A few nights ago, I was surfing around the ol’ internetz, looking for some guided meditations. I’ve been struggling with both depression and boredom lately, and I thought I might find some visualization and relaxation exercises that I could use to help get me to a better place.

I did find some meditation podcasts that were pretty good, but the most intriguing thing I found was this video of a young, pointy-haired, British man tapping himself in the face. I have to admit that my love for Brit accents sucked me in more than anything, and then there was the what-the-heck…

Since I started Suboxone treatment 15 months ago, I’ve had my Google Alerts set to track news and blog posts for mentions of Suboxone and Buprenorphine (the active ingredient in Suboxone). Many of the items alerted are news reports of drug busts, where the bustee was caught with some heroin or Oxycontin - and a few Suboxone pills as well. Other alerts are people posting on message boards looking for advice or support regarding the use of Suboxone. And then there are the Suboxone rants.

Usually I just pass up these angry blog posts. Today however I allowed myself to be…

“Let go and let God” is saying I’ve heard frequently from people in recovery. It’s one of those slogans, like “one day at a time” or “easy does it”, that are a kind of shorthand for a more complex idea. They have a ring of truth about them, these slogans; they seem like common sense advice, solutions that many addicts agree can be applied to any number of the problems that commonly crop up in recovery.

But I’ve always struggled with “let go and let God.” It’s a difficult idea for an agnostic like me to wrap my head around, and…

I know you all have been wondering, Where the heck is Diary of a Quitter? Did she finally fulfill the promise of her name?

I’m still here, still coping with what life throws at me. The past couple of months were fraught with thyroid and depression woes, and changes in medication that made me quite sick for a few weeks. Then I lost my internet connection at home, so I haven’t been able to post.

Things seem to be working out though, like they usually do. My new (old) antidepressant is finally working, and thoughts are starting to flow again. One of…

One of the reasons I quit taking my antidepressant medication six months ago was that I honestly felt like it wasn’t doing anything for me any longer. I’ve been on-and-off antidepressants for many years, and as many of you may know, they have a way of crapping out after a while. Taking a break from a certain medication will sometimes render it effective if you need it again in the future, and since I wasn’t having any depression symptoms at the time it made sense to stop taking the medication.

My antidepressant of choice is Wellbutrin. Over the years, I’ve tried…

A funny thing about depression is that a pretty clear sign, for me at least, that I’m depressed is my mind’s insistence that I am NOT depressed. It’s kind of like addiction that way, with a built-in denial process. I mean, if I try to look at it objectively, all of the signs and symptoms are there. So I try to decide that I should go back on antidepressant medication, and instead of just accepting this as the rational and effective way of dealing with this disease, I start rationalizing.

Maybe it’s lingering effects of my thyroid. Or it’s just because…

My recovery hcas been about learning how to take care of myself as much as it has been about staying away from drugs. Over this past year, I’ve rediscovered the value of going to bed early, cooking and eating healthy meals, taking walks, practicing yoga, dancing, meditating, spending time with family and friends, writing, doing therapy…all of the things that make my life whole and keep me sane.

By doing these things, I’ve been able to cultivate some balance in my life. I’ve repaired a lot of damage, done some healing and even begun moving forward toward life goals that I had…

Forces much larger than me are conspiring to challenge my serenity, my courage and my wisdom this week.

The school board announced on Wednesday a plan to close several schools in our district, and one of them is my daughter’s school. The school is the oldest alternative school in the district, founded in the 1970’s and based on a democratic free-school model. We switched C to this school this year after a horrible Kindergarten year at a traditional school (we ended up pulling her out of that school and homeschooling her for the last few months of the year.)

This school serves…

If you’re on Suboxone or are considering Suboxone treatment for opiate addiction, or you know someone on Suboxone or even if you’re just curious, I’d like to recommend a blog I recently found.

The Suboxone Talk Zone blog is authored by Jeffrey T Junig MD PhD. He is a psychiatrist, and he is also an addict in recovery. He used to be an anesthesiologist, until his addiction ended that part of his career. Now he treats addicts in his psychiatry practice, runs a treatment center, and is a professor of Psychiatry. All that and he manages to update his blog frequently and substantially!

Besides…

My doctor’s office called Friday afternoon. Seems that I’m not just lazy after all! My thyroid test came back low, which explains a lot of the soul-crushing fatigue I’ve been feeling lately. I have an appointment to adjust my medication on Monday, and then there will be some waiting while my body catches up. But hopefully I’ll be feeling better sooner than later.

