Wet Paper Bag

2010-02-02T08:30:00.001-08:00

I am afraid of a life without drugs. When I was high, I never really worried about much. I did whatever I could to feel good or numb. It was a lonely, depressing existence, but it was stable in its own way. I knew what was going to happen next on most days, knew that I would live in a gray, mediocre existence; like a water bug that skims the top of a pond - not quite in the water, not quite out of it either. In many ways it was a very comfortable existence, one where I avoided everything, only putting in enough work on any given day to keep my job. . .just barely.

Avoidance as a lifestyle started long before the drugs; I just managed to perfect the process during the 5 years I spent getting high.

But being drug free forever scares me. "Waking up" from the dreamy haze of apathy and sublimated emotions is terrifying. Because now, I have to face myself, act on beliefs, make a solid and consistent effort to recover - commit to it. I have to face the problems and challenges that I've avoided for 5 years, (some even longer than that), understand and acknowledge why I've avoided them, and start making decisions that will deal with them in a healthy way. I have to live with the torrent of emotions all this stirs up, all the emotions I refused to deal with for so long. I must allow them to exist and search for ways to deal with them while they buck and sway inside me - an emotional rodeo bull doing its best to throw me into chaos.

Compared to all that, the safe drug-induced, pond skimming existence of drugs and alcohol often looks like a safe haven.

But I must face the fact that my life has gotten so much worse since I began taking drugs. It's become a lonely, angry, sorrow-filled existence, often spluttering out at the most crucial times. I am dead inside, unable to do anything but survive. I do not truly laugh, or feel joy. I do not really enjoy or look forward to anything. The only emotion that's become more potent since I started using is sorrow. It cuts me to the bone, harrowing me constantly; pounding me down relentlessly. Over the past 2 1/2 years, I have become convinced that this despair will eventually kill me - cause me to take my life, either on accident or on purpose.

For so long I have not cared to live. I sought the relief of death so much that I surrounded myself with a living death of gray apathy and false emotions.

God, I pray for willingness to be open-minded about the benefits of recovery. I ask for faith in you - belief that you can and will and want to provide for my emotional and spiritual needs. Give me the strength that I don't have - strength and courage to allow the healing process to take place. Replace my fear with faith, my anger with peace, and my sorrow with joy.

The Life That Is Waiting For Me. . .?

2010-02-01T07:29:00.001-08:00

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we have planned so as

to have the life that is waiting for us."

Joseph Campbell

I am so self-destructive. On some level I understand that I have ruined my life because of false beliefs of unworthiness and self-hatred. I can see that my life has been an unending cylcle of self-fulfilling prophecies that have paralyzed me with fear and self-loathing. But it's gone on for so long that I don't know how to stop it. I am filled with a sense of dread that I can't overcome it and come to have a healthy, full life lived with some self-esteem. This wars with the tiniest seed of hope that tells me I can.

Much of the problem is that I have not been able to let go of the vision of my life that I shaped for my life as a child. This vision has become a prison that has kept me from moving on to the life that God has designed for me. I know I need to let go of this vision, accept its loss from my life, and move on. I have been in mourning over it for so, SO long, holding onto anger, despair, and the belief that I was denied this simple dream by an alternately capricious, and apathetic God who does not love me.

Oh God, please, please, PLEASE show me how to let go of this, get free of this prison of belief that's been reinforced by rage and sorrow. It's the only way I will ever be able to become a fully functioning healthy individual who possesses the ability to move past a long history of self-destruction and personal sabotage on every level: personal, professional, emotional, and spiritual. It's my only hope.

God, I want a drink. . .

2010-01-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

I have absolutely no skill at coping with my anxiety without prescription medication of some kind. I would really love to go home and just get fucking hammered on a $13 bottle of wine. I'm pretty sure I almost killed myself with NyQuil on Friday. I drank at leas a full bottle and a half of that shit. I was afraid to fall asleep - I thought I wouldn't wake up. Last year, before starting any kind of recovery, I wouldn't have cared - wouldn't have prayed to God to let me live, like I did on Friday night. Instead, I would have prayed to die in my sleep, without any pain, and to not let me leave some messy corpse behind for my husband to find. Does this mean I've made progress? Praying to live? Even if I feel like a complete fucking failure at life?

