Tag: Alcoholics Anonymous

Keep Showing Up

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I am currently in a hotel in Knoxville with my 10 year old.  He and I are traveling to Kentucky to see my parents.  I thought he would chill and I would write. I was wrong.  He hasn’t chilled yet.   Hotels are way too exciting for children.  Even a Hampton Inn in Knoxville, TN.  Jackson is spinning circles in the chair and asking me thousands of questions.  His most recent question was “are you mad at me?”  I told him “Of course I’m not mad at you” and I asked why he thought that.  His reply was that I seem annoyed.  I had to remind him that it’s after 9 o’clock and Mommy hates everyone after 8:30.  He knows this.  And then, because I am a good human, I assured him I am not annoyed with him and I love him all the world full. I’m just a bit tired and grumpy.   It’s been sweet traveling with Jackson.  He mostly watches videos with his headphones on. But, we also got some good one on one talk time in.  Jackson was in 5th grade this past year.  His last year in elementary school.  In 5th grade the children participate in the DARE program.  He learned all about addiction/drugs/alcohol/peer pressure and such.  He knows I don’t drink but he’s never asked why.  Until today.  My older two children know the story.  They lived the story.  They remember the story.  Jackson was a little guy.  I asked him if he remembered when I was sick and he came to see me in that hospital where he got to play foosball.  He does remember.  He told me he remembers coming to see me a few times in the hospital.  The hospital was a treatment center, and it seems he remembers a bit more  of my stay than I realized.   Once that topic came up he asked what that was all about.  He wanted to know why I was in that hospital.  I have had ALL the conversations about these things with his brother and sister, but Jackson, being the baby, and not really remembering that life, well, it just hasn’t come up.  Until today.   He could care less whether I drink or not.  When I explained to him that alcohol makes me sick, he compared it to an allergy to red dye number 40, or yellow dye 5. He’s not really wrong.  Other than the fact that as well as making me sick, alcohol makes me crazy and depressed.   I guess he’s never cared or even considered why I go to “those meetings.”  Which cracks me up because I have always said it’s Jackson’s world and the rest of us are lucky to be living in it.  It’s just something I do that he’s never questioned.   We talked about those meetings and he decided I go for no reason and I don’t even need to go because obviously I am cured.  Then he threw in the word hippie and eluded to the fact that AA is for hippies.   I love this child.  AA in my community certainly isn’t full of hippies.  Or, maybe they were at one time, but they grew out of it.   Jackson is a joyful child. A young 10 year old. He’s been able to stay little a bit longer than his siblings did. Innocent.  He has no idea that I rolled straight out of jail and went to his kindergarten orientation with him 5 years ago.  Never have I ever felt more shame or guilt than I did that day. I had gotten a DUI the day before and had to sit in jail for 24 hours. Actually, my husband had the option to bail me out, but chose not to.  He was over it and he knew if I was in jail for the night, I was safe for the night.   I got sober three months later.  I remember going to his class and talking to his teacher about my sobriety. I wanted her to know why I had been absent for the past few months.  I wanted her to know how much I appreciated all the love and support she gave Jackson and how grateful I was for her.  When I explained to her that I had been struggling with addiction and had been away in a treatment center she looked at me like I had two heads.  I was sure I couldn’t have been the first person she had ever met with a drug/alcohol problem.  She assured me I was the first.  I was mortified and I wanted to die.  But I didn’t.  I stood there.  I was getting sober.  I was being honest.  I was standing in my truth.  Uncomfortable and awkward, but I stood there.   For whatever reason, I felt like she needed to know.  I felt like that was a conversation I needed to have with her.  It was the first time I had announced with any seriousness that I was getting sober. For the first time ever, I was able to hold my head high in that school.  Simply because I was sober.  I didn’t feel judged by her.  It was just very matter of fact, “I have never met an addict or alcoholic before.”  I think I expected her to share her own personal story of the people in her life who are either addicted or in recovery.  Maybe I expected a bit of praise for my hard work.  Not that I deserved an award for doing what I needed to do, because I certainly did not. That experience was a big moment for me in early recovery.  Being honest about who I am is OK.   Being open and honest made it easier for me to be a good mother.  I no longer felt like I had to pretend to be perfect, because now it was known that I wasn’t.  But I was there.  I was trying.  Not being perfect meant I could be me.  Being an alcoholic mother is hard.  I had a lot of shame about the way I drank.    I had always felt less than when I was with the other Moms at school because it seemed like they had it all together.  They all seemed so perfect.  Then there was me.  Just hoping they didn’t smell alcohol on me.  That was a special kind of Hell. (There are many kinds) Now, after being sober for 5 years and spending time with emotionally healthy people,  I understand that nobody has their shit together.  At least not all the time.  We all do the best we can and everyone has their own problems to deal with.  In whatever form that comes in.  As long as we keep showing up, we are winning at life, even when it doesn’t feel like it.  Today I am showing up for my children by being a living example of what recovery looks like.  They have seen addiction.   It’s not the life I had planned for us, but we made it and became so much stronger and closer through the process.  My children know that they can talk to me about the difficult things.  They know they don’t have to be perfect, because this life is messy and chaotic and beautiful.  We just have to keep showing up.

