It's better than a Pony!

Excited but Scared.

That's how I feel tonight.  On the Eve of Christmas Eve.

I'm getting on a bus tomorrow morning to go Home for Christmas.  I am excited beyond words because I get to see my family and maybe even a good friend or two.  I'm terrified because I get to see my family and maybe even a good friend or two.  (Nervous Smile)  You see, it's been 7 months since I've seen a good portion of my family and I'm clean.  The last time I saw most of them I was in a downward spiral to hell!  I lied to most of them, cheated, lied and stole from some of them and flat out avoided most of them.  I've been dealing with that shame for the past 6 months.  It was there before that, but I pushed it away with drugs.  I'm afraid to look some of them in the eye, I really am.  Anxiety has been creeping in all week.

Then I went to a meeting.      

The people there are my family too.  Though I haven't officially met most of them, we are a family of sorts.  In some ways, I feel closer to them than I do to members of my own family.  Especially right now.  It was my 3rd meeting at this particular place and I believe the topic was just what I needed - Judgement & Gratitude.  It's amazing how you hear things you are supposed to hear just when you are supposed to hear them.  I hadn't "shared" up until this point, but I felt compelled.  I shared about my anxiety about going home for Christmas and seeing those members of my family who are still hurt and angry and confused by my actions in recent years.  I shared how I was both terrified and exuberant over seeing my brothers.  It's been 7+ months and I love them SO much, but they are distant right now.  It hurts me terribly not to have them in my life, but I hurt them badly.  They are waiting in the wings to see where this all takes me.  They are leery.  Though it is painful without them, I understand.  And I have been told that if I stay on the path to recovery that the distant family members would at some point see the change in me, and I can then make my amends and they would eventually come back to me and even  if they do not, that is their choice and I can't make it for them. All I could do was - stay clean and do the best I can every day.  One day at a time!

Then, I emotionally shared how the best gift I've received this year is the love and support of members of my family, in particular, my Mom.

I think if you ask her, she will agree that we haven't always had the best relationship.  Though not for trying on both of our parts.  I always wanted my Mom and I to be friends, like best friends.  Some of my other girlfriends have that with their mothers, why don't I.  I know now or at least I think I know now, was that I felt less than.  Less than my brothers, less than she wanted me to be, just less than.  She didn't make me feel that way, I made me feel that way.  My diseased brain made me think that way.  So I behaved that way.  I always thought I wasn't good enough, so I put it on her.  Everything she did in my mind got twisted into, she doesn't love me like she does my brothers.  7 months ago, all that changed in my mind.  She had been trying to help me get help for a year and a half.  I wasn't ready.  My addiction was in FULL FORCE.  I know she was heartbroken, I could feel it even if I didn't want to believe it.

That's when I hit my "Rock Bottom".  I woke up in the hospital and then I spent 72+ hours on a Chapter 51 Psych hold because doctors, EMT's, and Police thought I had tried to commit suicide... though I know that wasn't my "goal" - I now know how it looked to them to have 7 different substances in my system and have my heart stop.  I mean really?  Did I think it was possible to do that much damage and still wake up the next morning?  Insanity.

I thank my brother Daric for loving me enough to fight FOR me that night (not against me as I once thought).  I owe him SO MUCH.  

Because I had been in some trouble prior to that night, I was on probation.  One of the conditions of probation was not to drink and obviously not to use drugs.  I broke those rules - I went to jail.  I was terrified. I was D-O-N-E.   Then on my 7th day in jail, I got a chance at life - finish up 23 more days of jail or get 30 days in Rehab.  It wasn't even a choice.  I wanted - I needed to go.  My Mom and my Aunt met me a day later and drove me to Rehab.  They seemed more nervous then I was.
Surprisingly, I don't remember crying.  I was scared but excited!

