The Thing About Addiction....

Here's the thing about addiction - it never really goes away.You can stop using your drugs. You can stop drinking your alcohol, but the addiction remains......disguised as longing.

Longing for the pain to go away. And it DOES NOT matter what you were addicted to - booze, drugs, food, sex, shopping, self pity, swinging from the ceiling - the longing is ALWAYS for the pain to go away.

A very good friend of mine in recovery tells me that SOBER stands for "son of a bitch everything's real." And yeah. It is.

And I sometimes get swallowed up whole by the longing for the pain to go away. The pain of loss. The pain of love that leaves. The pain of a child who's hurting that you can't do anything about. The physical pain that doesn't let my body work as well as it once did. The pain (and I can't quite figure out where this one is coming from) that makes me cry because I couldn't buy a bag of ice at Sinclair tonight because there was fresh-poured concrete in front of the ice chest. The pain of the mundanity of life. I start thinking that I just want the pain of all those things piled on top of each other to go away. (That's probably why I cry over ice - all those things piled up on top of each other.)

And I start thinking about what would most effectively do the job. Drugs. Food. Sex. Booze. Maybe all of the above. And I remember a time when I would use all of the above to do just that. (That's how I know they will work!!)

But here's the thing. Here's the thing that's different this third time. Here's the thing that let's me know I'm really, truly, in recovery this time.

It's ALL temporary. The relief those things would bring. The happiness I may (or may not) feel while using those things. Even the pain that causes me to consider those things in the first place.

It's               all               temporary.

In the past, I've never been able to get to that little tidbit. All I could think about, focus on, long for.....was the relief.

Today I can go to the thought that I might feel better if I drink a bottle of Crown and get past that to the thought that says the relief would be temporary and get past THAT thought to the one that tells me it will only make everything worse. That's the cycle of addiction. We drink (or use, or shop, or eat, or fuck) to make the pain stop and it does and then it comes back worse and brings his friend guilt so we drink more to make the pain stop and it does and then it comes back worse and brings his friends guilt and anger....and so on and so on and so on and so on until we end up in the abyss.

I'm lucky, I guess. I found the bottom of my abyss and at the bottom of my abyss was the door to Alcoholics Anonymous instead of the door to the afterlife. I've made it to "the long run" I think. I have tucked some things away "for future reference" as my mother is so fond of saying.

I've learned some things, maybe. I've grown up a bit. And I can still look back at all the fun times I had (yeah, it definitely was not ALL bad ;-}) but I can continue with the thought process that brings me to the knowledge that it is SO MUCH BETTER NOW.

Even when I don't feel fabulous.

Stupid Shit

There is so MUCH stupid shit in my life right now that I have to write. I have to vent. I have to purge. I have to get it out or it will eat me alive. So for today, here are a couple. I am certain I will have more.

Stupid Shit Thing #1: Sex Inventories

For those of you not familiar with the 12-Step process, the Sex Inventory is part of the 4th Step (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.) In the Sex Inventory, one makes a list of people with whom you have actually had sex or ever wanted to have sex or ever even thought about having sex.

And I used to have a list. I was proud of the list because I could look at it and say, quite sanctimoniously, that I never had sex with anyone that I didn't know their first and last name. I don't know what happened to the list. But it's gone. Along with my sanctimony. And a good deal of my self respect. What is left is a list with many of the names intact, but there are a few that escape me.

Maybe that's for the best.

In the inventory, we list the person and the reason and the circumstance. While there are lots of names, there is really only one reason and one circumstance. I was drunk and I wanted someone to love me.

And I'm fairly disgusted with myself.

And guess what - It was hard. It was scary. It was painful.

But here's the thing - even though I put it on my "Stupid Shit" list, now that it's done, I recognize the value in having done it (no pun intended). I can't move forward until I am willing to look at where I have been. There's no room for a sane future until I "clear away the wreckage of the past." So, here I am, clearing away.

Stupid Shit Thing #2: My Former Supposed Spouse

My Former Supposed Spouse (FSS) is currently incarcerated and so along with everything else, I am also a single parent to two beautiful little boys, ages 6 and 4.

The FSS does not believe that his unfortunate incarceration has had any effect on his children.

I beg to differ.

When the 4-year-old and I got home from his first day of preschool, he told me we were going to play a game and the game was called "Jail." He was the cop. I was the bad guy. He put the fake handcuffs on me and led me to my room where he informed me that I was now in "jail" and had to stay there until he said otherwise. He did take the handcuffs off and did tell me I could still use my phone, smoke my cigarettes, and use the bathroom when I needed to.

No effect, huh? Yeah. Whatever.

I'm trying REALLY hard to find a positive way to spin this so that it doesn't drive me crazy. My child has an AMAZING imagination. He tells me the MOST amazing stories. This is the first time this particular tale has played out and it just about broke my heart.