No Really, It’s You.

Seeing as that I’m currently not in a romantic relationship, I have an outsider view on the whole thing. And I’ve been watching a lot of Sex and The City lately.  And for some reason, my girlfriends come to me for advice or just a shoulder to vent on with their varied boy situations. Relationships in sobriety are a tricky thing- that’s why it truly is just safer to stay out of the whole mess for the first year. I know being in the midst of a divorce I have extra incentive. But anyway.

I’ve heard it all lately. The recovery version of “it’s not you it’s me” is the aforementioned “I really need to focus on myself and my sobriety.” The irony in this is that the number one principle in this program is HONESTY. I can’t stress this enough boys. Grow a set and be honest. And text messages don’t count.

A friend of mine showed me this entire conversation she had with her “non” boyfriend where he ended it via text. It’s pathetic as shit. I mean seriously, what if a girl said she only wanted to have sex with you via text- as in, you only get text-sex. How would THAT be? Right- because it’s totally the same!  I’ve heard about the guy who has three months sober and is constantly judging the recovery of his girlfriend, who has almost a year. There’s the liar(s).Oh, why lie, everyone’s had a little of that guy in them. ( TWSS) There’s the guy who says he doesn’t want a relationship and then holds my friends hand. With interlacing fingers. There’s the guy who wants to be committed after knowing my friend one week and then gets super judgy, jealous and possessive. There’s the guy who really likes her and she really wishes she could like him but.  There’s the guy who’s totally honest- he only wants sex- and yet she is convinced she will be able to- wait for this people– “make him fall in love with her”.My head is swimming in all the drama.

And for our part, we girls are pretty crazy. I have friends who say they don’t want a relationship but they do. Who think they are able to have sex like  man but they can’t. Who just can’t get why their best manipulations aren’t working. Who don’t want a relationship at all, but are trying to be in one because the guy really likes them and they either like the attention or are just plain lonely and horny.

But it certainly makes for good blogging.

Today while I was working @ The Lodge, three guys came in. After a few beers ( on their part) one started opening up about how he had to end his non-relationship because the girl “got crazy”. I was  intrigued- I knew that I could get some honesty out of them.

We talked about how weird it is that everyone these days seems to be in these non-relationships. But there is no such thing as a non-relationship. As I pointed out to them, there was a relationship between them and the pint of beer they were grasping. So I started asking them questions so that I would have something next time I get one of these phone calls.  And here goes ladies.

1. Sometimes guys do things like hold your hand (with fingers!) or play with your hair because they think that’s what they have to do so you will continue sleeping with them.

2. Guys end non-relationships mainly for 4 reasons ( and not the ones they say, or g^d forbid text- at least it’s not a post-it)

A. They met someone else who they are currently trying to fuck pursuing a non-relationship with.

B. You got crazy- and have become more trouble than you’re worth.

C. The challenge is gone, they’ve grown bored,and they want to focus their energies into getting into a different pair of jeans

D. They sense you are growing attached and feelings make them  itchy.

3. Just because a guy is sleeping with you doesn’t  mean he really likes you, and, in the profound words of one of these nameless wonders, ” it’s just something to do, like when a dog humps a pillow.” To which I responded by showing them the video on my phone of Nico humping Tank. Ha. I’m so well.

4. He’s not going to fall in love with you ever if it starts out as a non-relationship. So stop wasting your energy ladies.

I leave you with a quote by my favorite single, Carrie Bradshaw

Later that night, I got to thinking about men, and women and relationships. Or more to the point, how women feel men disappoint them in relationships. Then a radical, almost earth-shattering thought popped into my head. What if everything isn’t the man’s fault? After a certain age, and a certain number of relationships; if it still isn’t working and the ex’s seem to be moving on and we don’t, perhaps the problem isn’t the last boyfriend, or the one before him, or even the one before him! Could it be, that the problem isn’t them, but horror of horrors – is it us?

