I Got The Serenity ;)

If I had words to explain how awesome it is to let go of those things I cannot control... WOW.
Before beginning my recovery I was consumed with worry. I tried to mentor and control everyone around me. Actually, I believe I was trying to be everyone savior ...? I consider myself an intelligent person and I believe I know much more about life and life's issues then most. I can honestly say that. However, I rarely take the advice I give to so many people. Leading by example WAS something I did not do. A person has to be seriously insane to know so much about life but go against all common sense anyway! That was me. Insane.
The good news now.... ;) I lead by example. NO I am not perfect. I'm far from it. But the difference now is that I don't expect myself to ever be perfect. What I do expect is that I be absolutely happy with my life and myself.
I decided that a big part of taking care of myself in my recovery is to take the advice of my 12 steps and my serenity prayer and let go of those things that I cannot control. When I first started the program, the steps did not seem as life changing as they truly are. It wasn't until I started dealing with my mother and her using that I realized I might have to take my emotional recovery seriously. I found myself angry and frustrated to the point of needing to be physically harmful to the people enabling her. Before my recovery, I wouldn't have thought twice about involving myself in someones business in that way. I always thought I was protecting the people I love by being so involved. It was truly an innocent thing that was extremely unhealthy for me and those around me, I'm sure.
So anyway ... I had to pull myself back and leave my mothers fate to God or whoever could make her better without me driving myself nuts. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to continue being happy in my recovery and my life so that I could lead by example for once! About 4 days ago, my mother decided it was time for her to begin her withdrawals. Two days in, she decided to tell me what was going on and I was shocked because I never truly thought she would take that step. But after I let go and allowed her to take her own steps I guess there wasn't anymore pressure? I should have known better because I'm an addict as well and I know what it feels like to have people breathing down my neck about my problems. But thank God I stopped myself before I really turned anyone off.
OK so I'm going to stop rambling now and come back later in the week for some more blog therapy. Hopefully by then things will still be going well with my mother. And just to reiterate, Letting go is amazing. I can't consume myself with Other peoples' decisions and lifestyles. I don't control them. I can only express my love for the people in my life. There's nothing wrong with giving advice but it's also OK to be a little selfish. There's a good selfish and a bad selfish. Be a good selfish. Take care of yourself and your needs before you try to care for someone else. You're no good to anyone when you're miserable, depressed, tired, lonely, and so on. The best way to lead someone to a life of sobriety or simply to a happier, more fulfilling life is to lead by example. Let everyone around you see how beautiful it can be to take care of yourself spiritually, emotionally and physically. Eventually, people will want what you have. And that's one of the amazing paybacks in recovery. When someone in crisis tells you that they are changing their lives because they want what you have and they want to be like you... What's better than that? What's better than truly helping someone else and not being resented for it because you're all in the business?? ;)
Incredible. If you're reading this and are unsure about how to help someone you love, maybe try laying off a little on the advice and involvement and stick to positive example and expression of love and you may be surprised at what that does. If you are reading this and you're feeling frustrated to the point that you want to fight someone or cuss someone out to hurt them ... please think twice about that. There is no fulfillment in hurting someone deliberately. There's nothing productive that will ever come out of hurting someone physically or emotionally. It took me years to learn that and, although pride suffers a little when you decide not to knock somebody out (hehe), it is worth it in the end because you can be proud of yourself for the right reasons ya know? Anyone reading this ... do the right things for yourself. Bring something good to life and dismiss the negative. Be different and change what you can while letting that which you cannot change suck it! (haha ;)
P.S. You don't have to be an addict to need that serenity prayer... it works for everyone.
I'm Stephanie and I'm an addict. ;)

