Madness Of Addiction

written by Sylvia (Double Acrostic Form)



Must you be so cunning and full of gloom?
Always lurking, with your own agenda.
Down into a hell, I will descend.
Nothing can stop the pain,
Every nerve hurting and on fire.
Slayer of souls, leaving nothing but debris.
Surrender just a second away, my extreme loss.

Outward signs of you, as you practice voodoo.
Fearful that you will take away my God, my belief.

Addict is my name, if only I had amnesia!
Doubt fills me as I try to comprehend.
Demons unleashed!
Ignorance, my soul filled with graffiti,
Captured by your aphrodisiac.
Take your goods and relent.
Impulse uncontrolled as you apply your stimuli.
Only another addict can understand, you psycho!
Never will I be free from you I portend.



Copyright © 2008 Sylvia A. Feeley All Rights Reserved

Another Addiction

He keeps calling my cell and I will not answer. I cannot and will not talk to him now. I am afraid to. I did send an email to his friend giving him an address where a letter could be sent. It is not where I live, only where I get mail. I have prepared the papers to send him so that he can file them and we can be divorced without cost to either of us and without having to appear before the a judge. We had no property or assets to split, so it is very straightforward. If he follows the instructions, a divorce can be granted 60 days from date the first set of paperwork is filed. This is the best that I can do now.

I am still in the process of recovery and as with all addictions, it is not easy. I call it an addiction because there are withdrawal symptoms. Things I see and hear remind me of him and the past fifteen years that we spent together. I cringe when the thought creeps into my mind, I still care about him. In a way that is true. That “care” is not love nor is it hate. I can tell that this is not going to be a fast recovery but nevertheless, it will be a recovery. I write these post with the intent to cleanse my soul and aid in my recovery. The posts may sound disjointed but that is the way my mind is operating these days. Some are better than others. One day at a time is the mantra I need to repeat.

I have been thinking about doing some volunteer work with abused women once my recovery is well underway. I do not think I could do that right now. I am not sure I could be objective and reasonable with them. I did volunteer work with the Women's Shelter in my old town when it was just getting started many years ago and had to stop after several years. I stopped after receiving a call from an abused woman and I identified with her. I stopped being there just to listen and hear her. I wanted to give her advice and that was not what I was trained to do. The reason that I identified with her is that I had been in an abusive marriage at the time.

You see, it seems that I pick all the wrong men, those who abuse. I am trying to figure out why I do that. I think it has to do with lack of self esteem, feelings of being worthless and not being deserving of good treatment. I also think it has to do with desperation to have a man in my life and the mistaken belief that it was necessary in order to be a whole complete person. That is not true. I can be happy with me without anyone else being present in my life. I deserve to be happy and have a good life.

My “Quit Smoking” Blog Journal (Renamed My Addictions)

I was going to stop smoking on Sunday and started this journal. I did not stop as of today. I found another excuse to continue. I wanted to post this so that my blog friends in recovery will know that if I say to them, I understand, I do because I am in recovery as well. As time goes on, I will share more about my addictions and as you can see in the third paragraph, I have had many of them. The first addiction was alcohol. I started drinking alcohol at the age of 21 and continued until the age of 60. ( I will be 64 in August of this year.) I started drinking to avoid my life and the problem with that was it did not work, but I continued drinking anyway. As my other addictions developed, the alcohol stayed. As I stopped one, I continued to drink and found something else to go along with it. I was a mean drunk and the cost was high.

Day One - Sunday, April 8, 2007

I have decided, once again, that I will quit smoking. I know all the reasons why I must quit, but the truth is I really do not want to. However, I am quitting as of today. I only have two cigarettes left and when they are gone, out come the Commit Lozenges. I have them ready. I quit back in May of 2006 and did not smoke until September of 2006. I used the excuse of “my nerves” to start smoking again. I was going through a rough time and needed a crutch. My husband quit at the same time I did and he has weathered our problems without smoking. He is tolerating my smoking but is encouraging me to quit again. Bless him, he means well but each time he mentions my smoking, I get upset. It makes me feel like I am weak that I cannot give up cigarettes and that is far from the truth. As I said the truth is, I just do not want to quit.

I thought that perhaps by writing in a journal and expressing my feelings about quitting and sharing them with my blog friends, I would have success. We will see if this works. I think that if I share with the “world”, I will be too embarrassed to admit failure. Maybe, maybe not.

I have been told that I have an “addictive personality” and did some research and if there really is such a thing, I am a perfect example. I have had many addictions in my life. Alcohol, drugs, reckless spending, gambling, smoking. As I manage to stop one addiction, I find something to replace it. My addictions are a way of avoiding the truth of my life, a way to dull the pain and hurt I feel, to deny they exist. That is how I see smoking. It is my “addiction” of choice now. I have a problem understanding how I can not drink alcohol, not use drugs, stop spending, stop gambling but I cannot quit smoking. Is it because I think it is the least harmful of my addictions and that I cannot find another one to take its place? Addiction is a lifelong struggle. I give my all to addictions just as I do with everything I undertake in life. I am the best at each of them. As I sit here typing, I feel that perhaps people will think, how trite, only smoking, that is not a “real” addiction. I would beg to differ since I know what addiction is. Addiction never goes away. It is something that you manage from day to day.

I have just reread the first paragraph and have mixed feelings about the last few lines. I think the real truth is that if I give up this addiction, I will have to face the pain and hurt and can no longer deny them. I have done a very good job of hiding them all these years.