“Lean into the discomfort”
I read that in a book by
Brene Brown. It is exactly what recovery is all about and it is exactly why
recovery is so hard for some. I can’t speak for anyone else, but discomfort is
what I have spent most of my life trying to avoid.
Feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable is fucking scary.
Letting people see who you really are and hoping you will get love back from
them is fucking scary. For me I can get love back from 1,000 people, but it is
the
one person who doesn’t give it back that I will remember. That is the
one person I will fixate on and tear myself apart about. Because I am scared
that one
person sees through me and sees I am just full of shit. Even though today my
first goal is honesty, I lied so much to myself and others for the last 35
years I still worry that I am just as awful as I always thought I was. Sometimes for me
when I am honest I get scared and
instantly I can be right back where I think I started from.
From what I have heard over the past year about recovery, it is that way
for a lot of us. From what I have read in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Taoism and Confucianism it is not special to addict and alcoholics, it is the
human condition. What is special to addicts and alcoholics is how we deal with
those feelings. I know, for myself, I would drown those feelings with cocaine
and vodka. I would run as fast as I could from the person who was frightening. Today I still want to run, but I have a HP, sponsor, friends and program that helps me stay.
Last night a gift of my efforts happened for me. I went to a
bar and had fun without drugs or alcohol. My goal was to get dressed up and go
dancing, something I never thought that would be possible. Well, I did just what I set out to do. It was a ball. I danced my bum off with some fantastic sober women, who I am lucky enough to call my friends. When I went to
treatment I thought I had given up fun for the rest of my life and I was okay
with that. My Higher Power had humbled me to the point of total surrender and I
just didn’t want to feel the way I felt anymore.
Something else happened last
night too. A woman who was one of my idols as a little girl, died at the hands
of the same disease I suffer from. She died alone in a hotel room, just like so
many of us do.
My first thought was her daughter. This idol of mine has a
daughter only one year older than my own. Last year, at about this same time, I
came close to leaving this world in a similar fashion. I would have left my
daughter, with what I can only guess, would be the same feelings that young
woman is feeling today. I would never desire to hurt my little girl and it
breaks my heart to know how close she came to not having a mother in her life. I
have heard other mothers share those same feelings while in sobriety. I can
only imagine that is how my idol felt too.
I have no idea why some of us are blessed to stay sober
today and some are not. I don’t feel special in anyway and I know I am not
smarter than most. I have no answers and sometimes I still wake up in so much
fear I can’t stand myself. I am still learning how to “feel” my emotions and it
makes me crazy that it is so incredibly hard to do it. But today I woke up
without the urge to pick-up a drink or use a drug. Today I woke up willing to
do what I could to face this day, whatever it may bring. Today I was given a
gift.
I like to think we are all given the same gifts every day. I
imagine that the beauty of life has always been all around me and I was just
blind to it before. In Buddhism, the Buddha teaches that some only have “a
little dust in their eyes” and if that dust is removed, they can be awakened. Maybe that’s it, maybe not.
I am sending lots of love to that beautiful woman who lost
her fight last night with this disease. I hope wherever she is now, there is love, peace
and joy all around her. I am grateful
that today, even when I can’t constantly feel it, I do try and remember, there
is love, peace and joy around me….. always.
R.I.P. WH
You helped countless others stay sober today.
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