My late teens and early twenties have been a dark and wandering time for me. I could have easily went on wandering and continued wasting years in addictions, but somehow by the grace of God I have managed to get myself turned around and walking a good path now. I’m currently coming upon 9 months sober from opioids (and other substances). I’d love to be able to relay my addiction story and it help someone, but in truth this is not some sobriety meeting and few reading this here need to sit through the extended tales of a low-down dirty dog scrounging in the gutter spinning his wheels from one day to the next just getting by. I’d really just like to let those who read my website know that I’m alive, doing very well nowadays, and am finally getting back to a place where I can wholeheartedly engage with my passions.
I’m still pursuing homesteading and all manner of related survival and outdoors activities and I’ll be writing and posting videos to my youtube channel of what I’m up to now. One major change I have made is that I am no longer a vegan after years eating plant-based, and my diet now is composed of mostly egg, meat, and dairy. Not that anyone knew it before, my status as a vegan wasn’t something I was exactly proud of, especially in outdoors/homesteading circles. There was a time I was proud of it but that time had long passed before I even made a website. I’ve put on quite a bit of muscle mass since quitting opioids and to talk about all the changes I’ve been through would take volumes. The biggest by far is that I am actually present and sober, consciously and emotionally plugged in to what is going on around and inside me. I feel all the feelings I am supposed to feel, the difference between that, being a living human, or being a neutralized catatonic addict, is something that could never be completely spoken, let alone written and read.
I’ll stop myself before I try to paint a word-mural. I’ve been embarking back into passions that I’ve been unwilling to approach for so long. It started with guitar, and then to books and fishing, now I’m practicing photography and film once more. Feel mostly like my old sober self. I’m sure there’s parts of me I’ll never be able to get back, but I’m very blessed to have retained (most of) my cognition. There’s things I notice here and there as being scars in my mental functioning, but they are getting better every day, and if I have some that don’t heal then that is the price I pay for my actions. My writing style may be a bit different now, which will be a good thing. People told me before I came across robotic and they didn’t know that I was an opioid addict at the time but when I was told that I knew that it was at least mostly to do with my addiction. Opioid addiction completely kills your reward system, personality, feelings, emotions, you are essentially an amorphous grey blob in spirit. Might as well be a robot. Hopefully my writing will be a bit livelier, although I am a very literal person in real life and speak more formally than most, so that will remain.
Let’s turn our attention to my homesteading! I’m very excited to do some talking about my projects this year as because of aforementioned reasons I am now again able to enjoy and experience what I am doing and it is truly great. Last year I just wanted to plant every vegetable that I liked and I got overwhelmed by all of what I produced, trying to preserve it while managing addiction was very hard. This year I am focusing my goals on accomplishing the practical task of feeding myself, and so my garden this years is mostly corn and beans with some okra, squash, tomatoes, watermelon, peppers of all sorts, etc. I’d say it is about 50% beans, 40% corn, and 10% the rest. We will see if I grew enough to feed myself through the winter with the help of fish, game, and eggs, of which I am blessed with good year-round access to all. I’ve begun composting this year, and I’m glad I started because I’d be hard pressed for fertilizer otherwise.
It ought be obvious that there will be many hard times going forward. I don’t know the extent of what the destruction will be yet, but the way the world is developing can be terrifying. It is best not to let it impact you psychologically more than it needs to. Do what you can now within reason. I’ll begin publishing more of my writing on this unfolding catastrophe before us, and only the new and useful things I have to say on the topics at hand.
I would like to have posted this update in the previous months, but knocking down these walls is a process and it has happened in due time. Now that I’ve posted, you can expect regular-ish articles to be published here whenever I feel I have something to say.
Until my next proper post,
Normandie
End the Machine 