Yesterday Is Getting Clearer

I know I have only been recovering for about six months but I can already start to look back with a clearer picture of yesterday.

I had a wonderful opportunity to listen tonight at a speaker meeting. There is a drug awareness week going on around Southern Alberta and I had a chance to partake in that. I heard a story again tonight that I heard about four months ago when I first came here.

This person has ten years clean and sober. He works at a treatment center and also a detox center. He has made a huge impact on my recovery because some of the things he said tonight helped me to remember what he had said before. I am grateful that this person had an impact on my being asked to leave the treatment center I was in at that time.

At that time I was in treatment I really wasn't ready to be there. I still knew everything and someone else needed to be there more than me. I was more interested in dressing pretty to impress my boyfriend. The boyfriend I shouldn't have had at that time. I am grateful for the boyfriend too. He was a good teacher for me. We taught each other a lot of things and we fell into the early recovery relationship trap.

I would rather work on him then work on me. I would rather save him then save me. I don't have a problem. He has the problem and I am going to save him. It feels as good as being on drugs to be in a relationship. It is hard to stay out of those relationships but if we listen to the old timers they can help.

They know because they have been there. It starts off beautifully until one day old habits come out and we begin to self sabatoge because we don't really know how to deal with anything except having sex. Sex always makes it all better. We will stay clean together and maybe hit a few meetings but we won't call anyone anymore because we are too busy having sex and not working on our steps.

Sound familiar? It happens. Rarely do we see a successful relationship in early recovery. It can lead to one or both turning back to drinking or drugging or both because feelings start to get stuffed and then it burns.

This person at the meeting tonight shared a story about his highschool sweetheart who he was going to marry. She was a needle junkie who decided to clean up. It worked for her. She did everything she needed to do always until one day after thirty seven years clean and sober she became complacent. Work, life, kids, husband, meetings all became unneccessary for her so she stopped. So did her heart stop beating after she stuck that needle in one more time.

It can so easily be taken away from us if we let our guard down. Focus on your recovery and become aware that once the addiction has been addressed it is always there. It will always tell you that one more time won't hurt. It might kill you but it might not hurt you. It might kill you and it will hurt your family and the people close to you.

Don't give up hope. It can be conquered. Stick to the program. Talk to people who know. It isn't a game. There is a reason we have this program called recovery. It works.

Stay out of that relationship you are so dying to be in. It might still be there when you are ready to have it. If it is meant to be it because the best is yet to come.

Is Anyone Listening To Me?

Wow! What an amazing experience it is to be sitting in a meeting for recovering alcoholics and addicts.

I am a part of something spectacular and it feels warm and welcoming to have that kind of bond with people who have at least one thing in common. We are addicts. We are recovering from the disease of addiction and we need each other to begin the journey.

This disease affects my feelings. I am hurt and I don't want to have to feel the pain so I cover it up with drugs. I didn't realize how much I was hurting until I stopped using drugs. Now I am finding life a lot easier to live because I know that I have those emotions.

During my marriage I spent day after day bursting inside because I had so much to say and I was never able to spit it out. I had so much guilt and shame for the mistakes that I made and so much hurt inside from the mistakes that my husband made. I didn't want to feel that hurt or guilt so using drugs was a way to escape the real world.

I felt like a little child stomping my feet and screaming inside. Does anyone hear me? Why won't you listen to me? Can't you see that I am hurting inside?

When I came to NA for the first time I was blown away by the information I received. I wasn't alone. There are others out there who are going through the same thing I am.

I am finding through my recovery that there is a person inside of me who has a great amount of wisdom and knowledge that can be used to help others. That is why I am blogging. I want you to know that there is a way to recover. It is simple but it takes a lot of work. Come out to a meeting and listen. We are normal folks who have found another way to deal with pain and hurt. We are addicts. We choose to drink or use drugs to hide from ourselves.

We have now found another way to live. One day at a time. One feeling at a time. It is possible to recover from addiction but once we do there is no turning back. We can choose to live or we can choose to die.

I choose to live.

What Tomorrow Brings

Yesterday is gone and today is almost over and I can't wait until the mystery of tomorrow unfolds.

There was a time not so long ago that I dreaded tomorrow. I was in such a bad place in my heart and I didn't even want to wake up anymore. How many of you have been there before?

I saw my ex boyfriend at a meeting last week. He has been out using for the last two months and recently made his way back to recovery. He shared in the meeting. He was scared and he was angry and he was sad and he reached out for help. I was there to see him reach out and ask for help. He showed remorse and a great deal of hate for the drugs that tear him away from people he loves. The drugs help us to hate ourselves, recovery helps us to love ourselves.

