halt

March 6, 2010 in just random thoughts..... | 1 comment

hungry, angry, lonely tore-up tired

So it’s Christmas Eve on a New Blue Moon Monday at my workplace—we have spent the past couple of years preparing for this multi-day event that is make-or-break for me and my colleagues professionally. I have been up for 36 hours or so, with a couple of cat naps here and there. Haven’t been able to get to a meeting in a week (though I’ve been in contact with my sponsor &etc, and he agrees that work right now is where I need to be).

But I am sooooo tired. And last night, around 2:00am, a volunteer (adorable girl in her early 20s) said “I’ll be right back, I’ve got to put my patch on, I’m going to sleep.” I didn’t understand at first, but long story short—she has Adderall patches. When she explained to me, the first thought in my mind was “I want one.”

And I did. But it took me about ten seconds to play that tape through, and knew that if I had one, I would want 400, covering every square inch of my body. I would probably start licking them. I’m not sure what happens when you try to smoke a transdermal patch, but I bet I would find out.

I also knew that as soon as I had the first one, I would have to leave this thing that I’ve been being paid for years to prepare and be present for, so I could get on the internet and act out sexually. I would have had to tell them I was going home “sick.” And I would have been right.

But I didn’t. I played the tape through, I laughed, and I will get to get some sleep tonight.

Tags: ,

just like starting over.

February 22, 2010 in 12 steps, up(on) awakening | 2 comments

I’ve done something somewhat odd for me in the process of selecting a sponsor to work the steps with—I picked an Alcoholics Anonymous big-book-thumper.

We have some very fundamental differences about the nature of the program and how it works (or believe it should work).

But when I heard him share his story at a speaker meeting, I found enough similarities there, and he has enough of the spiritual fitness that I am working towards, that I think it will work.

We met yesterday for the first time, and spent an hour-and-a-half getting to know each other. We are in the same home group, and have been hearing each other share in meetings for the past six months. But, I have never discussed my sexuality openly in a meeting here (more because it just hasn’t come up than anything else), and I have not discussed my HIV status because I’m just not comfortable talking about it in a small town where I was warned in my first meeting that “what you share will be out on the street before you are.” I’m don’t have shame around it, but I don’t have interest in managing other people’s perceptions and fears around it, either.

So, we have passed those benchmarks.

Instead of a crack-and-sex-addict sponsor my using had lots of similarities with, I now have a straight alcoholic sponsor with whom my using has few similarities, except for the ones that matter:  We both were living lives of despair until we began working the 12 steps.

So we are off to a great start.

Tags: , ,

i don’t see the glass anymore, full or empty.

February 19, 2010 in up(on) awakening | 2 comments

When I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo recently, I ran across a phrase that surprised me, as it was a startling reference to the final Harry Potter book (written somewhat later). I realized the reverse was more likely to be true, and looked up the reference, which turns out to be not from Monte Cristo or Harry Potter, but from (of all places) the Bible (which didn’t surprise me, but annoyed me a little).

Anyway, the quote is “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” From the context of the passage in the book of Matthew, it seems to be talking directly about cash, but for me, as an addict, my treasure isn’t cash. My treasure—what I value most—is time. The time that I have had to rebuild my life, the time I have today, to give back, to right some of my wrongs, to make progress on what was unfinished or not started in my life.

But not only time, also energy, and thought. I spend virtually no time today thinking about what needs to be done, what might happen, what I should say, where I might go, who I want to meet. I just do stuff.

I stay focused on the task at hand. Every day, my primary task is maintaining the daily reprieve I have from going insane again. Some days, that takes the form of going to work and doing the best job I am capable of. Others, I sit home and play silly online games or watch tv. But regardless of what else is going on, I maintain contact with people in the program I can be honest with. I make my self available to be of service, and I ask for help when I need it.

A friend in the program called last night to tell me he had relapsed recently. He talked about how he has been obsessing over a new career, economic challenges, family, etc. Things I’m not faced with directly. But I have my own shit—we all do. If I wanted to focus on the uncertainty in my life, I could. But I believe that when I choose to suffer, to wallow, to obsess, I am wasting what I have been given, and what I have worked hard for. That is a place I avoid being.

Today I have peace in my life. Some call it freedom and happiness, but what I have is something more like peace.  I don’t see the glass as half-full or half-empty, I see a process where everyday I am replenished with what I need. And it is mine to do whatever I want with. I treasure it, and I am putting my heart into keeping it.

I hope my friend gets better. And I am here for him.

Tags: , , , ,

not alone or lonely, just single.

February 15, 2010 in up(on) awakening | 1 comment

Another Valentine’s Day, has come and gone, and I will be completing my census form again this year as “single,” but I do not feel alone, and I feel loved. And it is a weird kind of love… not of anything or from anyone, just a pleasantness of being, a kind of connectedness. It’s not an anxious, expecting kind of feeling.. more like a Sunday afternoon than a Friday night. But not sleepy, or bored, or indifferent. I feel alive, and awake, and prepared, but not preparing—just being ready for the next thing, whatever that is.

The fellowship of recovery is not what I am feeling right now—though my recovery from addiction is certainly what made this feeling possible—it is a connection to myself. It isn’t being “ok” with who I am, as much as it is knowing I am capable of being a part of the world. Knowing that I am loved, that I am capable of loving and returning love.

That grasping for romantic love is just something that has somehow slipped away from me. At least for now, I’m not jealous (or resentful) of the happy, smiling couples I see around me. They have what they have, and I have what I have, and that’s enough.

That doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely sometimes—I do. But I don’t necessarily believe anymore that my life would be fuller or better because I could change my Facebook status to “in a relationship” or “married.” It would be different life, certainly. But I no longer devalue my existence because it is solitary in nature—because I no longer feel alone, even when I am. There is nothing I need today that I do not have.

