Isolation

As you know, I have been battling quite the cold this past week. I am still stuffy and it has decided to take up residence in my chest so the treadmill must wait a few more days I'm afraid. Don't worry though, I have replaced working out with copious amounts of frozen yogurt so it's all good.

Being sick I have missed an entire week's worth of meetings. At first I didn't even notice. After about 3 days, however, I was noticing how effortlessly I had allowed myself to slip back into isolation. I laid in bed with my door shut up tight, downloaded music for hours, and watched reruns of My Boys, Sober House, and MTV shows I am too embarrassed to mention publically. On Sunday I spent 7 straight hours in front of my computer, no problem.

Now, I realize I was sick as hell but isolation is a scary thing for me at this point. When I was drinking and taking my anti-anxiety pills I searched out ways and reasons to isolate. Isolation was comfortable and necessary for my "sanity". Don't you see that I work all day?! I deserve to lock myself up for days! If anyone talks to me I might lose it! I am talked at all day and don't need it when I get home. Can't you understand? It wasn't until I got sober that I realized my isolating was necessary for my INSANITY.

Being able to isolate so quickly again frightened me back into my new reality. I have people I can call. I have people who genuinely care. So, even though I was still feeling shitty this morning, I dragged myself out of bed to a meeting. Wouldn't you know it? Everybody was glad to see me and had even noticed I had been gone. That was shocking! It took me a minute to realize that when I isolate myself others notice and miss me. Wow. Again, I am amazed and filled with gratitude.

I do wonder, though, if I will ever be able to freely call on those people just to shoot the breeze or go for a walk or grab a quick cup of coffee. It seems that the only reason I reach out is if I am in a bind of some sort. Whether it be the octopus arm of isolation, depression, or alcoholism that is slowly tightening its grip around my neck, it doesn't matter. The common thread is that I have an arm slowly suffocating me before I truly reach out and ask for help. Will it always have to come to that? Or will I be able to eventually call up one of the incredible people I have met through the Grace of God in this program to simply chat when I want to?

Often this week while in bed I have faught off the urge to call someone and just talk about their day or the weather or if there are sales going on somewhere I should know about. The thought pops into my head, I reach for the phone, and then quickly talk myself out of it.

"Who wants to be bothered with your small talk?"
"She's probably busy anyway."
"Like she cares what you have on your mind, she has enough on her's as it is."

By the end of my "talking myself out of it" I feel guilty, shameful, and selfish. I worry that those feelings and this pattern will continue as well. I have successfully kept myself isolated from potential friends for a year and a half. Now that people are coming into my life I feel like an infant. I feel I have no social tools left in my toolbox of life anymore. I am deathly afaid that if I get truly and deeply close to someone they will realize what a fraud I truly am. How frightened of it all I am. How new to life and this world I feel.

Dear Baby Sadie,


I am so very sorry for neglecting you for so long. You have been neglected in some way or another by your various parents at no fault of their own. There has been a serious lack of fun and frolic in your life from the get go. This is no one’s fault. I can blame not one person. This just happens to be the life you were given; the life you are meant to learn and grow from. It is my duty however, as Big Sadie, to make up for that lost time. I feel so sad that you were unable to play and have fun without guilt or shame. The time has come for me to let you have that carefree, hair blowing in the wind, toes in the dirt, bubbles popping on your face, screaming with delight kind of fun.

Love,

Big Sadie

Here Sicky, Sicky, Sicky....

I have been sicker than I can remember ever being going on two days now. I haven't been sleeping because my throat hurts so damn bad, my neck and shoulders are so tense it's giving me mad crazy headaches, and I'm so congested my head may literally explode in T-minus-three-seconds. Because of this I have been forced to take two days off from work. I don't get sick days. That money is just gone. No way around it. I. Am. Miserable.

With that being said, I am trying desperately to find the goodness in shitty situations. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Yes. Everything. No matter how awful or inexplicable it may seem. A perfect example is my sobriety. I had to nearly die in order for me to here in this moment. Nearly dying, yeah, not so great. Actually, it really fucking sucked and totally rocked my world. However, if it hadn't have happened, I would probably still be drinking. Voila! Goodness from a shitty situation.

As far as me being sick as hell, well, a lot of good has come from it actually.  I have been able to get some reading done. Just being able to put the brakes on for awhile is a blessing, really. But most of all it has given me the time to really write.

I never wrote when I was drinking. Sure I would make a diary entry here or there but they were all seriously boring and static. Now that I am sober I seem to have gotten a little of my writing mojo back. Yes, there are moments (sometimes hours or days) that I seriously doubt my abilities but that is how it goes. Life is constantly ebbing and flowing, is it not? Writing for me is therapy. Often I will write for a half hour or so, go back and reread what I just typed, and be blown away by what I actually think. My mind just does that. It is very hard to trust my thoughts as I am in constant battle with my head and addictive thoughts. But, if it makes it out of my head, down my arms, through my fingers, and onto the page, well, I can always trust that.

I am most grateful for being able to write for the fact that it is a very powerful tool in my sobriety. I can be having a really tough day (I'm talking those times where getting blitzed out of your mind seems fabulous no matter what the consequences will be) but turn to writing and be brought back into sanity. I may write a letter to the little Sadie in me who at times is screaming for attention. I may write a letter to my higher power, asking Her to please help or thanking her for just simply being there for me to write to. I may write a letter to alcohol, breaking up with it all over again. I may blog. All of these things are extremely therapeutic and I feel better immediately. I usually get so wrapped up in the writing that my cravings disappear somewhere in the first or second paragraph. What a wonderful gift!

So, yes. I may be sick as hell and want to over medicate so I can crawl up in a ball and finally get some sleep. My throat may still be sore, my neck still locked up, my head still ready to explode with one false move, but I am writing again! And that makes it all not seem so bad.

" Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."  – William Shakespeare

I will be three months sober this coming Tuesday. The past couple of weeks have been full of doubts. FULL. I have doubted my competence at work. I have doubted my ability to live in a new place without completely freaking out. I have doubted my new found skill to budget and gasp! save money. I have doubted my capability to stay sober. I have doubted my writing. Doubts have been creeping up on me left and right; those sneaky, stealth arms of my octopus.

What I have started to do is watch. I watch that arm slink its way around the corner of my bedroom door, inch across my floor, curl around my shoulder, and begin to clench itself around my neck or torso or chest. Instead of screaming and clawing frantically at my walls I simply sit and watch. I notice how interesting it all is. How fast the doubt can come at times, catching me completely off gaurd. How sticky some doubt can be (the doubts of my being able to write anything anyone will ever want to actually read is still wrapped around me today). And how easily some doubts seem to slip away (I'm feeling pretty darn good about my money situation at the moment). It's all so fascinating really.

What's great about just watching it all happen, sitting and being able to observe my life as if a child discovering his fingers for the first time, is that the crippling power of the doubt (or whatever it may be) suddenly isn't so powerful. Watching with interest has become fun and at times I find myself laughing as I watch patterns emerge.

So yes. I am writing this at the moment completely aware of how much I doubt this is even readable let alone enjoyable to read but you know what? I'm watching it happen. I'm feeling it happen. And even more, I'm posting this bitch!