Tag: life happens

Feelings are back…


“We may fear that being in touch with our feelings will trigger an overwhelming chain reaction of pain and panic. When we ignore our feelings, the tension becomes too much for us.”

Tonight at Homegroup, this was in our reading.  I’ve written here before I believe that this has been part of my struggle in the past year — facing feelings, learning to name them, learning to live through them. I need to admit I’m powerless over my feelings – but not run from them, numb them with using people, places or things. When feeling them became too much in the past during my recovery, and I didn’t TALK about it, and ask for help, I found myself in relapse.

So today, I got in touch with those feelings.

I’m feeling sad because I’m on house arrest. I’m scared as I work on launching my new business because this is all new to me. I’m second guessing myself about my choices to pursue this angle vs. putting more energy and effort into finding a regular job – did I give up too quickly? That uncertainty is creating anxiety and fear. I’m sad because a newcomer has stopped returning texts and I’m wondering if he has gone back out. I’m angry about my last relapse – neither the high nor the guy were worth the pain and consequences I’m experiencing now. I’m angry that I put people on pedestals and they let me down. I’m angry that someone I respect and started to get close to is angry with me, ignores me and is rejecting me. I’m sad at losing that friendship. I’m not used to getting close enough to someone to CARE if I lose a friendship — so this is new for me. I’m mad that I didn’t live up to my own standards around confidentiality and gossip. I’m angry that others with more experience in the rooms did the same and implicitly gave me permission to do so when it went against my values and what’s important to me. I’m overwhelmed with deadlines and commitments – to move, to submit a business plan, to complete work for clients. It’s been a year since I’ve had to worry about that – because I’ve been focused solely on recovery, or relapse.  Living in society is frustrating.  I’m glad to be back in it, but scared and mad and sad. I’m scared of moving, afraid to ask for help, overwhelmed by what I need to complete, scared of what I don’t know I need to do because I’ve never moved myself.

And feeling all this is overwhelming.  It caught up with me today.  And I am blue.

But, I told people I’m blue.  I was honest and open.

I talked about my sadness, anger, fear, disappointment at Homegroup. I cried.  I don’t like to cry, but for now, it’s what happens when I feel — and I just need to live through it.  It feels at times like the floodgates will rush open and 30+ years of sadness, loss, anger, grief, resentment, etc. will rush forward and overwhelm me.  I want to run.

But I can’t afford to.  When I run, I use.  When I use, I die.

I know that this too will pass.  I know this is healthy. I know this is new. I know my Higher Power is bigger than my feelings and fear, and has taken care of me thus far.  He didn’t save me from drowning in the ocean only to let me die on the beach.

I know I’ll be ok.

Just for today.

And I don’t have to pick up no matter what.  I don’t have to use today.

 

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It’s all relative…and it’s all very REAL!


So I started home detention today.  That’s what they actually call it.  Though, some friends chided me and said “You know, it’s called house arrest.  Stop trying to sugar coat it!” For once, I’m not minimizing or rationalizing.  They call it home detention.  Honest!

As I talk to people who aren’t “on paper” or haven’t been through the system and explain the process to them — pre-arranging time outside of the house, keeping written receipts/logs of all such activity for proof, stripping my phone service of all the bells and whistles like voicemail, call forwarding, etc. — I invariably get the reaction, “Well that’s a pain in the butt” or “that’s a lot of work.” My reaction – given the alternative of being in a cold jail cell…I’ll take it!

It’s all relative.

Plus, after all, this is my own doing – nobody else to blame. The system isn’t out to get me, to screw me, etc.  I let myself get too confident about my ability to cope with things on my own — and lapsed in my recovery.  Full stop.  My doing.  My consequences.  67 days, I’m grateful I’ve learned some valuable lessons this time.

The meeting I went to tonight and several over the past week have reminded me as well that this is not a game. This is a fatal disease.  It’s progressive, chronic…and fatal.

Most of us don’t make it.

As my first sponsor told me one time – not many of us, most of us.

This is all VERY real.

Tonight, a woman shared that her “sobriety buddy” who came into recovery about the same time as she did almost seven years ago recently relapsed and is still out using.

Last week, a trusted servant from one of our meetings went back out again using.  He took the group’s money with him.  $97.13 missing.  A year’s worth of rent to the hosting organization — unpaid.

Last week was the memorial service for a 29-year-old addict who thought she had one more in her. She didn’t make it back.

The topic tonight was “Who is an addict?”

An addict is someone who puts drugs ahead of 37 people who depend on him to open the church basement, make the coffee, take attendance, and count the donations.

An addict is someone who puts drugs first, before their family. Ten days later, her mom, dad and brother are staring at her remains in an urn on a table in a funeral home.

An addict is someone who uses drugs two days before they have a meeting with his probation officer, knowing full well that the stuff won’t clear his system…but tries to convince himself it might. In the end, he doesn’t care enough to worry and uses anyway.  67 days later, he gets help from the courts – reminding him that he is an addict.

I am not responsible for being an addict. But I am responsible for my recovery.

I make choices.

There are consequences.

Just for today, my Higher Power graced with me the gift of sobriety.  I don’t take that for granted.

Just for today.

Celebrating my “second chance”


One gift I took from my Lutheran days in college is an appreciation of spiritual rituals and traditions — that the “outward and visible is a sign and shadow of the inward and spiritual.”

Remembering my baptism – celebrating bellybutton, ‘gotcha’ and recovery birthdays – these are examples of life milestones and anniversaries that I choose to make traditions in my life.

December 21st is also a significant milestone in my life of recovery – in my “second chance” gift to reconnect with my true self and my Higher Power. It’s the date when I hit my spiritual and emotional bottom, reached out to my Higher Power through loved ones in my life, and started my life-long road of recovery.

It is with humility and gratitude that I celebrate, honor, and remember the hope, gratitude, loss, grief and resurrection in this first milestone,

A close friend shared a book with me earlier this year – Praying our Goodbyes: A Spiritual Companion through Life’s Losses and Sorrows. It has been a tremendous source of inspiration and guidance. I will close for now with a short passage from its preface – for those who know the connection I have with butterflies, you’ll appreciate why it struck such a chord with me.

I remembered the necessity of eventually “letting go” and that the journey does not conclude with goodbye but is followed by “hello.” The pattern of growth as of one of “life, death, resurrection” provided both solace and hope…Like the caterpillar, our grieving thoughts and distressed emotions lead us to believe all is ended, but what is happening in the darkness of our grief and desolation of letting go is that our life is slowly being transformed. In the midst of our emptiness and bleakness of heart, God is nurturing and strengthening us for future growth.

May your days continued to be filled with hope and grace.