everything i'm sayin you can dismiss because i sat alone on this past christmas

311 lyrics, i deserved to be alone but i guess i should've come home. hey dont break the mold kid, just eat around it. yeah thats what i did.....last christmas is one i will remember for as long as i live. that week was the worst experience of my life as well as the best thing that ever happened to me. it was so terrible, so horrible that i could have a total transformation. i could have a perception shift. there is a book i read called, addictive thinking by abraham twerski. in this book he talks about a rock bottom experience and what it is. what happens is an addict veiws using as being less painful than living everyday life without drugs. this is a very real thing, as i have written in the past,"we manifest what we believe".so, as long as the addict veiws life as being more difficult or painful without drugs, they will continue to use. when one hits "bottom", the pain of the consequences of using is now greater than the benefit of the drug use. until this happens, recovery is not possible. i go to meetings and am active in the recovery community. there is talk of "raising the bottom", or getting people to wise up before they go through the pain most of us have experienced. i think that this is a bunch of bull crap. its been my experience that one must suffer the worst possible scenario that they can imagine happening. for me, my wife left....this wasn't enough though. i had to do more damage. i stole her money out of the bank account and made it to where she wouldn't even speak to me, then i had to see my cat's food dish near empty, knowing i had no way of filling it back up. yeah, i remember sitting on the couch on december 27th, when it all became real, when i realized that she was really gone and i wouldn't be waking up from this nightmare because the nightmare was my real world.i remember that i couldn't get loaded that day. i tried, believe me. i drank and smoked and swallowed and sniffed everything i could get my hands on, but the guilt of everything would not go away. this was me hitting rock bottom, having a moment of clarity. i asked myself over and over again "how did this happen". i knew it was over when i looked at the weed i was smoking and realized 'this, this is how it happened' i flushed the rest of the weed, it wasnt much, and got my butt to a treatment center. since then, i can still draw on the pain of that day, i can feel tears welling as i write about it, as i take myself back to that day, i get disgusted. i dont know how it happened. it was so fast and so powerful. addicts have to defend the first drink or smoke, because once we ingest the brain reacts. it may not be the day of the first drink, it may not be the first month after, but the chain of events has started once the substance enters the body of someone like me. it is compared to a physical allergy and called an obsession of the mind. once the first drink is in, the phenomenon of craving starts. twerski compared it to a man who was hypnotized to put a chair on a desk where he was with the hypnotist. the man left the appointment, but came running back in minutes later and......you guessed it, put the chair on the desk. the big book of aa is where it is called an obsession. thats what it is. obsession is defined by websters as,"a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling". its a persistent, disturbing preoccupation, wow! i just looked it up and pasted it, i am only now reading it and am in total agreement that that is what its like. its like throughout your day all you do is think about that feeling. i couldnt wait to get off of work to get a drink, everyday, i was crazy. i cant really convey it to those who aren't alcoholic, but thats what its like. i guess if you had a huge test or something, i dont know if thats the right comparison. maybe, if you are driving with the gas tank on e and you know that you are running on fumes and could run out of gas any second and there is no exit for the next 30 miles. yeah, thats it exactly, you would worry and worry about it until you got to that exit. and when you get to the exit, you get some gas, by any means neccesary. same thing, the addict is waiting all day for that first chance to get off the road and fuel up for the rest of the trip. it may not seem like that is realistic, but that is how it is. we will worry and conjure up ideas of where to go or who to call to get that need met until its met. the second part of the definition says that its often unreasonable idea or feeling, yep. it certainly is that to the normal person. the alcoholic is sick, we have a disease, and if untreated it is a fatal one. there is a ton of misunderstanding and resentment that goes along with alcoholism. i wish i could change the things i have done. i wish that i could say that because i was sick and am sick that the things i did are excuseable. they are not and the fact that this is a disease will not make those things any less painful to those involved, but it does explain the behavior. i think that i am slowly mending relationships with all of the people i treated badly, its a life long process. i no longer am setting up hurdles in my path these days so the run is allot smoother. i do wish that i could reach some of the people i used to run with and help them to see, but as i said in the beginning, they too will have to suffer enough. so christmas this year should be nothing like that hell i was in last year, thats a good feeling. when you're on the devils starting line up for so long, sooner or later you find yourself at bat in a home game, if you know what i mean. it feels really good to be on the other side. much love to my people from earth, you guys keep it real fa show.