Reason #3 You Can’t Remember All The Good Stuff:

Candidly, this is a tough blog entry for me to write. This is where a lot of my regret likes to call “home”. And unfortunately, even though I got out of addiction with my physical well-being intact, a good state of mind and -for the most part- a family whole, happy and healthy, my memory was not so fortunate. This is where my addiction may have caused an indelible mark and it doesn’t matter how much I say “sorry about that!” or how many people I try to help, I’ll never get a lot of my memories back.

It’s obviously difficult for me to say with any authority or conviction how much I can remember and how much I just can’t recall in the last few years. Could it be that I’m just like everybody else?  Could it be that I remember the good times and the bad and then some random tid-bits in between? Yes, of course it’s possible. I doubt it though. I’m not sure if it was the pain killers themselves or if it was simply the fact that I was so inebriated most evenings; I just can’t remember a lot of things that I should remember now. I see pictures that I don’t remember taking and movies that I don’t recall watching. “George, don’t you remember we had a whole conversation about this last night?” was a pathetic “groundhog day” ritual that my wife and I would engage in on a daily basis the morning after. “Of course I can remember, you said this and you said that and you were saying something about how Mary was talking about going out with us and the dog lost his collar and…umm…well yeah that’s what we talked about ok?!”

Well quite honestly there are a lot of things that are meant to be forgotten and I think I’ve got that part taken care of. But I have to think that I mentally jettisoned some other stuff that I should have been able to recall for the rest of my life. I feel as though I should remember a lot of nights putting my little girl to bed and talking to her. I work a lot of hours regardless of what job I’m in and those times with my daughter were very few and far between. I’d give a lot to have some of those memories back. What makes it worse is that she won’t remember them either. She was three! If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, did it really make a sound? If a three year old and a profoundly intoxicated man have a conversation will it withstand the test of time? Probably not.

This is pathetic and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. How about you now? So what’s up for you this evening? Got any plans to do anything fun other than that 30 minute rush of goodness that the pills dole out? Well no words of encouragement for you on this blog entry, only a sad glimpse into what one guy (that couldn’t kick it) lost out on. A cautionary tale.

Links to other “Top Ten Reasons To Quit Pain Killers In-Depth” Posts:

Reason #1: “The Highs Are Getting Lower and the Lows Are Getting Longer”

Reason #2: “Your Work Is Suffering”

Reason #4: “Your Children Know and They’re Concerned”