Only very recently have I begun to dream of anything besides relapse. I’d say for pretty much the first 9-10 months of my recovery, I dreamt about using meth almost every single night.

It was a heavy weight on my mind upon first waking up. In the dreams I would move through the entire emotional journey of a relapse — the internal turmoil, the debate, the justifications, the relapse itself, the guilt and shame, and ultimately the acceptance.

And then I would wake up and have to back track through all of it again, and usually now experiencing cravings.

But the last month or so I’m finally dreaming of other things sometimes.

But I do have a recurring dream about my childhood bedroom. Specifically I dream about a nightstand in this room that I am hiding a bag of meth in.

I used it up in one dream. Then when I dreamt of it again a few days later it was empty, and I remembered that I had already smoked my stash. It was interesting to me that my dream memories stayed consistent like that.

Last night I dreamt of the nightstand again. And it had a bag of meth in it again.

The bag was extremely full. An entire 8 ball or more shoved into a tiny plastic baggie. I remember so vividly how the crystals felt pushed up against the plastic, their sharp edges pressing against my fingertips.

It’s a feeling deeply ingrained in my memories from years of using. And I was so excited and eager in the dream. I could already feel myself hitting the bubbler. The tinking of those white rocks against the glass. The thickness of the cloud.

But then the baggie vanished. And I spent the rest of the dream tearing apart my childhood bedroom searching for it.

I looked everywhere. Every nook and cranny. Between the pages of every book. Every drawer of my desk. Every jacket pocket. Everywhere. For what felt like hours.

But I found nothing.