After a 4 day break from teaching, I came back to a bunch of loud, out-of-control, ungrateful, bitchy adolescents. A lot of it is my own fault. I'm a terrible disciplinarian, since I have such shitty boundaries. I feel constantly confused and frustrated during class: should I give that person a consequence? Should I let that comment slide? Did that kid cross a line or not? The answers always seem so fuzzy when I'm right in the middle of things. And, like hungry sharks smelling blood a mile away, the kids sense this and take full advantage. I'm so tired of hearing how "boring" my class is, how "stupid" it is, how much they hate it. I'm tired of hearing their personal opinions on everything from the dresscode to the seating chart, and I'm tired of them talking back to me about EVERYTHING. I let it get me so stressed out; I'm completely drained by the end of the day. I know that if I get drunk, I'll feel great tonight; I'll laugh and smile and be in a good mood. But tomorrow I'll be bloated and hung over, and feeling like even more of a failure than today.

For the first time since I started this, I find myself wishing someone were reading this blog; that someone would post something positive for me to read. I feel like such a fucking loser ALL THE TIME. Like I'm just a thin, transparent imitation of a real person. I feel brittle and frozen inside - half dead most of the time. I find myself just wanting to know that someone else has read my thoughts, as if that will make them more real somehow. Isn't anyone else out there merely surviving and not thriving? Is anyone listening?

Fight That Which Betrays You

2010-01-03T16:48:00.000-08:00

1/1/10 was a good day for me. I felt good- physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

I am not a New Year's Resolution person - after years of failed attempts to lose weight, eat better, exercise more, be nicer, stop procrastinating, study the Bible and pray more, etc., etc., etc., I left the whole concept behind with disgusted self-loathing and never looked back.

But this year must be different. It is the dawn of a new decade, and I am now 35 - almost halfway through my expected life span. For 1st 21 years of my life I was a pious, naive, single-minded girl whose only goal was to have the life most people want - and subsequently get: a stable marriage, a couple of beautiful kids, and financial security provided mainly by a passionate, loving husband who grew up in a happy home. I wanted friends, and and active social life, and a lovely, spacious home (although modest) which I would maintain with dignity and love. (There is nothing inherently wrong in these things, except when God/The Universe has other plans for you.) But each of these things fell through: I cannot have children, our house is old, cold, drafty, and small, and we are ALWAYS a pay check, lay off, or disaster away from some kind of financial catastrophe. Although my husband makes money, a large portion of his income is taken up by the massive student loans he incurred because his mother never cared where he was or what he was doing, and his recovering alcoholic father died penniless. Over the past 3 years, I have been laid off twice, and him - 3 times. But BEST of all, I am also a drug addict, who has managed to isolate myself from any and everyone who could have been my friend, while simultaneously attaching myself to a few individuals who were little more than paranoid, self-absorbed addicts of one kind or another.

Nope - I didn't get what I wanted from life - the bargain I thought I had made with God because of my constant good behavior turned out to be one-sided. And so, as God's "punishment," I became a miserable, angry, irresponsible, drug addict and drunk who spent all my time finding ways to check out of my own life and thus, effectively ruined it.

But I've come to the end of some road inside - a place where "two roads diverge" and I must choose one, knowing that there is little chance I will make it back to the fork in the path again to make a different decision. I don't have a new vision of what I want my life to be, but I recognize that I need one. . .desperately. One that I must build bit by bit, without knowing how the end structure will look or function. I must somehow find it in myself foster a true and deep belief that "more will be revealed."

So, I've been off the pills since the 23rd, and completely clean since the 31st. I recognize the need for me to go to meetings, read the literature, get a sponsor and get involved in NA. I believe that frequent contact w/ the people there is the only way I will be able to stay clean. But I am ashamed to go back to the home group I went to this summer - I've had so many relapses, so many failures. I feel as though they'll look at me and think: "She's not gonna make it."

So many things in my life need to change. It's overwhelming. But I am trying to remember the saying I've heard so many recovering addicts tell me: "Don't worry about the future, just concentrate on doing the next right thing." So, instead of obsessing over the overwhelming amount of character flaws that possess me, I will instead, work on blocking out all but whichever one is holding me back at any particular time.

