Facing Feelings

          I thouroughly enjoyed the Just For Today meditation for today. As a child, my feelings felt so incredibly intense. It always felt likea heavily weighted wet blanket smothering me. I wanted to run from my feelings but I didn't not know how. I didn't know how to feel them either so I lashed out at everyone around me.

         Today I may not like what I feel at times, but I know how to sit still and feel it. I have to remind myself sometimes that it's okay to feel my feelings. They are not facts and can't hurt me. When good things happen I can sit back and enjoy them rather than try feel even better or control how long I will feel good. When I am feeling what I perceive to be negative feelings, I remind myself that they will pass.

      Today I don't strive for perfection. I did that very early in recovery and I almost used again when I began to beat myself up for failing. I am okay with simply doing my best most days. Somedays I  don't even do my best. I expected the program to fix my mood immediately when I followed a suggestion. When I prayed I thought of it an an opiate. Within 20 minutes I should feel all better. If I made a meeting, talked to my sponsor or wrote on a step I shouldn't feel bad anymore. What I have realized is that I can't use the program to change my mood the way the dope did. Overall, when I follow suggestions and stayed prayed up and spiritaully fit Ihave less of a difficult time getting through the tough things. Early in recovery it was about cleaning up the wreckage. These days is't about not creating more.

The Dissatisfaction of an Addict

   It seems as if I have spent my entire life being dissatisfied. Most addicts I know are. It takes being vigilant in our program of recovery and a solid relationship with God to accept things just the way they are. No matter what or how much I have I always seem to want more. I set goals for myself and as soon as I reach that goal I am unhappy with what I have and set my sights on something else.

    I don't know if it has anything to do with being an addict or if it is human nature. I have a wonderful man but I want a better one. I have a great job, but I want one that brings more satisfaction. I got a new car in April and now it's time for another one. Why can't I ever just sit back and relax and accept what
I have?

A job versus a Career

     In December I was laid off from a job I loved very much. It broke my heart. One of my clients found out I was being laid off and offered me a job immediately. I was so grateful. I took a little over a dollar pay cut, but was so happy to have a job. It was a company I have worked for before. It is a great company and I couldn't ask for a nicer group of people or a more appreciative boss. God is good and in recovery I am learning about responsibilty, accountability and committment.

     I absolutely hate my job! It is so boring and definately not challenging. I enter data into a computer all day and call doctor's offices and proof personalized orders. I can watch movies and read books at work while I work and still maintain the highest production in our whole group. The fact that I hate my job makes me feel like an ingrate. I believe that we lose the things we aren't grateful for and I don't want to lose my job. I am looking for another job.

    I want a challenge. I want a job I wake up and look forward to going to everyday. A job that makes me feel like I have a purpose. I want to feel like I am giving back and helping people. The job I have now doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction. I want a career, not just a mindless job that I go to everyday in order to get a paycheck to give away to bill collectors. It gives me the feeling I had in active addiction of just surviving, existing, not living. I don't like that feeling at all. I don't feel fulfilled.

    The thing is, I beat myself up for the choices I have made, I am living the consequences of choices I have made. I dropped out/ was kicked out of college due to active addiction and once I got clean and decided to return it was difficult. I have to work full time and have four children and money is very limited and my credit is trashed. I can only go part time and have realized it will take me forever to get my degree. My dream would be to get back into staffing or return to working with people with mental illness. I would love to work with other recovering addicts. I have experience with all of this, but
I don't have a degree. Most places want people with a college degree.

    I am not going to give up hope and right now I have to find and pray for some acceptance. I am grateful to have the job I have and I will continue to look for something else. I will also keep going to with the long process of school in hopes of things changing. I know God won't let me down.

Getting High

    Addicts are the people that spend all day trying to get one more and then we have to walk around and pretend we aren't high. I was an opiate addict and I spent hours and hours thinking of ways to con doctor's out of scripts and then getting high. The goal is to achieve the perfect high. That perfect balance of feeling numb, feeling as if you are wrapped in a floating cloud with the sun lightly kissing your face. The problem is that as an addict, I reach that if I reach that high I feel like "Just one more" ought to really make me feel better. It took me years to realize that there is no such thing as the perfect high. There is no magic combination to achieve this Heavenly feeling once we are in the grip of the disease. You see, onceI take that "one more" I have tipped the scale of high to completely fucked up and sick.

     Once reaching this point, I am nauseated and vomiting, sweating and shaking and my muscles and bones feel like jello on a stick. I would get high to get numb and not feel anything or have to think. What happened in reality is that my bodu would go into a nod and feel cozy and numb, but my mind would race a million miles a minute. I couldn't hold a thought and none of them made sense. As I bend over the toilet puking I am alternating between swearing that I am never going to do this again thinking that I just have to tweak the dosage a  bit.

     Here's another kicker...I am bent over holding my stomach, alternating between nodding and puking and am shaking, hungry and horny. Let me tell you, there is nothing sexier than a sweating, vomiting, incoherent chick who wants to fuck right? Isn't that a pretty picture?

    We sleep and then get up and do it all over again. In active addiction I needed downers at night to slow my mind down and knock me out and then something in the morning to get me going. Then I had to maintain that energy all day.

    Thank God I don't have to live that way today. Today I experience a sense of freedom. I still have trouble sleeping at night and am often tired during the day. I have to take naps and meditate. I have been to my doctor and he told me that if I quit smoking and lose weight I would pick up energy and be able to sleep naturally. Who would have thought?

