So I am up to 19 weeks sober and feeling pretty good about that. I'm making progress with re-learning how to take care of myself, and that is helping me maintain a state where I don't feel like I need substances to escape. For now I seem to be on an upward spiral, which is the end result of some months and years of effort to get better. Which to me, was not a choice, I could only get better or remain miserable. I had to take the chance or my suffering would go nowhere and do nobody any good.

I still struggle with momentary thoughts of suicide, and vast streams of negative thoughts that are just part of my personal experience. We all have our challenges; this happens to be one of mine. Through meditation I have learned not to identify with these thoughts, and that has made a huge improvement in how I relate to my internal world as well as the external one.

I think it is possible to choose to get better. The problem is this takes a lot of work, and in a depressed or anxious state, all that work seems overwhelming so we switch off and throw our hands up, exclaiming that "it's impossible with this horrible depression/anxiety/bipolar/(fill in your diagnosis here)!" Yes, it feels impossible, but it's not. A brain ruled by cognitive distortions has no idea what is truly possible after some work, patience, and persistence. It is used to giving up at the slightest resistance, but this is just not how the world works. There are setbacks and failures in life, and if we demand that there be none, we are only setting ourselves up for frustration.