Yes, that was then.

       I'm going in reverse for a minute, friends. I realized that while I'm trying to help others by writing and sharing this blog, I haven't been very uplifting with my content and I'm not sure that I am actually doing any good or helping anyone but myself (as I get a great release from sharing my prose). I asked a friend for some constructive criticism on how I can better serve my readers. He said this, "you should write how YOU write, be as dark as you need to be to paint a picture of how bad it was for you inside your head. But don't you want your audience to feel the warm light of deep peace and contentment you have NOW as well as the searing heat from the depths of hell you've experienced? Wouldn't YOU want to know both sides?"

      The answer to his question is yes. I want you to feel everything that I am putting into each word I type. I want to give an open and clear tunnel to those who are still sitting in hell and looking for a way out. I want all of you to know that if I can get there, so can you. I want that one person standing on the corner of Despair and Loneliness to read my words and know that I am the same.

     

    During the short 12 years that I have been in this realm we call Adulthood I have had to hit the reset button countless times. Honestly, my reset button is getting kinda worn out, hopefully it'll withstand a few more pushes, 'cause I'm most likely not done using it.

     When I flew to Orange County to get clean, I opted for inpatient residential treatment at a rehab facility, I stayed for a whopping 98 days. From there I worked as a live-in manager at the same facility for about two years. So let's be real -- I was living in treatment for two years and 98 days. I never heeded anyone's warnings of "don't let your work become your recovery", "be careful, or your work becomes your program". In true alcoholic/addict fashion, I believed I was above all that hype. That I would be totally fine without a strict and regimented 12 step program of recovery. Some people's programs were different. Mine TOTALLY could be too. I was above needing a sponsor, I was above taking commitments, I was above committing myself fully to anything because I've never done that before and that had been working out for me *said the newly sober drug addict who was still making poor life choices on a daily basis*. I opted for the 'Alternative Track' of treatment; meditation, yoga, hardcore journaling, trauma narratives and A LOT of CBT**. All of that would have been a wonderful road to follow, had I actually done it as I should have and followed the Alternative Track map that was conveniently laid out for me when I left treatment. I decided to make my OWN program because my OWN program was totally going to work for me, never mind that no one else who had ever attempted to do this on their own had succeeded in it. "Hogwash!", I said. I was it, it was gonna be me (bye bye bye) that beat the odds. My program included a few key practices. In no particular order, they were; taking my clients to 12 step meetings, searching for validation through online dating apps, sleeping a LOT, YouTube (countless hours of) contagious laughter compilations AND car dancing. So after two years and 98 days of living in treatment and following the Coco Plan, I was kind of a wreck.

When I unexpectedly had to leave my job and was thrust into the 

real world at lightning speed...it was without a parachute.

     I really had no idea what was waiting for me when I landed. Very quickly, without my familiar and fluffy goose-down padding that protected my every waking moment, my life became unmanageable. When I say 'unmanageable' I mean, just about the same as I felt, if not worse than, during my addiction. My life was out of control and I became very, VERY depressed. I left that job hoping to find a new and shinier opportunity, what I found was instead something very dark and terrifying. I found that even if I'm sober, even IF I never use or drink again, I can be just as unhappy as I was while fueling my alcoholism and addiction.
    So while I was trying to nurse myself back to health from my free fall into reality, I was miserable. Drinking or using drugs to escape my misery weren't even options, what stopped me from doing so was the intense fear of disappointing all the people in my life that were counting on me to STAY clean and sober. Living a life in fear, clean or loaded, is no way to live. And because I couldn't live with hurting my family again, the next option was to just be gone. It had never occurred to me that I may be so depressed in sobriety that I would contemplate suicide. But I did. And it scared the living shit out of me, not to mention, my close friends and my boyfriend at the time. Something finally broke. I once again, surrendered. The first time I admitted defeat, I said goodbye to the substances I was abusing. This time, I had to surrender the control that I thought I had of my life, and begin to trust something outside of myself.
     I began checking in every day with the same person via phone, and meeting with that same person once a week to read The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I relinquished my tight grip on the outcomes I was so desperately trying to plan. I began helping others. I got honest, really and truly honest, for the first time in my life. I checked my ego at the door and went to live in a sober living facility where women were living who had just left treatment. I decided that while I had been sober for well over two years, I had only just then begun my spiritual and emotional recovery and I too would begin with my new housemates. The day I decided all of this was February 26th, 2018. I will still keep my original sobriety date of November 24th, 2015 because I have not relapsed but will never forget the period of time in between those two dates as some of the hardest times I have gone through as an adult.
        I am so grateful for all of the things I get to be present for these days. I get to be an aunt to four amazing and beautiful angels, I get to fall in love, have my heart broken, and sew it back together. I am allowed to have friends and those friends can trust me. One of those friends even asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding to one of those other friends that can trust me. These things may sound silly to some. These kinds of things happen to a lot of people, every day and they're not all jumping for joy and acting like they won the lottery, so what's the difference...?
      The difference is that while I was wrapped up in my addiction, I lost any concern or care I might have had for these things. I didn't want any of it. And when I finally did stop using, I sure as hell didn't think I deserved any of it ever again. I am finally learning to forgive myself for the things I have done to harm others. I am finally giving myself credit for somehow getting over and through some of the darkest and most dangerous terrain I will have ever walked.

I am finally ready to say it out loud, THAT WAS THEN. 

I am enough and I can absolutely overcome anything.