I remembered as I was sharing in the meeting yesterday that some days later, I got a phone call from my mom.  She asked me if they were explaining to me that this was a ''disease"?  I told her that yes they were and that I was so happy to be there and ready to change my life.  To get my life back.   I don't remember the whole conversation, but I felt such relief after that call. And I felt supported and loved.   I had recently found out that she was going to meetings for family members of Addicts.  That overwhelmed me. I cried when I got off the phone, I remember that.   I cried a lot in Rehab, but I was finding the silver lining as well.  Mom was not only supportive, but she became a shoulder to cry on, a confidant, and MY FRIEND.

After rehab I had to spend some more time in jail.  74 days to be exact.  It was awful.  I missed my family dearly.  I missed my mom.  I missed my daughter.  It was hard.  Until one day I got a letter from my mom that changed my way of thinking at that time.  It made me cry ( I know, I know - everything makes me cry).  But in it were words that I needed so desperately to HEAR - like REALLY HEAR!  The main line that healed my wounded heart was simply this:

"Please remember I will always love you! You are very, very special!!"


I lost it.

This was it.  I just KNEW she meant it.  I felt it.

She also wrote in the letter " I'm holding in my hopes that someday we can look back at this and recall that things happened for a reason and this brought you to a new life - freedom from Addiction."

Wow. I am sure most addicts would tell you it is HUGE when a some tries so hard to understand what you are going through and especially that they are accepting of the fact that it's not something you chose.  Every single time I read that letter - I cry.  I love my mom SO much, I always have.  But today, it's different.  It's richer.  And at times when I would normally call a "friend" to talk about a hard day in my recovery, I find myself dialing her.

That's my gift this Christmas.  And it's what I've always wanted!

I love you SO much Mom! 

xoxo



Happy Holidays!

PAIN.

 "When I started feeling the pain of my story, my healing process began"  - Helen Neujahr

     When I was using I was a shell of my former self.  In order to keep myself protected from the pain in my life, primarily the pain of just being me, I stayed (or tried to stay) high.  The drugs had a numbing effect.  Not only did it numb the physical (my neck/back) but it numbed mental and emotional pain as well.  As I continued in my downward spiral, it numbed new pains that occurred every day.

     I hurt a lot of people with my using.  A lot.  Family, friends, and even perfect strangers.  My daughter is the one I feel the worst about.  She was missing her mother for the past few years.  Even when I was physically present, I wasn't the mother she needed and deserved.  I try hard everyday to work on forgiving myself for hurting her and for the things I've missed in her life these past couple of years.  I won't ever get that time back, but I am certain of one thing, the time going forward is going to have the quality factor.  I can show her how at a person's lowest point, they can overcome.  I can teach her how to forgive and be forgiven.  I will be able to give her ALL of me - the BEST me.  The CLEAN me.  She is a special girl who doesn't deserve the trials she has had to go through, but she is a strong, independent, beautiful, young lady both inside and out.  I know I did a few important things right.  She has some of those wonderful qualities in her that are still somewhere inside of me.  She cares about other people and she's loyal.  I miss being able to snuggle her everyday and night.  I miss kissing her head a hundred times a day.  I miss her voice, her smile.  I miss her.  It's painful as a mother to be away from your child, but I need to be THE BEST MOM I CAN BE and I'm working hard to get back to that.  It's a painful process, but SO worth it.  She's worth it!  I'm worth it!

     There are, as I've mentioned before, family members who I have hurt badly as well.  Some of them are active supporters in my recovery.  Mom, Carmen, Grandma, etc.  I owe you all SO much.  Kind words and understanding, forgiving hearts - all of them.  They never doubted that the Stacey they knew and loved so much was in me somewhere still.  They have been honest - even when it hurt to hear it.  They have supported the good decisions I've made and have been concerned when the not so good ones have crept up.  Encouraging letters, phone calls and hugs have helped more than even they know.  Being able to call and just say "I'm having a hard day dealing with this..." or "I did this today and I feel great!"  I am so grateful I have the family I do.  I've met people through rehab, meetings, the halfway house, jail, etc. who struggle everyday because either they have NO ONE they can count on to support and love them through this or they have a family of other addicts that they cannot get away from or they have the family who ENABLES them to the point of aiding them in their addiction.  I used to be jealous of the enabled addicts, until I realized that if my family had allowed me to live in my addiction, I'd be dead.  I don't mean to exclude anyone in my family that is supportive of my recovery, but the people mentioned above have been ACTIVE in my day to day struggles with this disease and my recovery from it.  I am looking forward to the day when I can make amends to other family members and have them join me on this road.  I miss you all so much!