Recovering Out Loud

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I have ALWAYS been out loud about my recovery.  I was out loud in my drinking, so I found it necessary for my own recovery to not be anonymous in sobriety.  When I was drinking, I was sure social media was all about taking photos of everything I drank and every drunk thing I did. Including posting photos from the back seat of police cars and hospital rooms. Being social media sober seemed like the natural follow up to that. It’s a tool I have used since day one to help keep myself accountable.  Getting sober was HARD.  Staying sober is easy.  I have so many resources and tools available to me. Really, it’s just not difficult today.  Because I have tools and resources. I live in an alcohol free home with a very supportive husband.  We used to drink together. A Lot.  When I made my first few attempts at getting sober (there were many), my husband thought it would be fine to still have a 5 pm Scotch or two or maybe three.  It was not fine and I ended up right there with him and I kept right on going long after he stopped. I could never have one or two or even three.  It never even occurred to me that I was supposed to drink with any other intention than to get completely hammered.  Because that’s where the fun was.  Or so I thought. I’m sure it started that way. It certainly didn’t end that way. After a few failed attempts at getting sober which included trips to hospitals, Psych wards, detoxes and rehabs, my husband came to understand that if I was going to get sober in our home, there could be no alcohol around.  Even when I didn’t want to drink, I always managed to.  I didn’t like Scotch so that “shouldn’t” have been a problem.   But as soon as something didn’t go my way and I was upset that Scotch of his was good enough to do what I needed it to do.  Numb my overwhelming emotions.  I was convinced he was an alcoholic and that it really wasn’t fair that I was the one getting sober.  Truth be told, he was a little concerned about this too.  We were in the habit of drinking together.  As it turns out, he was able to leave it.  He didn’t have a drink anywhere near me my entire first year sober.  He rarely drinks today, and when he does, he doesn’t get wasted and it’s just not an issue.  He’s one of “those” normal drinkers.  Normal drinkers are cool,  I’m just not one of them.  When I got sober, I had to unfollow a lot of my friends on social media.  I saw them partying and having fun and not inviting me.  I felt left out.  I also appreciated the fact that I wasn’t invited so I didn’t have to say no, but still…I felt left out.  Lonely. A constant theme in my life. I remember calling a friend one evening and as she answered the phone, I could hear her scrambling and banging and making all sorts of racket.  She was in the middle of a party and tried to get into her bedroom where it was quiet so I wouldn’t hear what was going on.  Sweet and hilarious, because believe me, I could hear exactly what was going on.  The more sober I got, and the more practice I had with handling my emotions, the less those things bothered me.  It still hurt my feelings that most of those friends fell away and didn’t invite me to do things, but I am sure I made them uncomfortable.  The majority of them don’t socialize without alcohol (and lots of it).  No judgement, it’s just not where I am today.  And since I’m not invited, it’s not an issue.  Drinking people are not a problem for me.  Drunk people are.  It’s not a fun space to be in. In all fairness , when I was drinking I didn’t want to be around people who weren’t drinking either. So I got used to missing out. Eventually that “fear of missing out” turned into the “joy of missing out.”  I slowly got comfortable in my skin and began to enjoy my time alone.  My family got me back and I like to think they enjoy having me, fully present for them.  I know I sure enjoy spending time with them.  Since I had no friends that wanted to do the “weird” things I wanted to do, I had to learn to do things alone.  Most of the “weird” things I wanted to do were in groups, so I wasn’t even alone, I was just on my own.  In a group.  This is how my world slowly started to expand.  I began meeting people who liked the weird things I liked.  Weird = Spritual.  So, not really weird, just different than what I had been doing my entire life.  And it was ALL new to me.  Today I have friends everywhere.  Sober friends.  Goddess friends.  Yogi friends.  Meditation friends.  Old friends.  New friends.  Internet friends that I haven’t met yet.  Family friends.  And I am a friend to myself above all.  That’s a big one.  I have a huge outer circle and a small inner circle.  I have people I can count on.  Sober me is super lovable.  Drunk me, not so much.  I have extra appreciation for those who loved me through that and stayed.  The girl who doesn’t  get invited to parties went to four parties in the last two weeks.  One of them was mine, but still.  🙂  One of them was a party for a dear friend who I love all the world full.    My invitation went like this, “Would it be weird to invite you to my margarita bar party?”  I think that was the first invitation I have received in 5 sober years.  Seriously.  Or maybe I am making that up and it’s just the first party I actually went to. I’ve been to Christmas parties.  But that’s family, so I don’t think it counts.  I am sure my husband has been invited and by default I was invited, but really feel like this was a sobriety first for me. I went to her party that was FULL of people I love, had a bunch of fun and laughed and then laughed some more that I still managed to shut the party down.  At 8:30 pm.  Because that’s the kind of friends I have.  And I LOVE it.  Last night I went to my first ever sober party.  As in a party by a sober person, for sober people.  I didn’t have to worry about taking my own drink.  Everyone ate food because that’s what sober people do at a party.  I heard hilarious stories that only sober people would think are funny.  Sometimes, when I’m around people who aren’t in recovery, I forget they haven’t lived that life.  Until the moment I notice sheer horror on their faces.  Then I wrangle it back in and explain that THAT is the exact reason why recovery is so important to me.  I am reading “The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober” by Catherine Gray and I really can’t recommend it enough.  Especially to newly sober people.  It takes me back to the early days of sobriety and just how bad everything sucked.  Until it didn’t.  In recovery circles “the pink cloud” is often talked about.  It’s a magical place where some of us find ourselves as the haze of alcohol starts to wear off and we start to find joy in the simplest of things.  At 5 years sober, I am happy to report, that I am still riding that pink cloud.  I’ve learned to look for joy in the small things.  I’ve learned to do things that feed my soul and feel good to my heart.  I’ve learned to stay away from things that suck.  ALL of being sober is an unexpected joy because I knew when I got sober that fun was no longer a part of my life.  My life was over. I could not have been more wrong. We all know the quote “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”  That describes my experience with getting sober perfectly.  Best. Decision. Ever.

