Over a year ago today I started writing about my journey and the battles between Ed and Al. Looking back I never pictured my life turning out like it has. I think back to when I first got sober and remember being proud of the person I was becoming. I was starting to gain the trust back from my family and friends, I was doing the next right thing, and most importantly I was sure that I finally got rid of Al and Ed for good! However, maybe that's where I started to go wrong. That feeling of being over confident and thinking "I got this." I seemed to have forgotten that I have a disease that is progressive and chronic, and the more time I have, the stronger they become. In fact, it is when I am most content with my life, does Ed and Al decide to waltz back into it.
As I started to get more time under my belt, I was sure that relapse wasn't an option for me. When the friends I had made in treatment and in meetings started going back out, it was devastating. I knew they wanted to be sober just as much as I did. I saw what good people they had become without drugs and alcohol in their life. The light started to come back into their eyes, and most of them had hope of a better life. To see how far they had come, and give it up so quickly was incomprehensible. I asked myself "how" and "why" so many times. As upsetting as it was, it was a motivation for me to turn out differently and really make something of my life. I told myself that over and over again and believed it like it was the gospel.
I can't remember when it happened exactly, but at a certain point I started to become complacent, and slowly stopped doing everything I had learned without realizing it. Then, when life started happening on life terms I didn't know how to handle it. I started to resort back to my old ways when unwanted situations arose; act first, think later. Clearly that worked out as well as you're thinking it did. If my problems seemed too much to handle, I would put all my attention on taking care of others that were just as sick as me. I was romantically involved with people who were just as broken as I was, but thought I was different and it would work some how. "Two sick people do not make a well person." I am able to believe that now, but tried it twice just to make sure the experts were right. Anyways I became so consumed with the other person, that the most important relationship I should have, which was with myself, was pushed to the side. I eventually put all of my time and energy into anything other than working on myself.
Then that dreadful day happened. All of my hard work, time, promises, hope was gone in the time it took me to open the bottle and drink it. It sounds dramatic, but that's because it was. What happened to me in a matter of two weeks from picking up the bottle again was very dramatic and cost me so much more than I ever wanted to give up.
At the beginning of this post I included a song that I heard in treatment. It gave me chills the first time I heard it because Macklemore absolutely nails the emotions, thoughts, and hopelessness you feel when your at the end of your rope with everything, and your addiction is in full swing. Luckily, it only took me two weeks to get back to a safe place, but as you will later read, unfortunately my chaos did not end there. However, on a positive note, I am writing about this part of my journey with 5 months clean! I am so proud of those 5 months because I have never had that amount of time before. Between the marijuana maintenance, or my dabbles with Ed, this is my first time being completely clean of everything for a full 5 months.
Anyways stayed tuned for chapter 2 of Starting Over and this time I am hoping and praying there won't be a chapter 3. Day at Time my friends.
"That rush, that drug, that dope
Those pills, that crumb, that roach
Thinkin' I would never do that, not that drug
And growing up nobody ever does
Until you're stuck, lookin' in the mirror like I can't believe what I've become
Swore I was gonna be someone
And growing up everyone always does
We sell our dreams and our potential
To escape through that buzz
Just keep me up, keep me up
Hollywood here we come"
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