Hey, Sparkle --
Of course I agree with Sans Camel (who would dare not, after all??), but I also sympathize with your experience in the deepest way. While it does, of course, involve a "choice," we've seen that the options presented by this "choice" are all extremely unattractive, are they not? Smell like an ashtray or continue to feel like something that should be flushed down the toilet. Golly, which would I rather do?? And those are really the only two on bad days, are they not? And those crummy bad days seem to outnumber the good days by 10 to 1, do they not?
In the past, I had always opted for the former: better to smell bad than to feel bad.
Now I'm trying to form new categories and create (yup, just invent away!) new options that go beyond smelling bad, feeling bad, controlling, and being controlled. Those just didn't work for me. It was way too good/evil, black/white, right/wrong for this hopeless addict to wrap his feeble mind around.
Now I'm trying to think in terms of the identity I'm trying to create for myself (first and foremost) and present to my world (second, but also of some importance). It sounds like "smell bad/feel bad," but it goes a little deeper than that. (But since it's me, not MUCH deeper!) I don't want just not to smell bad, I don't want to be a person who doesn't care what he smells like. I don't want just to smell bad, I don't want to be a person willing to inflict that smell on the people around me any more. I want to think I've somehow evolved from that a little.
Evolution does not come without cost, sometimes quite high. In order for the stronger urges/selves to survive, indeed to flourish, the weaker urges have to die off or, in some cases, be killed off by the stronger. Mine haven't died off on their own, so as masochistic as it sounds, I'm about the business of systematically killing them off. I know, only in my own case, that if I don't, they will surely kill me and make my life a living hell in the process. They've actually done an excellent job of that so far!
So of course, Sans Camel is right, it IS about choices, but they might be more life-and-death on so many levels than we realized. There really is more at stake here than feeling good. (And God forgive me, no one puts a higher premium on feeling good than I do!!)
Don't know if that helps or not....
peteg