Day 74/56 – “On the couch: Q&A (Part 1)"

Monday, 5 February 2007 - Day 74/56 – “On the couch: Q&A (Part 1)"

Welcome to the blog couch. My weekly therapy session with YOU! I asked everybody to send me questions so that you could all get to know me better and really for myself to get to know me better. And the response was enormous… thank you all. Here is the first bunch of them...

You’ve been feeling very depressed the last week. Are things better?
Things are improving. Some days I guess it seems like I’m just complaining on the blog. My life can still be an emotional rollercoaster at times. I am dealing with everyday issues just like everybody else, but at the same time I’m trying not to involve drugs while ‘dealing’ with them.

Do you believe you can overcome this?
In the beginning I don’t think I thought so. You hope for the best every day and I really surprised myself with the progress I made. I guess the answer is yes. I am determined that I can not only overcome my heroin addiction but also stop any future addiction or drug use.

Did you think you would relapse again or will relapse again?
In the beginning I knew it would happen sooner or later. As much as I wanted to get and stay clean there was a part of me that still wanted to try it sometime, somewhere in the future. When I did take again on Day 18 – that feeling of ‘I want to take again’ was gone. After that day I was sure that I would never take heroin again!

If heroin was offered to you… would you be able to say “No!”
I wish there was a nice answer to give here. But the reality is… I don’t think I would be able to say no. I don’t have an urge to go get heroin. I don’t crave it. I very rarely think about it these days. But if it was here lying next to me or being offered to me… I’m sad to say I think heroin would win that round!

If you had to do this over again, would you go to Rehab instead of doing it without it?
If I had to turn back time and do it over again from last year, then No, I still wouldn’t go to Rehab. I stopped taking heroin and went through recovery while still going to work every single day. Somehow I just knew it would be better for me that way. If I had to relapse and get addicted to heroin again – I will willingly go to rehab, because then I am not strong enough to overcome this addiction.

Difficult tasks and events in life are said to make us stronger, and in most cases I believe this to be true.... but I also believe that strength is choice. Do you choose strength above all else after your struggle?
It is cliché I know, but “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger!” And taking into account some of the things that happened in my life lately, I could have died many times, but I survived and came out a stronger person because of it. A stronger person that obviously still had something to do here on earth. Every time something happens in my life I choose to be strong or I choose to crumble to the easy way out – addiction. I think I am still making the choice to be strong every day!

** Part 2 continues tomorrow...