I'm sorry to hear you relapsed. Addiction is a tricky thing...

You must have SOMETHING to live for. Don't you have a partner who you really like?

Hell, if it makes you feel any better, you got me involved when I was getting ready to throw in the towel and leave this site. No one was really posting in my thread until you came and changed that

Yes, that makes me feel enormously better to hear I might have had a positive impact.

My relationship is long distance so it is harder for him to help me stay grounded as he did when we were living together. I'm still trying to figure this out which means my own understanding will evolve over time. Perhaps by "reason to live" it would have been more accurate to say a rationale, or an attitude shift, that would be more pro-life than nihilistic.

Hey, Ralph, you're not 'an alcoholic'. They labeled you and it's awful, as you correctly recognized. They (the p-docs) have neglected their duties (hopefully the new one will be better!!! I think that the fact that he's specialized to 'addictions' means that he searches for the true reasons of the addictions!) and I understand that it destroyed your motivation, but, Ralph, don't let them 'manipulate' your life this way! Don't contribute to the wickedness they've done to you! Re-read your post "Fitter, happier" - that's you! You're able to find your true and happier 'you', you don't have to be conformal with how they see you!

You're human, you have full right to relapse. A relapse doesn't mean that your previous success would become worthless or that you wouldn't be able to succeed later. I know you know all this, I just... want to 'remind' it to you .

"... my faith in that belief is being tested by ... a blind system with no regard for the individual."

But all that tells you is the system's opinion of things. Just because the world is full of idiots is no reason to agree with them, or do things their way.

Consciousness has value; and if it didn't, what would be the harm of indulging it while we can? It's fleeting enough.

"Now I am seeing this as a spiritual problem ..."

Maybe you're the only person for whom this is a spiritual problem (the people treating you may just have a different point of view), but so what? You're the one living it. Solve it in whatever way works.

I appreciate the reminders. I'm more concerned that a pdoc specializing in addiction will see me as necessarily nothing more than an addict and dismiss my concerns that the problem is deeper as a form of denial.

This may all be a moot point as I will be without insurance for two months and want to look outside of psychiatry for help since it seems to cause more problems than it solves in my case.

By the way, "Fitter, happier" is a short poem set to music performed by Radiohead. It's about the sense of existential despair brought on by conforming to expectations of the ideal middle class citizen and captures the mood I was in when I wrote that post.