Content warning: Drugs, addiction, recovery, alcohol use,
Hi All,
I hope that what I tell you today may ring true and be helpful to you in some way. I do want to help someone, and I do want to be a good person. I have been working at this for decades. Trying to be a better person for me means conquering the obstacles that block me. It seems like this would be easy enough, but it’s not. It’s extremely difficult and very time-consuming. I measure progress in years and decades. My goal is: when it’s my time to leave this earth, I leave with honor intact.
Forgiveness of self
I guess this is where I started. I got sober in 1999 through a step program. It was the first time I started to feel the shift from gratification to gratitude. I had been drunk and drugged most of my life. I started in 1967, fifth grade, weekend sleepovers, drinking at parties, and then drugs came into my life with high school, mostly pot and acid. I went to the Culinary Institute right after graduation. It was the 70s. There were a lot of Vietnam vets with their own drug problems. Through cocaine, pot, acid, and lots of alcohol, I somehow graduated and got a job. Kitchen life was also heavy partying. Getting out close to midnight, the only thing open is bars. The crew would often stay together and make a feast out of what hours were left of the day. Then we would get into our cars and drive home drunk. The laws were not heavy then, so amazingly, it became routine, adding sexcapades, morning regrets, and black out drunks. It went on and on and on. I was eventually fired.
Then I found work that could support my alcoholic drug addict lifestyle better. What could be better than cutting trees deep in the woods, running chainsaws with a few beers and joints? Who would approach such a girl? Landscaping, hard manual work, wood cutting, and snow shoveling, all of which gave me an entitlement to continue, as they were all hard-earned. Finally, in the late 1990s, I started to feel unhinged.
This is where the theme of the Strange Case of Doctor Jeyckl and Mr. Hyde started to work for me. I didn’t want to be a drunk druggie. I wanted to be a good person, well really I just wanted to look like a good person, without changing drinking and drugging. So, I started volunteering. Maybe I thought this would help me slow down drinking, too. I’m not really sure. But for the next ten years, I volunteered for Meals on Wheels and then ten years at the Salvation Army cooking. I worked very hard at this persona. My partner and I got up every Christmas morning at 5 A.M., drove to the Salvation Army, and put on a huge breakfast. And special dinners throughout the year. But inside, behind the closed door of our home, I was equally working hard at destroying my brain, self confidence, and life.
Self help, Meditation, Behavior, Lying
It wasn’t till 1999 that things started to change. I went to church 5 minutes down the road from where I lived and asked God every week to help me stop. Then one night I was at a bar and this barfly old woman was cackling. I told my partner. That will be me…..Then next Sunday I said to God, “Okay, I get it, this is who I am, and this is what I’ll be.” Maybe it was this admission to myself and to God, but something happened. A switch had suddenly flipped in my brain. With the grace of God. I found help. And my last drink was January 18th, 1999. I got sober and started on the path to forgiving myself.
Years of meetings and therapy and I thought I was doing pretty good. I didn’t realize that the program words were becoming rote. And I stopped looking hard at myself. I turned to reading as much as I could. I picked up book after book on self help and meditation, even Buddhism. I was sober, I did the work , and yet I still felt like crap. Unfortunately, it was time that I needed, more living and more searching. Trying to discover an awareness of those obstacles that blocked me.
Ironically, it was a brain injury and years of biological feedback that may have helped me discover some of the obstacles. As recently as last year, I came to grips with my history of compulsive lying. Any time I felt uncomfortable or was challenged I would revert to lying rather than trying to deal with the situation; I still do. Certain things have haunted me for years. And I could not understand why I said or did things. And maybe the drugs and alcohol were not the cause but a manifestation of the underlying issues of a lifetime of lying? I do not know. It’s so difficult to understand. I joined a support group for lying but it did not really help me. I am in therapy and I do work on it. AND THAT IS THE BIGGEST THING I REALLY WANTED TO SAY……I DO THE WORK! It’s my life. And when something new comes up I’ll work on that. In the end I want to be free. Free of regret, shame, and pain!
I HOPE YOU CAN FIND SOMETHING IN THIS. TO HELP YOURSELF.
Thank you
