back and forth over the phone interacting with customers was being ceremoniously torn down. That would be something I could handle just fine in most cases, but this time it was coming from someone I was truly excited to see. Truly excited to just be around and have a good time and a few laughs with. My wife. It's no wonder that by the end of the night she would turn me standing up for myself and the sober way of living she said she wanted implemented would see her announcing herself to "feel like a single woman now". I barely registered this statement with a response other than, "okay" but it hurt man. This was normally the type of thing that would have me turn to some kind of substance to drown out that kind of pain. I spent all week fighting my brain and realizing that me not being sober wasn't good for me, nor was it good for her. and my continued path down a selfish self-medicating road needed to stop. I did this while battling withdrawals and the obligatory blanket of depression that follows after a good binge. I was done, in my head at least. No longer chasing that feeling. No longer expecting the scoring of drugs to provide some unknown adventure. I guess I grew up. So when I was picked up and in a few short minutes of confusion realized my wife was drunk (though she would never admit it. The slurring of words and wobbly driving were all-- and always are a dead giveaway) I was upset. Disappointed more like. I came to realize I didn't want to be around or associated with that version of her or anyone else for that matter because the truth of the matter is I'm extremely weak to fight against it. I kept asking myself if it was so important and if all the things she's said about me not being sober were true, then why was she sitting here after having had who knows how many drinks (the contents of the plastic to-go cup from the family restaurant were filled with a whisky coke she made for herself and snuck out of work upon leaving) asking me if I wanted to go to the bar. Long before I wanted to start being sober, I wanted to stop drinking. I realized I had only kept that habit going as a last resort of not staying in my own right mind, and as a way to partake in something that she loved or at least gravitated towards. So I guess I'm saying I feel betrayed being shown what I've known for awhile now. She didn't get high or drunk because I wanted to. She did because she couldn't control or stop herself from doing it anyway. It was my own decision to tag along or have my own desires to score some drugs that were zeroed in on and then later used as the cause of the problem to give her an easy out. And maybe that's why I had this feeling of sadness and anger in me. I don't like who she is when she drinks. She's curt. She's insensitive, and normally I'm right there with her responding with defensive fury. Tonight was different for me. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of being fought with. I'm tired of being abandoned. I'm tired of being blamed. The world won't know because I'd never purposefully try to put her in a bad light, or expose her for others to pile on with their negative opinions, but damn that sucks man. I wish I had someone to speak to. I just know I've seen the world one way for my own reasons and I lost control in front of people I thought I could trust to protect me at the very least. It hasn't been about that for awhile now, and I've just only began to smarten up. I can be such an intelligent dumb person sometimes and I'm ready to take steps to redesign the person I am fully. I have to be careful knowing how fragile everything can be. I can't ruffle any feathers or speak to earnestly because I'm not in control of anything here. I want to return home, maybe not physically but be present in a way I used to be. I have to first become someone I'm a little less ashamed of, and I won't let her gas lighting prevent me from that any longer. I owe that to myself at the very least.


This is a promise to myself. Hopefully I don't break it, but if I should sometime in the near or distant future, I'll be here to update the journey.


Yours forever,


RDH The...























_ _
    -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)

Plumb Dumb

Basically... Here.


"... I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say, and you can't take back what you've taken away. Cause I feel you. I feel you near me..."


Plumb









_ _
 -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)

So a friend said...

A bunch of stuff. What stood out to me the most was this, which is, absolutely terrifying when you think and consider the relationships you allow yourself to get into.

crime of passion n. a defendant's excuse for committing a crime due to sudden anger or heartbreak, in order to eliminate the element of "premeditation." This usually arises in murder or attempted murder cases, when a spouse or sweetheart finds his/her "beloved" having sexual intercourse with another and shoots or stabs one or both of the coupled pair. To make this claim the defendant must have acted immediately upon the rise of passion, without the time for contemplation or allowing for "a cooling of the blood." It is sometimes called the "Law of Texas" since juries in that state are supposedly lenient to cuckolded lovers who wreak their own vengeance. The benefit of eliminating premeditation is to lessen the provable homicide to manslaughter with no death penalty and limited prison terms. An emotionally charged jury may even acquit the impassioned defendant.

See also: manslaughter  murder 



Y'all better chill.

#AntiDomesticViolence

















_ _
 -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)

Methods

If I could tell you everything you'd know by now.

Scolded child.
Go vo-la-tile
Erase that smile
Oh ya piled
More bullshit
Pullin sores
Ripping doors
Within your
Sickened core's
Depicted 4

1 is more. 

Truth enforced. 

My accord. 

Lonely; poor...

#SoMuchToSay

Finality

Finality:

[fahy-nal-i-tee]

noun, plural finalities for 2.

1.

the state, quality, or fact of being final; conclusiveness ordecisiveness.

2.

something that is final; an ultimate act, utterance, belief, etc.

If it means something, let it mean everything.

_ _
 -/Rebel2Society\-v(**)

StaringAtTheLaunchPad

https://www.facebook.com/iLLerMoreStupidDOPE/posts/1550238911701025

What a week...