He became emotional when he talked about our relationship and that showed me the side of him that I fell in love with. Is it love? How can we be sure until we go through recovery and learn to love ourselves first. I am learning to love myself today. I am learning to live my life with the purpose that God had intended for me to do. I pray a lot for myself and mostly for others. I pray and ask God to help my ex boyfriend to change because I really want this guy to change.

I saw something in him and that is what I was attracted to. Even though I was early in my recovery (which I still am in early recovery) I felt a strong connection to this guy. I wrote about it in my journal and have since looked back over my writing to realize what my head and heart were telling me. Give yourself time to heal before getting into another relationship. It is not easy to stay away from this guy. It is not easy to walk away from people we love. But.........................

In the end it is worth it. To watch God work things out in my life is a remarkable experience. I am ok with being alone. I am ok with being me.

Daddy, don't worry. I know where I made the mistakes in this relationship. We talked about what went wrong and have come to agree we both screwed up. My inability to cope in a relationship backfired and his inability to cope with fear and anger sent us spiraling into the place we ended up.

For the first time in my life I believe I am worth waiting for. I don't have to do things for others that I don't want to do just so they will like me or love me. It feels good to have that strength in me to stand my ground for what is right.

If this guy wants to change he will change. If he really loves me and wants to be with me he will do the work for himself and learn to love himself and he will be the amazing person that I had a chance to know. Maybe in time I will grow to love him more or maybe less. Maybe I will learn to be the most happy by myself just like both my grandmothers before me.

I love you Mom and Dad. I love you, my beautiful children. I am finally able to love myself too.

Recovery really works if you work for it. Listen to your sponsor. They know what they are talking about because they have been there before you.

Yesterday, I hated myself for the decisions I made in my life. Today, I am grateful for those decisions because it brought me to the place I am at now in my life and tomorrow is yet to come.

Don't Give Up

Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing. Don't give up and don't leave until the miracle happens.

When I first started attending CA meetings and NA meetings I wasn't too sure what to expect to happen. What I do know is that even in my mixed up state of mind the people in those rooms were welcoming to me. No matter what I said or how I acted they never made me feel anything but welcome.

I have been going to these meetings for almost six months now. I am coming up to six months in my sobriety on December 2 and I cannot believe the change I am noticing in myself since I came here. I didn't really start to notice it in myself until I noticed the change in other people first. They helped me to see just exactly where I was at a few months ago. It is nice to see that when we don't give up on recovery we aren't giving up on life. By choosing to stay in recovery we are choosing to keep living.

I came from a very chaotic place in my life. I didn't realize just how choatic until I gave my brain a chance to be real. I am finally finding peace and serenity in my life and I am loving it. I am alone for the first time in many years and there was a time when I didn't think that was possible. I was trapped in a world that I hated and felt like I didn't belong.

I was hanging on to my marriage because I thought it was the only choice I had. I was depressed, I was unhappy, I was confused and I thought I was in love. The love that I thought I had was actually need. It felt good to be needed. It didn't feel good to be on drugs. Now that I have had a chance to be clean and reflect on where I came from I can see that the depression was numbed with a big fat joint and when that wasn't enough it turned to cocaine and when that wasn't enough it turned to smoking crack.

When that wasn't enough...............................

I left.

I am grateful to be alive today. I am grateful these rooms exist for us to get clean and sober and learn a new way to live. It is an unbelievable experience but it works. HOW = Honesty, Openmindedness, Willingness. How it works. Complete honesty and openmindedness and willingness to let a Power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity.

I am not used to feeling my feelings. I am used to hiding in my own misery underneath the drugs. I found a way out. I didn't ever give up Hope. Even during my darkest hours as I watched my husband turn into a monster because of the mind altering drugs and my own distortion of the truth, I still held on to Hope.

It was Hope that set me free. I am on my way to a better life. If it wasn't for the crack cocaine I would not be where I am today. I would probably still be struggling to change a man who can only change himself. I would be pretending to be happy but falling apart on the inside.

I have been watching my life change because I have been making changes. I realized tonight that by letting go of the people that I love makes it easier to love them. I don't have to struggle trying to control the outcome to be what I want it to be. I simply pray to my Higher Power for His will to be done and I see miracles happening. What a relief to find out after all these years that if I let go and let God and truely Believe, He will make things work for good.

If it wasn't for this addiction I would not have seen the miracles happen in my life over the last few months.

I am going to keep coming back because it works.

I am happy to be where I am and on my way to where I am going.

Remember When?

Do you remember when you laughed the hardest? Do you remember when you cried because you were happy? Do you remember when you let go of the people you love because you love them?

Do you remember how hard it was not to pick up the phone to see how they are doing because you know it isn't going to change a thing? Do you remember how hard it is to hear from someone else how well they look or how much they miss you?