     Friends.  Oh do I miss my friends.  I have some of the greatest friends a girl could ever hope for!  I do.  I often feel like I don't deserve them.  I have hurt some of you so badly and I get physically ill when I think of some of the things I've said or done.  Some of you have needed me and I wasn't present for you after all the years you were there for me.  I've lied, cheated, and stolen from some of you.  It hurts to even type those words.  I'm so sorry.  I also look forward to making personal amends to you!  I''m sorry I've been away so long!  Allow me to reintroduce myself, My name is Stacey and I'm an addict - in recovery.  I've missed you all too.  Thank you for some of your kind words of encouragement and for your belief in my ability to overcome.

     Every new day comes with painful moments, sometimes hours.  But I KNOW that I am doing the right thing and I am on the path to a life free from addiction!  I know this because I read the PROMISES everyday.  They are real, they are true.  I feel it.  Every time I read them, I cry...

The Twelve Promises

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
3. We will comprehend the word Serenity.
4. We will know peace.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.
10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

     

     This is the reality of what staying clean can do for me.  A way through the darkness of the pain and into...

                                             Serenity, Peace, and Happiness.  Life is good.

It's a Disease?

     Ok, so before I get into this I should explain that when I first got to "The Villa", as I affectionately call it,  I was feeling lower than low about my life and all that had occurred in recent years.  I was in a horrible place emotionally and physically.  Oh and I had one hell of a shiner from an incident that had occurred on that horrible night everything came to a head.  My heart and spirit were broken.  I'd made horrible "choices" that had left a path of destruction in relationships and in my own health.  I was LOW.  I was chin deep in guilt.  And the counselors there kept telling me those first few days that it wasn't ALL MY FAULT!  I was blown away.  I kept thinking... I made those choices, I put those drugs in my body, I did all those horrible things! I DID IT!  I wasn't buying into this excuse that I had a DISEASE of some kind.  I was calling them out on what I believed to be BS!  But with their help in a few short days, I came to realize that they were probably right.  The OLD me, the me before drugs, would never have done most, if not all, of the things I had done in recent years.  Ever.

     The benefit of the advice and knowledge that came from my counselors was that they were all, all three of them, in recovery themselves.  Plus, they had degrees in the Drug/Alcohol treatment world.  They had approximately 50+ years of sobriety between the 3 of them.  So who was I kidding?  They gave me literature to read and as I attended AA & NA meetings, I realized that those people there were like me, like my grandma, like my old next door neighbor.  These weren't horrible scary people like the movies sometimes make addicts out to be.  They were me, they were you!  Except that they (and I) had this horrible disease.  It is still hard for me to accept this at times when I speak to a friend or family member about this subject, because they seem to think I am skirting blame for my actions.  What needs to be understood is that "despite my best efforts' (as my counselor Bill would say) I could only make wrong decisions at that time because I was thinking "like a crazy person".  He always had the nicest way of putting things. LOL.  But he got the point across.  In admitting that I have this "disease", I am not trying to make an "excuse" for my behavior and decisions I made.  I am simply stating fact.  I often look back at the things I have done and said and am shocked that the woman I once knew was nowhere to be found in that addiction.  She was gone.  

