Hi guys. Amazingly enough I was a hard-core tweaker for almost seven years of my life. Up until seven months ago, I was sober for over nine years. No relapses, no desire to start again. What changed? I moved back to my hometown so I could settle down, buy a house, and be responsible. In that move I didn’t take into account my mental well-being. I left a place that I had made some good friends. In spite of my teeth… And on that subject I'd like to post a little side note. For all of you meth smokers who happen to think, “I brush my teeth, I take care of my gums”...I did all of that and now in the last 2 years my teeth have literally crumbled. I now need a full denture upper and a partial on the bottom, with all of the associated expenses and pain. Not only physical pain, but also mental pain, sometimes crippling.
That leads me into why, after nine years of sobriety, I picked up that god forsaken glass dick. I took the chance and moved back to Phoenix, left all my friends and what I didn’t realize at that time was a well-rounded support group. I know now what I'm missing, what’s happened with my life and my personal relationships, they have dwindled to almost nothing, outside of the bedroom. There is sex readily available here, online, at the bars, hell at Denny's even. But actual human connection, that’s hard to come by. We have a tendency to run from the needy, everybody does it, even the ones already hurting. We're afraid of drowning, suffocating on not only our pain but also someone else’s. Now, with that in mind when you open yourself up to meet people, there is a fine line to toe. You can’t be seen as needy; you have to put on this fake air, that you are "normal". That your feelings of loneliness and what progressively happens as a by-product, helplessness starts to take control of your life and your world. This is where addiction takes over and you start medicating the pain away. If you’re high, it's not so bad being lonely, you can forget for the time being, what cripples you sober. It allows you to function in the outside world. Now function and passing for "you" are two different things. Your family, best friend, roommates can all tell that you’ve changed. Until you show up high, they just can't pin it down for sure, but they know something’s wrong.
I've gradually started back to the road of sobriety, but finding the catalyst and fixing it are two different problems. I've been out and about with ideas and have even gone to Google, just to see if what I’m feeling has been expressed before. Well I found this awesome article, 'Managing Loneliness" by Margaret Paul, Ph.D. In it, she goes on to discuss people’s reactions regarding life. How some people don’t deal very well with life and some of its issues. "Loneliness is an intense empty, sad, sinking or burning feeling within." It seems that’s someone else knows what I’m feeling, I can at least connect with something. She goes on to say that loneliness has varying degrees. You feel like you’re alone in a room full of people, you may not have anybody close to discuss feelings with, or you may have lost a loved one. I know everybody has gone through these things, how can you not.
I most often feel stifled. I've got family and friends that I can’t discuss feelings with. I'm not putting the blame on anyone, except maybe me. I just don’t know how to broach the subject with those that care about me and vice versa, I'm just flat out afraid of the rejection. I’ve got immediate family, which does not discuss feelings; any mention of pain is quickly brushed away. I've got my best friend, who is at this point I feel not even in the picture, whether its due to this relapse, or her girlfriend, both even. Now, even though she is/was my best friend, there are still topics she wasn’t comfortable with. At this point, I started visiting the Internet chat rooms; sex became a way to avoid my life. Now, if anybody hasn't been to the chat rooms in a while, they are almost congested with partying, anonymous sex, bare backing is popular. Even with the older crowd. I still can’t believe some of these guys in their 50's smoking meth. Just blew my mind.
Now, back to the friends, I do have to thank her for bringing me out of my self-imposed exile from feelings. I hadn’t had a boyfriend in the first six or so years of our friendship, I do feel that if she hadn’t been there I’d still be basically closed off. She was also there to see me cry for the first time with my own pain.
I've tried the 12-step groups for sobriety, I can’t just do that route, and it wasn’t somebody else's fault that I took up the pipe. It was my idea; nobody put a gun to my head and told me to inhale. Especially this time. I remember now, hitting bottom the last time. I'm afraid of being that low again. I remember one time, during my first addiction, I was homeless, and I went into a grocery store to cool off, it being Phoenix and all. I passed out in the frozen food section. Imagine, waking up, hanging over a frozen foods bin, in a grocery store that you shopped at, people you know walking by and ignoring the situation I presented. I was insane I believe at that point. Now, I've started to clear out the people in my life that are bad for me, I'm in process of slowly coming back to the light. New job prospects in a field that I love, setting myself up to move out on my own. Being responsible, paying my bills, not only on time, but just paying them. Getting a positive attitude, following the advice Margaret Paul gives on her article. She says that I have to acknowledge my feelings of loneliness, comfort myself, love myself and let them go. I've learned the first step, it’s hard to tell myself that it’s ok to have these feelings, that they will pass and that this emptiness will pass. To let the feelings go, acting only on faith. This is the hardest thing, I haven’t succeeded yet, but I will keep trying.
On my way to sanity and sobriety, I've misplaced most of the bad situations and people in my life. The people that encouraged drugs I don’t associate with, except for one, I have serious hopes he will get sober, he’s such a good guy. I'm working that one, LOL. I've actually found that I can have sex without drugs. I’ve even expanded my horizons. I’m not just a bottom, I like topping too! Who would have thought at 33 I would learn something as basic as that. How wrong is that! I’m learning that not everything is an issue; I'm learning to let go. I'm feeling again, it’s not pleasant, but it’s better than not feeling. It hurts, but I'm alive and that’s an improvement. There's a guy that I like, we’ve gone out a few times, of course sex is already in the equation. Trying to not grab for so much, so soon. Let it work its course, if it happens then good, if not...Now, letting this run without me pushing is just in the last week or so. I just hope that something I've said, maybe we have shared and experience or feelings, that I can help someone to live. It’s about the journey, not the end. Lets all stay alive! Be happy, be well, and don’t be afraid of change!
Thank you for reading my therapy
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