I’ve been through some heavy shit in recovery. To be perfectly honest, most of my problems have been of my own creation. The rest of it was just regular life stuff that kicked my ass. In the early years, I faced a lot of wreckage from my past. There was a whole jail thing, health problems because of my drug use and the mess of trying to put my life back together when I never really had one to begin with. In the old days, when I felt overwhelmed, I used to just get really wasted. I would cross my fingers and hope that when I woke up I would still be alive and that triumph alone would cause my problems to be forgotten. In recovery, I learned quickly to take everything one day at a time, do the footwork and let go of the results. It usually works, but lately I’m a fucking mess.
As life got more stable, my problems generally fell into two categories: logistics and emotions. Logistical problems were like the time I overzealously used the leaf-blower to “sweep” the dust out of my garage without realizing I had extinguished the pilot light on my gas hot water heater. It took me two days to figure out why the water was cold and get the nerve to re-light the tiny flame. I was convinced I would melt my face off, my hand shook so bad and I could barely hold the lighter. Logistics are easy—once you find a solution. Emotional turmoil was always trickier for me. As I worked the steps, I started to accept that there will be times when the logistics of my life are out of my control and my reaction to the world will determine my happiness more than actual circumstances. This didn’t make it easier for me to react appropriately.
For example, when I had about five years clean, one of my Internet boyfriends dumped me. I reported him as a sexual predator to the site we met on and filed a restraining order, then cried for a week. A few months later, my new “normie” boyfriend, who I knew sometimes smoked pot, left his bong out by accident before I came over. I accused him of trying to sabotage my life and went into such a tailspin that I couldn’t leave the house for two days. This was in recovery. Before I got clean I would do shit like drink a bottle of whiskey and smash car windows if the guy I was dating met an old girlfriend for coffee. I was incapable of handling disappointment and it took years for me to figure it out.
I feel like I have finally learned how not to act like a psycho when I get my feelings hurt. A lot of it had to do with eliminating toxic people and setting boundaries. Life is pretty good and pretty calm most of the time. But occasionally, no matter how many meetings I attend and how stable I feel, I get my heart stomped by everyday life. I’m not talking about majorly stressful events like the death of a loved one, losing a job, getting married, moving, having health problems or having a baby. I have faced all of those things in 15 years of recovery and made it through with the help of my support group and applying the principles of the 12 steps. I’m talking about when life is going fine and I still feel like I’m losing it.
Life on life’s terms has been kicking my ass lately. Back in November I got in a fight with my dad. It makes me feel like such a teenager to say that, but it’s the truth. He was rude and awful to me after knocking back a few beers, so I told him off. This may not sound like a big deal, but in my emotionally-repressed dysfunctional family, you never question the boss—and my dad’s the boss. Of course, it happened right before the holidays. Our family is pretty small, so the conflict carried over into our holiday visit and became much bigger than a few nasty words over the dinner table. It’s still not resolved in the manner I would like (him begging for my forgiveness). I have to accept that and figure out a way to move on without holding a resentment. Therapy—here I come. I guess you’re never too old for daddy issues.
A few weeks after my fight with my dad, I got sick. It started out as a cold and turned into bronchitis and my life today doesn’t allow sick days. It’s like one of those annoying Nyquil commercials where the dad is trying to call in sick to his toddler. When I’m sick, I still have somebody to bathe, dress, feed and wipe poop off (besides myself). After I was finally feeling better physically and back to my usual frantic pace, I got sick again—this time is leveled me. I got a sinus infection that turned into an ear infection and I spent an entire weekend in bed except for the most obligatory mom duties. All that time in bed did something to trigger an old back injury (when you’re 22 and high on coke, you can really injure yourself without noticing). Still sick, now I was nursing a lower back that made walking, bending and pretty much every position unbearable after about 20 minutes.
Surprise, I wanted drugs! Oh how I wanted drugs. It all just felt like too much. The emotional turmoil, the physical discomfort, the having to still show up for life in spite of it all. I daydreamed about Vicodin and muscle relaxers, knowing full well that I have made it through back pain before without narcotics. My doctor said my sinus issues were viral, my back issues were muscular and there wasn’t much she could do. She offered a prescription for muscle relaxers, which I declined through gritted teeth (knowing I was likely to abuse them). I spent the next week speed-balling Ibuprofen and Mucinex just to get through life. After six days of the max dose of Ibuprofen, my body rebelled. I broke out in hives all over and my hands and eyelids swelled up, rendering me a crippled, coughing, grotesque, blotchy alien version of myself. My doctor (who really should get some sort of prize for dealing with me) assured me that it was a common allergic reaction to high doses of Ibuprofen and told me to take Benadryl and wait it out. So, here I am, just following the doctor’s orders, wondering when my life will ever feel bearable again.
My adult, recovering life is a complex balance of logistics and emotions. Today, “losing it” doesn’t mean picking up a drink or a drug. It means losing my equilibrium, my ability to laugh at myself and stay grateful for all the wonderful things I have worked hard to attain. Unfortunately, I’ve recently realized that not acting like an outright psycho means sometimes I channel my negative feelings inward and it can make me sick—not just in the head. Life is pretty busy and sometimes I forget to do that daily inventory that saved my ass in the beginning. I often don’t even know I have a problem until I’m in the middle of an absolute shit storm. The last couple of months I’ve been losing it. Recognizing that I’m struggling is hard, but recovery means that once I do, I’m obligated to take action.
Making a life in recovery means there are still highs and lows, but I just have to ride them out. I have some work to do to get back on track and start feeling grateful again. It involves both emotions and logistics. But none of my feelings are good enough reasons to get loaded. It sucks that I have to make time to face uncomfortable issues, but that’s part of the deal. I reach out to my sponsor, I talk it out with my support group and I get professional help when necessary. That’s what it really means to do the footwork these days. I’m not sure why these things are happening right now or what the warning signs were, but it’s too late to worry about that. I know for sure I can make it through without drinking a bottle of whiskey or breaking any windows. Fingers crossed.
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