Something good has come out of this though. I’ve been forced to work on my boundaries, to enforce those limits that I’m always violating in the name of not making anyone around me unhappy.

My friend was over last…

I love the sharp crack when I open a fresh can, the hiss of carbonation escaping, the ice cubes popping in my freshly poured drink.

Mmmmmm…sweet, sweet, Coca-Cola - my love for you is becoming a problem.

My whole family drinks Coke. It was always in the fridge growing up, in the cooler at the beach, with our burgers at McDonalds. My mom even gave it to us when we had upset stomachs - a treatment I practice to this day. In fact, I’m drinking a Coke right now.

Sure, I’ve given up Coke from time to time. Back when I used to…

How do you know when you’re doing the best that you can?

I don’t know why, but I’m finding lately that I doubt myself on this quite a bit. I mean, on the one hand, I think that I’m doing the best that I can given my situation right now. But there’s always this voice, which sounds suspicously like my mother, in the back of my mind telling me that there’s really nothing wrong with me and I’m just lazy.

Probably I should just ignore that voice, but it’s difficult to do at times. I had the kind of mom and dad…

My friend hooked me up with some friends of hers who do this thing they call The Abundance. Every Friday, they get the culled items from one of the local organic-produce delivery companies, and they set all these awesome veggies out in boxes on the side of their house, send out a text message and it’s free for the taking.

I went for the first time a few weeks ago. There were boxes of little potatoes, big green leeks, leafy Swiss chard, peppers, onions, grapes and my favorite apples - Jona Golds. It was like an awesome, free farmers market, and…

I’m feeling awful tonight, and I have a resentment stewing. I’m angry at my partner for his bad planning. I’m angry because he chose to spend all his free time this past week playing xbox, and now I’m sick and he needs to go study for a test so he can’t be here to help me with our daughter and her Halloween costume.

Normally I wouldn’t care, but tonight my head is full of snot, and I had to work today and I’m tired. I’m afraid to take any decongestant because I took some last night and had crazy anxiety dreams…

When people see some things as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good,

other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master

acts without doing anything

and teaches without saying anything.

Things arise and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn’t possess,

acts but doesn’t expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever.

Since I’m spending the evening in bed nursing a sinus infection, and the pressure in my…

It’s been a year since I started Suboxone treatment. A year and a few days actually - the anniversary date came and went without my noticing, and it was only me racking my brain to try to figure out something to write about that made me realize that it’s been a year.

I went back through the old posts on my blog from this time last year. I was just a couple of days into my treatment and I was having a really shitty day.

I packed up Little C and off we went to my job, and I drove a different…

The new, slow pace of my life has changed my focus and deepened my appreciation for all the clear, simple moments which I arrive at each day. The carpet of new-fallen leaves covering the path in the park, a hug from my daughter at the bus stop, her face in the window as the bus pulls away around the corner, the flurry of finches wings in the Japanese maple tree in our back yard.

Tonight I saved my energy to cook for my family. I’ve been getting better at the kind of cooking where you wing it - fixing a tasty…

Mr. Quitter and I went out with some friends tonight. They are newish friends, a nice couple with a one-year-old baby and another one on the way. They’re family-focused people, not into partying, but we all get along well.

We went to the zoo for the Halloween festivities and then out to dinner. It was fun, and dinner was good, but now I’m just wiped out.

It’s weird, going out with people that I’ve never done drugs with. Most of my friends still smoke pot, and all of Mr. Quitter’s friends do. I have one friend who is in recovery, and she’s…

In the bleary, early-morning light of the kitchen I measure the fragrant, brown beans into the hopper and hit the “on” button on the grinder. The harsh noise focuses my attention as I watch the coffee grinds appear. When the crunching of beans gives way to the whine of empty, spinning blades I switch the machine off. The water is heating in the coffee press, tiny bubbles forming on the bottom of the clear glass pot. Within minutes the whole pot is roiling and churning as it comes to a full boil. I count the tablespoons of grinds as I…

Here’s an excerpt from an interesting article from AlterNet about two schools of thought in addiction treatment:

…

One camp, usually made up of law enforcement, prison guards and the “tough love” crowd, think we need to threaten people with jail in order to get them to comply with treatment. If someone relapses or drops out of treatment, they want to throw the person in jail for their failure to take treatment seriously. It is not uncommon to hear stories, whether from judges, to family members to people in recovery, all explaining that they needed the threat of jail in order to clean up.…

I’ve been having a hard time getting anything done lately. I’m overwhelmed, with fatigue, schoolwork, bureaucracy, inventory at work, housecleaning chores, and doubts about my ability to do any of it. The past week or so I’ve felt my old anxiety starting to simmer under the surface, burning away energy that I can scarcely afford to lose.

