Tales of Recovery from Crystal Meth Addiction
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I arrived home Saturday night, slept most of the day on Sunday and I’m still tired. Overall I had a wonderful time though. There was a little tension with one of my travel companions who I found to be astonishingly self-centered, but I’m sure I played a part in that. Managed, in the end, to discuss all that openly and reach some compromise and peace.
I called my sponsor from the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco Read the rest of this entry »
I never would have thought I’d have an opportunity like this again. The end of my drug use, and even for the most part the first 3 years I’ve been sober, have been pretty uninteresting and I have actually become pretty resistant to change. Variation kind of freaks me out. I feel so secure in my little rut. This week though, I’ve had to travel to the Central Valley of California to a huge farm show for work, something outside of my usual comfort zone, and I’ve been happily expanding my vistas. Read the rest of this entry »
My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does. December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old. My “birthday” is not really a big deal anymore. No, the anniversary I celebrate tonight, the reason this day is important to me, is that on this night, three years ago, I suddenly saw myself clearly and suddenly had a little hope that recovery would be possible.
The first two years were easy. This last one has been a bitch. There have been times recently when I have wished that I had died back in May. It would have been so much easier. I’ve even, at times, tried to tell myself that if that illness had killed me that I would be a hero. I would have died sober. I would have died doing the things that I was supposed to be doing. My family and friends would mourn me, sure, but there would be something happy underneath the sorrow; the knowledge that they had known me and that in my last years I had been sober.
Lately things have been much, much harder. I’ve had to return to being medicated to stop the insanity that has been going through my mind. The medicines are working, so that is good, but I still have a ton of stuff to face.
Somehow, in spite of everything, I have remained sober. In fact I’ve been sober longer now than I have ever been since I was 14 years old and I attribute it to that moment at the corner of 6th and Pueblo, under the street lamp, in the snow, when I finally understood that the pain I was in then was the very best that I could hope for, unless I got sober, and when I suddenly believed that it would be possible.
” God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen”
“I wish I was smarter. I wish I was stronger.” Patty Griffin
It brings me no comfort knowing I’m in a position I’ve been in before; hopeless, out of answers, hurting and not knowing why. And I am frightened to find that at nearly three years sober, the longest I have been sober since I was 14 years old, my brain is up to the same old tricks that have always ended every period of sobriety I’ve ever reached for in the past. I recognized that whatever was wrong was seriously wrong when I was sitting in the airport in Phoenix, coming home from another failed attempt to find love, and I found myself crying, listening to the Carpenters and googling “what’s the best way to kill yourself?“
I don’t need a reason to die, I thought. I need a reason to live. I have all the reasons to die I need. The recovery in me kept arguing, “this isn’t normal. You need help, kid. What about your family? What about your friends? Do you have any idea what this would do to them?”
“Yeah,” I replied inside my head. “They’ll get over it.” Read the rest of this entry »
I was thinking about an old post last night, Nothing You Can Find That Cannot Be Found, and about how lucky I was, that early in recovery, to have been protected from the worst of my temptations. A little space for a little while can be a good thing while you’re getting your sober legs. I was thinking about it because Daryl, who used to sell me drugs, and who has been in prison as much of his adult life as not, walked in to my home group last night. It alarmed me a little, I suppose. He’s not the nicest guy. I was just thinking though that if he or any number of other people had been around at the beginning or if for some reason I found myself with crystal meth sitting in front of me, how hard it would have been to stay sober.
When I came to work this morning I found a loaded glass pipe on the side of the building. I wonder at what point in my recovery the obsession and compulsion left me; at what point I became well enough to be confronted with a supply of crystal meth and to respond by throwing it in the trash.
“There’s nothing you can find that cannot be found,” goes the song. I’ve found crystal meth on the street now. I also found a way to not have to use it.
I can’t believe it. Day 1000 passed without my noticing it. I was in Las Vegas at the time visiting my mom and dad. I spent the day hanging out with them, my great-uncle and his new wife and daughter, my aunt and two of my cousins. Watched some football. Took a nap. I didn’t even notice that the un-official milestone had passed.
It’s so strange. In the first 90 days there wasn’t a day that passed without me knowing exactly how long it had been. Even as recently as day 500 I would as often as not be aware of the time. It is the addictive process in reverse. Being sober becomes your “normal.” Day by day another little piece of the old way of being falls away.
While I was in Las Vegas I went on one of the “thrill rides” at the top of the Stratosphere Hotel – the Big Shot. When you’re on the ride it seems longer than it really is. Much longer. Especially the falling part. For a good part of the time you are falling at the speed of gravity so you get this eerie weightless feeling; this amazing kind of ‘powerless.’
It’s probably not surprising that the first real using dream I’ve ever had in the last 1005 days was that night. That night and the next I actually had a hard time falling asleep. I couldn’t get past the part at the beginning of falling asleep that feels a little bit like falling. That all seems to have resolved itself though. Anyway – the ride is worth doing. Once. Take that off my bucket list now.
I am really feeling grateful for my life today. And I’m feeling especially grateful for the time that I spent with my sponsor up in Atlanta and everything that has followed.
Friday night I got to take one of my favorite people, Jill, the friend who let me detox at her house, out for dinner at my favorite restaurant, just to thank her for helping to save my life and get caught up. Dinner was amazing. Dessert was breathtaking. The company was as dear to me as life and I left feeling revived; body, mind and spirit.
Saturday a friend with only 14 days sober suggested we go to McCall for the day. Now, McCall is hardly a day trip so I called my parents and asked if we could use the cabin they have there. We headed up, drove an extra 30 miles or so to go to Bergdorf Hot Springs and enjoyed the waters. We headed back to the cabin, grilled a couple or rib eyes, went to an AA meeting, and talked recovery. We were having trouble finding the meeting location so I pulled into a grocery store and walked in and asked the bag boy where the Nazarene church on pine street was. He looked at me and asked, “Are you going to the 8 o’clock?” Then he told us that he had a year and 2 days sober that day; a little indication from HP that we were on the right track and we were meant to be where we were.
On the way home this morning we continued our conversation about how to do recovery, the barriers to recovering, the problems we encounter and the lies we tell ourselves that take us back out. We talked about the solution to those problems and about finding whatever formula works.
A few minutes ago another friend called to say that she is sponsor shopping and asked if I thought my own sponsor might take her on. A little twinge of pride set it. “What? I’m not good enough,” I thought to myself. But I shared some information and I passed along the phone number. We’ll see what happens.
I feel like I’m back in “the stream of life” again, finally.
I’m dedicating Patty Griffin’s very first love song to myself. I hope you enjoy it.
I was thinking today how there was a time when I couldn’t imagine life without crystal meth.
Then there was a time that I couldn’t imagine life with crystal meth or without it.
Now I can’t imagine life with crystal meth. I can remember it, but I can’t imagine going back.
It is so good to finally be free.
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