This Premeditated Meditation is one section of a series of sample meditations designed to bring us down from our most common unhealthy reactions. We write them to ourselves, while we feel great, and when we have access to all of our wisdom. Then, when we’re upset, we have only one job: read the letter we wrote to ourselves.
This letter is to a cocaine addicted 40’s businessman, written to himself while he was feeling no desire for drugs and when he was feeling clear-headed. Warning, this does contain language stronger than previous examples.
Start deep slow breaths now. Now.
I know you’re thinking why do I have to keep reading this? This morning I added this. It works. Mostly. Maybe we wanted to not need the letter. Better than a 1g a week coke habit. 3 weeks. 3gs. Another week and we can get the car fixed.
Remember that science show: brains like waiting for stuff more than they like stuff. Strawberries, ice cream, drugs, everything. Wanting to get high is better than getting high.
Wanting it is no surprise. We have an addiction. But keep breathing. It’s temporary. It passes. It always passes. And the cravings get further apart. You know that.
Millions of other people did this before you. Don’t let your head get all busy and focused on drugs. Stay calm. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. Now!!!
Let me take some of the steepness out: you’re thinking about getting high. Start thinking about running out. Less fun right? The sweaty gnawing feeling, everything’s loud. Remember that part. It sucks. And you’re down another g. Or 2. Plus whatever dumb shit you do.
She is an awesome woman. Beautiful, smart, fun. When she puts up with you why do you risk all of that for some hooker in a hotel when you never even have sex anyway?
You know why: cause if you’re with some girl in a hotel you’re some stud. If you’re just there to do drugs then you’re just an addict. The girl’s camouflage. And you have a girl.
We’re in this together and if you do this you screw up my chances to make stuff right with her. I can’t do that again. We can’t do that again. Please. We’re running out of time. There’s a life we want to live. This has to stop. No more saying it’s stopping and then moving the date back over and over.
Do not cave in. There’s a cave in. You argue to surrender and then you do. F you. Buck up. Your Dad raised 7 kids and he worked 2 jobs. We’re like that when we feel good. That part of us doesn’t need coke.
No more money. No more girls or hotels or waking up feeling like shit for 4 days. We are 1 2 3 weeks into this. We’ve already sweated and puked and had diarrhea and cried and felt like shit. We’ve done that 1,000,000 times.
NO MORE!! NO!!!! NONONONONONO!!! This time we exit out the other side so we never do this again!!!
22 years. 52 weeks per = 1150. X 1g per week = $1,150,000. Dave, Ben, Craig, Megan, Barb. Houses, buildings, places at the lake. Retirement. Us? Rent, zero savings. We have a big pile of coke we stuck up our nose. If we weren’t a good salesman we would be on the street. We are getting old in case you forgot.
No more. It’s been too many times. Don’t let me get 1 2 3 weeks and then make us start all over. And remember if you go get some shit how we’re gonna feel after. That’s getting high too.
Drugs just isn’t the relief when we buy. What about that clammy shitty I want-more feeling where our bank account argues with that need to hide from that gnawing? That’s doing drugs. That feeling.
F you. Do not cause that feeling in me. Please. I feel good. You’re gonna too if you don’t make that call. You are me. Trust me, we’re 1000% sure. 10,000% We do not want to do this. Do not dial the phone.
Come on. It gets easier the longer we go. Let’s keep this streak going. Keep breathing. We owe apologies to a lot of people. Let’s start feeling better instead of just saying that.
If you still think you want to go, you know the thing now. You just sit and think about getting high as being the after instead of the getting high part. Think of the people you hurt, the dumb stuff we did. The money. How crappy we felt.
The night with Shannon? Come on. Half our life has been recovering in some shitty hotel room after we did something awful like that. No way no more.
Think about the shitty parts Doug. Think about those. Those are real. That’s what we pay for when we buy coke. And if we stop acting like a dick we won’t keep adding to the list of stuff we have to feel guilty about. Half the time guilt’s why we’re getting high.
No more girls we don’t know. No more seedy places or people. A new crowd. New places. Imagine our new life without the bar, and the club and the girls.
If we think about drugs let’s think about coming down. We’re rewiring our brains. It’s science. It’ll work. We trust that, we saw it on Discovery channel. Just do it. Just do it Doug. Just do it.
Think of the downsides. Focus on them. Please. You’ll be me soon. I’m begging you. I’m close. Do not cave. Not this time. If we can not cave once, then we can not cave 1000X in a row.
There’s a life we can replace with all of the time and money. Lets buy that instead. We really do want that life more. You know we do. That life is worth paying this price for. It is and you know it. So pay the price because what you’re buying is so great. Breathe.
If you have to read this again do it as many times as you need until you’re me. Hold on. We are getting out of here.
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.