Tag Archives: staying sober

Mar2

I Believe In “Never Again”

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It can be overwhelming to look into the face of addiction and vow “never again.”

I remember when I left Dallas headed for rehab in New York. My intention was that I would be gone from the city and people that I loved for the minimum required stay of 6 months and then I would return. My plan was to go clear up the pesky cocaine business I’d so apparently lost control of and then get on with my life. I had no concept of reality. I had no way of knowing that when I changed, everything would change.

I didn’t know, as I was driven, weeping, out of the city that day, that I had become an alcoholic. I didn’t understand that, in my addiction, I had built a world around myself that supported my addicted behaviors and that helped me stay as sick as I wanted to be. I had no idea that beneath all of the drugs and the drinking, beneath the promiscuity and the violence, underneath everything that created the life that defined me, was a self-loathing little girl who had done everything she could to avoid fixing herself. That sort of awareness only comes with hindsight.

I’m certain that had I known ahead of time that my sobriety would encompass alcohol as well, I never would have gone. I wouldn’t have been able to wrap my head around the idea of a future without drinking – what a boring, pedestrian life that would be. At the time, I couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t include all of the excitement of the nightlife, all of the dangers of the sparkling underground.

I’ve gotten several emails from people looking for… something. There are questions about how I did it, how I manage to do it still. There are confessions of individual failings and struggles. There are people looking to just tell their story, people looking to know that someone understands the chaos that comes with the dawning awareness of a problem needing attention. These people are afraid. It is an overwhelming thing to look your addiction in the face and say “never again.”

I certainly have no easy answers. There is no simple solution that leads to joyful sobriety and guarantees a successful future. The path to sobriety that I know involves a lot of saying goodbye, a lot of heartache and turmoil, and a lot of learning humility.

I believe a few things, though. I believe that addiction is most often a symptom of an emotional injury and that it takes more than willpower to stay sober, it takes healing of my heart and mind to stay well. I believe that when I fall, I must get back up again. I believe that I would not be able to stay sober without my diverse support system. I believe that I would not be alive today were it not for God.

I believe that sobriety is the most worthwhile thing that I have ever achieved in my life. I believe that it is worth every moment of heartache, past and present. I believe that each and every person who desires wholeness can ultimately achieve it.

I believe in your ability to be whole. I hope that you do, too.

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Nov12

Lead Me Not Into Temptation

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Lead Me Not Into Temptation

Most of the time when I start writing, I begin with a pretty clear idea of what I want to write about, what it is that I’m trying to say. What ends up as the final product, however, is rarely what I intended. Very often I unearth things about myself, about my thoughts and my intentions, that I had no idea were there, or, that I wasn’t yet admitting.

This happened in yesterday’s post. I found myself marveling at this shift from carefree to careful and set out to write about it. What came out of that post, however, and more to the point, out of the writing of it, was a truth that I hadn’t yet fully admitted to myself. A truth that, now that I’ve acknowledged it, simply will not be ignored.

I am afraid that I am not going to withstand the temptation of available drugs at my second job.

Last night an old acquaintance noted that I looked tired. “You want a speed pill? I’ve got Ritalin.” A short while later, a customer came in and proposed that I give him a tank of gas for a handful of Vicodin. “I won’t mention any names, but other cashiers have done it. There’s no way for anyone to find out.”

These offers aren’t unusual and the longer I work there the more common they are. The longer I work there, the harder they are to ignore.

I wonder if this is my failing. I wonder if there is something in me, something actually visible to other addicts, that makes them ask; surely normal people don’t have drugs offered to them on a regular basis. I wonder if I should be ashamed at my weakening refusals, if I shouldn’t be past all this by now. It’s not a proud feeling, that’s for certain.

The truth, regardless of whether or not it should be, is that my sobriety is in serious jeopardy.

There’s a lot of really big question marks hovering over a lot of really important pieces of my life right now. Nothing has changed from yesterday in that regard, I still don’t have any of the answers. My life could still spiral downward and out of my control in any minute.

One thing, however, has changed. One decision has been made. At the end of the day, no matter what else happens and what people have to say about it, nothing is more important than my sobriety. Addiction is not being uncomfortable, it’s not poverty, it’s not just stress. Addiction is death, and only I can protect myself from that kind of death.

I am quitting my second job.