The swimming of dancers that dance by being, just being, not asking, just being, inspires me.

Beings that don’t ask, don’t question, just are, is a lesson, to me, who asks, who shouts, who screams, who doubts.

I hear people say, that animals are atheists, but what if they are not, what if they know things so innately, that they look unbothered, because they do not question things they understand, because they just understand them.

I wish to be so wonder filled and free, that I fly or swim, without thinking, maybe if I pretend my thinking will change.

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I just went to a meeting, and had the most intense experience I have had in my entire adult life, better than any high I have ever experienced, better than any good day, any high, any feeling I ever had that was what I thought of as love, I am amazed at the power of just being honest right now, and was just lifted up by an entire room of people who are my friends now, and I didn’t even realize it. They care about me, and actually like me as a person, and I have never had that in my entire life. I have never had friends that weren’t business associates that were tied to a life of well… you know. I am blown away by the power that honesty has. I am so free right now, from everything that was racing through my head yesterday. I think I am beginning to understand what the whole serenity thing means.

I realized that a lot of the time, I get caught and stuck on something,

They tell you not forget the past, so I got over-focused on it. I think I am realizing that there is a middle ground for me, and I see it, and it is great. I feel so much better now. I am finally beginning to feel like there is hope for me after all. I am so happy, but will inevitably be back and forth about this, I am told that is normal.

Thank you for listening to me.

It means the world.

Damien

Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

Dear Self,

I know you forget this often, I love you. I am not saying this out of some weird desire to do something deviant, and stroke my own ego. I know that I sometimes forget that I am human being, that I have feelings to, so I hope that this finds you not in that state of mind, which I imagine it will because of how I feel right now. I love you, self. I am not saying that to be psychotic, and I am not doing it out of mental illness, I am doing it because I am trying to put a post it on my own fridge in the future. I want you to know that no matter what happens, whatever ways you fail, things can always get better if you just keep trying. I know this now, so I know you know this too. I just wanted to remind you that you love yourself. This is not weird or wrong. It is something everyone else does, that I forget to do because I used to use it to make excuses to hurt myself because I am an addict and alcoholic.

That is just who you are. It is no different than having ADD. It is a disease that causes lack of ease and makes you think things that justify doing things that are irrational like killing yourself with something that poisons you, because you have a deviant response to alcohol because of an allergy your mind has to it, like being allergic to oranges. Don’t hate yourself because of this, you are allergic to latex, do you hate yourself because of that? No. Same thing.

Love you.

Yourself.

I didn’t realize until very recently, the mental shackles I always had on. I thought I was so free running through live without an obligation, and not obliged to help anyone, making no ties with anyone, so they couldn’t do anything to infringe on my freedom, the most valuable thing to me. I don’t think I have ever understood what the word freedom even means. I thought myself free because I had nothing, no obligations, no friends, no home and thought I was the most free person in the entire world. I was so wrong, man. I was the most shackled person in the entire world, I was chained to something that wanted me completely alone.

It wanted me to hate myself, telling me I was insane for feelings of being someone born in the wrong body, telling me everyone hated me, that I was wrong about everything, my taste in everything was a symptom of mental illness, had me believing I was not someone worth saving because I was not worth it.

My resentment of the whole thing has caused me recently to lash out about it at meetings and I have been met with the strangest thing. I expected to be shut down, put in my place and then told that I had to bend to some system, to which I was to be shackled and inevitably fail at upholding. The strangest thing I experienced recently, is that I was completely wrong. I know that is weird to say now, but I didn’t feel that way before today. I thought my life of deviant behavior was met with the punishment of sobriety. I even felt like this when saying things that sounded inherently positive on here, thinking myself just lucky to be alive and bending over and doing whatever they said to do like some lost dog.

I know now I have been freed today, and the rest of my life, by the realization that the shackles came from resentment not the meetings, and they were taken off by sobriety and the meetings I am going to that are saving my life, by letting me know that I am not unique, I did not fail in any unique way. That is amazing. It is not a punishment to be where I am, it is a very rare gift, and I am so thankful for it. I have a friend in every individual in the rooms of recovery, because even in all our uniqueness we are so very much the same, and they accept me instantly, without excuses. I don’t know what to say. I am so happy to have realized this before I killed myself over the guilt I felt.

I will inevitably go back and forth about this, but I know this in the back of my mind now, and it has saved my life in amazing ways, thank you to everything and everyone that helped me get there.

Damien

I am so happy to not have to pretend to be someone else anymore, I used to even change my voice, so it sounded more pleasing to other people, manipulation at its finest? I have a very aggressive sounding voice, and I always hated it. It is very freeing to be able to not have to do that anymore. I hated doing it without even realizing it. It is extreme enough that I can make myself sound like someone else on the phone, so my voice is not recognizable. I used to use it to get out of trouble. I did not realize how much of a liar I was, and how pervasive it was in every aspect of my life. The truth is really as freeing as they say it is.

I feel like I am a kid on summer vacation, but I am really just an addict in retirement from a life of…being an ***.

Damien

The eerie nature of the universe baffles me, I was with my family and we happened to pass this place where I used to work, and there was a bookcase on the side of the road, we moved it and took it back here because it is beautiful and the guy who was moving it was happy to get rid of it, he was just a worker doing it for pay, he didn’t realize that we knew the dead person it belonged to, I knew the kids mother. I wish the poor kid was still alive, man. I wonder if he did it on purpose… sometimes addicts do that, as a softer way to commit suicide, or I wonder if he just did too much by accident.

I just found out that it was accidental, my family was telling me that the kid slipped up and did what a lot of us do and tried to do too much and died of an accidental overdose. I am so sorry he is not here anymore, if nothing else now I have a reason to not get high staring at me all the time. He was my age.

That is so sad.

That was insanely amazing. I have an entire library in that room, which means anytime I feel like complaining, I have a thousand things to read instead of complaining. I am going to start working on starting a more formalized version of my business as well, but more about that later. I am really excited about moving on from all the pain I have caused, and finally doing something worthwhile, I wish I could say I wished all of it didn’t happen, but I don’t. I like being a low bottom addict, because meditating on the last time I got high/drunk and how it almost killed me/caused me to go to prison/and endangered those around me helps me remember why I have no reason.. oh my god…

The back of the shelf is signed by someone who died of an overdose who I knew from a former job of mine, floored…..

Clearly,

Damien.

WARNING: THIS IS FICTION DO NOT INTERPRET LITERALLY

No, because now it is flying around my house in front of my face. I hate myself.

STOP IT!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I am done, I am feeling better now. I am sorry for upsetting you, Amanda.

I don’t hate my name that much when you say it, Damien.

I hate my name, my face… I am sorry…

I just can’t believe I remembered killing my family……..

This one?

No the last one, I burned my house down.

Did you burn my house down?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t mean to upset you!!!

You didn’t burn it down either, you just happened to experience something similar and are drawing false comparisons due to paranoid schizophrenia.

I love you Damien.

Please don’t. Hey, Amanda! Please help me, please don’t let us ruin this. I am done with everything please support me in this. Please support me in this, I need you now, more then ever. Please help me, and help yourself. I will support you too.

I will, support you and me I mean… not like that… I am not helping you with money…

I don’t mean… I am so sorry.

I am so sorry, I exist. I am trying to… I admire your brother, Amanda, he is everything I should have been. I am listening to him speak as you write this.

I am too.

I love you, and it will be alright, we will be alright.

I know, you will too.

Thank you, that means the world.

To me too.