//

Just Alright With Me.(And Nico)

“Four hundred years ago, another well-known English guy had an opinion on being alone. John Donne. He thought we were never alone. Of course it was fancier when he said it. No man is an island entire unto himself. Boil down that island talk and he just meant that all anyone needs is someone to step in and let us know we’re not alone. And who’s to say that someone can’t have four legs. Someone to play with, or run around with, or just hang out.”- Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

I had the most relaxing weekend. And now it is Monday and I am ready to start work on this sales training manual for Yogafox. But I thought I would write this first. Because for the first time in a long time, I’m working a solid 3rd step. That is, I’m taking suggestions again, under the premise that G*d speaks through other people. I’ve finally surrendered to the fact that when I steer the ship, it bows to the Siren’s call and wrecks right into the rocks.

I made two more amends this weekend, and worked 10 and 11. I’m sure that has a part to play in my current- yes- serenity. That elusive word has found it’s way into my soul somehow, and I have to admit it’s from following other’s advice, advice that I fought to not take, but I’m done fighting.

This morning I woke up happy, ready to face my week, full of gratitude that I have work to do, and that it can all be done by laptop. I was not thinking of this last week when I was procrastinating and barely getting anything done- about how amazing it is that I am currently contracted to write things for money- which is all I ever dreamed of when I was in college and even high school, and never quite believed possible. I also start training for a part-time waitressing gig in Boca tomorrow- I just got the call while writing this- it will get me out of the house and experiencing life, and we all know art does not exist in a vacuum. I also predict it will be AWESOME for my humility.

What else do I attribute to my sudden turnaround? I’ve been to a meeting every day since I last posted. I’ve been reaching out and spending time with female friends. And I’ve been keeping my word. And in the spirit of honesty, it doesn’t hurt that I finally refilled my RX for my sleep meds. I’m still not a good sleeper at 7 months.

Nico and I have spent some quality bonding time as well over the weekend. Being home more is so good for our relationship- since he is of limited understanding, it must really suck for him when I waltz out the door, not to return for many hours. I’ve been making up for it.

I’m alone in the house right now but I’m not in the least bit lonely. In fact, I’m finally alright with me. I’m not such a bad person to hang out with.

One of my sober sisters once said to me, when I first got out of treatment- “When are you going to choose you?”

The answer is- right now.

The Little Things That Burst The Dam

I’ve been looking over my last few blog posts and they’re all pretty much the same; procrastination, distraction, excuses. No one statement in those posts is more real than this fact; I’ve reached a recovery impasse.

Last night I laid in bed, not able to sleep thinking that I’m going to write a really positive blog post. You know, that I reached the impasse and realized I’ve come as far on this road that I can go, that it’s time to turn right or left and blaze another trail. I was gonna lie.  Even though that statement is true, it would be a lie to spin it all bright and shiny. Because I am sad readers. Real fucking sad.  It rained all day and it rained in my soul and then all the tears I’ve been pushing down for so long came raging out in a hot torrent.

Today is Tisha B’Av- a day of mourning for the Jewish people. Reform Jew that I am, I never even knew this holiday existed until recently. It is a day of fasting, where temples were burned and all manner of tragedy has befallen the Jewish people.  Today is also the day that I got the word that my marriage is just a court date and some signatures away from being officially over. I initiated the end of it.  But somehow, that doesn’t make it feel any better.

I didn’t stand there on May 5, 2006 and say “Till Rehab Do Us Part.” Like every addict,  I never imagined the places our addictions would take us.  I certainly never thought it would end like this. And it’s not just because this marks another epic failure in my attempt to do life.  It’s because I really truly loved this man, truly believed in the covenant of marriage and all that happily ever after, and now, as it says in the documents I’ve signed, “The marriage between the two parties is irretrievably broken.”

It wasn’t working. I’ve never been alone, never supported myself, never put my needs first. Blah Blah blah. It hurts.

The sadness has broken through all of the distraction-procrastination-excuses. Here it is. Bleeding and huge and raw as my nose after a long week of excess.

