I was dragging today. Not bad, just dragging. Just… burned out.
I did four cars (diagnosis and belt replacement (crank pulley coming apart), diagnosis and spark plugs (misfire due to bad spark plug), headlight bulb replacement, and no start/bad noise trying to start diagnosis (seized AC compressor.
Then came home relatively early (6:30 ish?) and tried to get my Versa going, and it just… fought me every step of the way. I thought I was going to get to bed by maybe 9ish. Nope. Had all my tools out and the car jacked up, and was like, it’s gonna take a bunch of extra time to get this all out and set up to work on again, might as well just do it while it’s up and have all the tools out, but it fought me… and fought me… and fought me. I got a bit mad.
Finally, I got part of it done, all the stuff that needed to be done from under the car at least, and so I called it good for the night..
So the getting mad part wasn’t so good. Then I watched some YouTube stuff to wind down but got triggered by an image of an attractive woman in provocative clothing with a car in one of the car YouTube videos. I almost had the strength to reach out to a friend, but… I guess I wanted to use more than be clean… So… relapse.
I think it was last Saturday with the last relapse. So… one week. Gonna do some pondering about it all. I’m making progress, but it’s so slow, and with this addiction, it doesn’t feel like I’m making progress.
But… I’ll keep trying.
Embarrassed.
A little discouraged.
Tired.
I’m heading to bed. Still battling just to get to bed on time.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 
Well, brother, you did a magnificent rebound to the positive this week. That’s HUGE progress! You chose to give yourself R&R! Yay!!! You noticed that choices within your control made a huge difference for good in your feelings!! And you noticed that when projects didn’t behave as expected and you experienced anger and frustration and an overlong day, your psyche needed the break it didn’t get, so you rewarded it with the quick-pay-back-nasty-results reward. So now you can plan ahead of time what healthy and longer-lasting reward you’re going to give yourself next time that combination of circumstances rolls around. And/or you can plan ahead what time you are *absolutely* going to stop working and what you’re going to do to help your psyche recuperate from the difficulty so you don’t trigger again. You’ve also noticed that a trigger can be tiny and still be effective. You’ve noticed that the last few have come from youtube videos. So… Make a plan. Maybe it won’t work every time, maybe it will. Maybe just working some of the time will help you make new habits that lead to new pathways, that make new roads you travel on and the old ones will become overgrown with weeds, bushes, and trees from lack of use… 🙂
By the way – giving one’s self self-damaging rewards is something I think most people do when overextended emotionally, physically or otherwise. It could be staying up late, using self-damaging drugs, eating, binging on the mental equivalent of those things… whatever…. it all falls under the category of self-destructive and/or falsely/temporarily satisfying. So, your sharing your struggles can help all of us identify the ways we do the same things. Then *we* can make plans to avoid our triggers and help ourselves live happier healthier lives in which we can be of most benefit to ourselves and others…
Love you, brother!!