The hours between 11pm and 4am are the toughest for me.
It’s the time when everyone is asleep but me, and so my anxiety and craving team up and start telling me everything I need to do or wish I hadn’t done (at Mindshift we call this “Review & Regret) or the team starts pulling me towards another lapse. Sometimes both.
So this morning when I decided I was going for a walk because I couldn’t hang out with the dynamic duo again.
As I started walking, I told myself to focus on my feet and stay in this moment, but the conversation between craving and anxiety got louder. It wasn’t too long before I had turned toward the area of town that I would normally go to for my substances.
But when I could have crossed over a bridge to start another run or made the decision to double back, there was a gentler but firm voice that came into the conversation with craving and anxiety, curiosity (sometimes curiosity pops in at the perfect moment), “what if you turn here and go down the hill back towards your life? What would that feel like?” After all I could always cross somewhere else.
So, I made the turn, took a few steps, and if you’re someone like me who has regularly gone back to lapsing and running you know this isn’t an easy moment (simple but not easy is another Mindshift moment). The decision to turn was paired with a cop car driving by in that moment and I felt all the familiar fear, anxiety and discomfort that I used to feel when I was using and saw one. It was like life was saying “remember this is what it’s really like” (in Mindshift we call this a retrospective second gear moment, remembering the embodied result, the feelings that you really get from a behavior).
Craving and anxiety didn’t stop immediately. I had to keep noting them on my walk (at one moment I actually closed my eyes walking by my bank ATM). But then curiosity, a little louder came in, “What would it be like to sit with these two now that you have decided to stay?” So I found a bench in a park not too far and just let the discomfort roll in, dropped out of the story and held space. And after a bit it passed, the feelings were uncomfortable, at moments challenging to open to but craving and anxiety quieted down.
Walking back home I was able to appreciate little moments, not feeling like anyone was following me, the sunrise over the bay, and being able to say good morning making eye contact with people I met along the walk (I did get candy and an energy drink but one behavior at a time right now). And I got to note how good it felt to have made the decision to stay. After I called friends in recovery proud of making it to the other side just for this moment.
It’s not always easy to stop, to hold space for the momentum of craving and settle into the moment for me, simple but not easy again. But the decision not to run, to stay, is a different kind of reward. If you’ve had a hard time staying like I have it’s one that also often goes under appreciated. Mindshift tells me to invite curiosity in opening the space instead of closing and running. For today, I know I can be present when craving and anxiety come back in since they’re bound to come back. For now, I’ll keep inviting curiosity into the moment and hold space to ride out the way.
Simple and getting easier.