Tattoos and Freedom

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EE8BD19E-0227-4798-A822-E9462D48AF13Tattoos tell a story.  Ask anyone about their tattoos and you will likely hear the story of their life, or at the very least a very personal piece of their “story.”  I got my first tattoo when I was 21.  The tattoo that will forever be known as the tramp stamp.  Which is total bullshit, but whatever.  The low back tattoo that every girl my age got in the 90’s.  I wanted to get tattooed as soon as I turned 18, but I spent a few years getting pierced instead and waited for the desire to pass.  It didn’t pass.  I had that one tattoo for years and years without ever needing or wanting another one.  But then I fell in a hole.  A hole I couldn’t climb out of.  I have lots of mantras tattooed on my skin.  Those mantras helped me climb out of the hole and truly represent what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now.  It goes like this.  Once upon a time, I was a raging, hot mess.  I was hopeless.  Hopeless is the worst feeling in the world and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  I had been exposed to the words hope and faith quite a bit in AA meetings.  I wasn’t sober and I had neither hope nor faith in my life.  I was also attending group therapy.  Dialectical Behavior Therapy.  To treat my Borderline Personality Disorder that I don’t actually have.  Being Borderline was better to me than claiming alcoholism and having to give up drinking.  I rocked that Borderline Personality Disorder too.  I owned the shirts and I wore the awareness bracelet.  I gave a face to Borderline, “normalizing” it, much like I do today with addiction and recovery.  And, I got to keep drinking.  The best part of the whole deal.  But, I was dying inside.  Failing at life in every possible way.  Even my liver was struggling.  Every day I would tell myself that today I won’t drink and then every day, usually before 8 am, I would be drinking.  I HAD to.  It was the only way to keep my body from shaking.  Every day was the same and every day was awful.   I was reading a self help article about Borderline Personality Disorder when I came across the acronym for Hope. Hold On Pain Ends.  I fell in love with that idea and knew I needed to carry that with me.  My first mantra tattoo.  I really don’t remember getting it.  Most of those first tattoos blend together in a gray kind of memory.  But there it was.  On my hand where I couldn’t miss it and was reminded constantly that I could get through this.  I was able to get clean from methamphetamine addiction.  Nothing could possibly be harder than that.  That’s what I told myself.  I have since learned that addiction is addiction and it’s ALL hard.  I was going to AA meetings regularly, although I still wasn’t sober.  I was starting to like the idea of being sober.  I kept thinking one day I would be ready and I would just stop drinking.  At this stage of the game I was having little spurts of “sobriety.” Or, rather, I was managing a few days in between being drunk.  Or, maybe I was just waiting until 5:00.  Again, it’s such a blur.  AA people use the term One Day at a Time.  I always hated that term because I knew it was bullshit.  I knew if I committed to a sober life it meant every day for the rest of my life.  I was seeing a therapist who was teaching me about mindfulness.  She kind of, sort of convinced me that it simply meant living in the moment.  I could live with that.  My second mantra tattoo is on my foot.  One Step at a TIme.  That’s how I was going to dig myself out of the hole.  I am fairly certain I wasn’t drinking the day I got that tattoo and I probably thought I was done with alcohol.  I assure you, I wasn’t done.  On another day I was in my therapists office freaking out about something. That was a common occurrence.  I had been drinking before therapy.  Another common occurence.  She always knew when I had been drinking.  Most people didn’t notice strictly because it was my norm.    I am sure she yelled at me a bit because that’s who she is.  Then she taught me about a practice called “calm abiding.” Calm abiding is a Buddhist practice of stilling the mind of any thought that might arise.  I promise you I wasn’t able to reach the place of calm abiding, but I fell in love with the concept and knew that’s what I needed in my life.  I left her office and went straight to the tattoo shop and got the word Calm tattooed on the topside of my wrist.  Not sure why I didn’t throw in abiding, but there must have been a reason.  It’s on my right wrist near my hope tattoo to remind me to be calm and have hope.   Not long after that tattoo healed, I was leaving my house to go somewhere, who knows where, and my husband told me to try not to come home with any tattoos.  I am sure it wasn’t my intention to get tattooed that day, but those words lit me up.  It sounded a lot like he was telling me not to do a thing.  In my mind, on that day, it meant I had to get two tattoos.  What I recall about that incident is that it started at a local gas station.  The gas station was right beside the tattoo shop.  I went inside and bought a cup of ice and a can of ginger ale.  I came out to my car, where my 1/2 gallon bottle of bourbon was, and mixed myself a drink.  As I was mixing the drink there was a knock on my window.  I looked up to see a woman I knew from AA.  In my mind she was a sober woman.  In reality, she was anything but.  She was struggling like I was struggling.  I had no idea.  She got in the car with me and offered up Valium and Xanax.  I hadn’t taken pills or any other drugs in years, but I didn’t hesitate for a second.  I don’t know what you know about mixing pills and alcohol, but I can assure you, it’s not good.  There is not one memory after that, but the two tattoos I got that day are the words “Forgive” and “Love.”  Forgive faces away from me, in such a way that I can hold my wrist out and ask forgiveness.  I found it easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission in those days.  “Love” must have been for me. I am sure I wanted to feel love or feel loved or just feel lovable.   I was quite unlovable that day.  I was quite unlovable for a long time.  That was the longest day that I don’t remember.   It’s weird the few things we do remember in those black outs or brown outs.  I remember calling my therapist and yelling at her.  I was in the parking lot of the hospital wearing one of my shirts that identified me as borderline and realizing that this made me look crazy.  I was yelling at her for giving me that label and more than anything for not calling me out on wearing the shirt.  Then I woke up in the hospital room.  There was a security guard outside of my room and the nurses told me they didn’t know what I had done, but I must have done something bad.  They monitored me and they let me go because it’s frustrating trying to treat a drunk person who doesn’t want help.  I remember leaving the hospital and walking through the parking lot.  I remember the security guards but I can’t remember exactly what they said to me.  I do remember that it enraged me and I screamed obscenities  at them until they tasered me.  I woke up in the hospital room again.  This time I didn’t have a security guard.  This time I had “a watcher.”  The person they place outside of your room to watch and make sure you don’t kill yourself.  I must have told them I was going to kill myself or someone else while I was blacked out. I was “a danger to myself and others.”   I stayed there for three days, refusing food and anything else they offered me.  I was eventually moved to a psychiatric hospital.  Every morning in this hospital it was my job to wake up and talk to the Dr on staff and try to convince him that I wasn’t actually mentally unstable.  Unfortunately, my actions proved that I was mentally unstable.  Also, every other person in the hospital was trying to convince the Dr of the same thing.  Some of them had serious mental health issues.  A scary situation that lasted way longer than I wanted it to.  Eventually I was released into a treatment center and almost got sober.  But I didn’t.  I was back with my therapist and back in my DBT group.  My therapist was pushing yoga on me and teaching me weird things, like how to breathe.  I couldn’t breathe.  I hated the breathing part of yoga because I felt like the more I was instructed to focus on my breath, the more I couldn’t breathe.  It was awful and I clearly needed a Breathe tattoo to help me.  I could no longer go to the same place where I had previously been tattooed because my husband made it clear to the tattoo artist that it would NOT be ok to tattoo a drunk me again.  I want to say I was sober when I went for the breathe tattoo, but I was not.  Had I been sober, I might have thought to put it in a place where I could see it.  Instead, it went on the back of my arm, just above my elbow.  It happens to be great for people who are standing behind me.   I am happy to report that the Breathe tattoo is the last drunk tattoo I have.  A few more psychiatric hospitals and a couple more treatment centers where I finally decided I had had enough Hell and it was time to do something different.  I’ve been living sober for 5 years now and when I get a tattoo, the whole process has more meaning.  My first sober tattoo was “Let it be.”   Obviously I would let it go if I could right?   When I let it be, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me or still exist, it just means that I don’t have to let it control me.  Whatever ‘it’ is.   My next sober tattoo was ‘Learn.”  The intention there is to remind me to look for the lesson.  The short form or “what the fuck am I supposed to learn from this?”  So interesting that after I got that tattoo, I started learning more than I ever imagined about my past.  Repressed memories came back and I learned how to deal with that.  I am still learning every day in every way.  and I know that won’t ever stop.  The memories have stopped.  At least for now.  Maybe I am done with that.  Time will tell.   My last two tattoos are my favorites.  At least they are my current favorites.  I have a little Tt “element” tattoo on my forearm that identifies me as a Tee-totalar.  This one is not at all original. It’s a movement.  A community of people choosing to not be anonymous and recover “out loud.”  I love being a part of a community that identifies in this way. I find it’s much better than wearing a Borderline Personality Shirt and identifying in that way.  On New Year’s Eve I got my most recent tattoo.  It’s a representation of where I am at this moment in my life.  “Free.” Along with the word, are little birds flying free.  I love it so much.   I have found freedom that I never knew was possible.  Freedom to be me, whatever that is in each moment.  Comfortable in my skin more often than not, and able to deal with being uncomfortable when that happens.  There’s a special kind of freedom that comes from living through Hell and coming out the other side.  That freedom shows up as gratitude and joy for my life.  It shows up when I catch myself dancing to the music at the grocery store.  

