The Answer to ALL My Problems

I got this little gem from my counselor in rehab. Can't recall how many times I repeated to myself "Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today." It's no secret that the philosophies that guide recovery can be applied to life in general. Take out the word "addiction" in the paragraph below and replace it with whatever you might be struggling with...it might make your day a little easier.

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me. I can find no serenity until I accept that fact of my life as being exactly the way it’s supposed to be at this moment. Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my addiction I could not stay clean. Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need only to concentrate on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes. 

Thankful

Becoming clean is a beautiful demonstration of realizing God's salvation in a deeply personal and incredibly personal way. Getting clean is the price of admission to a program that teaches one her weaknesses, tragedies, and desperate need for a Savior.

Seven months and twenty five days ago I started my journey of recovery. I stopped living in denial and started learning how to make living amends for what I had done.

I am thankful for sobriety and the many people who have helped (and continue to help) me achieve it.

Most importantly, I am thankful to God for enabling me to break the terrible cycle of addiction. Ultimately is was only through HIM that I was restored to sanity.

Sanity and sobriety are two things I am thankful for every single day.

Chasing the Why

A few weeks after I got clean, my mother began to suggest that perhaps I would benefit from counseling or therapy in order to get to the root of my problem. In essence, she encouraged me to seek help so I could understand why I became addicted to pills. Her advice was well intentioned – she simply wanted me to get better and like so many other people, she assumed there had to be some reason I needed to get high. There had to be a reason her educated, reasonable daughter turned into an opiate addict.

Those in the business of helping others recover from addiction call this “chasing the whys.” They also tell you there isn’t much benefit to be had in trying to pinpoint a reason for one’s addiction. Addicts are highly skilled in denial and diversion. If it were regularly taught in rehab or 12-step meetings that in order for a person to overcome their addiction they must identify all the reasons WHY, many of us would never stay clean. We could get hung up in a blame-game or we could potentially deceive ourselves, preventing or stunting sober living. Another reason chasing those “whys” leads nowhere is because sometimes there simply isn’t a solid reason for the addiction. In rehab I learned that there are two reasons a person takes drugs or drinks: to get high/drunk or to change the way they feel. It’s that simple. So simple that it seems…complex.

My addiction to pills was primarily to change the way I felt. Not only did opiates make me feel better but they often provided the motivation I was lacking to accomplish tasks at work or home. I was WAY more productive when I was riding the high. Opiates often cause feelings of euphoria or well being…it’s no secret why I felt better on them.  I also used pills to help me feel better when I was sad or cranky or tired or whatever. Basically anytime I didn’t like the way I felt, I popped a pill to get back to that place where I felt good.

I have spent a good deal of reflection on my addiction, how it started, and where it led. I gained valuable insights about my habits and triggers. That reflection helped me better understand how my disease progressed and the things that accelerated it. Understanding those things helped me change destructive and/or unhealthy behaviors. But dwelling on the past doesn’t always encourage forward movement. As of this writing I’ve been clean for seven months and nineteen days…and I STILL don’t completely understand WHY I have the disease of addiction. At this point the important fact to remember is I have a disease that I must manage. If I don’t, it will kill me. I urge anyone in the beginning stages of recovery to not worry about why, but make that choice every day to stay clean. Like Dory from Finding Nemo sings, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

Knowing what I now know about my addiction doesn’t change the fact that I have an incurable disease. It doesn’t change the way I deal with daily struggles. This disease doesn’t go away once I stop taking opiates. I’m still in the process of breaking the mental cycle of thinking I need to take a pill to help me get things done, help me feel better, help me sleep, etc. Even after almost eight months of sobriety, often my first instinct sometimes is to reach for … something to help me through.

So don’t chase the whys; just keep swimming! The longer you stay sober the better you will understand your disease and how to manage it. As they say in rehab, if you want to stay clean all you have to do is change everything. 