     It is nice now, in recovery, to hear people like my mother say that they see some signs of "the old Stacey" coming back.  It's reassuring that I am doing the right thing,  That my family & friends see SOME progress in this effort.  I still have a long, long way to go, but it's happening.  Then I think to myself, do I really want "the old Stacey" back?  Obviously something in her was broken.  When my injury occurred and pain killers were prescribed, things that were broken inside me must have latched on to the "euphoria" provided by those powerful drugs.  Looking back, as I do so often everyday, I see how the signs were all there from the very beginning. That my life was headed in the wrong direction and through the cloud of the addiction, I could not see how to stop it.  My Narcotics Anonymous Book is like my second bible in my recovery.  In reading last night I came across this passage, which talks more about how this disease makes one's life SO unmanageable.

"As addicts we turned our will and our lives over many times to a destructive power.  Our will and our lives were controlled by drugs.  We were trapped by our need for instant gratification that drugs gave us.  During that time, our total being - body, mind and spirit - was dominated by drugs.  For a time, it was pleasurable, then the euphoria began to wear off and we saw the ugly side of addiction.  We found that the higher drugs took us, the lower they brought us.  We faced either two choices:  either we suffered the pain of withdrawal or took more drugs.  For all of us, the day came when there was no longer a choice; we had to use.  Having given [up] our will and lives to our addiction in utter desperation, we looked the other way."  *

  For those of you who don't necessarily understand the disease of addiction, it is real difficult to put this previous paragraph into perspective.  But I will try.  One of the biggest things an addict of Opiates or Painkillers fears in their addiction is withdrawal.   Some of these symptoms are :

Early symptoms of withdrawal include:

• Agitation
• Anxiety
• Muscle aches
• Increased tearing
• Insomnia
• Runny nose
• Sweating
• Yawning

Late symptoms of withdrawal include:

• Abdominal cramping
• Diarrhea
• Dilated pupils
• Goose bumps
• Nausea
• Vomiting**

In my experience  over my years of use and misuse of these medications, withdrawal is like torture.  The symptoms above, it should be known, are often times worse in some than in others.  My experience with withdrawal was traumatizing-every time.  There were times when I would, for days at a time(at the most 9) vomit violently with even the smallest sip of a liquid.  It's horrific to watch, by the way, someone going through this.  The agitation, anxiety, and muscle aches feel like someone is touching, pulling, pushing, grabbing, at you and it makes your brain crazy.  Insomnia is a form of torture through withdrawals.  And add all of these symptoms together for 9 days straight and you would do ANYTHING to make it stop.  It is scary and painful and insane. I've been told that the only thing worse than opiate withdrawal is detox from alcohol. 

 Unfortunately, the quickest way to feel better is to use again.  And the cycle of insanity goes on.  In mentally reliving this craziness over in my head these past few months with a clean and reflective mind, I can totally see "disease" as the definition of what I put myself through so many times.    I tried several times, too many to count, to get clean and sober on my own, but honesty the withdrawals were so physically difficult for me, that I went back to the pills EVERY time.  I didn't understand why I couldn't do it.    

Now that I understand this is a  "disease".  And I am never going to be "cured" but I am in what I guess one would call remission and it feels good.  I feel like I am beginning to feel freedom again.  

That is worth it to me.    

* Narcotics Anonymous page 25 (Step 3)

** http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000949.html

Forgiveness.

     It's hard to emerge from my life of addiction right now.   Really hard.  It's hard to look people in the eye who I have harmed, in various ways, in the past couple of years.  Especially my daughter.  I know in my heart and soul that I am not the person the drugs caused me to be.  I know I am capable of so much more and that I have a "loving and caring heart' as my mother said to me in a recent letter.  I am grateful that there are still these loving, supportive people in my life to remind me of who I am and who I can become.  That being said, there are others who have turned away from me, and rightfully so, who  I miss SO DEARLY.  

