Hi Olga.
I thought I was done posting new topics...but a lot happens and I want to record this as acurate as possible hoping it will help others.
This week I deceided to change my way of life dramaticly. Stopping gaming was one, but keeping the laptop closed for blocks of 8 hours was new.
I already learned my easy way out, my relexation, the high I had to miss, but the ritual..sitting comfortably after the screen..even when I did nothing...was too much havng a role. I stopped the ritual of gaming too now.(not that I gamed - but its the ritual this time) What I mean is I now miss the rituals surrounding my acting-out behavior. The place, pattern and activities of the behavior addiction was built into my life just as solidly as a job or home and now I have changed that too is difficult and painful, but needed.
I think I am now out of the bargaining phase of grief, and into the depression stage of grief - and aiming toward acceptence
I quote:
This stage marks the beginning of true surrender to the depth and meaning of the addictive problem. No longer trying to assign blame or find a way out addicts begin to delve into the sadness and fear of not knowing themselves as they thought they did. Addicts struggle to come to grips with the meaning of their history of addictive actions and the costs these problems have created individually and in relationship to others they love. Often ashamed and confused in this early stage of recovery addicts may also be in unable to conceive of a life without their acting-out behaviors or substance use. Unfamiliar with a life outside of their addiction the addict despairs of ever feeling comfortable or "in control" as they have known it. For partners the depressive stage is one of beginning to comprehend the depth of the losses and challenges that the addiction has cost. Not fully understanding how addiction works and that the hope for recovery, partners may despair that their relationships will ever be right. As they experience the addict going off to 12-step meetings, making phone calls to other addicts and sponsors, the partner may feel left out of the process and fearful of the new barriers that seem to be encouraging separation rather than support and connection....
Please read more about the pain of recovery in http://www.sexualrecovery.com/articles/grief.php
and let your partners read this too , as I also feel my wife feels left out now she just won me back...but it has to be done...The link is a bit odd, but I thougt it to be very well written, and its about us too. This is helpful to the ones we love and love us. That quiting the addiction is not the day they have the old "us" back.
I have experienced this all before and then it was worse then this time...but as said. A lot happens and I want to help everyone to understand the stages of grief, and we have to go through all of them
I hope I will get used to my new life, my more complex life...- or less easy ways out - and then I probably will start to enjoy while the acceptance start.
It is not that I can say, hey I will start phase 5 now -->that goed faster.... that is emotional. I need to train myself slowly, like conditions I set andlive to it..so my emotions..will follow.
pre- diagnosed with Autism.