Character Defects

The weather is absolutely gorgeous right now. I have been trying to get outside as much as I can. The other day I went for a hike on a trail right by my house.  It wasn't until I was about a mile into it that I recognized some recent changes.

I never used to be able to hike. I was too afraid. Who knew what kind of god-awful creatures lurked behind that boulder? What the hell could I do if a bear or mountain lion or hobo decided to kill me for dinner? Would I be able to bend the right way if a rattle snake bit my ankle so I could suck the venom out? If I fell and broke my ankle my cell phone would probably die simultaniously and then what? Hopefully a freak storm would brew and I would be carried away by a flash flood so my family wouldn't have to blow money on a funeral.

Okay. So you get it. No way in hell you would catch me hiking.

But I went hiking. By myself. Two days ago. A lot of the insane fears I used to have have been taken from me. That is unreal.

Another thing that has changed is how I to talk to people. I used to flat out lie to people so they would like me. Tell me you enjoy sky diving? I've always wanted to sky dive! Liver and onions your favorite meal, you say? Mmm-hmmm...sounds delicious! You are convinced a tribe of alien invaders live below the public library and are close to finalizing their plan of attack? I was just thinking the same thing! Fancy that! Seriously, I would say anything to not offend, including agreeing to go on dates with people I had no interest in so their feelings wouldn't get hurt.

I realized this character defect had magically vanished when I told a complete stranger, after he described in detail how passionate he is about fly fishing, that I, to be perfectly honest, hate to fish. He wasn't the least bit offended and I didn't feel icky about lying.

 Another recent example happened while at the library. A guy there has been eye-stalking me. He will watch me for hours, strategically placing himself behind a bookshelf or computer for optimum spying/hiding advantage. Ew. I know. The other day, however, he sat at my table and struck up a conversation.

"Couldn't help but notice you sitting by yourself." (No shit. You have been watching me for over an hour now AND it's a fucking library, not a homecoming dance. Last time I checked sitting alone is more than acceptable.)

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. So, I don't know how to say this so I'm jus gonna say it, 'kay?"

"Uh, okay."

"Can I take you out?" (Stop. Now this is where a few months ago I would have cringed but said, "Sure. What's the harm in that?")

Instead I replied, "You know, I really don't think that would be such a great idea. My life is pretty busy right now."

"Oh okay. Well thanks anyway."

He then got up, pushed in the chair, and wandered off. I didn't even worry about him trying to commit suicide later once. I know that's a tad bit extreme but, since I'm being completely honest here, I really used to worry about that. Pretty damn disgusting of me (not to mention utterly self consumed to think I really held that kind of power).

So, I am speaking honestly and gently, and I am hiking. Two big changes I have happened to observe recently. Two more reasons to be grateful.

The Addiction

The past couple of weeks have been some of the worst in my sobriety. A lot of feelings and old, stuffed down deep emotions hit me like a truck on Easter. I was blindsided. I had no idea those feelings still exsisted let alone held the power to make me sob and sob in a deserted parking lot. I was so confused and angry. I had kept those feelings repressed for so long that they felt more powerful than I was able to handle.

After crying for a long while in my Easter Sunday best it hit me: My addiction. All of the sudden the only possible solution was to walk into the grocery store across the parking lot and reunite with my  ex-lover, Wine. The thought was strong and my craving was off the charts. My mouth watered, my heartbeat increased, my skin got flushed and hot. I was fucking terrified. I thought, "Wait a minute here. I have over one hundred days in this thing! I can't fuck it up now. It would be so embarrassing to have to start all over again." Usually after these thoughts the craving disappears, the obssesive thoughts vanish, and I am left comfortable in my sobriety. Not that day. The next thoughts came zooming into my skull far faster than the others, "So what?! It's just 100 measly days. You could do that over easy. You are in pain. It hurts worse than anything you have experienced in a long time. You just can't handle it. Walk in that store and do what needs to be done. You will feel so much relief. Just do it."

I felt doomed. I turned off my car. I readied my purse. My fingers curled around the handle of my car door. Then I heard a voice. This time it wasn't from my alcohlic head. It was calm, peaceful, tranquil, and full of loving purpose.

"Sadie, turn on your car and go home."

So I did, thanking my Higher Power the entire way.

I am continuing to struggle with my cravings and alcoholic thinking today. Last night a craving hit me for no apparent reason that had me drooling over the computer. It has been hard and scary, yes. But thank God for that experience in the parking lot. As awful as it was and as painful as it was it confirmed my belief in my Higher Power.

When the octopus arm that is alcoholism begins wrapping itself around me, squeezing tighter, sucking at my flesh, I stop and pray. I stop and ask my Higher Power who saved me that day to please save me again, to give me the strength I need.

Living In The NOW

I have had the hardest time getting myself to write lately. I can't tell you how many times I have sat down to make a post this week for 15, 20, sometimes even a half hour before muttering "fuck it" and clicking that bright red "X".

I don't know if it's because my mind has been so busy with the static everyday tasks of life this week and just needs to shut down,or if I have turned into a boring, dull,  giant blob void of creativity. Nothing seems to want to flow out of me. I have no original thoughts or realizations. I haven't been sitting around contemplating my place in the Universe. I wake up, eat, work out, go to work, get home, eat, sleep and so on and so on. This type of pattern used to really mess with my head. I would become restless and anxious. I would feel unimportant and robotic. At times I would get depressed and wonder if I was truly living a life worth anything. Those feelings of, at times, hopelessness could occur daily before I got sober.