The paradoxical thing is, the tears are a huge relief. I don’t have to waste all that energy pretending everything is okay, pretending that I have moved on, pretending with you or anyone. I was getting so tired of the charade.

I know what comes after the rain. I just have to let it rain a while to get there.

Excuses & Assholes- Everyone knows a few.

“If you really want to do something you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”- Paula White

When we were using, we had a million excuses. I say we and not I because you know you did too.  Something it’s easy to forget that the abscence of drugs and alcohol in our lives does not necessarily make us well people.  And much like my post on procrastination, sometimes it’s worse in sobriety- because our biggest excuse is taken right off the table.

In treatment, they called it “Rationalization, Justification, and Intellectualization.” And I do love me some treatment words. But in the end, it’s all just excuses.  Excuses and cowardice. Taking the easier, softer way. Because that has always worked out so well in the past.  We can’t just say we don’t want to do something, or didn’t do something because we just didn’t care enough to do the right thing. There has to be an excuse.

For me, excusing my own behavior is an attempt to run from discomfort.  Which is what I’ve been doing since I’m a child.  I get sad lately when I’m in the house at night. I’ve been exceedingly lonely. So I go out. I go out with people that either mean nothing to me, or I mean nothing to them, and I spend money I don’t have. I oversleep. I talk about writing far more than I write. I have reached a recovery impasse.

And all this time, in this codependent mess I’ve been swirling around in, I rarely stop to think about what I really need or want.   All is forfeited to the almighty G*d of outside validation.

The excuse I hate the most, the one that makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn, the cop-out of all cop-outs, is true for me right now more than ever.  “I really need to focus on myself and my recovery”. I’ve used it, I’ve heard it, it makes me want to puke up the red velvet cupcake I just ate.

But I do need to put on my big girl pants, and spend some time with myself. I, with no hint of irony (OK maybe a little), actually need to “focus on myself and my recovery.”  I can make excuses all day long; we’ve established that I kindof rock at that, but in the end, I’m the only one that loses.  And I’ve been losing long enough.

Distraction

“My distraction’s my defense against this lack of inspiration
Against this slow deflation
Yeah the further the horizon
The more it holds my gaze
The foreground’s out of focus but you know I kinda hope it’s just a phase
Just a phase.”- Ani DiFranco

Somewhere in the Big Book of A.A., it says something like this; there came a time where alcohol  (and/or insert  your drug here) was no longer working. Okay, it doesn’t say insert your drug here but I do.  So yesterday and early this morning I was in a funky mood. And not in a get up and dance kinda way, in an existential melancholy kinda way.  Last night I threw myself a pity party, left the house all dark, curled up with Nico and a calzone and bad reality TV ( really the worst reality TV show EVER- NYC Prep and then Miami Social which is only made bearable by Hardy) and signed in and out of facebook more times than is necessary for a week.

I’ve been out of treatment long enough now that all these ways of distracting myself from reality just aren’t working anymore- I am used to having TV, cellphone, internet. It doesn’t feel like I am breaking out of prison to go somewhere without having a pass signed by my therapist.  I can drink monsters and redbulls as much as I please ( which is all too much, but that’s another subject altogether)

I am starting to take these little freedoms for granted, even having Nico…And that is a dangerous place for any addict or alcoholic to be.  I am noticing the fine line between enjoyable things and just distracting myself, just procrastinating moving forward and the neverending job of self-improvement. Yeah, I’d rather crackout on facebook. But there comes a time when there are just no new notifications, no quiz I feel like taking, and no one on chat I want to talk to. And that, my friend, is just ugly.

It was no great revelation that to improve how I feel I need only do two things. Write the article I was assigned months ago ( over 700 word count at this writing, most from today) and get my ass to a freakin’ meeting. I haven’t been to one since thurs. Strong program, right?

The funny thing is, instead of feeling bad about not doing my work, I am feeling better as I do it. And I knew that I would and yet I continued to prolong the inevitable anyway. Because I’m damn good at it.  This article I’m writing- I already know the story, I just have to extract it. But I had to take a break and purge these thoughts, because writing begets more writing…. My favorite thing of all about what I do when I’m not distracting or procrastinating- the writing of something new.