*photo by Ed Speas*

Beautiful, Brave, Badass

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I’ve been avoiding this space for almost an entire month.  I have been busy filling my time with things other than being still.   I’ve missed blogging and thought about it almost daily.   I just haven’t quite been able to sit down with my laptop.   Last night I went to the big city of Wilmington for Ecstatic Dance.  So.  Much.  Fun.  While I was there, I met a woman who said she knew me.  Our mutual friend told her she knew me because I am FaceBook famous.  FaceBook famous is our joke.  This woman said no, she knew me from reading my blog.  Her therapist had sent it to her and told her she should read it.  She told me how she knows EVERTHING about me now, which was weird and awesome all at the same time. She said she loves my blog.   That was the final push I needed to get my ass back here.  I love it here.  The last time I was here I shared that I was finished with therapy.  I’m sure I called it being kicked out of the nest, because that’s how it felt.    It took me a day or two to get over that, but I’m ok. I have all the tools I need.  My therapist was right about that.   That push may have been exactly what I needed to do the work I had been avoiding with her.  I work best alone, but I also want someone to check in with.  I still have that support system in a million different ways.  The first thing I did was sit on my dock and journal all the feels of “being alone.”  Which I’m definitely not.   Then I decided the time had come for me to be an artist.  I went to Pinterest to compile a list of all the things I would need to start an art journal.  The next morning I went shopping.  And just like that, I AM an artist.  Most of you saw the photos on FB, because you can’t be FB famous if you aren’t posting there.  I spent that entire weekend with my head down and ALL IN some art journaling.  I’m so grateful that I worked through The Artist’s Way last year, because it really made it ok for me to just do my thing and not judge my work.  Honestly, I art like a 5 year old, but I am totally OK with it.  I spent that weekend doing the thing that I wouldn’t do in therapy.  Writing my trauma story.  It was awful and I hated it, but it’s just what happened on those pages.  I didn’t buy the journal and art supplies with that intention at all.   Once that came up, it wouldn’t stop.  The beauty of the art journal was that I immediately painted over those awful words.  I covered up those horrible things that I never want to see again.  Not that I covered it up to make it look pretty, because that’s not where I was in that process.  The act of writing it was huge and something I have avoided since I started dealing with repressed memories resurfacing.  It was huge because once I started, it just flowed so fast and wouldn’t stop.  I could have left the words in the journal, uncovered, but what would be the point in owning all those art supplies?  I can’t quite express how it made me feel to be all up in the art process, but I think that’s why art exists.  To express what we can’t put into words. Those pages of paint are exactly that. It was so powerful and so cathartic. Brave. I felt brave sitting through all those emotions as I worked in my art journal.  I felt like a beautiful, brave, bad ass.   I knew I was going to be crafty, but who knew I was going to be an artist?  😉  That’s a new tool for me and I am loving it.  After a weekend of intense writing in that journal, I ended the process with a Monday morning dance party in the studio.  Such a wonderful  way to move through the emotions of the weekend.  When I left the studio that morning I felt so much lighter. I’ve been back in the art journal a few times since then and have every intention of sticking with it.  The thing about writing a “trauma story” is that it triggers new memories that I get to process.  But it’s not all gloom and doom. Some of those pages are pure joy.  I just show up to the pages exactly as I am and then it somehow all sorts itself out.  Some days I don’t know until it’s on the page.  It’s so different than anything I’ve done before. I definitely see the value in it.  But it’s messy and not as quick to access or clean up as a journal. I can write anywhere, anytime. And I do.  I haven’t had a healing session of any kind for almost three weeks, which is unheard of for me, but guess what?  I feel great and I don’t need a thing. Well, I probably DO need a massage and since March is here, I know I have some energy work and “woo woo” appointmens on my schedule.  Oh.  And there was that Shamanic Journey I went on with Roger the Shaman today.  🙂   I have my meditation practice, I practice yoga, I write, I dance, I take ALL the baths.  I go to meetings. I have moon circles and women’s circles of every kind.   I was asked to be the speaker at an AA meeting this month and that’s the ONLY thing affecting my mental health. I have anxiety about it already. Oh the irony. My mental health game is strong and if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have left therapy.  I know it was time. And now my Wednesdays are open for giant Goddess lunches and cacao ceremonies with circle dancing on the beach.  I know how to fill a void. Believe that. I know how to fill it with beautiful and loving things today. ♥️