Life is good.

Tags: , , , ,

signs

February 3, 2010 in as I retire | 2 comments

So the other day I walked out my front door, and right in the exact center of a square in my front walkway was a dead field mouse, on its back with all four legs in the air, and a couple of gashes of some sort in its sides. It wasn’t a little to the left of center, or a little to the right. It was in the exact center.

I looked down and thought “weird” and just sorta kept walking and realized it was probably a gift from one of the neighborhood cats that sleep on the chairs on my front porch.

And a few steps later I realized:

I didn’t think it was my neighbors or the CIA trying to scare me.

I didn’t think it was someone from my past seeking revenge.

It wasn’t a sign of anything—it didn’t mean anything–it was just a dead mouse.

And I laughed.

And now I know, my paranoia is gone. Really, finally, totally gone. Because a year ago, it would have spooked me. A year-and-a-half ago, I would have had a drink (or two, or ten, depending on the time of day). Two years ago, I would have lost my mind and started calling people (my mom, a friend who is an attorney, my ex, my shrink) to find out what I should do because somebody left this mouse to get inside my head. My head was not a place anyone wanted to be.

Things didn’t work right. My thought process worked like a drunk, angry horny 14-year-old on a go-kart in rush-hour traffic trying to outrun the police. I didn’t make sense, and I scared everyone around me (including me).

I feel bad for the mouse. It was a cute little mouse, not much bigger than a walnut. But it once would have had the power to make manifest every bit of fear that meth had tucked down into the folds and wrinkles of my brain. And that’s gone now. I no longer live in fear, or fear of fear.

And that is amazing.

Tags: , , , , ,

a daily reprieve

January 31, 2010 in as I retire | 3 comments

So, my sponsor told me this afternoon he relapsed last week. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—this disease is ridonculous.

I actually sort of had a feeling… the last few times we spoke, he sounded sketchy as hell. He wasn’t high at the time, but he also wasn’t himself. He’s going to pick up a white chip tomorrow morning. I wish I could be there for him, but it isn’t realistic (I would have to call in to work, which is a big dramatic thing at my workplace—it just isn’t gonna happen).

We’ve grown very close. I love him. I trust him. He knows more about me than anyone I’ve ever known. He will always have a place in my heart, and probably in my life. I don’t feel betrayed by him, or hurt, or any of those things I’ve heard people in similar situations talk about. I really do believe addiction is a disease, and that it is spiritual in nature. And he is sick, and I am sick. It’s just that today he is suffering.

I don’t question the value of the work we did together. But, right now, he probably needs to be looking more closely at his own life than working with me. It has been suggested that I get a new sponsor, and I’m going to follow it.

The immediate trigger for his relapse was insanely predictable—he has a sex addiction, and has been frequently, recently in the employ of crack whores. He is a crack addict. How much more simple could the math be?

People, places, things.

One of the reasons I chose him for my sponsor is because our using history was so similar—sex&drugs&drugs&sex. His drug of choice was crack, mine was meth, but whatever. I have chosen to be pretty much sexually abstinent in recovery. At least, I’ve had sex with fewer people in the past year than I have had in the past with people at one time (those numbers are irrelevant, lol).

And, well, I don’t really miss sex that much. I miss being in a relationship, and having someone to love and call my own, but I don’t miss the insanity that was my using life in that relationship. And, I’m not willing to risk the life I have today for some random meaningless sex, and I know for me that risk is real. I’ve had enough sex for a lifetime (just for today).

I never want to feel the way he feels right now.

I have been given a daily reprieve from feeling that way today. And for that I am truly thankful.

Tags: , , , , ,

what a difference a year (of days) makes

January 30, 2010 in just random thoughts..... | 1 comment

I know that I am one of millions who just finished my annual employee self-evaluation, but this one was pretty crazy. I really regret procrastinating until (nearly) the last minute, but I have been very busy, and this chore was at the bottom of my list, because it is always painful. Or at least, it always was. For the first time ever on an evaluation, all of the following are true:

1. I didn’t lie (or need to lie) about anything.

2. I met or exceeded all of the goals set for me this time last year.

3. Looking back, I am amazed at how much I accomplished, instead of feeling like a failure faking everything.

It wasn’t a perfect year. I made mistakes—and plenty of them. There is lots of room for improvement and growth and maturity (personal and professional). But at this time last year, I was writing an evaluation covering a period during which I had been pretty much nuts. The first half of the 2008, I detoxed off meth at home with the assistance of an epic volume of alcohol, making me a volatile mess at work (sleepy one day, screaming with rage the next), then I just checked out of work altogether to go to rehab for a few months. (Work doesn’t know about the suicide attempt, as far as I know.)

So when I came back to work last January, I was not greeted with warm fuzzies. I was greeted with shape-up-or-ship-out.

For most of the year, I was just trying to hang onto my job and my sanity. I managed 90 meetings in 90 days (but not one meeting on each day). I got a sponsor. I did the shit.

And it worked.

I didn’t set big goals for myself. I didn’t worry about getting fired (even though that was a real possibility). I just showed up, and did what I was supposed to do, one day at a time—literally and figuratively.

And the end result was that I ran out of time to write about all the awesome shit I accomplished when I was racing to get my evaluation in on time.

This past Tuesday marked two years off meth for me. And I was so busy being productive, I didn’t even notice.

I have been to two AA meetings since then, but that’s not their thing, it’s my thing. And even though it doesn’t count for anything there (except a slip, lol), it counts to me. And I’m going to get myself a pizza.

Tags: , , , , , ,

« Older entries