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| Nothing much going on lately...just working and puppy-searching! We've been going to local Humane Societies and checking out what's going on there...we need a smaller dog and really would like to get a puppy so we can grow with her. I'm excited! | | |
| "Don't you know I've always loved you, even before there was time? Though you turn away, I tell you still: don't you know I've always loved you...and I always will."
--"I've Always Loved You," Third Day | | |
| I didn't realize it was almost exactly a year since I last posted!!! Apparently Feb 7-8 is when I feel the need to update...haha see you next Feb...just kidding! (Hopefully!) | | |
| Wow...it's been forever. And many, many things have happened between then and now...since I seem to be unable to sleep tonight, I might as well do a brief recap.
Basically, I went through the same old cycle of drinking, coming close to doing something terrible, thinking I needed to quit, quitting for awhile, rationalizing drinking again, drinking again...throw in lots of random drug use and lots of self-abuse and that's pretty much what's gone on.
I also managed to graduate college and am taking a year off to get my head on straight so I can go to grad school next year and get my PhD. This year off has proved to be the best decision I ever made/had to make. I had to do it because I truly believe there's no way I'd have survived at grad school this year.
I'm really blessed to have this opportunity...I really needed to get away from the environment and people that continued to enable me despite my obvious and drastic decline. I think I went upwards of 5 weeks without a single sober day...barely even a sober hour, and a few of those only because some days it took me an hour or so to get to what I needed to get to or stop throwing up/whatever long enough to use again. It wasn't pretty. No, not at all.
So I'm away from it and turns out, I'm the problem (ha) because the cycle continued. Though I have found someone I trust more than anyone (someone not required by HIPAA to keep my secrets quiet!) and maybe I'll eventually be able to convince myself that said person is not going to leave me. (this, by the way, is not a romantic relationship, she's just a close, close friend...I haven't been able to love myself...no way in hell do I need to try to love someone else, too!!)
And now...well, I recently went through another period of pretty heavy drug use/drinking and am currently going on 5 whole days sober! The difference this time? I don't feel quite as alone...and I've also made a deal with myself that if I can't make it through Lent, I'm putting my ass in rehab. And I now have someone to hold me accountable. Someone who won't enable me...someone who won't put up with my bullshit rationalizations, who won't look the other way even if I have just one drink (because she knows one will turn to 2, which will become 3 which will somehow end up being 10...how does that happen, anyway!?), and someone who loves me despite the fact that she knows all my dirty little secrets.
The difference between her and all my other friends is that they all knew me one way or the other...some friends knew me way back when I had my shit together (well, for the brief period I did...but at that point my drug use was mainly prescription pills and wasn't as severe and was more easily hidden) and others have only known me as the hard drinking party girl. She saw me as a fairly normal young adult and then I let her in on the secret...and she didn't leave!!! :)
Anyway...I don't know if any of you can relate to this but this time has a different feeling...before it was like, dreadful and hopeless...but for some reason now I feel hopeful and kind of excited about conquering this. Is that weird? I don't know...
Next week (I shouldn't put it off, I know, but it has to be done while my parents are gone and I have to work tomorrow) I have to clean out all the old bottles/pills/whatever is in my room that's hiding and waiting to jump out and drag me down in a weak moment. I'm kind of afraid to do this alone. I'm scared of triggers and being overwhelmed at having to face my drinking history for the past 5 or so months (I had to periodically clean out bottles when I was drinking because I ran out of hiding places for the empties and the last time I did so was in October...I've had to be creative). I wonder if it would help to have someone here? Or is this one of those demons I need to face on my own? Hmm...I think I need someone safe here in case there happens to be a non-empty bottle...I've met non-empty bottles before and it didn't take long for them to become empty...that would be a rather unhappy setback. Not to mention that would mean I broke my promise to myself and would promptly be packing to get some help.
Well, I hope the extra-long post makes up for my serious lack of blogging. I hope to get back into this...this is one of the few places I can talk about this with no judgment (largely because I'm not even sure anyone reads it...no one can't judge you!! haha...that makes very little sense...) because if anyone understands addiction, it's an addict. In fact, I'm convinced we're an elite group and the only ones who will every truly know. This is one secret I'd like to have been left out of. Alas....
"That's why i do drugs: they fill the lacuna between who I am and who I want to be; between what I think and what I feel." --Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again (I think...)
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| Why can't I have blind faith? Why can't I make myself believe in some "higher power"? Why do I feel like it's just me against the world? It's like, look at this shit, there can't possibly be anything controlling this mess we've got ourselves in. Me, the world, etc etc. How can there be something omninscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent in charge and I'm just floating around twiddling my thumbs. Is there something I'm just missing by being an asshole? Because I feel a little shafted. I think it's control and disappointment. Admitting/recognizing some higher power does 2 things: takes me out of control and asks me to submit to something above me....and I just don't do that real well. I don't like to admit I'm wrong and I sure as hell don't like not being in control. I feel like maybe, just maybe if I could get my faith on track, I'd be cool...but I just can't believe in a God who lets so much shit go on. I want to believe. I really do, I swear. My life would be so much easier if I could blindly accept something that seems so improbable to me right now. I'm taking a shitload of religion classes to see if somewhere along the way I can convince myself to believe in God. I really want to. I want prayer to be the place where burdens change shoulders. I want to be able to trust someone/something else fully to take over and absolve me. Fix me. Change me. And I know that's not like, what it's all about and shit, but I want to be able to be willing to allow that to happen. I'm tired of drinking to fill myself with something I'm missing. "So I'm taking these pills for to fill up my soul and I'm drinking them down with cheap alcohol and you'd be inclined to be mine for the taking. You're part of this terrible mess that I'm making but you, you're the catalyst. You'll be the thing. You'll be the pain.You'll be the star. You'll be the road, rolling below the wheels of a car and all of the thoughts, oh God, don't know if I'm strong enough now..."
--Anna Nalick, Catalyst | | |
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