Dream World

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 I published a post on Wednesday that touched a lot of people in a lot of ways.  It became clear that I am not alone in feeling lonely.  It became clear that perhaps I was throwing a little shade.  It became clear that I was blaming others for my hurt feelings.  It became clear that people have a desire to “fix” me when I am feeling less than joyful.  All of these things are fine. I’m down to do the work I need to do around my hurt feelings and shade throwing.  We all have a shadow side.  It’s not a problem unless we deny it.  I know some shit. I show up and write what’s in my heart and on my mind.  Not what I think people need to know.   I love that people read my words and FEEL.  What they do with those feelings is completely out of my control.  There is FREEDOM in that.  I am not here to hurt feelings.  Ever.  I am not here to be fixed.  This is my space.  I appreciate everyone who takes time to read my words.  What you do with that is NOT my business.  I am thrilled some of you have therapists.  I am NOT a therapist.  My therapist has reminded me of that a time or two. Or three. 🤣   I wrote my last blog right before a therapy session. The one about loneliness.  Something magical happened in that.  I named it, claimed it and tamed it. I am sure we talked about those feelings.  I don’t even remember now.   And life went the fuck on.  As it has a tendency to do.  My week was uneventful, but here I am sharing my uneventful week anyway.  Because it’s Sunday and it seems like the thing to do. I  journaled more than a 13 year old girl this week.  Most weeks really, if I’m honest. I’ve just switched up my journaling routine from morning to night. Holy Shit! It’s like another world.  Night time journaling  has opened up some portal into my dream world where a lot of serious action is taking place.   This week (in my waking hours) I spent some time trying to decide if AA is still my path.  I sit in those meetings some days and laugh at how weird it all is. Not that I am opposed to doing weird shit.  I do plenty of it.   The topic of quality vs quantity comes up from time to time in meetings.  I live in an area where most of the population is retired.  In the sober community, that means I am in meetings with people much older than me with a lot more sober time than me.  And yet some of them are still so miserable. Miserable could be a stretch, but there are a lot of them who still haven’t figured out how to be happy, joyous and FREE.  They have quantity, but are clearly lacking quality.  I am not lacking in quality.  After 5 years I am still not comfortable sitting in a meeting and sharing openly. It’s something I rarely do. Maybe if I got past that I would feel a shift in my attitude.  I don’t know.   There are lots of people I love in AA, but the meetings, not so much.  And I wonder……..  AA was a great place for me to get sober.  The 12 steps were a beautiful launch pad out into a much bigger spiritual world.  But does it still belong in my life?  My AA friends will say it absolutely does belong in my life, and perhaps I just need to switch my meetings up.  This week as I was rolling that around in my head, NOT going to meetings and night time journaling about it my dreams came at me.  Alcoholics have “drinking dreams.”  I am not sure if people who don’t have a problem with alcohol have those or not, but I am guessing not.  I dreamed that I sent my husband to the store to buy me a bottle of bourbon.  He asked if a pint would do and of course, it would not.  I would need at least a fifth.  In real life a half gallon would have been called for, but anything can happen in the dream world. He then asked why I was still going to those meetings if I am still drinking.  I wasn’t exactly sure why.  I just knew it was what I do.  He asked me if I planned to pick up a white chip.  A white chip means surrendering and choosing to live a sober life.  The start of the journey.  Basically, a white chip would mean I had to start over at day one.  I don’t do white chips. I was always one to bedazzle mine. Another story for another time. Dream me said a big Fuck NO to him about picking up a white chip because although I was drinking, I wasn’t getting drunk.  In my mind, there was no reason to pick up a white chip.  I can rationalize anything,  Even in my dreams.  Drinking dreams suck. I know this one came from all of my recent questioning. These questions aren’t really new to me.  I have spent the better part of a year wondering if I I want to continue going to meetings. I don’t have to figure it out today and chances are, I’ll be drinking coffee with old men at least one day this week.  Maybe that is the solution.  The real movement and processing that’s happened in my dream world this week has been in the form of my little sister.  Who doesn’t exist.  But she exists in my dreams and I KNOW that she is me.  Little me.  All thanks to going back and taking another stab at inner child healing.  And night time journaling.  I tend to go hard at Inner child healing (like I go hard at everything I do) but when I touch on something painful, I stop.  After seeing the group that’s working through this process in my studio, I decided to take another crack at it.  I love watching the women in the group connect and grow.  I can SEE how much this group is helping them heal. I also know  that the group in the studio wasn’t the time or place for me. But, I definitely see the value in it and KNOW it’s something I want to keep at.  I bought the book they are using and I enlisted a far away friend to work through the book with me.  We connect weekly and discuss.  I have my therapist to help me process what comes up and she has hers. (Although hers sucks and she needs  a new one)   I know it’s going to take us a little longer to get through the book, but it seems safe and comfortable to me and my inner child.   She needs that.  I won’t be blogging about those dreams, but they are powerful.  Powerful and private.  THAT is what it’s like to pay attention to my inner child. I’m learning to listen to her more and more.  When I use that term inner child, I know there are tons of them, pieces of me that I haven’t connected to yet.  But I’m getting closer every day.  Yesterday I taught my 8 am class how to chant “fuuuuuuck.”  It might have been my greatest teaching moment ever. Pretty sure that was my inner 15 year old Rebel girl. I know her well. 😂

5 Sober Years

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I love when people reach out to me after reading my blog or a particular social media post that I have written.  I love when people connect to my words.  Last week I wrote THIS post full of “classic one liners” from my old therapist.  A few days later I received this text that’s too good not to share. CB067C8D-AEDE-4A4A-8A18-37C1DCD5BE24.jpeg  I saved this screenshot because it’s THAT awesome and I laugh so hard every time I read it.  It’s become a mantra for me this week.  I often tell my children when they are leaving, “make good choices.”  Well, “don’t fuck the monks” has played on repeat in my mind since I received that text.  It’s the same.  But different.  It’s “Make good choices” for grown ups.   I laugh so hard at the shit that goes through my head.  I even told my therapist “don’t fuck the monks” last week as I walked out of her office.  She loved that so much.  I mean, how could she NOT?

All that silliness aside.

I didn’t write yesterday because I was too exhausted from all of the exciting things happening in the studio and in my life.  There is always something new and exciting coming my way and some days it’s just too much and I crash.  Which is what I needed yesterday.  And I allowed myself to do that.  At the beach.

Last week was an amazing week in the life of me.  I turned 5 years sober 6 days ago.  There was no parade, but you probably saw the sparkly medallion on social media.  What a ride that’s been.  Each year I look back and each year gets better. Year one was all about not drinking.  Anything extra I learned was a bonus.  Each and every day I practiced not picking up a drink and that was enough.  Yes, I meditated and practiced yoga, but the NOT DRINKING was where all of my focus was.  Those other things were simply ways to pass the time and carry me through the day sober.  I’m sure there was plenty of growth involved, but I wasn’t feeling it.  During my second sober year, I began the journey of becoming comfortable in my skin.  I learned how to properly love and care for myself.  I had no idea how good I could feel.  During that year I learned how to fuel my body with nutritious foods.  I kicked up my yoga a notch and began to move my body in new ways.  I always assumed that since I wasn’t overweight, the whole exercise thing didn’t apply to me.  Who knew that Dr’s weren’t just being assholes by suggesting exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle.  This girl LOVES some endorphins! Early in my third year of sobriety, I completed my yoga teacher training.  Sobriety introduced me to something I was more passionate about than drinking.  I decided I needed to share that.  I found my light and my purpose.  Not that my purpose is to be the greatest yoga teacher the world has ever seen, because that is definitely NOT it.  But my purpose is absolutely to help others heal.  Teaching yoga has been a launchpad out into the world of helping others find their own light.   Year 4 was my Rebel Soul year!  The best year yet.  I opened the studio on November 6th 2017.  I spent my 4th sober year growing community and growing ME.  I entered therapy (again) last year in November.  Just a few days before I opened the studio.  This time I entered therapy as a strong, sober and healthy woman who wanted support through my journey.  And damn.  There was a lot more to work through than I ever imagined.  From what I can tell, “working through shit,” is a never ending part of life.  That weekly session has been a great resource for me. I have grown more this past year than any previous year. On EVERY level.   This is the year I learned to sing and dance and pray with my words.  That little yoga studio of mine is such a safe space for me to try ALL THE THINGS that bring about a deeper level of healing for me and my community.  So freaking amazing.   To say that I am grateful for my sober life is an understatement.  I talked to my AA sponsor on Saturday and shared with her how magical my life is and how I am in love with every minute of it.  She reminded me of a time, that first year, when she and others were just trying to convince me that things would get better if I stayed sober.  All I wanted in those days was for my life to not suck.  That was it.  I wasn’t asking for joy or magic or anything great.  I just wanted my life to not suck so bad.  Never could I ever have imagined that not only would my life not suck but that I would be happy and that I would wake up excited about life every day.  And really, it happened in such a big way and it happened so quickly.  One skillful choice after another.  In AA they call it “doing the next right thing” however, in my mind it will forever be  “not fucking the monks” one day at a time.  You’re welcome. 😂  If I can do it, anyone can.  I promise.

