Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Love and Betrayal

      I am sitting here tonight, working on my forth step for AA, which for those of you not in the program is to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  To make this a little clearer it is a big list of some pretty nasty things that we all endure in life, but to us alcoholics and drug addicts these are things that keep us using.  It is a list of people, places and things we are resentful at, we are afraid of, and the damage we have done while using drugs and alcohol.  We describe each resentment, fear, and who we hurt and what we did in detail.  We also have to describe what our part in each of these were and what could we have done differently.  The object of this exercise is to face all of these issues, mistakes, circumstances of life, what ever you would like to call them, analyze them, learn from them and leave them be.  The idea is that until I do this I will never be able to remain sober. It makes sense if you think about it.  Fear, regret, and resentment can be very power and dangerous things in life.  So I am trying to finish this step up since I have been working on it for a few weeks now and I am ready to have it finished and looking over what I have listed here is what gave me the title for this entry.
   
      While I am writing this I am listening to Eddie Hinton.  Songs about love deserved, love lost, love gained and the pain that goes along with all of it.  Listening to these soulful words, I keep looking at my list of shit here that pains me so and compare it to everything I have learned in the past 130 days of sobriety. What I have finally realized is that no matter how much I love I give other people there is always some fault of my own why I did not get the love in return I so desperately needed or wanted.  Because I wanted this love and affection so bad I allowed my self to enter into situations that in many ways were not healthy for me.  I allowed my self to be hurt over and over simply because I did not love my self.  There was a time in my life where I would walk away from anyone that betrayed me.. Once a cheater always a cheater WAS my belief.  When I say cheater, I am referring to all forms of cheating.  It makes me think of a line from Bloodkin's song "Rotgut".  " There are all kinds of Vampires in this world honey, some drain blood and some drain money."  It was not until recently that I have allowed myself to be hurt and lied to on a continuous basis and be ok with that.  It is simple, I have lost respect for my self.  Maybe some how some way I felt from all the years of abuse that this is how relationships were suppose to be and this was the best I could ever hope for... Well no longer can I be this person.  I have been sober almost 5 months now.  Sure I have had some help from my family which some people have been quick to point out, yet I am the one that has chosen to stay sober.  I am the one that chooses every day whether to stay sober or to go back out there and pick up where I left off.  This is something that I must be proud of.  Despite all the shame, guilt, fear, panic, sadness, anger, and one thousand other emotions I do love my self now.  I have no desire to go back to hurting and betraying myself like I did for so many years.  I do love my self and I do deserve back just as much as I give out because I am worth it.  No longer will I be a victim from your actions or mine!