Read Incessantly, business and tech blogs. The subconscious is this amazing place where startup idea incubation occurs. For me, as I read about all of the new things that exist, and all of the cool new technologies that are surfacing, my mind starts to make connections. I am then able to consider how such technologies could be expressed differently to solve other existing problems.
I have been sober for 6.5 years. I was a blackout drinker, and then ventured into narcotics. I thought that it all used to be fun. I did it to fit in, find acceptance, feel a part of. But at some point that changed for me. Using was no longer fun at all, it was more like work. I never felt "just right" but rather was always chasing the dragon. I got to that place of hopeless despair. Its a place not unlike where Dante passed in the Inferno with the sign that reads "Abandon Hope all Ye who enter here". Everyday I would wake up in fear, and with guilt shame and remorse. When I wasn't using, I was thinking about it, planning how I was going to get it next, imagining what it would be like- how it would "Be Different this Time". Always the same torment and insanity. At that point, i would use to feel numb.. to not feel anything at all. I didn't want to think about myself, or what I was doing. I wanted to just escape and not feel.
I turned 21 in rehab, in po-dunk Rock Creek, OH. Only after a few weeks clean, and the bitter irony of where I was in life, did I have that "moment of clarity" and have a little bit of willingness to accept that I was powerless over alcohol, and my life had become unmanageable.
AA does not have a monopoly on recovery, but it has worked for me. We suffer from a spiritual malady, and our recovery is contingent upon a daily reprieve. "what am i doing today for my recovery?"
I think you are posting this because you need to know, and you need to hear that everything will be ok. There is hope, I promise that you are NOT Condemned to live with active addiction. Know that you are going down a path that is not unique, so many before you, who have done worse things, and lost more things, and suffered longer have gone been in your shoes. And for them too, there is way to beat this disease. Anonymity is the greatest form of Humility. We are just people helping people, from one addict to another, I can empathize with you, I know how you feel, I have felt those pains before. Call an AA central office near where you live, send me a message if you need help