Adjusting to Life Sober

It's been an unbelievable three months or so. Today I have 87 days clean. I'm still going strong and things are getting much better around here. There is so much that I do today that I wasn't able to do before. I didn't realize how much I neglected the people and things in my life until I was about 2 months into recovery.
My daughter is two and a half years old now and I missed a lot of those years. I have always loved her with all my heart but at one point you wouldn't have been able to notice. I spent a lot of my time sleeping ... 12-14 hours at a time. Many times I wouldn't wake up until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon after staying up until about 4 am. Nina (my daughter) would wake up around 12pm and I wouldn't wake up for another 2 hours or so. (God I hate saying these things... I feel horrible). I would turn on the cartoons in our bedroom and she would sit next to me on the bed until I woke up. Finally I would get up and finally I would change her diaper and feed her. At the time, it didn't seem so bad, you know? After all, I was just getting some sleep, right? I was simply relaxing and everyone knew I needed more sleep than the average person! That's what I told everyone anyway.
I would then spend the entire day in the bedroom... doing nothing... eating, gaining weight, being sad and depressed and I still thought I was a busy, productive, responsible individual and mom. It's amazing how warped my thought process had become. I stopped cooking for my man. I would do the laundry every month or so, rather than every week. I never went anywhere so what the hell did I need clothes for? I stopped cleaning my house and for months on end I would tell visitors that we were spring cleaning ... it was the end of summer... the beginning of winter...
I found a job in January of 2008. I would be working from home for a phone sex company. I was happy about getting this job because I knew I could do it well and I didn't want to leave my house. It was a very stressful job and I was online or on the phone for about 14-16 hours of the day. I stopped paying attention to my boyfriend, my daughter, mother and father... No one interfered with my drugs or my job. Now, while I was happy that I was one of the best employees my boss had and I was making good money, I didn't realize that the fire under my ass and my motivation was my addiction. Every penny I made went towards my pills. I bought them illegally from a family friend who worked in a pharmacy. Just in case people do not know, that is a felony. However, never did I EVER think about my purchases being a crime. It was never a crime to me. I now had a $400-500 a week habit.
Being honest with myself about these issues kills me. It kills me to know that I have always been a special person. A driven person. A good and caring woman. I am a very intelligent person and I let addiction drag me down so far... Now I'll struggle for the rest of my life, learning to live again, learning to have fun again, learning to love again and learning to be a productive human being. Many people do not understand how hard it is to come out of an addiction and have to live a sober life. This is what I told my boyfriend: I said, just imagine someone being in jail for 30 years. Imagine having to hide your food, socks, toothbrush, snacks, underwear, and anything else of "value" from inmates all day, every day. Imagine showering with other inmates and having to watch your back all day, every day. Imagine having to fight anyone who crosses or disrespects you in order to protect yourself from the predators of prison all day, every day. Imagine being told what to do all day, every day for 30 years. How can that prisoner handle being tossed out into the real world again? That person will have to learn to walk down the street again, learn how to shower alone without paranoia, learn how to eat a meal like a civilized person, learn to get up and work,be social and affectionate, learn to Live and change the behaviors they've come to know so well... That is an addicts real struggle.
Anyone, anywhere can stop using drugs. Anyone can go to a detox and clean out their system. What we struggle with is staying clean. Not picking up our drug when we cannot handle what life is throwing at us, that's the struggle. Letting go and learning to forgive ourselves for the things we did while using... It's our struggle. Forgiving the people who have hurt us and betrayed us in our lives... That's our struggle. It's my struggle to deal with what I've become, to leave the people that are unhealthy for me, to let go of the resentment I hold toward people in my life, to forgive... to have some faith that pain ends and happiness begins somewhere down the line.
Today, I spend the entire day with my daughter. She has become attached to me in such a way, (and you might think this is silly), she makes me want to cry. Sometimes I want to cry because I couldn't enjoy her before and i regret that. But most of the time, I want to cry because I'm so amazingly in love with her. She really is something special. I didn't feel that motherly connection for a long time. As ashamed as I am of that fact, I know that from here on, things will always be different. As far as my boyfriend goes, we are much more affectionate and happy together. We understand each other so much better now. He's not the only one putting into this relationship. He's not the only one understanding, loving, supporting and giving... I'm doing it too. We spend every evening together and we finally feel like best friends again. We do so much more together and as a family, it's amazing. Every day I think to myself How the Hell was I missing out on this? As far as the phone sex job goes, I quit. I couldn't deal with those people anymore and I'm sure sobriety has something to do with it!
Overall, Life is really, really good. Soooo I can't find a job, I'm working on a degree and I have a few thousand dollars in debt ... I have my life back and that's what is most important. I can't live a life that I do not have. Addiction is not a life. It's a death. And I don't plan to go there again. ;)

I'm Stephanie and I'm an Addict.

The Dread Disease ...

"If some new and terrible disease were suddenly to strike us here in America - a disease of unknown cause, possible due to noxious gas or poison in our soil, air, or water, it would be treated as a national emergency, with our whole citizenry uniting as a man to fight it.
Let us suppose the disease to have so harmful an effect on the nervous system that [millions of] people in our country would go insane for periods lasting from a few hours to weeks or months and recurring repetitively ...
Let us further suppose that during these spells of insanity, acts of so destructive a nature would be committed that the material and spiritual lives of whole families would be in jeopardy ... Work in business, industry, professions and factories would be crippled, sabotaged or left undone ...
Finally, let us imagine this poison or disease to have the peculiar property of so altering a persons judgment, so brainwashing him, that he would be unable to see that he had become ill at all; actually so perverting and so distorting his view of life that he would wish with all his might to go on being ill.

The dread disease envisioned above is actually here. It is addiction.

- Dr. Drew Pinsky