And I will consciously choose to fight against those things which try to betray me - my fear, self hatred, lack of confidence, and overwhelming self-absorption

Losing face on Facebook

2009-12-30T12:11:00.001-08:00

So, I finally signed up on FB last night. I was drunk, of course, and therefore unable to remember the reasons I had previously refused to join. But then, in the next morning of my cruel sobriety my husband called me from work to tell me I had several responses to my arrival on FB, mostly long lost high school and college friends who all have a keen interest in knowing where I am, what I'm doing, who I have married, and - most painfully - how many kids I have. I browsed through their kind comments and excitement at having found me again, and I saw their family pictures, full of beautiful children, surrounded by their lovely parents - in photos taken by professionals as well as candid snapshots. Everyone looked so peacefully happy and serene. And I started to cry, to sob in heartbreaking gulps, and thin, brittle wails. And I felt so alone and lonely for a life that I will probably never have. Because not only can I not have children, I can't even stay clean, or take care of my responsibilities, or act like a grown-up more than 1 out of the 10 times I'm required to.

I never signed up for Facebook because I didn't want my old friends/frienemies to see what I had become: a fat, ugly, under-achieving, drug addicted, childless, financially challenged loser. They would be shocked. I was always the person that others KNEW would be successful. But I'm not. Successful, that is. The list of my accomplishments since entering into the big bad world is short - very short, and it hurts to know that all these people that I once knew are having a better life than I am. I post happy little things, inconsequental, surface information because I'm terrified of them finding out what a fucking loser I am. If they knew, they would only feel sorry for me - once they got over their surprise of: "OMG - she's a drug addict?!" Ugh. It was a blow to my tiny self-esteem that I did not need.

Angry Little Girl

2009-12-29T11:42:00.000-08:00

Addiction is my shadow, my constant companion, lurking around me with his sinister darkness snuffing out the light of recovery. This was the worst Christmas on record for me and it's my own fault. Whenever I'm dope sick from withdrawals, I get suicidally depressed. I felt no joy, no contentment, and absolutely no peace on a day where I should be able to find it in abundance. Instead, I found myself curled up on my sister's guest bed, clutching my dog and sobbing inconsolably into his fur. He is a good dog. He just lay there, still and silent as my tears soaked his fur and I wailed about my absolute failure in life. I was consumed with sorrow, jealousy and anger at the side of my family that managed to have normal lives - good looks, great jobs, stable incomes, and most heartbreakingly - beautiful babies and children with cherubic smiles on their lovely faces - something I will never be able to have.

It's hard not to be angry at God, the universe, or whatever asshole is in charge up there - if any. My sister and I went through a ridiculous shit storm during our entire childhood: an emotionally and physically abusive mother, a series of step-fathers that left mostly emotional scars and deep-seated feelings of abandonment when they inevitably left, and so many physical relocations- new houses, places, and people to leave us severely crippled in the arena of fostering and maintaining productive social interactions. I tried to tell a few people what she was realy like a precious few times over the years; only to be brushed off, told I was being overly dramatic, I was too hard on my sweet mother, or (my personal favorite) I was an ungrateful, outright liar. This is because my mother presented her Dr. Jekyll face to the rest of the world around her: a sweet, caring, give you the shirt-off-her-back kind of face. But when the audience was gone, Mr. Hyde's face came out for my sister and me: the screaming, cursing, name-calling, slapping, terrorizing personaility that no one but us (and her ex-husbands) ever saw. Having people tell me I was wrong about my mother just reinforced everything she communicated to me: that I was fundamentally damaged on some level; I didn't work right, I couldn't do right, and I didn't deserve to be loved because I was a bad, bad, bad girl.

My mother had absolutely NO FUCKING business procreating. She, like me, should have been born as barren as the Sahara. Oh, the irony, the bitter, fucking irony of her being able to get knocked up with almost no effort, and me, still barren after a host of medical interventions that never worked to give me what she so easily got: a perfect baby. If I weren't so fucking bitter, I might actually laugh my ass off.

I have tried forgiving, forgetting, processing, and analyzing the past. I have prayed, and meditated; journaled and read; talked and screamed until it seemed as though I had nothing left to say about anything at all. But it's no use - the anger always comes back.