How do you distract yourself???

Judging other Addicts

The daily meditation in my Day by Day book (published by Hazelden) for today had me watching some serious memory movies in my head. I don’t quite get why they call it a meditation book, when really they are more of a think-about-this-while-you’re-smoking-your-first-cigarette book, but that’s another story altogether.

Here is Today, July 21, 2009 ( and also Tiger’s B-Day!)

As addicts, we tend to judge each other in a cruel way; it can help us feel better about ourselves.  For example, alcoholics look down on junkies, junkies look down on speed freaks, and everyone looks down on glue-sniffers. But really, what’s the difference?

We’re all in this together. We’re dealing with life-and-death matters. Making value judgements about the kind or severity of another’s addiction is a childish and dangerous game.

Have I stopped judging other addicts?

I recall several instances where I judged -and still judge other addicts, both in and out of addiction. I judged one of our coke friends b/c he used at work. The reality was that I was jealous- my then-husband wouldn’t allow me to bring coke to work w/ me.  I judged people who couldn’t stop talking- mostly because I wanted to talk – because what I had to say was always infinitely more important and interesting. I judged when the same friend would crack open our plantation shutters and peek out for hours on end, when there had been times I stood on a stool in the garage for hours staring out at what looked like a “ghost” on my neighbor’s roof. (it was a tall flat palm leaf illuminated by a light) and once crawled across the floor of my house to get from one side to the other when I was convinced there were cops staking out my front door to bust me for having a lousy few grams. And even though the shutters were closed, I was convinced they would see the movement in the cracks of light….

And there was the time I had decided to steal someone else’s hookers from his mistresses’ condo b/c he and the mistress were fighting and my then-husband I knew would go to sleep long before I was ready to and I would be lonely like I always was. So I decided they were my new friends for a few hours until at 7 am they wanted to get crack.  Apparently I had smoked some in a blunt earlier in the evening and had been so obliterated on cocaine, ecstacy, opiates, alcohol AND benzos (right, real safe) I didn’t even notice. Because crack is so different than what I was constantly doing which was dumping cocaine in with my pot and sucking it up into my cigarettes, I flipped out and kicked them out of my house. Because crack is SOOOO different. And at the time, I really thought I was so much better despite the fact that I had already freebased a few times, courtesy of the tutorial on Intervention, and would again. Crack was SOOOO different.

When I was in the early days of treatment, I would proudly tell anyone who would listen that I wasn’t a crackhead, or a heroin addict, and I didn’t get the DT’s from alcohol withdrawal ( even though I already had fine tremors) so therefore I saw no reason why I shouldn’t be able to smoke pot and moderately drink successfully…Because that had EVER worked for me in the past.

Any time I find myself judging today I remind myself that it’s not really about the other person. It’s really about me. Because I’m a fucking card-carrying addict…And I always want it to be about me.

But at least today I work on that.

On Friendship (or, the most honest thing I’ve ever written)

“Hey ain’t it good to know, that you’ve got a friend, people can be so cold. They’ll hurt you, and desert you.  They’ll take your soul if you let them, oh darling don’t you let them.”-James Taylor

One of the greatest gifts of my sobriety is the friendships I have today. When I was using, I wasn’t a friend. Not even to myself.  Especially not to myself. The night I decided to go into treatment I was on the phone with the admissions guy from Florida House for over an hour. As he talked me down off my ledge of fear, there was one thing he said to me that I couldn’t wrap my mind around even more than the idea that I would ever be able to live life without drugs and alcohol. That was this; “You’re going to make great friends here.”

“Friends?” I choked out incredulously in between sobs…”Friends?” The friends that were still speaking to me ( and not after a certain time of night ) were keeping me at a  safe distance, the few girls who were sticking it out not because of who I was, but because of who I had once been, and as Anna said, ” I stuck around for the person I knew was in there. The person I knew you could be.”

