People, Places, and Things...

I heard a song yesterday that made my body tense up for a second.  It was completely involuntary and this happens somewhat frequently.  But also with certain movies, people, situations, really anything....

How the hell did this happen?
Addiction truly is a disease.  It took me a long time to accept that.  I felt that by "blaming" the disease, I was trying to get off the hook.  Everyone has the free-will to pick up a drink, a cigarette, a drug, what have you.  The difference for addicts (which is what I am, I may be a recovering addict, but I will always be an addict) is when it becomes excessive.  I read somewhere that addiction is due 50 percent to genetic predisposition and 50 percent to poor coping skills.  I wondered how I became the way I was.  My parents are not addicts, I never saw them drink, my mother smoked which I think was why I found it acceptable to be a smoker for so many years - but they certainly never set a bad example for me for the most part.  I'm sure down the line, we may have had some addiction issues in the family, but I suppose it just was not discussed for the most part.  And poor coping skills...uhhh..ya think??  

Wiring
Addicts are wired differently.  I still think about drinking and doing drugs.  Sometimes not for weeks, but sometimes daily.  And when I say drink, I don't mean a glass of wine or a few cocktails, I mean drinking alcoholically.  If I drink, it must be in a very controlled environment and manner.  Once I kicked the coke (my drug of choice), I replaced drugs with alcohol.  You see, addiction is addiction is addiction.  You are satisfying that pleasure center in your brain and the substance is really moot at that point.  I began drinking alcoholically, basically like an addict.  The old adage is so true that you hear in AA, "one drink/line is too many, a hundred is never enough".  That means that it takes just one to relapse.  However, your addiction never truly "goes away".  Meaning, your tolerance never really ceases.  So, I have been clean from coke for 3 years - there is no way I could just casually do a line, my body would crave the excesses of my past life. 

Today
My life today is so much different than it was even a year ago.  God has blessed me more than I ever could have imagined.  But addiction is a tricky character.  With the weather getting nicer (not today's torrential downpour of course), the first thing my mind/body thinks is that this is great patio drinking weather.  My head thankfully follows that thought through to what uncontrolled drinking looks like for me.  Hint:  NOT PRETTY.  That's just how my brain is wired.  Thankfully, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on controlled drinking.  For the most part, I usually just abstain.  I am rarely ever in bars and the friends I have chosen to surround myself with are not party-ers, so drinking to excess is never even a thought.  I just always have to be self-aware.  Always self aware.  For example, Saturday, I attended an event at a winery.  I had 2 glasses of wine and consciously stopped myself because could have easily drank more. 

White Lines
Drugs, on the other hand, are a completely different story.  Controlled using would never be an option for me.  In fact, I am very much aware that using to any degree could kill me.  To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I could be in the same room with it.  It being cocaine.  I used to feel such joy and this excitement pounding through my body when I knew it would soon be in my clutches.  I read somewhere that addiction can permanently rewire your brain, I believe it.  I began to associate cocaine with pleasure.  So even seeing it on TV or something similar, that excitement flows through my body.  I'm not sure that will ever go away.  The worst is seeing or hearing someone chopping lines.  That process used to be so therapeutic.  I was so methodical about it and relaxed me.  All insane thoughts now, but it was true. 

Day by Day
I would assume a lot of people think that once you quit drugs/drinking/insert addiction here, you are cured.  I do not think you are ever 100% cured.  I think it's something you always have to keep in the forefront of your mind.  I would sometimes glamorize my drug days.  I would remember all the good times I had with it.  And I would think, surely I could just have an awesome binge one night.  Thankfully, the absolute horror that I endured would quickly put things into perspective.  I recently quit smoking (again).  I quit for about 5 months and then started up again during provision (crazy work time).  I quit again, I guess like 2 months ago.  And this time it absolutely has to be for good and it will be for good.  Especially if I continue to preach to both of my parents that they need to quit smoking because I want them around for a long, long time and they are no use to me dead - harsh, I know.  But JoAnn and Les --- I AM TALKING TO YOU.  I drank and smoked for many years.  MANY YEARS.  Way longer than the drug phase which was about a year and a half.  So naturally, I associate drinking with smoking.  And I used to LOVE to smoke.  I did not really ever enjoy drinking.  I enjoyed what it did for me, loosened me up, gave me an "excuse" for inappropriate behavior, etc.  But being drunk and the aftermath were extremely unpleasant.  Well, due to that association, I severely limit my drinking because if I have a drink, I want to smoke.  And I know for a fact that I could not be a social smoker.  

Stay the course
Relapse begins before you even pick you a drink or drug.  A few examples of recovery possibly being compromised are: getting involved in other compulsive/obsessive behaviors (shopping, gambling, etc), being unaware of your needs/feelings and/or not meeting them, and continuing to hang around the same people and doing the same things.  I believe I should have been more aware of my behaviors after my first DWI.  Thankfully, I changed the group of people I hung around with.  I disassociated myself with a particularly toxic individual and removed myself from a lot of situations.  I got back to my roots.  I lost touch or rather lost the closeness of my core group of friends I had before I moved away.  I am slowly trying to rebuild those relationships back and am loving every minute of it.  God placed some amazing girls in my life and I thank Him everyday.  Bottom line: in some ways, it's a struggle everyday. 

The Grace of God
I quit drugs cold turkey.  Two of my best friends intervened and talked some sense into me and then I got my parents involved.  They saved my life.  I hope Brook and Ginger know that without a doubt, I would not have made it out of NYC alive without them.  I hit my bottom for sure.  And I was "lucky", cause some people fell much farther down or it takes much longer and an even worse trail of terror is left behind.  But I don't feel like I quit drugs, the grace of God brought me to quit drugs.  At that time, frankly, I was not even sure a God existed.  I would pray to a "higher power" and would pray to God as well, but I had my doubts.  At that point though, I was what is known as a dry drunk.  This applies to drugs also, but it's the cold turkey method.  Quitting your substance, but remaining active in your addiction -  so never making any emotional or internal changes or changing the underlying factors that contributed to your addiction.  I still had a lot of crazy going on in my head.   So it was extremely easy to pick up drinking.  I replaced one substance with another.  I began drinking alcoholically but would placate myself by saying that I wasn't drinking everyday, etc.  It took 2 DWIs in 13 months to realize that I had a drinking problem.  Not the best way to find out.  Essentially my down payment on a house or a very lavish wedding fund, went to attorneys, fines, classes, etc.  And I'm still on probation, until next summer.  Honestly, when I met Jerod, my life really turned around.  God's timing is pretty amazing.

Damaged?
I'm not really sure what brought on this blog post.  Maybe that I read Whitney Houston and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, have both checked into rehab at separate locations.  For a long time, I considered myself damaged.  Now I consider myself lucky.  God obviously has some amazing things planned for me.  The statistics are scary though.  Relapse statistics are highly contested and vary drastically with age, drug, etc.  But the consensus is between 50% and 90% percent.  Those are pretty harrowing amounts. Another scary statistic - children of drug addicts are EIGHT times more likely to develop an addiction. 

Anyway, thanks for listening guys.  For some reason, I felt the need to get this off my chest.  I will share more of my story another time.

The work week is almost over!!!!!!!

Title Disclosure:  This is a famous saying in AA.  It means staying away from people, places, and things that you associate with using.  For example, I do not go to bars, I cut out toxic people, the cutting of coke puts me on edge, these types of things.  That can be a "trigger" and vary from person to person.