One Year later... and a battle of a lifetime

As I look back at the entries from last year, I am overwhelmed by the emotion I was experiencing. The pain of loss and suffering is so apparent to me now. I almost feel as if I am an outsider looking into my own life as I read the words that I wrote so effortlessly last spring..

I look back and feel the sting of the reality of the situation.. not only was I suffering the imense pain of the loss of a father, I was suffering the pain of a loss of myself... Oh how I wish I could speak to that woman from last spring and tell her... STOP, PRAY, and dear God.. please ask someone for help... I wonder if things now would be different if I had known then, the amount of heartache I would bring upon myself.... Little did I know, but I was entering the battle of a lifetime.

I sit here as I write... and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. I am nervous... I am scared... I am aprehensive. For a while, I have been struggling with the notion of letting so many people into some of the darkest parts of my life. At first, the worry of judgement overwhelms me.... but then there is a sense of peace. I feel a familiar voice in my heart telling me to let go and reach out... I sometimes wonder if that familiar voice is that of God. A voice that for so long, I ignored when convienent.

 But as I have learned, his whisper soon turns into a loud demand that I can only put off for so long.

So today, I am taking a risk and putting myself out there.. in hopes that maybe, just maybe, someone can find consolation in knowing they are not alone.. because for so long, I felt as if I was... Chalk it up to living in a small town.. but it isnt difficult to feel like the isolated blacksheep when it seems as if you are the only one with these struggles. The struggle of addiction or alcoholism. My drug of choice was pain killers... I had learned that not only does it relieve physical pain.. but emotional pain as well.

Or at least so I thought... I would later learn in rehab that all i was doing was putting a band aid over a much larger problem... covering...... covering....covering.....

Not actually dealing with the root of my sadness and hurt.

I only ask one thing of you... I ask that whoever you are, you keep an open heart and a tight tongue. It is so easy to judge those when you do not understand the situaton they are facing. I hope to help you understand all that I can about so many of us affected in some way by this horrible affliction. Either dealing with this disease themselves or having someone close to them fighting it.  Each person in life has hardships and difficulties. Some of us are blessed with never knowing the heartaches that could be so easily cast upon us and.... some of us are not.

God gave us the shoes that fit our feet. It is our duty to walk in those shoes to the best of our ability. I now can say that I took my shoes, put them on, and when the walk got difficult, I looked to the only escape I knew.

No child ever says when they grow up that they want to become an addict or an alcoholic. When I was a little girl, all I wanted was to feel loved. I wanted to feel like I fit in somewhere, or that I belonged... With a single mother who worked non-stop, my environment wasn't the most stable or forgiving. I had to grow up and grow up fast... I had to take care of myself.  If you had an emotion, you sucked it up and delt with it on your own.. The most important rule, never let anyone see you appearing weak. That meant, all smiles, all the time. It meant that when things got painful, it was YOUR job to hold everyone together and to get them through.... worry about yourself later.

Little did I know that this mindset that I had acquired at the age of 6 would become the mindset that would send me down a path of total and complete self-destruction.

Very simply put.... My father had been killed, I was a mother to two small children, a very close relationship with someone dear to me had been strained beyond any control... and I was hurt. My heart literally feels as if it is going to break into a million little pieces and leave me lifeless.

For several years before I had children, a did what most college students did. I drank... and I liked it. I like the feeling it gave me... that feeling of being confidant in myself and of who I was. I was a happier person.. I could forget about all of the things that made me feel so worn and beaten. There was a period where I drank and I drank a lot... at the time I couldnt see that I was the only one doing this. I simply wrote it off as not having the right friends... I needed friends that liked to have fun as much as I did.. and liked to have fun all the time. (I think back to this and I am humbled by my behavior. So many things I took for granted...)

Eventually these new "friends" led me to other things that would consume my life for a few years... things that I wouldnt escape until Josh and I became pregnant with our first child. I was amazed at how easily I put everything down.. no second guessing... I was becoming a mother and I was honored to be able to take pride in myself for once... I was creating a child, and I wanted to make sure that this little miracle would have the best life possible.. and that meant taking care of myself.

When I was in treatment a year ago at Fellowship Hall in Greensboro, a counseler that I grew to respect and love who had almost 30 years of sobriety, brought up a very good point that I had never thought about before. She asked me why I thought I was so easily able to stay clean and sober when I was pregnant. She then said something to me that would affect me immensely. She said, "It is time for you to love yourself as much as you love your children"... Hearing that felt awkward and wrong... I worried that it was selfish and self centered to put yourself first.

Only now am I starting to gain a true understanding of what she really meant... Recovery is something that we can only do for ourselves. We can't do it for our friends.... our families... our spouses... or even our children.  I have to do this for ME... and me alone. They say that the one thing you put infront of your recovery, will be the first thing you lose.......

As I try to think of the words to say.... I am hit by the sting of reality... June 2nd, 2011 would have marked One Year for me... One year of being the person that GOD had created me to be... not the person I had formed myself into. Sadly, this date will come and pass without celebration. Instead, I am now thanking God for 36 days. After 10.5 months of a new life, I let my guard down. With the severity unknown to anyone, I was struggling with an immense hurt and heartache of emotionally losing someone very close to me.. someone that was my last tie to the memories of my father and our family. Exhausted from this turmoil and the countless days in and out of the hospital with our new son, followed by the emotional highs and lows... I became lost inside of my own head and misery.. and turned to the old familiar ways that I knew best. For two days, I patched my heartbreak with Percocet, rather than my faith and spirituality, and with those actions lost a friend and my serenity that I had worked so hard to obtain. And there I stood, April 21st.. back at square one... with my head hanging lower than it ever had. I had truly hit my rock bottom.  Reflecting over this hurts me beyond words...  I truly believe that disappointment in one's self is one of the most difficult things to endure. But for a moment... it is one of the most necessary things to feel. For this can give you the fire you need to reignite your true-self... the true-self that God so desperately wants the world to see and know.

I do not wish to shut the door on my past...for it can not be changed, no matter how hard I try to will it into fruition. My job is to take it as it is and pick myself back up and reach my hands toward God instead of the pill bottle. I dont ever want to forget the things I did.... the memories of those things, if I allow them, will always serve as a reminder and where I dont want to go and where I dont need to be.  And this time, I will let them... no more trying to erase from my mind the notion of who I am. I am Deann... a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a person... But most importantly... I am a recovering addict.

All I know for certain is that for today.... I am where I need to be.

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him" DEUT. 30: 19-20