Having not written anything since January of 2014 I took a few
minutes to scroll through a few of my prior posts. I am not sure if I
should be embarrassed, ashamed, or... No, I will feel none of those feelings
that just rushed through my still sick mind. Those words of yesterday
were just that. Today, life is different. Well, not too much
really. I have another year sober under my belt which I am very grateful
for. But the demons that prompted me to finally put pen to paper have
become all too real yet again. My life has again become unmanageable.
Careers and perceptions took the place of meetings and service work and that
balance that I once thought that I had is now gone and so is my serenity.
Knowing what comes next, I must make the changes, be the change, and beg for
God's wisdom and mercy; Almost 4 years sober and I have hit another bottom.
I will not go into too much detail of how
I got here. I will keep it general like we are told to do when we first
come to recovery. In 2013 I made a move to go back to school, leaving behind a
strong recovery network that I was never able to really rebuild in the new
place of residence. I take full responsibility, but for whatever reason,
I could never recreate what I once had where I got sober. Then I started
my own business and that drove my life 60 plus hours a week for over a year,
pushing school out of the way as well as my recovery. Add in another
career move with some pretty heavy responsibility. And just for fun my
body decided to get sick with migraine headaches lasting months on end
leaving me on a medical leave of absence from the new amazing job I had
just landed causing a lot of fear and unanswered questions.. This sums up
August of 2013 to June of 2015.
This afternoon I sat in a giant meeting at
the International AA Convention in Atlanta alone and depressed. It was my second
meeting of the day. The first one had been a gratitude meeting. As
I sat there waiting for the "Singleness of Purpose" meeting to start,
I finally realized how low I really felt. My mom had mentioned to me in a
conversation a few weeks ago that she felt like the alcoholism had crept back
in. At the time I disagreed, and blamed my low behavior on the medical
stuff that was happening. But when I sat there today waiting for that
speaker, I could no longer hide from the truth, alone and broken yet again.
She was right. My disease had come for me and I can no longer hide.
The speaker finally went on and I was paying attention as best I could.
He started to talk about questions we are asked at the doctor when we are
sick, if we know our name, if we know the date, those kinds of things.
Then he said something about asking an alcoholic 4 questions. Now
remember, this is huge room with thousands of people, so I am paraphrasing
here. It was hard to hear. But it was something like this. Do you
have a sponsor? Do you have a home group? What step are you currently
working? And what is your service position? It was at that moment I knew that
I could only answer one of those questions. I do have sponsor but we are
not doing any step work right now. And that is my fault. I don't
have a home group because I have not joined one. Which also means I am
not doing any service work? Fuck acceptance. There lie all the
answers to my problems. I have no network, I have no recovery community,
and I am definitely not giving away what was so freely given to me.
In that moment something changed
immediately. It was almost as if all this weight I have been carrying around just disappeared. It was as if I could see all of my selfishness and self
centered bullshit staring me in the face. And I have been looking at it
for a while now and I am tired of looking at it. I am tired of not being happy. I am tired of being in this hole. I mentioned the
gratitude meeting from earlier in the day. The speaker spoke of the word
gifts. I began to think of all the gifts I had in my life but somewhere along
the line they had all dulled for whatever reason, mostly my own insanity.
So I sat in that seat, that I had earned so many years ago and made
another decision. I made a decision to change, to change my perspective,
and to change my willingness. I must because this is not living and I
cannot go on another day, another step this way. If I am certain about
anything and this lighter feeling I have now, if I do not follow through I will
surely drink again.
God please help me know your will.