Deity or Devil

My friend, I have been where you are gone
and you have been there before as well
an the shining leaves and rich allure
of the uncomfortably familiar
is so seductive.
And where once we stood side by side
I now walk alone.
I hope you find what it is you're lost.
I hope you find your way home.

Well, I was right. 45 minutes was just long enough for my head to go blank and to get nervous. Hopefully HP will take over and I won't have to worry about that in a few minutes. I'd especially like to welcome anyone who is new to recovery, or recently back to recovery.

Lately I've been trying to think of how best to convey, what it was like, when I was out there, without- you know, being depressing. Because I did survive, and make it to recovery, for which I'm very grateful.

I can give a little background, although I don't have a whole lot of 'pre-using' history, because I started very young. But I do know that from the time I was very little, I was always uncomfortable, and always very anxious. I don't come from a very stable background. My father has struggled with his own addiction since long before I ever existed, and continues to. And that lead him to be very abusive,to myself, and to my siblings most of the time. I do know that my addiction got a very strong foothold because I was already wired to want to escape, in some way or another.

So, when I lost a sibling to sids, and spent some time in the hospital, courtesy of my dad, the escape sounded really good to me. Physically, I was able to just be in a safe place, and the medication I was on, even at eight, let me forget why exactly I was there, and not really have to care too much about anything. When I got back home, there were always plenty of substances around for me to get ahold of, and because babysitting was usually left to whoever was the oldest kid at home, I wasn't watched very closely.And that suited me pretty fine. No one hassled me if I drank myself to sleep, or took the edge of a hangover with a cigarette in the morning, or cared too much if I did my homework or went to school.I didn't get terribly good grades, which I also didn't care about, because I had already decided I was not a people person, and that I would fail whatever I tried anyway- So using let me forget that I was even supposed to try.

I discovered that my sisters' boyfriends could be an excellent resource for substances in general, as could college kids, once I was tall enough to pass for eighteen. And that was pretty much my holding pattern for... about 12 years.
Stuff happened along the way, of course. My father caught me with a guy, when I was about sixteen, and made it quite clear that being gay was not acceptable. And with my 'don't give a fuck' substance armor, I figured I might as well just take off and that I would take care of my own self, thankyouverymuch. Well, once I was up and around again anyway.

I was arrested for dealing, and offered a chance at rehab later that year. Which I made full use of by being mute, and belligerant (and I discovered it's possible to be both ;} ) and by using the day I was released. My don't give a fuck armor was still pretty thick, obviously. And it let me be badder, meaner, more heartless than the people I was running with. It earned me the nickname TinMan, which I still have inked on me, because it was pretty obvious that I had a pretty rough shell.  And inside, I felt empty, and hollow, which also fit. I kept my armor through a 6 month stay in prison, for stealing a car. And managed to use there too, and did all the things they say to never do in prison, like gamble, steal, and hang with people who did the same.

I was released, because of an acquaintance who has pulled my butt out of the fire on more than one occassion, who vouched for me, and offered me a place to stay. So that I wouldn't go back to being homeless and on my own. On the stipulation that I stay clean while I was under her roof. Which, I couldn't do. I detoxed for about a week and then ran off again, and she took to locking me out of the apartment. I spent three more months, on the outside, back to all the same old feelings. And fuck, my armor was getting rusty.

All I wanted to do was die, and I couldn't, and God wasn't being hasty enough with doing me in. I had stopped waking up, and had barely been coming to. The last time I came to, was at about one in the morning, New Year's day, behind a bar in what may or may not have been my own puke... still not sure about that one. It was about seventeen degrees and the ends of my hair were frozen, and I still woke up. And I felt desperate, and angry, and all the things that happen at the bottom.

And I went back to that woman's apartment, because I didn't know what else to do, and I begged her to let me in, that I was going to try, and do something. Anything else. And she let me in, and I thawed out a little, and tried to sort out my brain enough to think of something. And because this was 2008, I asked my first HP in recovery- Google. ;)  I was fortunate enough to land in this chatroom, and there was one other addict here, at around 3-4am my time. He was on the West coast, so it was late, but a little earlier for him. He was an addict named Richard and he told me that with the help of Narcotics Anonymous, he had been clean for 24 years, to be 25 years that March.  We talked for a little while, until he had to go to bed, and he said someone else would be around soon. I hung around for a little while, and he came back half an hour later to see if I was there. And it was the first time, in a very very long time, that anyone had come back for me. Or checked on me at all.

I would really like to say that I've been clean since then, but I still had some on me, which is why my clean date is the 2nd, not the 1st. I haven't exactly had a model recovery, by any stretch of the imagination. Like most addicts, I'm hard headed, and I had a lot of anger, and fear, and anxiety. I got told to go to meetings. And I said I would try... Well, I did make an effort, I looked them up online and figured out which ones I could get to most easily. I walked into a room, saw a group of 20 people, bolted and threw up.

