Days and nights fly past, fly past, what am I becoming right now?
-The Buddha >
What when I do it, will lead to my longterm welfare and happiness?
-The Buddha>
Back in '05 or '06 I was reading a lot of Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Thanissaro and even considering becoming a monk in Thailand but none of that ever panned out. I was a longtime opiate and/or kratom addict reading about Buddhism and loving the idea of it but basically living my life in a haze of chemicals just to avoid getting dopesick.
I think I lost more opportunities and possible relationships to drugs than almost anything else, and yet I cannot lament my past. I only wish I'd taken the two quotes above more seriously when I was younger but I can rejoice in the fact that today I am free from that lifestyle and working on trying to live according to those words.
Patience and delayed gratification are not part of the lexicon or toolset of a longtime addict, but like anything else they can be learned. It's funny how when I was actively working my final taper from kratom I kept thinking of those quotes-- things I had heard about and read well over a decade prior. They had occasionally played like a mantra in my head but I would keep swatting them away like a fly or a mosquito until I was ready to start trying to take them seriously.
These days I keep trying to remind myself that life is short and that I can both change and learn to live in a more skillful way. I like this.
To all you addicts out there or those on the fence, there's always a way out if you want it bad enough.
Not sure what else to say for now but thank you for reading.