What Is The Purpose Of Life? - please read if you care about me (page 2)

love11

Aww..cygnus. I hope things get better for you. Sometimes it just helps knowing that people care. I wish the best to you and hope things turn around real soon. Love

Fleur

Wow, cygnus. You were one of the first people I 'read' over at H2O so many moons ago. You were kind to me then. Very helpful.

I hope to be that helpful to you now. I know what it means to live with daily pain and physical limitations you'd expect in a person almost triple your age...we're just about the same age exactly you and me.

Hang in there, k? You're right, it is looking for Oz. And we're stronger for the search because we know now that we are stronger than the great and powerful Oz himself. We have love, we have hearts and brains and minds. And among the community of those who have suffered similiar things...I really believe we have found home as well.

When you find home, you don't always stay there all the time...you grow and wander out into the world. But you know it's there, you can go back to visit.

Come home to us soon. be well, know we care.

hugs,

esmeralda

Markfromcali

Although I haven't had the good fortune to witness the love you've experienced in this time of hardship, it is always beautiful to see how someone's life is touched. That's when we really start living isn't it?

Can someone post the link to "the awakening" thread since search is not working?

Here is a link to the Vincent thread as this post brought to mind this song I've been enjoying lately:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/27/12364/86.ashx

purplesofa

Thinking of you and the courage it takes to face what you are.

Don't be scared, find the inner you, embrace and love yourself.

(lol......sound like JamesThomas)

Be strong, Be Tough, Stay Couragious,

(((((((((((((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))))))))))))))

purps

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

MerryMagdalene

hard times, indeed...(((((((((cygnus)))))))))...i'm pullin' for you

~Merry

Cygnus

Thank you all for the kind words and support. I will try my best to do what I have to do. For the poster who can't find the Awakening, just look for it by clicking on my name and going to Topics and you'll find it.

outoftheorg

Cygnus you left a very very bad reputation with me, when you posted how you had beaten a young girl to a concussion injury.

However IF you are here telling the truth, that can be put aside and take it from there.

Almost all of us have had destructive mental or emotional or physical problems at one time in life and they can be very difficult to live through.

But they can be healed if the right treatment is found and then followed. It seems that this is what you are doing and I commend you for that. Thankfully very few of us have such severe physical problems as you describe. Your journey will be a long one, so stay the course and come here if you are able to and let us know what is going on.

You deserve the love and caring of others to help you through this time of trouble.

Wishing you the best and all that life has to offer.

Outoftheorg

bikerchic

(((((((Cygnus)))))))

I care and want you to know you've taken the first step to the rest of your life by admitting to yourself and others that you have a problem. That is the hardest step you will ever take heretofore, I congratulate you on having the courage to look deep within yourself and come up missing and having the courage to do something about it!

What is going on is I am 33 years old, I have physical ailments since my open heart surgery 2 1/2 years ago that make me feel 80, I have severe mental depression, anger, you name it. I have abused narcotics (pain pills, nothing worse, not cocaine or heroin but pain pills are bad enough) and I am going into rehab tomorrow. I have had serious suicidal thoughts recently. I need tons of help. And it's time to get professional help beyond therapy one hour a week (which helps, but isn't enough). I want my life back. I have been on antidepressants for 2 years but they don't help, not yet anyway. It's time to get on living or get on dying. I want the former. So I posted just to let my friends know I am at least trying. And if I disappear I am not dead, just doing whatever the rehab/mental hospital satellite office tells me I have to do. Life is so depressing when not on drugs. I need to kick the drugs, the painkillers, and get on living without them. So far I have not been honest with myself or anyone else for fear of ridicule or embarrassment. I don't care anymore. I would have been dead 40 years ago with my heart ailment. 20 years ago they would have given me a 50/50 chance at surgery. So I'm lucky just to be here. I don't want to kill myself but I think about it a lot. So please be kind to me and have patience. Some of you have known me for over 8 years. Please be nice and understanding, as you always have been, like when you helped me get out of the Witnesses. I'll say more if I have to... tonight. I go to rehab tomorrow morning.

Here is some stuff you might want to read from NA. The most important thing at this time is for you to seriously consider working a program when you get out of recovery it will help you to stay clean and sober. I wish you all the luck in the world in this Cygnus. Tomorrow can be the first day of the rest of your life.

Hugs!

Kate

Am I an Addict?

Only you can answer this question.

This may not be an easy thing to do. All through our usage, we told ourselves, ?I can handle it.? Even if this was true in the beginning, it is not so now. The drugs handled us. We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a person whose life is controlled by drugs.