It is a different story today. After a week of that same-old, same-old I am happy. I am satisfied. I am, dare I say it...?, content. I now understand that it's okay if I don't make a big deal out of every little thing. It's fine that I want to veg out from time to time. The world doesn't explode if I decide to take a nap instead of making sure everything around me is perfectly wrapped in a big shiny bow, neatly tucked into its perfect spot on that metaphorical shelf of life.

This newfound contentness (if that's not a word it should be) has me breathing easier and I have yet to experience a headache this week. I am living in each moment and enjoying everything, no matter how mundane, so much more fully. I may still mutter things like "fuck it" to myself now and then but it's the fact that I don't beat myself up after. When I click that bright red "X" I am able to easily transition into the next moment, not dwelling on what I wasn't able to do and instead focusing on what I am doing.

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!

Feelings

I have been sneak attacked!

This morning my life seemed rosy and beautiful and happy. Everything has been snapping into place and I have been feeling more confident than ever in where my life is going. Why then have I been fighting off the urge to cry like a middle schooler who just got dumped all week? Seriously. It's all working out. My job is fabulous. My family is supportive. My money situation is looking up. I'm making friends and meaningful connections. It even appears that I have a place to live this coming summer. Yet I more often than not have been finding myself lying on my floor, legs and arms splayed out dramatically, eyes clenched shut, just needing to cry or, at times, needing to break something. Ooo! Breaking something... Yes. That sounds pretty damn good.

These moments sneak up and freak me out every time. Nothing seems to have happened before to make me think, "Okay. Now would be a great time to go throw a fit on the floor." Nope. I actually end up on the floor before I even realize I'm upset! What the hell? I am just really confused. I don't know where these emotions are coming from or why they flood me without warning.

I have been sober for two months now and feel great about it. I feel more present and patient with my family. I feel like I am finally coming into myself again. I'm just really freaked out by all of these intense and, at times, paralyzing, emotions.

Should I be calling someone when they creep up? Should I allow myself to break down, even if that means I would have to explain my bizarre display to my family? Should I be worried that this is happening? Is it normal? If it is normal, how long does it last? I just feel so clueless and confused.

Thanks and love,

Sadie

I Need Help and That's Okay

Today I got a Sponser. My first month of sobriety was very easy. Now, with my two month date just a couple days away, I am struggling more and more. Chocolate and I are in a constant battle of wits and I seem to be losing terribly.

 It was very scary and difficult to admit that I truly and honestly can't stay sober on my own. I have been refusing help for so long in most areas of my life that it became comfortable. I knew I could count on myself to get things done "right". Other people just proved to be disappointing and untrustworthy. Thoughts and feelings like that have become my norm. With my alcoholism however, I had to admit that I can't handle staying sober by myself. 

 I guess what a good friend told me yesterday is true. He said," You know you're human, right?"  Damnit. However difficult that was for me to admit to myself, I am extremely grateful for being able to find the strength to ask for help. It's okay to need it. Another lesson learned.

Strength and Love,

Sadie

Instincts vs. Fears : "Let's Get It On!"

I just recieved a deceivingly cheery memo in my paycheck stub.

"Oh goodie! A pot luck get together! Or maybe even an ice cream social!" I thought. (Okay, okay. I didn't really think 'oh goodie'. Get real. Nobody talks, let alone has private thoughts, like that. But you get the idea. I was expecting something upbeat with a side of food because I just so happened to be starving at the time. At any rate! I thought it was going to be a good memo.)

To my dismay it was a rambling sob fest of a notice that my pay is going to be cut hourly by 8%. 8 PERCENT. That's nearly a dollar an hour less! Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. I really started to second guess quitting my other job. Once the self-doubt started, it snowballed into a conversation with myself that included such choice words as: "Stupid", "Naive", and, "Man you really fucked yourself now!" Not only that, but they gave us this news in a brightly colored, glossy paged "memo" of deception and didn't even include coupons! They tell us that and couldn't find the decency to include a coupon for a free Blizzard at DQ?! I mean come on! What the fuck?! Talk about pouring salt in a wound.

As I just reminded you, I quit my job at the school. In turn, I was feeling pretty "on top of the world"-y about life. I should have known something like a pay cut was lurking around the corner, right? I mean isn't this type of situation the whole reason why I started this blog in the first place? That octopus was all cuddly and snug and was napping for quite awhile there! I should have been bracing myself for an arm or two to come around. So here they are! Those muscular, gleaming, sloppy arms that, today, are labeled "MONEY" and, naturally, "ALCOHOLISM".

Upon opening the memo and having my mild (okay, alright, maybe not-so-mild) freakout that was accompanied by the aforementioned hunger pangs and an anxiety ridden itch to drink, I reached out. Fortunately, I have people in my life who understand, and whom I feel comfortable to go to for support and advice and love. I texted a friend and let her know I was in a state of borderline melt down. What she said was simple yet rang so true:

"Things will work out. Trust your instincts, not your fears."

(Cue cleansing sigh of relief) How right she is. I quit at the school for many reasons. I trust those reasons and I trust the feelings of relief and happiness I experienced after I handed in my letter of resignation. How could I let a pay cut that I have absolutely no control over(Serenity Prayer anyone?) throw me into a tizzy?

"Trust your instincts, not your fears" is now on a post-it on my desk. I believe this simple saying would do us all some good if made our mantra. After pondering it for awhile I became painfully aware of how often I second guess myself. I would say that 95% of those second guesses come from fear. "Trust your instincts, not your fears", indeed!

Laughs and love,

Sadie