Insight

So here I am, trudging the proverbial road. I've backed away from my addiction, and I'm experiencing the downs and ups of sober life. Mostly downs, but I'm getting glimpses of ups, and it's kinda cool.

I'm finding there are (at least) two distinct sides of me with little overlap. There's the despair, lonely, frustrated, depressed, terrified, unmotivated, doom, gloom, etc. part of me. Everything seems hopeless, frustrating, dark ... And then there's the more even, lucid, positive, open, "free" side of me. Things seem more "sane," possible, surmountable, manageable. When I'm in one or the other, it's hard for me to see the other side.

Kinda like the "light world" and "dark world" from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES, if you remember that. In the game, there was the normal "Hyrule" world, and a dark, gloomy, decaying "dark world," that was similar to the "light world," but, well, darker. More dangerous, treacherous, etc. While he was in the dark world, he faced monsters, dungeons, etc. strictly belonging to the dark world, with no interaction with the light world. And vice-versa. Link had a mirror that he could use to magically transport himself from the dark world back to the light world. I need something like that.. when I find myself overwhelmed in my own dark world, to magically transport myself back into "the light" of sanity and manageability.