I was in constant crisis, and purely selfish.  If I realized other people had feelings, I didn’t consider it much. I was all, enough about me, what do you think about me? I might have pretended to listen to what was going on in your life, I might have pretended to care, but in reality I was just waiting until I could get back to my favorite subjects; me, and how much everyone else sucked and disappointed me. Nothing was ever, ever my fault.  I was a victim of life, and you were my audience.

When I got to treatment I made a lot of mistakes in the friendship department. I thought that all the other girls were my new best friends, that they too wanted to hear all about me and my troubles, people on which to unload the seemingly impossibly heavy backpack of my problems on to and say, “See how heavy it is? See how it feels to hold?” I would  try to leave the backpack with them and walk away, but it would always come back, like a child to it’s mother. It was later that I realized; I am the mother of my problems.

It was when I was confronted for the first time in group (therapy, the biggest component of treatment) that I began to get it. Not that I was ready to admit anything yet, least of all traits from  a booklet labeled “Personality Disorders” and pages with the headings “Borderline” and “Histrionic”. I was a narcissist, that I wore as a badge of honor. But while I was willing to concede that I do often think relationships are more intimate than I intellectually know they really are, I was not willing to concede that I make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, or anything at all on the Borderline page.  Which is ironic when I consider that that page comes more into play in my pathology and how I have dealt with life than any other outside of narcissism.

I was so afraid to admit anything was wrong with me that I didn’t consider acceptable to be wrong, that didn’t have some sort of cool factor in my sick and twisted little head.  I thought if I did no one would like me. And people liking me was important to me at that time. Regardless of whether or not I liked them. My self-esteem was non-existant. All my validation came from without. But when I finally began to cop to my pathology, my defects, my whatever-you-want-to-call-them, I realized that people didn’t like me less. They actually liked me more; and respected my honesty. Now I could begin to move forward. That was when my journey really began.

Treatment is  like summer camp, and also like  being at war.  And I realized that just because we were fighting together, living together, learning together, you weren’t necessarily my friend. And I didn’t necessarily want to be yours. It was then that I knew what I had always known; true friends are hard to come by. But there was a second part of that, a new knowledge… And that was that it was okay.

I have made five true female friends in the last six months. Five people that I can count on, and more importantly, that can count on me. I still get it messed up sometimes. When I moved into halfway, I forgot so much of what I had learned in this category.  I forgot that just because I had a day, and you live here, you don’t need to or care to hear about it. I forgot that sometimes what I think is a conversation is just me thinking out loud. That’s a burden nobody in early recovery can handle, or should have to.  Friendships are so much like relationships; sometimes you kiss a frog, and sometimes you are the frog…

But it goes the other way too. Which brings me to the subject of Ariel. The first time I met her was in a women’s meeting. After I shared about something I recently went through that was the most difficult time in my sobriety, she came up to me after the meeting and we talked a while. Because of the program’s “help another alcoholic” mentality, I use that to question people’s motives. “I feel like I made a new friend!” she said. And that made me happy because that’s what I was thinking.  And I still wasn’t sure she meant it- I mean really, me? You want to be friends with me?  I had to call my sponsor to find out when I should call- yes, and I can admit that today.

I believe in reincarnation, and whether or not you do, I’m sure you can relate to that rare feeling of, “Oh, it’s you again! Im so happy we found each other this time!”  Sometimes I just have a connection with people that is too immediate, too real, for me to not believe I knew them already in a past life.  And sometimes I get that wrong.  But every once in a while I am right. And that makes it all worthwhile. Recently I was able to go to a close friend’s wedding, one of the ones who was sticking it out for the me she knew was in there somewhere, and she was genuinely happy I was there. And it was so beautiful.

So this post is dedicated to my amazing friend Ariel, who may or may not have been my sister in a past life.  Thanks for being you, and teaching me every day what friendship is, how to be one, what it feels like, and like they say in treatment, what it looks like.

It looks like Ariel

*And Sam and Anna.