The next week, I went in, same thing.

Next week, I managed to sit down, some guy tried to hug me, and I almost hit him in the face.

So, it occurred to me that I might need a little additional help, since the first thing everyone said was go to meetings, and that didn't seem to be working out so well. I also wasn't entirely sure about this recovery thing. A lot of the people were really obnoxious assholes, and I didn't much care for anyone other than Richard for a long time. Because I was on parole, I was able to talk with my parole officer about some counseling programs, and he set me up with someone who might be able to help me with the anxiety thing. Who turned out to be a member of NA with 15 years clean.

The bastard.

;}

I really wanted another way out, and the God of my understanding was pretty clear about saying, "This is it for you. Do this. These are the people you need around you." I do remember that when I was able to make it all the way through a meeting, I was so nervous and uncomfortable the whole time, but so excited to tell the people I had been talking to for the past three months or so that I had gone to meeting in person.

... so then they said get a sponsor.

Fuckers.

I wanted a cookie and they gave me another chore.

So a month later, I said, okay, I got a sponsor. I asked this guy I'd heard share at meetings.

And I got- "Great! Now you can do some steps!"

>.<

Another errand.

And god bless my sponsor, because I have not been easy on this man. I asked him to sponsor me by passing him a note that said "Will you sponsor me?" because I was too nervous to speak to him. The first time we went and got coffee, I brought a notebook and passed him notes while he talked. He's said on more than one occassion that he would never need to pray for patience again, because when he does that, he gets me ;) But we did start working through the steps together.

And we talked a lot about powerlesness, and acceptance of reality, which is a tough one for me. I like to make reality subjective to whatever I want it to be, when really, the only thing I can change is my response to it. I am an addict. And that isn't something that is going to change, or go away. But I can change what I do about it. I also can't change anyone else's addiction, but I can tell them what I'm doing about mine, and try to help them find their own solutions. I've since heard, that powerlessness is the first half, of the first step. And anyone can stay clean, if they accept that they just. can't. use. And that the other eleven and a half steps are where recovery actually happens, because those are the things that change recognize and change the unmanageability that always brought me to my knees and made me feel like there was no other option but to use.

Step two was difficult for me. The issues with anxiety, and other disorders- which have remained constant throughout my recovery- made me very skeptical that I had any hope of being restored to 'sanity.' And he said that for this round of steps, we would just focus on addiction. That all I had to do was come to believe that God would free me of the obsession and compulsion to use, and help me to expect the same result when I did the same things. The definition of insanity being, doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Basically, sanity is knowing that when I smash my thumb with a hammer, it's going to hurt. Rather than doing it once, and then doing it again and again, just in case it doesn't hurt  the 23874th time. Admittedly, I didn't really understand the third step until I was halfway done with my fourth step. The combination of having to examine my past, and being very unbalanced for a long time, and really taking inventory of my life was very painful for me.

It brought up all of the old feelings, that made me wish I was dead, and curse God for not killing me and I was unconvinced that it was going to get better, or that I could live through looking at those things at all in the light of day. And I stopped talking, because I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't painful, until I was sitting on the roof of my apartment building staring at the barrel of a gun. In my head I had already decided who should find me, I just couldn't decide how best to make that happen. I came to the conclusion that I would do it the next day, because the timing wasn't right, and I couldn't un-kill myself to put it off. And a very good friend from here saved my life, by asking if I was okay. Really ok.

And I said, (of course) "Yeah, I'm ok." But obviously I was not hiding it as well as I thought I was. And I did start opening up more about it, and I finally talked with my sponsor about what was happening in my head. And he reminded me of my third step, that my life is in God's hands regardless, and he didn't let my past kill me the first time around, so why would he let it kill me just to look at it?  Well, I didn't have an answer for that, so I went back to writing.

Overall, I think my fourth step took me about six months, which was exactly as long as I needed to get comfortable enough with myself, God, and my sponsor to be able to share honestly with all three of us. It was also long enough for all of my character defects to get very uncomfortable.

The most simply I've heard it put, is that readiness is helping God remove character defects by being willing to stop doing them. I got into a relationship in recovery- another person I'm not terribly easy on, who loves me anyway- and I've told my sponsor more than once that, damn, fidelity is really hard sometimes. Like, really very hard, because that was a huge part of my addiction, and I felt very stuck in old behavior. And he was pretty blunt, and told me that, if I found it so hard to be faithful- to stop flirting, and that it wasn't old behavior if I was still doing it. I think I said something eloquent like "Fuck off." And he said something eloquent and wise like, "Keep coming back."

A lot of our conversations go that way.

