47 days. I've been clean and sober for 73 days. 2 and a half months of recovery: 4 meetings a week (AA and NA), working my steps, following nearly every suggestion my sponsor had. Finding a Higher Power and praying daily. Calling my sponsor and other program friends all the time, doing service work for various groups, and even going to my first NA function last night. I have developed healthy boundaries with men, made amazing true friends, made huge leaps and bounds in discovering who I am, started to genuinely love and respect not only myself but others as well. I try as best I can do carry the message. My family trusts me again too, and the relationships there are starting to be repaired. I have the life I've always dreamed of, and I've worked so hard to get where I'm at. In just under 3 months I've gone from hopelessness, consumed by addiction, and determined to die...to a woman who enjoys life, values herself, loves God, and wants nothing more than to help other addicts who still suffer. I've gone from suicidal to finding, and knowing with certainty, what my purpose is on this earth. I just forgot to mention the part where I still get high sometimes. Less often, less desperately. But still secret. My program is totally solid, except in the one way it matters. However, it hasn't made my progress untrue. That's the worst part - I really HAVE that life, and I really AM that woman. I hate that I got what I wanted - getting to have my cake and eat it too. Because it is the most painful, miserable feeling to wake up every day knowing that if you get high - when you get high, rather - you get to know what type of life you can have. You get to know the amazing person you truly are. And you get to know what it feels like to say "s**** that", and go right back to what you've done. Congratulations, you get to see who you're meant to be and ruin it because you're selfish and afraid. Have fun looking at yourself in the mirror now. Misery is always terrible, but I wish I never knew what it felt like to have hope. It hurts so much more, seeing everything I have been blessed with and then choosing the opposite. The pain is more real than I could have ever dreamt, and for the first time, I honestly never want to use again. The funny part about getting high while in recovery is you still work a program. That time I confessed some of my reservations to my sponsor and we worked through that denial? Guess what - that denial's still gone. All of my excuses actually ARE excuses. The character defects I'm listing really are there. It's quite hard to keep getting high when your whole life and day consists of making relapse as difficult and painful as possible. I get to get high, and then I get to spend the rest of the day making sure I have as little peace as possible about it. This is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever felt, and it's done more to get me clean than any rock bottom I've had. Something has to go, and the choice is easier than it's ever been. I'm done. I'm getting clean. Because while everyone around me is proud and full of love, I can't live with myself and that's more unbearable than all the disappointment I'd get from the rooms combined. All that I care about right now is the knowledge that the validation of other has left me just as empty as before. I guess being able to make peace with myself really is the most important thing. I think this is what it feels like to get clean JUST for me. Can't share it with anyone, but honestly...it feels good. Finally.
47 days. I've been clean and sober for 73 days. 2 and a half months of recovery: 4 meetings a week (AA and NA), working my steps, following nearly every suggestion my sponsor had. Finding a Higher Power and praying daily. Calling my sponsor and other program friends all the time, doing service work for various groups, and even going to my first NA function last night. I have developed healthy boundaries with men, made amazing true friends, made huge leaps and bounds in discovering who I am, started to genuinely love and respect not only myself but others as well. I try as best I can do carry the message. My family trusts me again too, and the relationships there are starting to be repaired. I have the life I've always dreamed of, and I've worked so hard to get where I'm at. In just under 3 months I've gone from hopelessness, consumed by addiction, and determined to die...to a woman who enjoys life, values herself, loves God, and wants nothing more than to help other addicts who still suffer. I've gone from suicidal to finding, and knowing with certainty, what my purpose is on this earth. I just forgot to mention the part where I still get high sometimes. Less often, less desperately. But still secret. My program is totally solid, except in the one way it matters. However, it hasn't made my progress untrue. That's the worst part - I really HAVE that life, and I really AM that woman. I hate that I got what I wanted - getting to have my cake and eat it too. Because it is the most painful, miserable feeling to wake up every day knowing that if you get high - when you get high, rather - you get to know what type of life you can have. You get to know the amazing person you truly are. And you get to know what it feels like to say "s**** that", and go right back to what you've done. Congratulations, you get to see who you're meant to be and ruin it because you're selfish and afraid. Have fun looking at yourself in the mirror now. Misery is always terrible, but I wish I never knew what it felt like to have hope. It hurts so much more, seeing everything I have been blessed with and then choosing the opposite. The pain is more real than I could have ever dreamt, and for the first time, I honestly never want to use again. The funny part about getting high while in recovery is you still work a program. That time I confessed some of my reservations to my sponsor and we worked through that denial? Guess what - that denial's still gone. All of my excuses actually ARE excuses. The character defects I'm listing really are there. It's quite hard to keep getting high when your whole life and day consists of making relapse as difficult and painful as possible. I get to get high, and then I get to spend the rest of the day making sure I have as little peace as possible about it. This is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever felt, and it's done more to get me clean than any rock bottom I've had. Something has to go, and the choice is easier than it's ever been. I'm done. I'm getting clean. Because while everyone around me is proud and full of love, I can't live with myself and that's more unbearable than all the disappointment I'd get from the rooms combined. All that I care about right now is the knowledge that the validation of other has left me just as empty as before. I guess being able to make peace with myself really is the most important thing. I think this is what it feels like to get clean JUST for me. Can't share it with anyone, but honestly...it feels good. Finally.