Comes the Dawn

I found this poem in some of my things. Not sure where I got it originally but it really speaks to me about my life and especially about recovery:


Comes the Dawn

After awhile you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security
And you begin to understand that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head held high and your eyes open
Wtih the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
You learn to build your roads on today,
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in midflight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns
If you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure,
That you really are strong
That you really do have worth
And you learn and learn... and you learn
With every goodbye ~ you learn.

~Veronica A Shoffstall

Mentally relapsing

So last week basically sucked. I was swimming around in my head in my chaos and turmoil and I wanted to be there. That was the sick part to me, how comfortable I was there and how much I was enjoying being there. Luckily, although I don't think luck had anything to do with it, I didn't make any moves to actually use. I wanted to. BADLY. How can I want something so badly that I know will cause such horrific reactions? The high might be fun, and I use might loosely, but everything else that comes along with being high like the coming down part and the remorse and the kicking myself in the butt and the humiliation of relapsing and then the giving up of almost 3 years of sobriety, well, none of that sounds fun in the least. But I was with Nic and I wanted to be with him, even if it was just a book. I think I've mentioned before that I have a tendency to fall in love with characters in the books I read and Nic was no exception. A normie might read his book and be disgusted but what disgust them I might barely notice. Seen it all before. Nothing new in the drug world. What I see is how tortured and tormented Nic is and how, ultimately, he is compassionate and good inside. He's artsy and educated and well read and probably holds incedible conversations that I would know nothing about. I've never even heard of half the bands he talks about or read the books he has read. So there in lies yet another weakness or character defect. I like them damaged. I relate to the damage. My sponsor says that is codependency. That isn't really what I thought codependency was.
And there was 13th step boy. I was letting him screw with my head big time. I was throwing all that self confidence and independence out the window and hoping that this person would completely change who I knew him to be and suddenly be madly in love with me. Want to hold me. Kiss me. Make love to me. Comfort me. And then he just disappeared for the weekend basically. Heard nothing from him and here I sat feeling discarded once again. Now how did THAT happen? So here I was ready to give it up and nothing. I hear nothing. Finally Saturday night what I do hear is some logic and common sense and mostly God telling me that this is NOT right. These thoughts are not going to do me any good. Not going to get me what I want. That doing drugs and sleeping with him, well, I'm just going to feel a LOT worse when it is over. So I let it go. Actually I begged. I begged God to remove this obsession. Obsession to use. Obsession to find comfort and acceptance in the wrong arms.
So Sunday I woke up feeling better. Obsession gone. Self confidence still in tact. Sobriety still in tact. Lessons still revealing themselves. One gargantuous reminder that my disease is baffling and powerful.

Tweakers Unite

So I haven't blogged about my recovery in a while now. I guess because things have been going pretty good. I've been making some discoveries about myself, becoming more comfortable with who I am, learning to trust God and listen to my instincts. Well, I don't know about you but I never seem to learn much until it is slammed in my face. I guess maybe I was getting complacent about my recovery. I didn't think so but maybe I just don't know.
A couple of weeks ago Nana got really sick and I had to take her to the ER. She ended up being in the hospital in Bartlesville and currently she is in a nursing home there. I really wondered if this was the 'big one' so to speak. She had multiple things wrong with her but it all stemmed from her not having enough blood in her body. Only about 1/3 of normal. But she made it in the ambulance ride from here to there and thru the night and I felt like she was going to be good because the doctors said she was stable. They did a few test and she was moved from CCU to a normal room on the cardiac unit and none of the test really showed anything.
So my uncle tells me she should go to a skilled facility for 7-10 days to get her strength back up and to give me a little more of a break. I was all for it. That was until I walked into my first nursing home yesterday.
Sure I had been in them as a kid but your own mortality isn't really on your mind then, besides that I don't really remember. This place isn't dirty but sorta dingy if you know what I mean. The hospital was all shiny and new and didn't smell weird. This place smells weird. You always hear about that. They didn't tell me anything about how I needed to bring her clothes or what not either and I just happened to have her wheel chair in the car with me. I didn't have any problem with her being there but it just gave me a creepy feeling. It just seemed like a bunch of old forgotten people, and unfortunately, the reality of that made me sick to my stomach. It made me think of all the times when people discovered that I didn't want children and would ask me who was going to take care of me when I was old.
So we have that creepy feeling swimming in our head right. The night before I started reading a book about this guys road to recovery from meth and heroine. It's called Tweak by Nic Sheff. It's pretty harrowing and accurate and I was so right there with him. And this book is anything but glamourous and yet, I found myself jonesing. I mean, how the hell does that happen? I'm reading about some guy who is 32 days has managed to blow thru 3K and been high every day shooting meth and herione. I've never even shot up and I've never touched heroin. YET. But I realized that I could relapse in my head without doing any drugs and I was pretty much there yesterday. My head was swimming with old shit I had done and the pitiful loser feelings of my past and the negatives of my life and then the creepiness of that nursing home.
So to top all that off, I spend part of the evening IM'ing with someone that was in the program that I 13th stepped almost a year ago and then got blown off by. Yes, I made amends but it was always weird after that, of course. I had liked him for months and had just kept my distance and then one night I just offered myself up on a silver platter and then was tormented when my affections weren't returned. It wasn't his fault. I take full responsibility for that one. But that set me off for a couple of weeks on a BUNCH of unresolved feelings from other events in my life which needed a catalyst to show themselves. It was only a matter of time.
So back to last night. I hadn't seen this guy in a few months and I know he had relapsed a few times and it was truly God speaking when he told me he was sober because I have to honestly say that with where my head was at yesterday I'm not sure I would have been able to say no. You'd think coming up on 3 years here soon would put me a bit farther away from that. It just reminded me that I have a disease that is NEVER going to completely go away and WILL strike at the least expected time. Luckily I do what I need to do like go to meetings and pray and have conscious contact with God. But I also have to confess that I hadn't been to many meetings in the past week because I was driving back and forth to see Nana. I should have been going to more I see now.
So today was a new day. I knew it would be. That was progress there knowing that if I just went to bed tomorrow would be better. Luckily I also hit a point in the book where he gets sober. That helped. Today wasn't perfect, but it WAS considerably better.
I'm still crazy. I realize I was long before I started drinking and using. It's ok to have those days. It's ok to be reminded of where I came from and how far I have come. It's ok to be reminded that I still have a long way to go and lots of work to do. It's also nice to know that God has my back.
You can check out Nic's blog here.