Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Back to PA because of Jay, yes as in Silent Bob

I just posted this on another forum and surprised myself with the conclusion :) Warning for talk of drug addictioon (not mine.)

I woke up today with, 'Is it a week till I move? It's a week till I move.'

Fear, fear, fear.

I've had a week of intense processing and now maybe it's time for a week of intense doing. And with that thought, I flipped out and procrastinated for several hours! So that's where I am now. Let's have a look at stuff.

My choice of downtime-activity yesterday and today (I'm learning to notice this, because it's significant) was getting rather involved with tales of Jason Mewes's drug hell. I'm definitely noticing a pattern. This is about my pain.

Jay Mewes is one of those guys I identify with, one of those ultra-high-energy, ultra-expressive, strange and intense guys who walk the line between boyishness and androgyny, vulnerability and badassness. Well, 'identify with' is not quite accurate - there's also a wishful edge to it, a desire for more of those qualities in my own life.

Over the last couple of days I've discovered a new level of identification with Jay as the disastrous problem child being parented by his best friend. My housemate and I used to joke that we were like Jay and Silent Bob, but I don't think either of us realised how creepily like we were to the real-life Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith. Kevin wore himself out for years trying to help that boy through his problems, swinging between nurturing and anger, pushing him away and taking him back, and then finally realised he was being an enabler. He had to let go and let Jay hit rock bottom for him to get better.

Partly I'm wishing my housemate loved me as much as Kevin loves Jay. In the end, she let go of me to save herself, not me, and I doubt we'll end up friends again as they did. And I feel hurt and regretful about that difference. But I still recognise so much of our codependent story in theirs. Including the hitting rock bottom. I think (hope) I've now done that and I'm starting to climb back up.

Obviously, I can't compare my problems to heroin addiction. I'll never know what that's like, but I know what it's like to be the nuisance and the burden and the adult child who needs parenting. The liability, the flake, the special case, the one who can't be trusted. The one who makes all those empty promises. The one there are all those funny, funny anecdotes about. Ugh, it's hard. And I've never really allowed myself to feel sorry for myself for that  hard, so once again, I snuck around to it by feeling sorry for someone else.

Jay gets a kiss from Alanis Morissette as God in 'Dogma'

And this is relevant now because?

Because now it's time for me to do the work of climbing back from rock bottom and out of the problem-child persona. Because I need the heartwarming spectacle of a dork like me having successfully done so, and being proud of himself, and being able to tell his own story with total honesty and humour, and with no need for excuses or apologies or self-hate. Just: that was where I was then. Here's where I am now. Oh, Jay! You're a beacon of acceptance!

Kevin insists, quite rightly, that Jay gets 100% of the credit for his own recovery. He calls him a hero. With everything a geek means when they say hero.

Oh, and perhaps equally importantly, sober Jay is still Jay. Very much so. Recovery has only made him funnier and more himself.

You know what I'm getting out of this? I know procrastination ain't heroin. But I'm going back to Procrastinators Anonymous. 

hi Lucky, glad to see you

hi Lucky, glad to see you back :)

courage and luck for the next weeks 

Thanks chick! Good to see

Thanks chick! Good to see you too! 

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Metaphor Mouse! Because playlists are better than tasklists.

Lucky, I've missed you!

So glad to see you homing back in.  Thanks for sharing; I am reminded of that phrase in The Doctor's Opinion (AA Big Book, page xxvi or see here:  http://www.164andmore.com/words/astonishingly.htm) about how, in addiction, our problems mount up and become "astonishingly difficult to solve."  That's as true of my compulsive procrastination as it was for my other addictions: alcoholism, drug addiction, codependency and eating disorders.  Procrastination is a stand-alone addiction - perhaps the Black Belt of "cunning, baffling and powerful" (another Big Book description of alcohol) - And for me, it is also the "gateway drug" in all the rest of my addictions. 

Binges into procrastination have led me back into my eating disorders, codependency behaviors, and serious temptation to drink/drug despite 32 years of sobriety.  It is as deadly an addiction as any other, and as its victims, we are as worthy of compassion as any other addict - and as worthy of celebration for every 24 hours of recovery.

At one point in my PA recovery, I recognized how I embraced my self-pity and I remember thinking, "If I don't feel sorry for myself, who will?"  Today I can chuckle at that.  I've had my times of stepping away from PA too, but one reason I do keep coming back here: You guys get me, and support me, in ways that no one else ever can or will.  In the face of astonishingly difficult consequences from indulging my PA addiction, I keep coming back here and finding a fellowship that - while it can't solve all my problems - can meet my intense need for understanding and even sympathy from those who've been there, done that. 

Hope you'll keep coming back, Lucky.  You belong to us!

"My boundaries enclose a pleasant land." Psalm 16

Wow, Agnus. I'm blown away.

Wow, Agnus. I'm blown away. Thank you so much! 

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Metaphor Mouse! Because playlists are better than tasklists.

Mama_Cat's picture

Hiya Lucky

Greetings from MC and MC Jr!

Always nice to see your name on the board, my friend!

Hang in there. Keep asking HP for help. And breathe! :P

We all have our own Higher Power, including your roommate. And no one ever knows what the future will bring.

We'll be thinking of you as you prep for your move this week!

Mama_Cat and Kitten :)

"[People] need to be connected to each other. Courage comes out of relationship; it doesn’t come out of willpower." Peter Block, author of Servant Leadership: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest.

Thank you so much, MC. Love

Thank you so much, MC. Love you! :D 

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Metaphor Mouse! Because playlists are better than tasklists.