Bittersweet

My six-month mark was September 29^th. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I was there already, when I only had days or a few weeks of sobriety. I wanted to move forward, I wanted to be past all this. I wanted it to be over, because those who have traveled this same road kept telling me it gets easier the longer I stay clean.

Recovery is a gift. But it is a gift I had to work DAMN hard to get. And the part you don’t realize for awhile is that it’s a gift you have to work for each day. It’s something you must intentionally choose each and every day. It gets easier, yes, but I wouldn’t say that after six months this shit is easy. It’s not and I hold no illusion that it ever will be.

In the weeks leading up to my six-month mark I thought I wanted to celebrate. This was a well-earned milestone. But then I found out someone I went through rehab with had relapsed. Not only had he relapsed but I learned that the rehab, the meetings, the contrition, had pretty much been an act to help him avoid jail time. This was his fourth DUI and he was already on probation. We met in rehab and became friends. (It’s kind of hard not to when you spend six hours a day, five days a week for three weeks in a room with a group of drunks and druggies.) I believed his story. I really thought he’d stay sober, but sadly he did not. We stopped talking soon after that.

I was devastated and scared. He and I received the same education in rehab. Why him and not me? How is it that I’m living sober and he isn’t? My intense emotional reaction was exhausting. I felt dirty and terrible. I hated this ugly thing in me that I could barely control. Suddenly the thought of celebrating my six-month mark seemed…sacrilegious, disrespectful. I was humbled and didn’t want to toast my “accomplishment” when I knew of so many others like me who never made it to six months.

September 29^th came and went quietly. I spent the day reflecting. There was no special dinner. I didn’t even go to an NA meeting to get my six-month key tag. I don’t really care about that anymore. I decided to put my efforts into waking up each morning and choosing a sober life. The fact that I have the ability to decide such a thing is a gift. My recovery is a gift; one I will fight to the death to keep. I am thankful I made it to six months, but I never EVER want to visit that milestone again. Once was enough for me. 

Smells and Memories

I remember reading how a specific smell can bind with a memory or phase in your life. Whenever you smell that smell it will conjure those memories as well. Is that ever true.

The smell of Hugo Boss cologne reminds me of my friend Russell from high school. He always wore Hugo Boss and was one of my few high school crushes. Whenever I get a whiff of Hugo Boss I suddenly feel very nostalgic.

The smell of Hempz lotion reminds me of another relationship of which I not proud. It takes me back to a dark time in my life when I struggled to get past some things that were incredibly difficult. To this day I hate the smell of that lotion.

The unique smell of coffee and books (read: Barnes & Noble) reminds me of my boyfriend. We’ve spent a lot of time together in bookstores. In fact, when he’s gone (which is quite a bit considering he’s stationed overseas) I don’t like going into bookstores - the smell makes my heart ache a little. 

By accident I learned that the smell of my wet hair and Biolage conditioner sends me back to my days spent in a Florida detox facility. I had been using Biolage products at the time so that’s what my Mom brought me the day after I was admitted to Lakeview Mental Health. I don’t understand why that smell takes me back to my detox days; I’ve used Biolage for years. But it does and with it comes an avalanche of feelings.

When I arrived at Lakeview I hated it and everyone there. I didn’t want to be there. But after six days that place I despised turned into a warm little cocoon of sorts. It was a place to protect me from the outside world…and all the wreckage my addiction had caused. My prison turned into a haven. It helped me sort through the many emotions. It forced me to face those emotions sober – something I hadn’t done in a long time.

That weird smell reminds me I’m different. It reminds me of an awful time in my life when I betrayed all the people I loved the most. It reminds me of the very first time I said out loud “I have a problem.” It reminds me of how my mother dissolved into tears when I looked her in the eye and told her I was a drug addict. It reminds me of how I felt real hope for the first time in a very, very long time.

Most of all, it reminds me of the day I got sober and of the choice I make every day to stay clean. Addiction is an undertow that never completely goes away. And the thing about addiction is that it never ends well because eventually whatever it is that gets you high stops feeling good and starts to hurt.