Wow... has it really been two weeks since my last blog/diary entry?

The reason I've come back to add to this is you have all read about the actual detox stage... but what about now? After. Normalacy. Reality. Whats that like?

I don't know yet. Or at least I do (and it isnt nice) but don't feel experienced enough to comment on it.

I realised over the last couple of weeks that I was still smoking hash twice a week or so... and I was also drinking alcohol far more than ever before. Nooooo waaaay. I'm not giving up one addiction for another so this week have cut everything out and well... to say that its been a long journey down, using many differing manners of 'parachute', I have certainly landed over the course of this last week/few days and I just landed with a hell of thump.

I understand why people relapse now.

Don't worry, with hand on heart, I don't feel like taking anything would help. Not in the long run. Yes, it would take away this horrible feeling of reality thats slamming into me but thats just pretend and what got me in to that state in the first place and so my brain refuses to allow me to 'go there' again. But still... that niggle is there.

I've been through enough that I'm bloody proud of my (our) acheivements in doing this... and get a good buzz from it overall. And *that* feeling will take me through these coming months/years and will override that pesky niggle.

I think the point of this blog is to point out that simply giving up an addiction is only half the story. There is an afterwards too and to anyone contemplating going through this... be aware of it cos it could catch you out. I was having, and am having, totally dry days but on the occasions I did drink, or smoke weed, it knocked my body out of kilter and wasnt giving me a chance to allow that reality to hit home.

Thus it is only recently that 'reality' is finally starting to sink in and when you've been wrapped up in glue, heroin, cocaine, cannabis, alcohol and all the other shite I've put into my body all your adult life then adjusting to that is... bloody hard... as I'm finding out. Its as hard as anything I've been through in this whole programme.

Things just do not 'spring into place' by giving up. You have to prepare for the 'after world' and as I'm the only bloody person I know to actually get to this stage no bugger warned me about it. Well... I just warned you so be prepared for it/this :-)

Medically speaking this has to be dopamine related (the reward mechnism the brain gives itself). When I *do* drink or take a smoke of weed then my reward is some dopamine I have to learn now to operate without that. Or at least to get through enough that I can operate/function without giving myself false levels of it.

But I feel strong, I feel great and I feel... apprehensive. Its scary.

<shrug>

That niggle and feeling of apprehension will diminish with time... I know that. But it will always be present (sleeper effect)... for the rest of my life.

Which... Im away to get on with. Life.

And saying that and feeling that way is (and this is too small a word) but... 'great'.