I did ask God to help me walk through what I can't walk through alone, and to take care of the defects and shortcomings that I really need help with. ... that should kick in any day now.

My amends process was both freeing, and expensive. I have alienated very many people in my addiction, who never need to hear from me again, and that is the best amend I can make, until God puts them into my life again at the right time. I had a lot of damages to places and things to pay for, and my HP also gave me a decent job to be able to afford my own amends process, thankfully. Other people, I don't know, or I don't know that I know until they're brought into my life again, so my ninth step is ongoing, and a continual process of being willing to do the right thing at the right time.

The tenth step, I worked pretty formally, by filling out the Living the Program IP (which is available online ;} ) every day for a month. I do still work with that first counselor, and at that point, with the  Living the Program IP, and additional homework, I was reaching an almost overwhelming volume of questions. He, and my sponsor and I worked together to combine some of those, which is not NA official, but encompasses both aspects of my recovery in a way that is more meaningful and manageable and allowed me to realistically sit down and take a complete mental, spiritual, and personal inventory every day. Which is one of the compromises that I have done in recovery, to find ways to incorporate it completely into my life. 

But it was important for me to set aside time, and create a ritual every day of seeing how I was doing. And it was amazingly helpful for me to be able to appreciate the day clean I had just had. Because no matter what else had happened, even if all of my answers summed up to "I have been an asshole today" if I'm clean, I have the chance to be less of an asshole tomorrow.

(Baby steps ;} )

Being able to be grateful for people in my life, and to remind myself that no matter what, if I stay clean, it will be ok, is very important to my recovery. When I have kind of a shit day, I still go back and fill out those questions, to help me see myself clearly, rather than upside down, inside out, and backwards.

My eleventh step was heading back to a lot of the fundamentals of the faith I've been building in recovery. A process of deepening my belief that God will help me walk through what I can't walk through alone, and will help me be free of the obsession and compulsion to use. Part of me actively working this step, is setting aside time every day to write down my prayers, and to start by praying first for someone else, and to end by thanking God for something. To remind me to keep others in my heart, and to maintain my gratitude. It's led to some interesting conversations, much more two-sided conversations than I used to have with God when I was using and pissed off at him.

I found myself praying a lot for families' of my friends in recovery, and in general, and having trouble with it. Since I left home, I haven't been back, and I haven't spoken with any of my family for a very long time. God thumped me on the head pretty hard to write, sit down, and  put pen to paper, and start with- hello. Which I did not want to do. And it is still very uncomfortable for me, because when I wrote, a lot of those feelings of not being good enough, and certainty that I was setting myself up for rejection again.

Having a closer connection with God makes it a lot harder to ignore those kind of nudges though, so I'm very cautiously corresponding with my mother lately, in letters only, for now because that's about all I can deal with. Even though we live in the same city. I prayed for my partner's brother, who is also an addict, and in prison, and well- about as clean as I was when I was in prison, for him to find a message of hope, and recovery. And I got thumped again, with a project for my 12th step, to carry the message, and do what I can.

It involves a lot of paperwork, and it scares the shit out of me, honestly, to be willingly going back to the same place I did time. The back of my head is still convinced that if I go in- they're not going to let me out again. However, I also know that God will be with me, as will my sponsor. And that all I can do, is carry a message of unconditional love, and that recovery is possible.

I have been shown so much love in recovery, from so many different people. The best way I can think of, is to do my part to give back. And I take giving back seriously. When I make a commitment to be present for meeting, whether it's chairing or just putting out chairs, I'm there.  And if I'm not, I make a point of having coverage. Because people showed up for me, when I was new, and were of service to me when I didn't know what the hell was going on, and they encouraged me to keep coming back, and kept the doors open, and made shitty coffee to encourage me to learn to make my own.

(I make excellent coffee now, by the way.)

Service is how we give back, and demonstrate gratitude for being clean, and for having the opportunity to recover. I'm not quite an NA Nazi, but I do believe in one fellowship for my disease, because this is the only place I feel at home, because of the unity that exists here. I prefer the term Vigilante anyway, and being vigilant in recovery. ;)

All of our traditions come down to unity, and keeping us together so that when the newcomer shows up and needs help, that there's a cohesive group to offer it to them without being torn apart by gossip, money, property, and all the other silly shit that detracts from our very simple message.That an addict, any addict, even me ;} can stay clean, and that we do recover.Thanks for letting me share. And- hopefully I've rambled enough at length. Done.

Sometimes when I laugh,
I'm not sure if I'm crying or screaming
and I remember I'm mute.
My own thoughts are alarming
translated into my first language.
When I find the words, they sound strange,
overly formal and foreign between my lips.
I collect phrases and parts of speech
in a thousand languages
searching for my native tongue.