The Last Chance Texaco

“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.”

By any measure the last year has been hard.  Two failed attempts at dating, reinforcing the certainty that I’m defective.  The death of a most loved pet.  Two moves.  A second and a third mugshot of mom.  I nearly died in May – so 8 weeks of recovery just till I could drive.  The resulting bankruptcy petition that I am about to file.  2009 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of  Queen Elizabeth and one of her more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

While I was searching for sources of canisterized carbon monoxide and a list of things I could say I needed it for I had to concede that I was not going to be able to navigate this one away on my own.  Friends and my sponsor insisted that I see a doctor.

The first 20 months of my recovery I had been medicated.  The last 16 months I haven’t been.  The first 20 months of my recovery were relatively easy.  The last 16 haven’t been.  In fact I haven’t wanted to drink as badly as I’ve wanted to drink the last month, ever.  Ever.

God has amply supplied the world with doctors, right?  I’ve done everything else I’m supposed to do.  I done more stepwork than 95% of the people who ever come to the program.  What I have, AA is not designed to fix.  And if I’m going to keep sober, I’m going to have to do it on medication again.

So I have in my hand a bottle of Wellbutrin, and bottle of trazodone, and a supply of Lamictal that should arrive in the mail in 21 days.  I’ll address the underlying mental illness so that I can free myself from the grips of the insane idea that drinking will fix me.  I’ll keep doing the other things I’m doing.

I not defective.  Or I am.  I’ll find love or I won’t.  I’ll get a new cat or not.  My finances may or may not  be screwed forever.  Mom will stop drinking or she’ll drink herself to death.  No matter what happens I can stay sober so long as I’m willing to ask for help when I need it.

I’m grateful for that.

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