Perhaps you admit you have a problem with drugs, but you don?t consider yourself an addict. All of us have preconceived ideas about what an addict is. There is nothing shameful about being an addict once you begin to take positive action. If you can identify with our problems, you may be able to identify with our solution. The following questions were written by recovering addicts in Narcotics Anonymous. If you have doubts about whether or not you?re an addict, take a few moments to read the questions below and answer them as honestly as you can.
Do you ever use alone? [Yes] [
No]
Have you ever substituted one drug for another, thinking that one particular drug was the problem? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever manipulated or lied to a doctor to obtain prescription drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever stolen drugs or stolen to obtain drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you regularly use a drug when you wake up or when you go to bed?
[Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever taken one drug to overcome the effects of another? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you avoid people or places that do not approve of you using drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever used a drug without knowing what it was or what it would do to you? [Yes
] [ No]
Has your job or school performance ever suffered from the effects of your drug use? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever been arrested as a result of using drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever lied about what or how much you use? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you put the purchase of drugs ahead of your financial responsibilities? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever tried to stop or control your using? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever been in a jail, hospital, or drug rehabilitation center because of your using? [Yes
] [ No]
Does using interfere with your sleeping or eating? [Yes
] [ No]
Does the thought of running out of drugs terrify you? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you feel it is impossible for you to live without drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you ever question your own sanity? [Yes
] [ No]
Is your drug use making life at home unhappy? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever thought you couldn?t fit in or have a good time without drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever felt defensive, guilty, or ashamed about your using? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you think a lot about drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you had irrational or indefinable fears? [Yes
] [ No]
Has using affected your sexual relationships? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever taken drugs you didn?t prefer? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever used drugs because of emotional pain or stress? [Yes
] [ No]
Have you ever overdosed on any drugs? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you continue to use despite negative consequences? [Yes
] [ No]
Do you think you might have a drug problem? [Yes
] [ No]

?Am I an addict?? This is a question only you can answer. We found that we all answered different numbers of these questions ?Yes.? The actual number of ?Yes? responses wasn?t as important as how we felt inside and how addiction had affected our lives.

Some of these questions don?t even mention drugs. This is because addiction is an insidious disease that affects all areas of our lives?even those areas which seem at first to have little to do with drugs. The different drugs we used were not as important as why we used them and what they did to us.

When we first read these questions, it was frightening for us to think we might be addicts. Some of us tried to dismiss these thoughts by saying:

?Oh, those questions don?t make sense;?

Or,

?I?m different. I know I take drugs, but I?m not an addict. I have real emotional/family/job problems;?

Or,

?I?m just having a tough time getting it together right now;?

Or,

?I?ll be able to stop when I find the right person/get the right job, etc.?

If you are an addict, you must first admit that you have a problem with drugs before any progress can be made toward recovery. These questions, when honestly approached, may help to show you how using drugs has made your life unmanageable. Addiction is a disease which, without recovery, ends in jails, institutions, and death. Many of us came to Narcotics Anonymous because drugs had stopped doing what we needed them to do. Addiction takes our pride, self-esteem, family, loved ones, and even our desire to live. If you have not reached this point in your addiction, you don?t have to. We have found that our own private hell was within us. If you want help, you can find it in the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous.

?We were searching for an answer when we reached out and found Narcotics Anonymous. We came to our first NA meeting in defeat and didn?t know what to expect. After sitting in a meeting, or several meetings, we began to feel that people cared and were willing to help. Although our minds told us we would never make it, the people in the fellowship gave us hope by insisting that we could recover. Surrounded by fellow addicts, we realized that we were not alone anymore. Recovery is what happens in our meetings. Our lives are at stake. We found that by putting recovery first, the program works. We faced three disturbing realizations:
We are powerless over addiction and our lives are unmanageable;

Although we are not responsible for our disease, we are responsible for our recovery;

We can no longer blame people, places, and things for our addiction. We must face our problems and our feelings.

"The ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering addict."1

1. Narcotics Anonymous 5th Ed. (Van Nuys, CA Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1988) p. 15.
English Recovery literature page
NAWS Home page

What is the Narcotics Anonymous program?
NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. This is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using. We suggest that you keep an open mind and give yourself a break. Our program is a set of principles written so simply that we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work.

There are no strings attached to NA. We are not affiliated with any other organizations, we have no initiation fees or dues, no pledges to sign, no promises to make to anyone. We are not connected with any political, religious, or law enforcement groups, and are under no surveillance at any time. Anyone may join us, regardless of age, race, sexual identity, creed, religion, or lack of religion.

We are not interested in what or how much you used or who your connections were, what you have done in the past, how much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help. The newcomer is the most important person at any meeting, because we can only keep what we have by giving it away. We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.

