Odyssey

This has been a huge year for me. I stopped drinking and I will never drink again. And I'm tapering off valium. Coming off valium is definitely one of the most grueling and hard things I've ever done. 

I've learnt a lot about the power of personal change and also the ability we have to influence our own minds in ways that are just as powerful as any medication. And it's better than medication, especially benzodiazepines/ anti-anxiety medications (like valium, Xanax, Lorazepam, etc) because medication is a quick fix...it chemically removes the problem, so it weakens your ability to deal with the problem. When you have to fight every day and be committed to doing what is going to help you even though you don't feel like it and you don't feel any positive difference, and you have to work on your own thinking and you have to keep facing your anxiety and depression and there's no escape, you begin to grow. 

For me, as I've written about a lot lately, the struggle is between my old self, characterized by rumination and withdrawal from life, and my new self, characterized by action and engagement with life. I began a new life when I stopped drinking. Rather than rely on alcohol and Valium to deal with life and retreat from life and have a life of not really doing that much, I started a new life. And through conversations I had and thinking about my life, the nature of the struggle became clear - that it was between rumination and action. 

My vision of this has only become clearer as the struggle has continued, and the struggle has intensified. It didn't get easier. It seems to get harder the further I go. But I know that's the nature of this struggle. It has to be painful. 

It became clear that my new life is defined by my list of daily goals. I've had the practice of having a list of daily goals for years, but in recent months, for the first time, I do my daily goals as if my life depends on it. 

The depression and anxiety I have experienced this year have been as bad as I have ever experienced, in some ways worse. And I get to a point where I am defeated, and I feel broken beyond repair. But then, at that point, sometimes something good comes in. Some thought comes to my mind, like an angel, and somehow....it really feels like some positive chemicals - healthy neurotransmitters - begin to flow in my mind. It starts off as just a slight relief in the pain and then leads very quickly to a window. People coming off benzos talk about windows and waves. 

For a lot of people, waves go on for months and years. That's the nature of withdrawal from benzos. It's acute suffering. But, in time, you do heal. You have windows. One of the really challenging things is that, you have a window, and it's amazing how good it is. You actually feel normal. It's amazing. You can do stuff. You can function. You can have conversations and enjoy things. You think you're recovering - almost recovered - but this thing is so up and down. Windows will be followed by waves. Of course, there are exceptions even to that but I'm just talking about my own experience. Actually, there are exceptions to all of this. It's different for everyone. 

More and more I seem to go through rapid fluctuations, which they tell me is a good sign. I have multiple windows and multiple waves some days, and I have some kind of window most days. The windows are still the exception. In many ways I've been going through one long wave since detox, when I stopped drinking. 

The other day, a thought that really lifted me up and breathed some life back into me was the idea that my new life is growing all the time. Every day, regardless of how I feel and how I struggle, it is growing. It really is like a living thing. It's a new life. And it's powerful. That's what is so deeply encouraging. I have a life. That's really something. Every step I take as I do my goals is permanent progress. It's only going to grow. 

Withdrawal has dredged up all my worry and rumination and fear and anxiety and depression, and it's really bad. Early on, the issues I experienced were directly related to withdrawal. So it was mainly anxiety. But then that lead in to the next phase, which was a deeper struggle with my lifelong problems with anxiety and depression. So, I'm now facing these things that are decades old and I've never really been able to defeat them. 

But there is hope. My new life is real. It is absolutely real. And my rumination....is it real? Not really. It's just like an error message that my operating system keeps throwing up, and because I've kept responding to it, it's achieved a kind of gravity. It seems very imposing, and it does have the capacity to hurt me. It's the main cause of my mental pain, actually. 

But a process has started. Every single day I practice my goals - I live my new life. That is my reality. My steps are faltering and tentative. This new life is strange and not what I'm used to. I'm out of my comfort zone. But I'm free! I've come out of the house of fear and pain that was the life's work of my old life. I still return to it, but then, as I push to do my daily goals, I step out again into my new life, and I build a new, better dwelling.