     I feel stuck right now.  I'm sad a lot.  I know I have a long way to go in the process of forgiving and being forgiven.  I wish I could snap my fingers and have relationships restored with friends and family.  One of the things my addiction did for or to me was to numb the bad feelings I had about myself and towards people that had hurt me in my past.  Now that I am clean, there is nothing to "numb" the feelings of guilt and despair I feel over the many wrongs I have committed.  Those feelings come stronger and more often. From the moment I open my eyes in the morning until well after I close them at night.  Recovery is a long, painful road I've been told and I am experiencing that now.  I haven't touched my "drug of choice", as those in the treatment/recovery world call it, in almost 6 months - although I have had slips of different kinds in what would be defined as relapse over these same months.  I am proud of myself for not "using", but I have a LONG way to go in fixing the problems in my life.  

     When I was in the deepest places of my addiction, my family was trying desperately to "help" me.  It took some time for them to realize that I had to want the help.  They were trying to find treatment centers for me to go to and part of me did want to go, but on my terms.  There was information on this place in Milwaukee that they found that would take me without money and insurance, but it had a few big drawbacks for ME at the time.  One, it was in Milwaukee, hours away from family and in the opposite direction of my daughter who I had spent way to much time away from already and the program typically lasted 12-15 months.  Two, it wasn't a drug & alcohol rehab facility at all, it was a FIX YOUR WHOLE LIFE through GOD facility.  I was not going to have anyone pound GOD into me 8 hours a day for that long!  That was just ridiculous to me.  I often said, find me a 30 day program and I will go.  

     Not long after, I hit what I believe was my ABSOLUTE "ROCK BOTTOM"!  Without going into too many details right now,  just know that I went on an absolute binge - spiraling out of control on Memorial Day weekend.  The climax was me in an ambulance and the EMTs trying to re-start my heart.  Fortunately, they were successful and when I woke up in the hospital the next morning, I knew I was really ready to get help.  There were a few members of my family there that night and I owe them so much gratitude for caring enough to try to help me... you know who you are!  Seven days later after spending some time in the hospital & jail (for some trouble i was already in) I was on my way to Rehab.  I was terrified, but hopeful.  That place, The Villa Succes in Prairie Du Chien, saved my life.  

     It was funny how a few weeks after being there, I called my Aunt and told her about this Bible one of the girls had there.  It was called The Life Recovery Bible.  She laughed and teased me about how I didn't want to go to that place where they were going to "make me" learn and talk about God all day, and now I was asking if someone could get me this bible.  All joking aside, she made the comment about knowing a change was occurring in me already.  Two days later, I received the Bible in the mail. It has brought me so much comfort and promise of a new life with it's powerful words both within the scripture and in the recovery notes.  

     Having had a really rough day today, I turned to that book (as I do almost every day).  I wanted guidance on forgiveness and healing relationships.  I have read this passage over and over the past few months and it stuck out to me after a painful phone call with a family member today.

           "As we set out to mend relationships, there may be some things that are beyond our control.  Some people may refuse to be reconciled, even when we do our best to make amends.  This may leave us feeling like victims.  Once again we are stuck with the pain of unresolved issues.  We may be left with negative feelings that continue to surface.  What can we do to gain control in these situations?

We no longer need to be controlled by other people's dispositions and actions.  Even when we have done our best to make amends for the wrongs we have done, the situation may not change.  And even when we have come to terms with the wrongs that have been done against us, our feelings may not change.  But we don't have to be held captive by our feelings or the feelings of others.  We can chose to forgive and to act in loving ways.  This will free us from being controlled by anyone other than God."

I needed to read this today.  I have been feeling like the some members of my family and friends aren't aware of the progress I feel I am making in my recovery and that I want & need to atone for my wrongs.  This is a slow, painful process and people who were hurt most by my addiction need to see results as I work my program and stay clean. Those relationships will be healed in time.   Meanwhile, success to them, is a job & an apartment & more.  Success to me right now is staying clean 24 hours at a time and doing SOMETHING everyday to try and better my life & my circumstances.  But for now, staying clean is my #1 priority. It has to be. Without that... nothing else I do will matter at all!  


Forgiveness will come...I know it.  My Bible tells me so.