5 Year Reflection

     Today is the anniversary of my clean date. Five years clean today!! Addicts sit and reflect on their anniversary just like anyone else would reflect around their birthday. How far have I come? Why am I not futher than where I am? Have I been putting enough work in?

     I am sitting comfortably in my livingroom while my three daughters are asleep in their bedrooms and even the dog is snoring peacefully. We moved into the house two weeks ago and are finally in a safe neighborhood. My girls could play outside today without the threat of gunfire. My life hasn't always been this serene.

    Two of my sleeping daughters don't live with me. They live with their father and I get them every other weekend. The gift of recovery is that I am a part of their lives today. I have given much thought lately of their father. I divorced him in my first year of recovery. He is also an addict and his addiction drug us to the depths of hell. Through living with him I realized that some people's bottoms had trap doors. It took $10,000 and a 13 month prison sentence for him for me to get away. Today he is remarried to his fourth wife,involved in church and an excellent father. We were best friends, but terrible together. It felt like two little kids trying to play grown up. I have missed him some lately. In typical fashion, my disease tells me that the highs were so wonderful that I could withstand the lows that the marriage brought with it. I have a disease that tells me I don't have a disease, one that tells me that things "weren't that bad."

     I also have a 16 year old son. He lives with my sister and step-father. I am unable to handle his mood swings and his defiant behavior. He was diagnosed with childhood onset on Bipolar disorder and I truly believe that much of the problem is the lifestyle I exposed him too and the abuse I inflicted upon him. He glorifies the life that I tried to take him out of. I have come to realize that the lifestyle is as addictive as getting high. If the drugs don't kill you, the lifestyle will.

     I work for a temp agency. I was a staffing specialist who found people jobs and I was good at what I did and truly loved it. I was laid off two months ago and now work at data entry at one of the companies I used to staff for. It was quite a blow. The blessing in all of this is that I am employable today and maintain some job stability. This company thought enough of me and my work that they made a position for me when they found out I was getting laid off.

     The live in proposed to me right before Valentine's Day and we then moved out of the apartment we were in. Everything seems to be coming together. I am searching to understand my Higher Power and it seems as if I am being led back to the God of my childhood. The same one I tried to rebel against. Along the way, God has placed important people in my life. There is a co-worker from the staffing agency whom I have come to love like a sister. I miss her so much. I don't get to see her now that we don't work together, but I know god placed her in my life for a reason. She has shown me what unconditional love is all about. I have four crazy wonderful children. I have an insane but lving man in my life and great friends. My sponsor has helped me grow and heal so much.

     I have come a long way in five years. I may not be where I could be. I may not be where I should be, but at least I am not where I used to be!

Feeling are not Facts

     I am coming to learn that when I am feeling something that I perceive as negative, it usually has nothing to do with what is going on at the present moment. I  am either reliving feelings from a past event or fearing a future event.

     Yesterday I tried to cajole my live in to have sex in the middle of the day and he turned me down. He doesn't have the sex drive I have. I know it's him and his issues but I was able to convey to him that when he says no, I feel rejected.

     Last night I shared at a celebration that after I was adopted I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my that my new daddy didn't sneak into my room at night and touch me. I thought, from prior experience that it was want all men wanted and my ability to let them use my body was my purpose. It dawned on the this afternoon that when my father failed to molest me, I felt rejected. Now when the llive-in say no I am reliving all of the feelings of being rejected, less than and not good enough from 25 years ago.

Women DO Recover!

     I had the honor of being asked to share tonight at a celebration. One member was celebrating 17 years and the other gentleman was celebrating 4 years. There were two of us women sharing and I had asked the other one to go first. I am a walking contradiction. I want to isolate, but I want you to come hold my hand while I do it. I want to be the center of attention but don't want anyone to look at me or listen to me. I was nervous to get up and tell my story. I wanted to focus on recovery.   
    
      I heard another addict share the other night and she was a little graphic in her story. I am the last one to judge how another addict shares. I believe in keeping it raw and sharing the truth, no matter what people think. For the first time, I saw how the audience reacted. While she was sharing about her sexual expoits the men in the room were smiling and giggling and making jokes. I have come to understand that people want to hear the juicy stories, we want entertainment. We want the gritty details. And while these things help us to relate and are a means of identification we sometimes take so long telling what things were like that time runs out before we get into our recovery.
     
      Women are at the distinct disadvantage of being stereotyped in recovery. Men know that many women prostituted themselves for their next high. Women come in with low self-esteem seeking acceptance and self-worth. We come in without dignity, self-respect and integrity. I know when I got here I thought all of the men were about recovery and took what they said in a meeting at face value. I didn't realize there were predators in the rooms. I have seen both male and female predators.

       Tonight I had a chance to talk about the fact that men need to respect women in recovery and give us the same chance to recover. "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all of our traditions." Our literature says that this means "bearing no name". We are all equal. Sometimes we are not treated equally in recovery.

       I also had a chance to talk about how God has worked in my life. I slept with a man the first four years of my recovery and I learned a lot and that relationship probably kept me clean until I built my own foundation. However, this man was married and about a year and a half ago his wife came into the rooms. After the first year of seeing her in meetings I  began to become unsettled in my spirit and knew I could no longer continue to affair. I ended it and I was open and honest with her and I made amends. We have since talked about it and she is one of the people I feel a close bond with today. Tonight she was the one who introduced me and it was a wonderful feeling. I was able to talk about my experience without getting specific and without making her uncomfortable. God has shown me Grace, Mercy and taught me about forgiveness through this woman. Today I am learning to practice integrity and dignity.

     Thank  God and Jimmy K. for helping me develop a life worth living!