Day 138 - "Cravings"

Wednesday, 11 April 2007
Day 138 / 62 - "Cravings"

I don’t really get cravings any more – at least not like I did in the beginning. The dreams, the nightmares, the thoughts of taking, that longing for heroin – all of it is pretty much gone. On occasion I get a day where it hits me. It doesn’t have to be when I’m walking past a place or see people that I used to connect to heroin. Sometimes it happens in the most unlikely of places.

It happens and this overwhelming part of me… wants it, needs it, and longs for it again. I wish I knew where that part of me was, what it was that triggers it. I just know that the slightest gap I give myself on those days I will fall.

The scary thing is that there is nothing anybody can ever do to prevent it. No matter who I have around me, how much they check up on me – it all comes down to me. Nobody can watch me 24/7, I don’t except them to. It can happen at any time, at any moment and it can all happen in my head. A choice between two little words: Yes or No!

What I have learned from my repetitious behavior over the long period I have used heroin is that after you’ve made that choice – there is no turning back. Once you’ve answered yes, you will lie and betray and steal to get heroin. Just one choice, one little unspoken word and you’re back at Square 1.

I try and remember that I started this Recovery broken, hurt, depressed – weak. And as each day passed that I said No once again I grew stronger and stronger. I get days where those two words squeals in my head and I am so thankful that I still find it somewhere inside of me to say “No”. As you all know, on occasion I made the wrong choice and even then in those darker days I am eternally grateful that the mistake stopped at once.

I guess I cheer myself up with the thought that I’ve made amazing progress – even if I say so myself. Progress, perhaps further than most have managed at this point in their Recovery. Temptation lies around us all at times when we least expect it. But our true strength lies in the ability to say “No”, even those times when everything else says “Yes!”