So what to do when life calls and I simply can’t just take to my bed for a month or six?

I realized that part of why I was freaking out was that I was starting to feel like my “old self.” You know, the…

Debra called me tonight. She’s a friend of my mictother-in-law. She’s a wealthy woman, pushy and competitive and kind of phony, but she also has custody of her little granddaughter and the granddaughter and my daughter are friends, so I put up with her.

She was calling to tell me that her granddaughter, Faith, wants to be the same thing for Halloween that my daughter (Little C) has been planning on being for months now. Debra wants to know if I’m making the costume, or where I’m getting it, and do I have any advice about this situation. You should also…

Yesterday after yoga class I was thinking how awesome it would be to have a yoga class specifically for people in recovery. I think it would be relatively easy for a yoga teacher who also had recovery knowledge to tie the two together, and it would be cool to practice with other recovering folks.

I love the insights I get when I’m practicing yoga. During Sunday’s class, we were working on Natarajasana (dancer pose), which involves balancing on one foot while holding the other foot in your hand behind you.

We started out really focusing on rooting our standing foot into the…

An interesting article came across my Google reader today. It’s about a program in Baltimore that uses alternative therapies to treat addiction. One of the modalities they use is acupuncture:

With drug addiction, the theory is that the needles cause the brain to release an endorphin that mimics the neurotransmitter dopamine, relieving patients’ cravings. A 1999 Boston University study found that acupuncture patients were 29 percent less likely to be readmitted into detox programs within six months than those who underwent more traditional treatment, but its authors acknowledged that the study was limited because its subjects were self-selected. Nonetheless, between seven…

The Junky’s Wife had a great post yesterday, where she passed along Eckhart Tolle’s advice on acceptance: if you can’t enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do, stop.

Already today I had the opportunity to put this advice to work in my life, and it really served me well.

I went to yoga class this evening, in the hope that I could loosen up enough to get into the right state of mind to work on a paper for school. Tuesday evening yoga at my gym has been my favorite class for a while, but I haven’t been for a few weeks. In…

That’s about the best thing I can say regarding today - it’s basically over. I wish I had something more inspiring or uplifting to write about, but that’s all I’ve got right now. I muddled through it, and I didn’t use.

That’s something.

A year ago I could not have weathered this level of physical and mental discomfort with the calm and grace that I’ve mangaged in these past few weeks.

Meditation has been a great tool for me throughout my recovery process, and especially lately as I grapple with the physical discomfort of withdrawing from my meds. Meditation helps me put my…

Today is my fourth day on this lower Suboxone dose, and I’m feeling pretty crap. It was a long and difficult week anyway, so it’s hard to say what is withdrawal, what is my fibro, and what is just being tired. I guess it doesn’t really matter that much anyway, I still feel how I feel and I still need to find ways to take care of myself. In light of that, here is my list of things I can do for myself to help me succeed:

1. Go to bed on time. No, make that: Go to bed early. Sleep…

It rained all this morning, and on into the afternoon.

I was home by myself, a rare treat, lying in bed reading. The storm outside grew more intense, the sound of the rain on the roof rising from the background into consciousness. I set the book down beside me, shut my eyes and just listened.

The sound of the rain overhead moved through my body like a feeling, relaxation spreading to the tips of my fingers and toes. The room was cool but I was warm under the blankets. I felt like I could stay there forever. I let go of all…

Something strange happened to me today. I forgot to take my Suboxone.

I had a busy morning. Little C’s friend slept over last night so I had 2 kids to get ready for school today. As soon as they boarded the bus, I hurried to get myself ready for school too.

Spent the rest of the morning and afternoon shuffling from one administrative office to another trying to find funding for this one last class I need to finish community college. I still don’t know if my class is paid for or if I’m going to have to hit up the bank…

I am all mixed up right now.

My partner has been unemployed for a long time. He tried to start a business and it failed, which resulted in debt and depression. Just as he seemed to be recovering from the depression, he broke his ankle really badly, which resulted in disability and more depression. The ankle-break happened a year ago this July, and while he is walking ok now his spirit just barely seems to be on the mend.

I have been struggling my way through college for the past several years, off and on. I was doing well, going full-time and…