I would love to hear from you because I am just learning all that now and it is so hard to do. Or not to do. When I see him I have to turn away from him instead of run to him because I know that we aren't good for each other. I know that we made a huge mistake and I am starting to feel emotions that I am used to hiding from. Do I love him or do I love the chaos?

Tell me how you did it.

Friendship Is Forever

I took a little trip today. A few thoughts and a few pictures of my past brought me back to a place in my life where I was happy. A child eagerly looking for the future to bring an abundance of happiness and dreams come true.

Our family friends from when I was a child took my dad and I on a fabulous three day journey through time. We had a chance to go out on their boat and visit some of the places I had been to when I was a teenager. I was just looking at her blog, beautifulbritishcolumbia.blogspot.com. It was in there that I came across the photos of my dad and I and Kent and Heather and Hugo on our journey together.

It always helps me to remember where I came from. It helps me to look past the worst and remember the best of me. Kent and Heather were like my second family. I remember when my dad moved back to Australia I felt a huge loss in my life and when I visited with Kent and Heather they always made me feel loved. Kent and my dad were really good friends and I considered Kent like a dad to me. Heather was always like a sister to me, only because we are so much alike and I am too old to be her daughter.

I didn't realize how much Kent and Heather impacted my life until dad and I saw them again. They are the friends for lifetime that we rarely come across in our lives. Time stands still and no matter how far we travel or how seldom we communicate they are always in our hearts.

Their daugher Crystal was born when I was barely twelve years old and she was my best friend from the day I held her for the first time. When we took skiing trips together I was always with Kent and Heather just so I could be near Crystal. I loved that little girl more than I ever thought was possible to love another human being. She too was a huge part of my life. I always thought about her over the years and wondered if she remembered me.

It was a life changing experience when I found myself surrounded by this part of my life that I left behind. I began to think about all those memories of friendship and love instead of misery and regret. I remembered all the things I am grateful for and I also had a chance to revisit a past that I thought didn't exist.

Thank you Kent, Heather, Sean and Crystal for being a part of my life. We were like family and we spent so much time together and I will carry those memories with me always.

I am coming up to six months of sobriety in my recovery and the emotions are like a rollercoaster. I thought it would be easy sailing once I came home from treatment! Not! I am at a really good place in my life and things are moving in the right direction for me and my kids, however, I am also starting to feel hurts that I am used to hiding behind with drugs.

I am aware of things happening around me and I am learning to listen really well too. My brain isn't spinning in all directions and confused about life anymore. I regret not listening to my sponsors months ago because they are right and I chose to ignore what they were saying. My biggest hurt is that my kids were hurt and I was completely responsible this time.

The reason relationships don't work in early recovery is because we don't have the tools to make a successful relationship. We can't change each other, we can only change ourselves.......

Letting go of the people we love is not as easy as it sounds but once I learned how to do that I was able to accept them for the people they are and started to ask God to help them.

My life is a struggle if I try to do the things that God doesn't want for me. He has a plan for my life and I am willing to let Him guide me to that end.

If I don't spend time talking to Him during the day then I watch my life turn back to chaos and darkness. It doesn't take much for that to happen if I don't keep my focus on my Higher Power.

I thank God I am alive today and I am grateful for the people who have helped me to get to this place in my life.

Let Go And Let God

Do you believe in miracles? I do. Now.

When I stopped fighting to get things my way I stepped back and watched things work out for the best.

For years I couldn't understand why things in my life just weren't quite right. No matter how hard I tried to do the right thing or say the right thing or act the right way there was always something not right.

I always thought about God and Heaven and the Bible but I was too afraid to ever talk about it so that left me in a place of confusion. I was too scared to look inside my heart to find what I was looking for. The closest I ever came to God was when I was a little girl going to Sunday School with my Grandmother but I was too young to really understand anything except that I was always happy to be there and the people were always so nice to me.

It always ended there. Kids were not nice to me and I didn't have the knowledge and understanding to deal with the problems effectively so I allowed myself to become withdrawn from the world and changed my values to fit into the 'crowd'.

I turned away from God and centered my life around my husband and trying to change him into the man I wanted him to be. I realized after eighteen years of struggling I was not going to find the happiness that God had planned for me. I ended up addicted to drugs and in a world of darkness. No matter how hard I tried to find the light I would end up in darkness again.

Finally I decided I wasn't going to get high anymore and watch the world go by without a fight. I decided I wasn't going to hide anymore but I didn't have enough strength in me to get out on my own. I fell to my knees and prayed for God to help me get out of this mess. I was hanging on to a marriage that wasn't worth saving because I thought it was best for the kids.

