Addiction in Recovery

[MajestyJo]

My addiction in today, after sixteen years in the program is 'Bejewelled.' I am a Bejewelled Nut. When I am not posting on here and my other sites, I am playing the game. There is something about it that I want to challenge. I often don't get over 10,000 points, yet I have had over 300,000 once, over 100,000 several times, I keep want to bettering my score. I get really annoyed when I don't make my 'normal' quota.

Posted this on another site, now I have had totals from 1 million to 3+, which makes me want to play more. It doesn't happen often, but like all dis-eases, you want to reach that feeling again.

I keep telling myself that it is ridiculous for a 65 year old woman to be addicted to a game. I should know better, but as yet, I am not willing to let it go. There have been times when I haven't been totally obsessive about it, but they have been short periods. Those times when I have turned it over and asked for help. Then I got addicted to 'Word Mojo.'

The bottom line for me seem to be, once an addict always an addict. Thank God for this program that allows me to recognize it and put my program into place. I have had other issues that seemed to create insanity back into my life. i.e. bridge (I use to play on line, now I only play at my club), scrabble (word mojo is similiar), yahtzee (no one around to play with, this was a big issue in early recovery), my computer (I don't spend the hours on it that I use to), work (My health doesn't permit me to keep up my sites the way I would like to). It doesn't matter what the substance is, it can all lead to the same soul sickness.

I hated it when someone would phone or come by and interrupt me.

I wouldn't eat at regular hours because I was 'busy'.

I would stay up at night and not keep regular hours, my night turned into days.

I suffer from chronic pain, and it is so easy to detach and look for something outside of myself to make me feel better. Reading and TV can be great escapes from reality. There was a time for about six years I never read. I was so busy living my life, I didn't have time to read about others. As my health has gotten worse and I am not as mobile, I am more and more housebound, I am looking for things to fill my day. There was a period of about two years that I didn't have TV. Now I have extra channels.

Now I have a TV in my bedroom. One is good, more is better. LOL.

Again, it is about balance.

[MajestyJo]

A friend of mine from NA always says, "Imagine the worst case scenario and whatever happens, you won't be disappointed."

I find this to be very negative way of thinking and when I am in that space, I draw it onto me. What I project, I get back often in kind. It is so important to stay in the positive. This same friend says, "Oh that is negative, ignore it, don't go there." To me that isn't reality. Negative is just an energy and it is a part of life.

It is what I do with that energy that matters. Can I find a positive in the negative? Is the energy what I need in the moment and if not, what do I do about it. Do I accept it or do I detach from it.

It either is, or it isn't! It is my choice as to what I do with it. Sometimes I just have to accept what is good for someone else is not good for me and visa versa.

A big part of drug addiction is paranoia. I have to make sure that my perception is based in reality. It may be someone else's truth but it doesn't have to be mine.

It was important for me to recognize that I had to look at things from the other person`s perspective. I need to be open to their story, if not, I was acting out in the self-centeredness of my disease. I had to learn to identify, not compare. I had to tell myself, there is no respecter of persons, and if I didn`t do what they did, it doesn`t make me better, it should make me grateful that my disease didn`t take me there. If I continue to use, who knows where I will end up, besides dead.