Everything is a Practice.

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I have landed on a consistent, weekly writing practice. I say practice, because that’s exactly what it is. The more I show up and do it, the better I get at it. Like everything else. Everything is a practice. That phrase used to piss me off like no other when my therapist would say it to me. Because I couldn’t understand what she meant. I would come to her freaking out about one thing or another and her words to me would be “Remember, everything is a practice.” I am sure my practice at the time was to yell “What the fuck does that even mean?!” at her. She was very patient. Or she wasn’t and she just had really good boundaries and a strong sense of self. I am guessing it’s the latter. My consistent writing practice has been taking place on Sunday mornings as of late, and even though I didn’t write this morning, here I am, showing up for myself. I didn’t write this morning because I went to yoga church instead. Yoga Church is the practice that grounds and centers me for my week ahead like nothing else. It connects me to my past and roots me in my present. The same therapist who taught me that “everything is a practice” is my Yoga Church teacher. If you are familiar with my story, you already know I had a love/hate relationship with this woman. I could always count on her to call me on my bullshit like no one ever had. And I hated her for it. But I paid her good money to (in my mind) be mean to me every week. The reality is that she was honest with me in a way nobody else would be. She didn’t sugar coat the truth and wrap it in a pretty package either. I would have certainly preferred that. I have a head full of her “classic one liners” that were both absurd and hilarious. But spot on too. Nothing is hilarious unless there’s a bit of truth to it. When I first started going to the Buddhist Temple to look for peace and clarity, I mentioned this to her. She looked at me without batting an eye and said “Please don’t fuck the monks.” In my mind that was absurd, but in reality, I understood why she would say that to me. The me I was on that day anyway. I am sure I wasn’t even truly offended until I got in my car to leave and I am equally sure I called her and let her know how awful I thought she was. That was the standard procedure. I would spend an hour on her couch. She would piss me off. I would think about it on my drive home and upon my arrival I would call her and complain to her. About her. Or I would call her in the middle of the night, on the office emergency line if need be, because I needed something. Her.

I needed her.

During the time she was my therapist, I landed in a psychiatric hospital. I was allowed to make phone calls and I called her.

Because I needed her.

She reminded me to “practice my skills.” She was referring to the communication, emotion regulation, distress tolerance and mindfulness skills that I had been learning in my DBT Group. It seemed a little late for me to practice those skills since I was already in the hospital, but I went with it. I practiced my skills and did what I needed to do to get out of the hospital. But I stopped practicing when I got out. I was an emotional wreck, fueled by alcohol. Within a few months, I landed back in the psychiatric hospital. And I called her.

Because I needed her.

She reminded me to “practice my skills.” “Everything is a practice” she said. I was so pissed because nothing about anything seemed like a practice to me. This was my LIFE and I was losing. I screamed into the phone “what the fuck does that even mean?!” She simply repeated that it’s all a practice. Life is a practice. I hung up on her. I practiced my skills, did what I needed to do and got out of that hospital. But when I got home, I stopped practicing. Again, I was an emotional wreck, fueled by alcohol. A month or two later, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Again. This time I was committed on an involuntary basis. This was a different hospital. This was a hospital where the steel doors were kept locked and I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. I was “a danger to myself and others.” I saw what real mental illness looks like in this hospital. I was terrified. I called my therapist.

Because I needed her.

She did not tell me to practice my skills. She did not remind me that everything is a practice. She said “Oh. You’re in the Ha Ha Hospital. Why are you calling me?” This was not the response I was expecting and I honestly didn’t know why I was calling her.

I just knew I needed her.

She told me there wasn’t a thing she could do for me. I told her bye and we hung up. She was right. There wasn’t a thing she could do for me. There wasn’t a thing anyone could do for me. I did what I needed to do to survive that hospital. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Locked up. Terrified. I practiced my skills. I was there for 10 days. I was released from that hospital and eventually I started to “practice my skills” on a more consistent basis. I wish I could say this is the moment I got sober, but it’s not. It took more terrifying experiences to make me understand that alcohol was not helping me and was, in fact, destroying my life and killing me. It was destroying all the things I loved as well. I went back to therapy, and eventually I did get sober. When I rooted myself firmly in AA, that therapist let me go. She had given me all the tools I needed. She had pointed me in the direction of a skillful path. It was my turn to do the work. I was terrified.

And I needed her.

But I knew, it was time. I began the long, difficult process of becoming a sober person. And it sucked. So bad. I kept in occassional contact with that therapist just to let her know my progress and make sure she was still there.

Because I needed her.

Eventually, I needed her less and less, but she was always there when I emailed her, and that helped me let her go. I got sober. I grew. My life changed. Our relationship changed. I don’t need her today, but I am grateful for her presence in my life. She has been a wonderful teacher to me in so many ways. She gave me what I needed at the time even though it was never what I wanted. Today in “yoga church” as she was giving a dharma talk, she made a reference to a scientist who was so ahead of his time, that he was thought to be crazy. Isn’t that always the way it is with scientists? She told the class how this particular man “ended up in the ha ha hospital.”  I laughed out loud and flashed straight back to the day she said that to me. I remembered exactly the way it felt and the person I was back then. But then I came right back to the present moment.  I sat up a little straighter and beamed a little brighter because I am NOT that person today. That one little phrase made my practice that much sweeter. That one little phrase reminded me why I was there. I was there to practice. Everything we do is a practice.

