It’s easy to forget what life used to be like in activeaddiction as you move forward and progress in recovery, or at least forget thelittle day to day routines.
When we decided we were going to talk about this topic forour you tube channel, it brought back a lot memories and made me think abouthow tiring and monotonous the days were. Often the same routine repeated overand over whilst looking over your shoulder.
For Mark a lot of his routine (apart from gambling itself) centredon the constant scheming to get money, the lies and manipulation always camehand in hand. He says he never once thought he was conning people, stealing oreven going to hurt them as he was convinced his next big win would rectify anypotential damage. Eventually mark was looking over his shoulder more and more,living in a constant state of paranoia and the consequences became such that heknew his options were getting smaller and the outcome darker.
For me, my day to day involved functioning, getting readyand trying to look ‘normal’, often countering the state I was in by trying tobe super productive and then being different things to different people. Thedad, husband and even company man, I used in almost every situation possibleand lying, hiding, covering where I was, why I was delayed or late were justnormal routines. I would make excuses to leave the house, hardly slept andwould disappear for walks or late night drives. My behaviour became moreerratic, I started to fall apart and eventually stopped even trying to looknormal.
Our addictions and day to day differed but there were somecommon themes, pretending to be normal, hiding what was going on, being drainedand tired, lying, secretive behaviour and feeling isolated and disconnected. Aslow break down of mind body and spirit.
I don’t think these things are unique to Mark and I, Ibelieve this is what happens to most people in active addiction and it can onlybe described as total chaos!
These common traits don’t lead to anywhere good, they don’thave a positive outcome for the addict or those around them and ultimately aresome of the core things that have to change in order to maintain recovery…
Next week we will be talking about a day in the life of arecovering addict!