Why are we here?

Before coming to the Fellowship of NA, we could not manage our own lives. We could not live and enjoy life as other people do. We had to have something different and we thought we had found it in drugs. We placed their use ahead of the welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, and our children. We had to have drugs at all costs. We did many people great harm, but most of all we harmed ourselves. Through our inability to accept personal responsibilities we were actually creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of facing life on its own terms.

Most of us realized that in our addiction we were slowly committing suicide, but addiction is such a cunning enemy of life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of us ended up in jail, or sought help through medicine, religion, and psychiatry. None of these methods was sufficient for us. Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until, in desperation, we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous.

After coming to NA we realized we were sick people. We suffered from a disease from which there is no known cure. It can, however, be arrested at some point, and recovery is then possible.

Who, What, How, and Why

Who is an addict?
Most of us do not have to think twice about this question. We know! Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another?the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death.

How it works

If you want what we have to offer, and are willing to make the effort to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. These are the principles that made our recovery possible.

We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

This sounds like a big order, and we can?t do it all at once. We didn?t become addicted in one day, so remember?easy does it.

There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. With these we are well on our way.

We feel that our approach to the disease of addiction is completely realistic, for the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel. We feel that our way is practical, for one addict can best understand and help another addict. We believe that the sooner we face our problems within our society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we become acceptable, responsible, and productive members of that society.

The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug. If you are like us you know that one is too many and a thousand never enough. We put great emphasis on this, for we know that when we use drugs in any form, or substitute one for another, we release our addiction all over again.

Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover.

The Twelve Traditions of NA

We keep what we have only with vigilance, and just as freedom for the individual comes from the Twelve Steps, so freedom for the group springs from our traditions.

As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on NA unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority?a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or NA as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose?to carry the message to the addict who still suffers.
An NA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the NA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every NA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Narcotics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
NA, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
reprinted for adaptation by permission of
AA World Services, Inc.

Home Page http://www.na.org/

Meeting Locator http://portaltools.na.org/portaltools/MeetingLoc/

candidlynuts

hugs.. i know the pain pill problems will be resolved with help.its so easy to get addicted and abuse those after such a dramatic surgery. get the help you need and move on. doing that will help a lot of your emotions and mental instability to improve . what is it dr phil says? your not yourself your the drugs your addicted to right now. trite but after being around loved ones with the same problem i've found it has a lot of truth to it.

have you talked to your heart doctor about your depression and anxiety? i had a relative who had 3 open heart surgerys.. once at 18, 35, 42 yrs old.. after all of them for about 3 yrs she was depressed, had paranoia, suicidal problems, had a short fuse and her doctors said that was common after open heart surgery. she had a lot of therapy, medication etc and got better. the last surgery about 4 yrs ago was the most successful and eliminated a lot of her physical problems but really affected her emotions to an extreme degree but she recovered within 2 yrs that time. anyway, it was a real effect caused directly by the surgery itself and had a name ( but i cant remember it), so i suggest you talk to your heart dr. or psychiatrist and have them do some research for you!

hang in there, it sucks to be in the prime of your life and have such serious health problems but remember, it doesnt define you. take the help you need to learn to adapt and find wholeness within yourself. thats what we all have to do at various points in our lives. the man i love is disabled, has serious spinal problems and could die at any time the wrong nerves get affected. but if you meet him you dont see the wheelchair,its just the means he uses to get around, you see his pain from time to time and you see the efforts he has to take to adapt to his situation but overall.. you see his intelligence , his joy, his pleasure in the things he loves to do and you see HIM.the same fireball rocket scientist nerdball he's always been. illness doesnt take your identity away , you change, adapt and find your footing in life and find away to move forward. its hard but you can do it.

deal with the addiction, fight for the right mental health help, ( you really gotta find caregivers that CARE)come to terms with your health problems, put them in their proper perspective , remember who YOU are and what gives you satisfaction in life, you'll find joy in your life a lot easier.. hugs

Sunspot

Dear Jason,

Whatever demons that you've been fighting, you have so much potential and the guts to rise above them once and for all. You do have so much going for you, so don't allow these demons to stand in your way.

It seems that you are doing all the responsible things to put yourself back on track, so there's not a lot to suggest in that department. You have a good handle on the road to finding yourself, and it takes someone strong to admit the mistakes and move on from there.

I'm glad that you realize that you have so many friends that love you and who are rooting for you. Don't forget that. Ever.

I've always had a soft spot for you from way back, and I wish you the very best as you begin your healing.

Love n' hugs,

Annie

What Is The Purpose Of Life? - please read if you care about me

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