I AM a channel

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This morning I found myself reading bible quotes on the internet. This is NOT how I usually spend my mornings and if I am honest, it made me laugh a little. At myself and my openness. I call that smiling out loud. Earlier this week I heard myself use the phrase “I am a channel.” I know I am a channel although I didn’t know exactly what that meant when I said it. This morning I have a full understanding of what that means. It means I am a channel, not a reservoir. This is what I learned from the internet bible. “If you sow abundantly with a good (cheerful) attitude, then God will bless you. Why? So that you can bless others. Being a channel for God’s blessings means passing them on to others.” That doesn’t exactly sound like a direct quote from the bible to me, but I’m not willing to go dig and I am happy with what the internet has to say about being a channel. Makes perfect sense. I am well aware that one of my gifts is my enthusiasm. Remember? Enthusiasm means to be filled with God. I am FULL of enthusiasm and love nothing more than to drag others into that space with me. And I have this wonderful internet platform to do just that. I always think the internet version of me is “my best self.” People love internet me. I have pretty yoga photos and the best inspirational quotes. I can (and I will) write an entire bog about that one day. Back to being a channel. People connect to me and to my words. It’s truly a gift and I am grateful. I am always amazed at the people who reach out to me and ask me about my”story” and about recovery. I am always willing to spend time sharing my “how it works.” Everyone’s version of “how it works” is different, but I can tell you this. Pick a path and STAY on it. The path doesn’t matter and there are a million ways to the top of the mountain. My path seems to be constantly changing and evolving as I grow. There are some constants that keep me grounded. Yoga, Meditation and AA. These are the three that I never stray too far from. But here’s a little secret. Those things aren’t for everyone. Most of the other sober bloggers I read are anti-AA. They either don’t like the idea of calling themselves alcoholics or they don’t like the old school patriarchal feel of the literature. Some people don’t like the idea that they have to go to meetings for the rest of their lives. There have been many times in my sober journey that I have felt like AA isn’t for me. Probably as recently as yesterday. But I also don’t feel like I have to go to meetings. I choose to go. I enjoy being around other people who are “like me.” People who don’t look at me like I have two heads when I talk about that time I wanted to hang myself. Those people have been there and they get it. Also, like me, those people have found a solution and a better way to live. I am all about surrounding myself with positive people. I’m not saying that AA is full of positive people, because it’s definitely not. I have just managed to do that thing they call “sticking with the winners.” I take what I like and what works for me and I leave the rest. Isn’t that how life is supposed to work? We are all different and have different needs. I had no idea who I was when I began my recovery. I am still learning and growing and changing every day. I have no problem saying out loud that I am an alcoholic. I have friends who think I shouldn’t put that out into the Universe because everything is energy and what we put out is what we get back. Being an alcoholic isn’t a negative thing to me. My life has only gotten better since I began affirming to the Universe that I am an alcoholic. The Universe has sent me the tools and people I need in my life to help me along the path. In return, I get to give it away to anyone who wants it. I know what it’s like to struggle. I also know what freedom feels like. It hurts my heart when people reach out to me who are SOOOO close to grabbing a lifeline but are also too scared to actually do it. It’s not my job to save everyone, but it absolutely is my job to be there when someone reaches out. It absolutely is my job to share what works for me and it absolutely is my job to share the things I am enthusiastic about. I AM a channel, not a reservoir.

A work in progress

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“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” I first read that quote several months ago and it hit me right in the feels. I knew I had an entire chapter to write about this subject. I’m not writing it today, but it’s there. There’s so much truth in that quote. I went to an AA meeting on Friday night, which isn’t something I normally do. I got called on to share my “what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now.” Let me just say that I hate being called on to share. I pretty much hate sharing at meetings in general. My what it was like and what happened are FULL of  anger.  That’s who I was. An angry, raging girl who didn’t want to be sitting in meetings with coffee drinking old men. An angry girl who was fighting the entire world and the world was definitely winning.   There was a woman at the Friday meeting who had been there all those years ago when I first started coming around. She chimed in after I shared that she remembered those days and what I was like. “My story” is such a visible transformation that the people who remember me before I got sober love to hear me share. This woman confirmed to the group that I wasn’t lying or exaggerating and that I was indeed, FULL of anger and rage. She said they were scared of me and didn’t want to talk to me. I found a bit of comfort in that as it explained why maybe the women didn’t reach out to me and circle me in love and support. I wouldn’t let them. I was angry about everything. I was angry that the people in my life thought I needed to stop drinking. Drinking WAS my life. Also, I was way too young to be an alcoholic. I was angry that nobody could do it for me. As hard as I tried, it seemed this was something I was going to have to do on my own. That might sound crazy, but until that point, someone had always been able to rescue me and do the work for me. I was angry that my life hadn’t turned out like I thought it should have. I was angry that my life was over. I was angry that not drinking meant I would have to deal with my reality.  I was angry about my entire life up until that point and underneath all of that anger was fear. I was terrified to stop drinking and start feeling. I’ve shared this before, but I ‘ll share it again. I didn’t get sober for a long time after I got to AA. The people around me thought that since I was going to meetings, it meant I wasn’t drinking. They were happy and proud of me. I kept drinking for the next year and a half as I continued to go to meetings. But, I failed at hiding my drinking. I was failing at life in general. I’ve heard it said that “we get to the bottom when we stop digging.” On November 13, 2013, I stopped digging in a treatment center. I completely surrendered to a power greater than myself. I was an atheist. The power I surrendered to was the power of meditation. I sat with myself. I sat with my anger. I sat with a lifetime of bad choices. A lifetime of being a victim. I sat with a lifetime of grief. I sat with the ALL of it. I sat by myself. I sat in groups. I sat in retreats. I sat until I learned to be ok with me. But just ok. Not great. I was so uncomfortable in my skin. Even breathing was hard. So many emotions flowed through me. I can remember wishing I could physically rip my skin off. And yet, I learned to stay. I’m starting to notice now that as good as all of that meditation was and still is for me, there’s a part of me that was still using it to numb myself. Often when I meditate, I feel pain in my heart. Physical pain. If I tune into that pain it will creep up into my throat. There are memories stored away in my body and brain that still need to be processed. I know this, I feel this. When this pain creeps in, there are two things I can do. Explore that or find my breath. I have always been one to take the breath route and move past that pain. Until recently. This past year, with every new moon, one of the intentions I set is to remain open. I have really been working on that and it’s proven quite difficult for me. I may never be the woman who sits in a circle and cries in front of everyone. Not because I wouldn’t love to be that woman, but because I don’t feel safe doing that. It’s a trust thing. And that’s ok. I don’t have to sit in a circle and be that woman. In fact, since I facilitate 90% of the circles I sit in, it’s best that I don’t. See how I set that up in a way that works for me? It’s hard for me to allow myself to show up and be seen in all of my vulnerability. I’m getting “better” at it. It’s easy to write from that vulnerable place. I’m protected behind the computer screen. I am a work in progress and I’m sure I always will be. This past year I have gained so much knowledge about myself. Blogging regularly and allowing myself to be seen in that way has been huge for me. Therapy has been an amazing tool which you already know if you read anything I write. Yoga is my life and is always there to save me when I remember to take the time to get on my mat for ME. If you follow me on social media you will surely know by now that singing and dancing are my new favorite things. If you want to talk about inner child healing with me sometime, it will involve singing and dancing. And who knew? I don’t necessarily mean the kind of inner child connection where you just let that child come out and play. Not that playtime isn’t important, because it is and I love it. I’m talking about knowing when I am triggered, tuning in and responding from a place of love. I once had a therapist tell me “You’ll have to grow your own self up.” At the time, I had no idea what she meant by that and I’m not even sure why that’s something that stuck with me, but it did. And suddenly it makes perfect sense. She meant that I would have to heal and “raise” my own inner child. Hold her when she’s sad. Let her cry when she needs to. Let her express herself by dancing and singing through me. Let her tell her story through writing. Let her be seen and heard because that is all she wants. Be with her and acknowledge her.  Powerful stuff. My meditation practice has changed quite a bit lately.   Rather than turning away when my heart starts to hurt, I tune into it. There’s rarely anger but there is often grief. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I don’t. Up until very recently I have been afraid to cry because I believed that once I started, I might not stop. But, sitting through the tears has taught me that it will pass. And when it does, I feel so much lighter. Hence all the levitation I’ve been doing. 😊 A wise woman told me that “you’ll know you’ve resolved the conflict when you can tell your story without crying.” I’m not there yet. Instead, I’m sitting, singing, writing and dancing my way through a lot of unresolved shit and oh so grateful to have so many tools and so much support.

