Ohgeez Nemesis!!

So I'm taking drug and alcohol counseling classes and one of our assignments was to give something up for 3 days and then write about it. So this is what I wrote about it lol


Candy has always been an addiction of mine, and every year I give up candy for the 40 days of Lent. Going into this assignment, I naturally decided that I was going to give up my sweets for a weekend. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that I will not give up candy for I have a greater addiction. An addiction that helps me relax, reduce my stress, and escape. It is an addiction that I have spent literally thousands of dollars on. I am addicted to music. For three days of my life, I was to live without my crutch, my joy, my little addiction. This meant no music while driving, no music while studying or doing other schoolwork, and I even had to mute the television when a song came on. The effects on me from this experience were nothing like I expected and I can relate this experience very similarly to someone who has just given up drugs (although not as intense).
I started this assignment on Saturday, the 17th of July. I did not start on Friday because I was driving down to Kings Dominion with my girlfriend for our two year anniversary and there was absolutely no way I was going to drive that long without music. I feel that this is somewhat similar to an addict that is faced with entering rehab but keeps putting it off because they have something going on in life that they absolutely cannot deal with without their drug. An overwhelming dread is what I felt as I even thought about starting this assignment. I was not looking forward to it at all.
Saturday morning came around and I grabbed my final “hit” for three long days. I believe I listened to “Counselor” by In Fear and Faith which is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands. Immediately following my cessation of music, my father decides to go on a 7 hour errand run across St. Mary’s and Calvert. I told him that I was quitting music for a few days and he was fine with it but I could tell that he started to get antsy to listen to music as the day went on. Besides not listening to music in the car, I also had to avoid it in places like stores. I actually plugged my ears in Ledo’s and CVS when I wasn’t able to block out the music. When we finally got home, I immediately started playing video games because that is another way that I relax. I was obviously substituting games for music but I didn’t care because I wasn’t giving up games at this particular point in time. Luckily the games that I play don’t have music in them, just the sounds of guns shooting and grenades exploding.
That night I went to Taylor (my girlfriend)’s house. I let her know that I couldn’t listen to any music and that included music on television as well as her singing. She was okay with me muting the T.V. but when I told her that she couldn’t sing, she flipped. Taylor loves to sing and make up songs or change lyrics to other songs and she is very good at it. This part was much harder on her than it was on me. She finally just busted out in song because she couldn’t hold it in anymore. On Sunday I decided that I was going to allow her to sing because she was having a tough time holding back and supporting me in this assignment. This really taught me just how difficult a relationship can be when one person is in recovery and the other is not. You want them to support you and your recovery but you also want them to have fun and do what they want. This dynamic alone can be strong enough for someone to quit their recovery. I felt really guilty for this and I couldn’t imagine the pain and guilt I would have if I was really in recovery.
Monday was absolutely dreadful for me. I woke up and immediately decided that I was going to turn on VH1 because sometimes they have some good songs playing in the morning. It wasn’t until I saw 2 music videos that I realized that I had messed up. I wouldn’t exactly call this a relapse because I didn’t consciously mean to listen to music. I just slipped back into my ways. I was really ashamed because I had slipped even though I knew that this assignment wasn’t a real recovery. The shame was automatic right when I realized what I had done. It then turned into anger. I was actually angry at myself for listening to music and breaking my vow to give it up.
That same day, Taylor was out taking senior pictures of one of her friends for hours and I was home with nothing to do (so I thought but there were plenty of productive things I could have done). I played games all day. Previous to this weekend I had hardly turned on my Xbox except for three days a few weeks ago when a new game came out. I probably played more Xbox in this weekend than I had the whole month. I now know why many people in drug recovery smoke cigarettes or drink coffee and energy drinks.
As I mentioned earlier, I had many effects that I did not expect. Most of them were psychological but I also had some physical effects. I actually had a headache spanning from Saturday to Tuesday morning and I found myself feeling sick with stomach cramps. I attribute this to anxiety because I have anxiety that makes my stomach hurt really badly and I use music to help with that. I also had many unexpected and somewhat extreme psychological effects. The first is that I always had a song stuck in my head. I had songs that I haven’t listened to in years and also songs that I hate stuck in my head. There is one particular rap song called something like “Dougie” that that I despise and I had that in my head for a long time. Another effect that I had was a great frustration. I was surrounded by music everywhere I went and I was so tired of having to block it out.
I also had various emotional responses along with feeling guilty, ashamed, and angry. I had many mood swings where I would be fine and then something stupid would set me off. The worst was probably depression and anxiety. Music is an absolutely vital and crucial part of me coping with these two monsters and not having that really made me regret giving up music. On Sunday or Monday night, I was just staring up at the sky watching the storm roll in and feeling very lonely.
Tuesday brought much needed relief. Thank God for Tuesday. Tuesday was probably the highlight of my year so far. I immediately turned on the radio and listened to some Michael Jackson song but I didn’t care. Not only could I listen to music again, but the Van’s Warped Tour was that day. Warped Tour is this huge concert tour with over 100 bands. This was the perfect fix to my weekend without music. So many of my favorite bands played and it was absolutely incredible. I felt so relieved to finally be listening and enjoying my addiction again.