Forgiveness is where it all starts. Forgiving myself for all the things I did and forgiving all the people in my life who have hurt me and forgiving myself for the things I thought were my fault was the beginning of my journey to freedom. I realized that God had forgiven me a long time ago so I should forgive myself too. Forgiveness from other people will follow soon after.

I truelly believe that in order to take back my life I must give up and give it to God. I was so afraid to be alone that I hooked up with a boyfriend in the program. Early recovery is meant to teach us how to be ok with being ourselves. Getting involved with other people allows us to fall away from recovery and focus on each other instead of ourselves.

My boyfriend and I ended up hurting because we didn't listen. He ended up hurting me physically and I ended up hurting him emotionally and we both ended up hindering our recovery. My sponsors suggested to me to stay away from him but I didn't listen. After two months of being apart from him I found myself face to face with him and all those feelings came flooding back to the surface for both of us.

This means danger for the two of us. It means relapse. Feelings of hurt and disappointment take over and the need to fill the void with drugs takes over. Thank God that I have strong will power and Faith in Him to ease my pain and keep me strong when I see this guy or I would end up in the darkness again.

He wasn't as strong and ended up falling into the darkness for a while but today I saw him come into a support group and open up and ask for help. I saw him reach out to other people instead of to me. It was an answer to my prayers. When I backed off and let go to let God take care of him I found out that I don't have to change him, God will if I let Him.

Today I am grateful for being an addict. I didn't go looking for a relationship with another guy. It just happened and I found myself getting lost in the feelings I hadn't felt in years and he was good to me but it wasn't the right time for us to be together.

This has been an experience I needed to have to get closer to my Higher Power and see Him working in my life. Let go and let God. It works!

Eyes Wide Open

Don't quit when the feelings start to flow. Don't give up when you feel like the world is out to get you. Don't walk away when it starts to feel like you are all alone. Talk to your sponsor and lean on your Higher Power for guidance. They will always be there. They know what works because they have been there before.

For the first time in my life I learned what it FEELS like to step back from someone I love because I love him. I realized for the first time what it FEELS like to love someone and what it feels like to have to let God take care of him because I can't.

My eyes have never been this wide open. Absence really does make my heart grow fonder but it also makes the spirit grow inside me. I am coming into my sixth month of sobriety soon and I am only now seeing for myself what I have been hearing for months because it is happening to me.

My mind isn't filled with so much chaos and confusion anymore. It is filled with rational thoughts and real feelings. I am learning to feel how much it hurts to walk away from someone I love even after the pain he caused me both physically and emotionally. The big eye opener is realizing it isn't my soon to be ex-husband that I am feeling this for but the boyfriend that I shouldn't have had this early in recovery.

I am so grateful for the people that I have in my life who are supporting me through this journey. I am capable of making decisions and telling the truth about what is going on in my heart and willing to listen to what I know is right for me.

I thank God daily for the blessings I have received and I am able to see the changes around me when I try to take my own will back.

Thank you all for being a part of my life.

Numb the Pain

Wow! What a journey I have been on.

I have been away for a while getting to know me. I found out that the place I like best in the world is inside me.

I found someone that I didn't even know existed when I searched for it. I have always looked outwardly to find my sense of self but that sent me on a wild and crazy chaotic trip through a world of darkness that terrified me.

When I was able to get to a place in my self I found a little light beaming in the corner of my soul. I opened the door and there I was standing in the place that I have been hiding from because I didn't want to hurt anymore. The reality is that I didn't ever stop hurting, I only numbed the pain behind drugs and an unhealthy relationship.

I found myself floating through time and looking at the life I lived always turning my back on God who was always there waiting for me to ask Him to help me find what I was looking for.

All along I was looking for me. I was scared to be me because I was afraid to be alone so I chose a path that would keep me away from true joy and happiness. That is right where Satan wants to keep me and as soon as I start to take my own will back I can see the difference in my life and in the people around me.

Letting go and letting God is not as easy as it sounds but it can be done with Faith. It is a process that takes much prayer and guidance and a constant contact with God in my heart. I saw Him working in my life but as soon as I let my guard down I saw a little glimpse of the place I used to be. That guard just happens to be the man I let into my life too soon.

I realized this afternoon just what a threat he is to my life. He is a threat because we have feelings for each other. The things that went wrong in that relationship will be a constant reminder to me that I should have listened to what was being said. Neither one of us have the tools to make a successful relationship because it takes time to learn those things.

It ended in a great deal of hurt and violence that would not have happened if we had waited long enough. We decided to do it our way and not God's way and one of us ended up back out there using drugs and alcohol to numb that pain.

I thank God every chance I can that I am still here and I know now more than ever how easy it is to fall into that darkness. Being in love with someone who doesn't love himself will only take me down the same road I came from and that is not a place I am willing to go again.