My Past Does Not Decide My Future, And Neither Does Yours

I think it is fair to say that we all make mistakes. Saying that we don’t would be wrong and completely idiotic.
We’re not perfect, none of us living today can be. Pretending we are is insane, and thus, we should admit when we were wrong.
In a previous article, I mentioned that any failures we have in life must be admitted to because we’re always up for accepting any success that comes along. However, we also have to accept failure.
I believe, firmly might I add, that we MUST admit to failure because any misstep in life is a teaching opportunity to ourselves.
On top of this, any mistake we make can be useful to us as we can help others avoid them in the future. Without first having to deal with a mistake, we cannot expect to help others.
Men, all this said, I must admit I made a life mistake. Years back, I had a terrible kidney infection. Never having had one in my life, I did not know it was this.
It seemed like a cold or flu at first and then it seemed like a sinus infection. I took every antibiotic built for that world, but nothing helped. I was in pain and lost 40 pounds in the span of the month and a half I dealt with this.
It was rough and knowing I have only one kidney, I was leaning to dangerous territory. So, I headed to the Emergency Room where we found it was a kidney infection.
The right antibiotics were given and I was better, but the infection caused an inflammation problem in the body for me. I then used some pain medicine the ER gave me.
It was the only thing that helped, but they were narcotics and too many taken over time would be addictive.
I did not know, nor did I care. I was in pain.
I went back to the ER about 3 or 4 times that year to get the IV fix of pain meds and the prescription for pills to take at home for a few more weeks.
All the while I knew I needed help, and it would not be for 5 months before I finally got into a Pain Management Center. This was due to appointment waiting time.
I was as pitiful as it could get. I was down to using one narcotic a day and ran out the day of my appointment. I managed to get there, and I’m better for it.
They would help me get the right medicines for my problem and off the narcotics.
I was detoxing for 2 weeks, in pain a lot, and feeling like I had the flu the entire time. But I got clean.
I was lucky to only be this far into addiction, as others were much worse than me.
There were people at the pain center who used heroin, cocaine, and much higher pain drugs than I even knew they made.
I am lucky enough to only have a nerve disorder, while there were many who have broken vertebrates, broken or messed up legs, and much more.
One guy there had 10 back surgeries by the time he was 35. I was lucky and still find myself saying that.
I was not as bad as these people and I made it out before I became a terrible addict. Since then, I have helped others who have had trouble.
I tell people about these medicines, how to take them and which to avoid.
I talk to people about the use of them or any other drug, and I warn others what it is like to deal with a severe addict. I feel my use in this world has been helpful to those people.
Recently however, I was told that despite being clean for years now, I was weak-minded because of what I did. Back then, in a desperate time, I was weak. I will never, ever admit otherwise.
Today though, I am happy and perfectly fine in my clean life from daily, hardcore narcotics.
I was judged over my past, and by someone I consider a friend. This was not due to me being a weak person now.
This was not seeing me addicted and then calling me weak for it. On this day, I am no longer weakened but strengthened. I am this because I overcame a problem, and I never wanted to have one to begin with.
Addiction is different for everyone. We all have some sort of addiction anyway.
Whether that addiction is learning, reading, video games, television, sports, food, or what have you.
We’re addicted to it and there never seems to be a problem for those people, which is fine because they’re not hurting themselves or anyone else.
In my world, I was hurting myself and I would have hurt others either emotionally or physically.
I made it out and for that, if nothing else, I am better for it. I was then told I could fall back into it at any point and statistics show that addicts can go back to being addicts.
The number currently stands at around 60 percent who relapse. Out of most of these users, they were heroin or high-dose pain-killer addicts beforehand.
Despite this, everyone is better than a statistic.
I could be in the 60 percent who go back or the 40 percent who do not. Pretending I am going to go back because a stat says I might is the dumbest sack of crap I’ve ever heard.
It is as if one is telling you that you have to. You do not have to be anything other than what you choose to be.
If you choose to go back to an addiction then you will do it, if you do not choose to do this, you won’t. You’re in charge of your destiny and no one else.
There is no person, no animal, no group, and damn sure no statistic that defines you as a person. Your future is dictated on what you do now going forward.
If you choose for this to be a time period in which you spend it with a vice, then that is your decision to live with.
However, if you choose to live away from these vices and be good for yourself and others around you…..that is also a decision you make yourself.
You’re better than a statistic and if more people believed this, then those numbers may start going down more and more by the year.
However, so many of us feel we have to go back because we may eventually do it. We think we have to go back because people think we will, so we might as well make them right.
We think we have to go back because it may be the only thing that made us feel like we were good enough, and no word from anyone would hurt us then.
However, that is not the way to be or the way to live. Be the example of change, screw people and the statistics they bring along with them.
You’re better than that. I for one will always be a former addict, and I’m okay with that because the most important word is “former.”
My past is my past, as is yours.
Let us now focus on our future and make it the best it can be, as we deserve the chance to prove the doubters wrong.