And I am. So. Fucking. Angry. Angry at God for allowing me to nurture dreams in my heart that He KNEW would never be fulfilled. Angry He hasn't replaced those dreams with something I could actually achieve. Angry that I feel as though I cannot do anything right - EVER. Angry that I hate myself so deeply that I subconsciously sabotage any and every opportunity that comes my way, always realizing too late that I've done so. I'm angry that my cousins and friends from college have EVERYTHING I ever wanted in life, while I wallow in this full-on pig-sty of a life that is only halfway of my own making.

But what I'm most angry about; in an all-consuming-soul-burning-life-force-ruining kind of way is the fact that it's somehow MY responsibility to pick up the ruined pieces of my life that my mother shattered so callously through her abusive self-centeredness. It's like some sick, cosmic joke: I'm supposed to put Humpty back together again; but I have none of the tools I need to do it. God, or the universe or whoever, has a sick, fucking sense of humor. I've been ruined for such a long time, and have been on this careening descent downward for so long, that I don't even know where the pieces are, or what they look like, NEVER MIND knowing how to reassemble them and put them in working order.

I can see myself as a child in my mind's eye: I was sweet-natured, loving, open-hearted, and gregarious. I was filled with love and confidence, innocence and hope. And I see with such clarity, how - little by little, scream by scream, slap by slap - she took that little girl and ruined her, completely destroying her until she became an empty shell of hopelessness and self-loathing.

And underneath all the anger is deep, soul-crushing sadness. I am still in mourning for that little girl - the one I was for such a brief window of my life. The sweet, little girl full of hope, love, faith, and endless possibilities that was RUINED by a selfish, self-absorbed, angry little bitch - the exact person I've turned into myself. How embarrassing. How completely embarrassing. I am so fucking weak. I just really hate myself - everything about myself. I. Am. A. Disgusting. Human. Being.

2009-12-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

I cannot manage to stay clean. I got my refill the day after my last post, gorged on it over Thanksgiving break, then went through withdrawals for several days after. I planned it that way; I knew that if I stretched out my usage over more than a week that my withdrawals would be worse. the longer I'm on it, the more heinous the withdrawals.

It's so fucking lovely to not be in physical pain. Plus, I love being high. I have not been able to find the intrinsic motivation - that part of me that knows it's just not worth it. I'm managing my life - albeit indecently and with poor grace - the mundane ins and outs of life are not intolerable; they're just not that interesting. I feel as though I am made in only 2 dimensions; flat and unattractive.

I have fucked up almost EVERY job I've ever had. How do I do it? Why do I do it? Because I truly believe I'm unable to be successful - I feel like a fuck up, so I act like one (thanks so much for all the reinforcement on that, Mom!). Why is it that your parents can fuck you up to the point where even your neuroses are neurotic, yet it's your responsibility to fix and to find a way to have a reasonably satisfactory life? It's bullshit, but it's the way it is.

I am a chronic underachiever and self-saboteur - it's ridiculous.

Vicodin made me his bitch

2009-11-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

Fighting drug addiction is like trying to claw your way out of a wet paper bag. I decided to start a blog in the hopes that it will help keep me sober. I don't care if anyone reads it, or likes it, or hates it, I just want my words to go out somewhere in the universe.

I have been clean by choice for 2 1/2 days, and all I can think of right now is calling my doctor and having him refill my prescription, so I can sit on my porch all night and smoke cigarrettes; thus, successfully avoiding my life. I've been doing that for the last 5 years. My marriage is crumbling, my health is failing, and my job - a job I dearly love; a job that brings me a sense of purpose - is hanging by a very thin thread. Attendance is especially important for a teacher; students need a sense of continuity in order to learn and retain what they need. But I've missed 10 days since the beginning of school - 20% of the semester so far - mostly because I was going through withdrawals every few weeks when my prescription ran out. I prolonged the only legitimate illness I had by smoking like a chimney - I only smoke when I'm high - causing a ridiculous cough that lingered day after day after day.

After 5 years, my life is a desolate landscape: no friends, almost no hope. I've been hospitalized twice over the past 2 1/2 years for depression and to detox from Vicodin. I've been to NA meeting and done step work; but I always go back to the drug. It's sweet song calls me even now.