Grateful for the ALL of it.

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Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about being addicted to meth. It was the last blog post I wrote. It’s right here if you want to read it. I never know what I am going to write about until I sit down and write. I wasn’t expecting to write about meth that day and I was unprepared for the way it would make me feel. As soon as I began to write that day, I was overcome with sadness. I cried the entire time I was writing. I am not one to cry and when it started to creep up on me, my instinct was to shut it down. I didn’t shut it down. I let it go. I bawled my eyes out. Big, crocodile tears, snot and ugly crying for an hour. I cried for my parents who lived through that Hell. I cried for the girl I was. I cried for my children who lost their father. I cried because it is just all so sad. When I finished the blog, I stopped crying and went upstairs to make breakfast for my boys. But I was still incredibly sad. I went to a yoga class in my studio and it came out again. Pigeon pose got me. Big, crocodile tears, snot and ugly crying again. I was exhausted when it was over. That was on a Sunday. I had no idea that on Wednesday I would be in Kentucky at my parent’s house, waiting out hurricane Florence. We evacuated Wednesday morning and I figured if we were going to leave, we might as well go visit people who love us all the world full. So that’s what we did. All of those meth memories were still heavy in my mind and in my heart. Even though that part of my life was 20 years ago, the memories are still fresh and home is full of emotional triggers. Nothing could ever make me want to use again, but the familiar sites take me right back. Every time. The first day I was there I went to an AA meeting. The meeting was just starting when I heard someone come in. I turned my head to check it out and was blown away by what I saw. Standing in the kitchen of this AA clubhouse was a friend I had not seen in years. Maybe 20 years. This woman had been a very close friend. She was the big sister of my best childhood friend. Growing up, she was like my big sister. I was at their house all the time and we did all the things together. All the normal childhood things. Then she started to grow up. We all did. She went first.   Sometimes, when she went on dates, she would bring us home a bottle of Boones Farm. If we were lucky, she would bring us vodka. I smoked my first joint with her and as I got into harder drugs, I drifted away from her little sister and gravitated towards her. When I was 17, I did my first rail of meth with her. She was in and out of my life for the next few years as we had different crowds that we associated with. Then, near the end of my addiction, at my worst, we hooked up again. It was an awful time in my life and I have to assume it wasn’t much better for her.  Meth is an awful drug. When I saw her standing in the kitchen area of that AA meeting, my soul exploded and I immediately jumped out of my seat to go hug her. Again and again. I couldn’t stop hugging her. She sat beside me during the meeting. I noticed that she couldn’t be still. She seemed nervous. Fidgety. My heart hurt for her. She has 18 months clean and sober. 18 months and she still hasn’t settled. Meth is an awful drug. She has been stuck in that world all this time. She never left. She got in trouble with the law a few times and is now in the drug court program. She had to go through a local treatment center. She has to check in with the court fairly often, keep a job and pass drug tests. Her main focus in life right now is not using drugs. We talked after the meeting and I shared with her how meditation and yoga have helped me in so many ways. I stressed the importance of finding a sponsor that shes’s comfortable sharing with. I told her she could call me anytime she was struggling and I would be there to listen and help guide her.  I wish I could give her what I have. It doesn’t work like that though. She has to want it and she has to do the work. I have never been more grateful for my recovery than I was in that moment. Grateful that my parents got me out of there. Grateful for that crazy, Scientology based treatment center in Oklahoma that tried to keep me forever but still saved my life. Grateful that I never went back to Kentucky to live. It’s a lovely place, but for me, it holds too many ugly memories. Before I went far, far away to treatment, for a long, long time, one of my dearest using friends told me I didn’t need such a long time in treatment because I wasn’t a “real drug addict.” She assured me that once I got there and saw all the heroin addicts I would realize that I didn’t belong. My brain told me she might be right, but my gut said she was wrong. As it turns out, I did belong. I was a “real drug addict.” I realize now that she was losing her best friend and she was sad. She got left behind. I hated leaving her and I had “survivor’s guilt.” I left her in that Hell because I wanted to live. I am still friends-ish with her and I have watched (from afar) her struggle to stay clean all of her life. I really had to distance myself from all of that. Have I mentioned that meth is an awful drug? My entire trip home seemed to be about recovery. I suppose my entire life IS about recovery. It has to be. I connected with a cousin who is much younger than me while I was there.  I only knew her as a young child. Thanks to social media I “know” her as an adult. An adult recovering from meth addiction. She too was in the drug court program and happened to graduate while I was there. Her mom asked me if I would like to come see her graduate. I will always do what I can to support people in recovery, so naturally, I said yes. It was a very sweet and moving experience. She has all the love and support of family and as long as she keeps doing what she’s doing, she will be OK. While I was in the court room I ran into the drug counselor who helped get me into my very first treatment center when I was 21 years old. He works in the drug court program. He has helped so many others since then and it was really great to see him. I went to yoga while I was in Kentucky and I went to more meetings. I meditate daily. Always.  Those things keep me grounded. I ran into another woman I knew from my childhood at the meetings. One I never used or drank with. She has 6 years in the program. We weren’t necessarily friends growing up and the way I remember it, we didn’t even like each other. But 20 years and the bond of AA changes that. She was so friendly and helpful. I was extremely grateful for her presence. She is a living example of AA. I was in Kentucky for a week and the ONLY people who reached out to me and said they wanted to see me are friends I know from social media who are also in recovery.  Amazing how that works. So often I feel like I’m not AA enough because I don’t quote the big book and I have so many other tools to support my recovery. But, being there, AA felt like Home. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. While I was in Kentucky,  I spent a lot of time with my parents. We just chilled together most of the time. I spent time with my brother and my sister in law. I saw my nieces almost every day. Ram Dass  said “If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” I’m not saying I’m enlightened, I’m just saying we had a lovely time and my Mom said I seemed more at ease this trip than I ever have. So. There’s that. 🙂 It was a sure sign that all the “work” I’ve been doing is working. I am thrilled to be back home in NC and I’m ready to get back into my routine.  I’m grateful for the reminders of my past last week because it makes me appreciate today even more.