Addictive Thinking: The Way I Deal With Pain Has Changed

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I kind of touched on this subject before but I have realized that since being in addiction recovery, the way that I deal with aches and pains has really changed…for the better.

I was woken up very early this morning from muscle pain in my neck. I don’t know if I slept wrong or what but I felt like I had a muscle spasm in my neck. What was my first thought…what drugs can I take to make this go away?

See it used to be that whenever I would have a muscle spasm (I seem to get a lot of them in my back) I would immediately call my doctor and get a prescription for muscle relaxers…and anything else my doctor would allow me to have.

I would then take muscle relaxers non stop for a couple of days, drifting in and out of consciousness until the pain was completely gone. Take motrin? Ah…hello, that isn’t going to work for me. I need real drugs.

What I have noticed since being in addiction recovery is that I no longer feel the need to hide away in bed every time I have an injury or sickness. I actually noticed this change in myself when I had to deal with my first head cold in addiction recovery. It was then that I realized that I actually wanted to take things to relieve my symptoms and not just knock me out for days.

Today I found myself taking some Aleve to actually try to feel better. I wasn’t taking something to put me in a coma like state…which I was famous for doing.

I’m not going to say that the thought didn’t cross my mind. But it was more like reminiscing about being numbed by drugs than anything else. Once I realized that I was having some sort of addictive thinking going on I quickly turned it around.

I thought to myself, I can’t be down and out today, I have stuff to do damn it. I have to get my kid ready for school and drop him off and go to the bank and hit the food store and I definitely need to do some laundry. Poof, just like that I got back to rational thinking.

I’m really glad to have developed the ability to recognize addictive thinking for what it is and proud of myself for then doing what needs to be done to put a stop to it.

So ya, my neck hurts but it’s not excruciating pain and it’s just one more thing on a long list of things that I have been able to get through without the use of drugs.

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