Because it’s easy to be who you used to be

A few nights ago I was at an NA meeting (Narcotics Anonymous).  The lady speaking looked pretty rough; she started her story by saying ” I like to curse, and if you don’t like it, Fuck you.”  That definitely woke me the fuck up.  She said something that struck a chord deep inside me. (TWSS, literally) It’s easy to be who you used to be. Now, who she used to be involves washing the underwear she stole in the fire hydrant with soap she just stole from the hotel room she turned a trick in, but as I’ve learned, horrid things like that are all waiting for me should I choose to return to active addiction.

I’ve realized that I don’t need drugs and alcohol to be lazy, to procrastinate, don’t (a huge shock) need them to sit around all day and BS on the computer and watch The Office for hours on end. I don’t need coke to be a bitch (or to clean apparently), to be inconsiderate, or wildly impulsive. All those things come  as easy as breathing. The behaviors I blamed on drugs were always there, merely exacerbated by the substances.

Just as in the first month or two of sobriety, it was a struggle to not think about ingesting chemicals multiple times a day and stay in treatment, today it is a struggle to do the right thing. I could lie; I could say I’m this amazing person now who does what she is supposed to do like putting one foot in front of the other, but that’s more old behavior. I don’t like following Doctor’s orders. I have to force myself, as I tend to hold onto things that no longer work for me long past their expiration dates. For 14 years I was working toward being all these things I couldn’t stand, but that got me what I thought I wanted. And then I pulled the e-brake, struggled to regain control of the vehicle, and charted another course. Staying on said course requires effort, a very dirty word to the old me.

I am reminded of something Dumbledore said in the first Harry Potter novel. “There are two paths you can go by in life. One is easy. And that is it’s only reward.” The rewards of the other path are immense.  Today I have a relationship with my Dad that I haven’t had since childhood. I enjoy spending time alone. I am a great Mom to Nico; he can lick my face anytime and I don’t have to worry that what is on my face will send him into convulsions. I have amazing friends, new and old, and most of all; I am a good friend. I could go on and on, but you know, talking about how great I am is kindof something I work on not doing today. This program works. And this weekend my Mom comes to visit. It will be the first time she has seen me sober since I was a preteen. I can’t freakin’ wait.

And with that, innernets, I’m off to start my day. It’s  beautiful out there. And it’s a beautiful day in my heart.

A Very Sober Independance Day

This year July 4th took on a new meaning. Not only was I celebrating America’s birthday, a day ( like many others) traditionally marked by not even the slightest attempt to control the amount of drugs and alcohol I ingested, I was celebrating my own independance.  This year, I am free from addiction.  Free from the anxiety in my and dis-ease in my soul that had me constantly seeking to change the way I felt through chemical relief.

This year, I went to a bbq where I ate and didn’t throw up on my shoes. I danced, but not in a way where I upset the host’s wife (true story circa 2008). Where I didn’t run to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Where I laughed, and danced, and made new friends, and it was all real. And I sat at the beach and watched the fireworks with my roommates and remember every moment.

In treatment they said that SOBER stands for “Son of a bitch, everything is real.”  But sometimes, I am learning, it can stand for “So overwhelmingly beautiful, everything is real.” And that is something that can never be found in a bag or a bottle.  Today I pick up my six month chip. I can hardly believe it’s been half of a year -  when it used to be impossible to go six hours, six minutes without ingesting some chemical in my body to make me feel what I thought was okay.

Happy Independance Day America. And happy independance day to me.

A Swimsuit Contest MJ Would Pay to See

Today, while walking down Atlantic Avenue, I picked up a July in Delray Beach Calendar Tri-Fold.  On the front was the numerous city-planned activities for tomorrow. Among them was this:

Beautiful Baby Bathing Suit Contest at City Stage 4:30 pm.

What the fuck! I was wondering if I was the only one out there who found this vaguely disturbing, but one of my roommate’s concurred.  I can only imagine the planning committee, the meeting where this was decided. I mean, people voted on a baby swimsuit contest… Someone actually thought that would be a fabulous idea…Some truly are sicker than others.