Right,Wrong, and The Places In Between

We continued to take personal inventory and
when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

If someone were to ask me which of the 12 steps has the most meaning in my recovery, I would have to say step 10 - for it is the one that helps me to know and understand myself better, stay on a right path, and maintain an awareness of my own motives and how my actions affect both myself and the world around me. Step 10 requires me to ask more of myself in terms of my recovery and the way I live my life. I work step 10 in a number of ways - but I think the most effective way for me is to talk with people I trust and hold myself accountable to about the things that bother me, or situations in which I find myself having trouble making good decisions. I have an amazing support system made up of people that I consider to be examples of the way I want to live my life - and that is extremely important and helpful to me.

I think we all like to believe that in every situation we try to do the right things for the right reasons. Unfortunately, at least for me, that is more of a goal than a reality. The best thing I can say is that I try - and my success rate has definitely increased with my clean time. But it certainly is nowhere near perfect. The daily practice of step 10 is an opportunity for me to think about moments and situations in which I fell short, and to think about action plans for the next time that I face the same challenges.

Recently, I have spent a great deal of time with my personal inventory, trying to understand how situations spin out of control so quickly, and how my own insecurities and low self esteem contribute to the way I interact with myself and the world - and ultimately influence the choices I make in my own personal behavior. Looking back at a time when I was making wrong decisions every single day has not been easy, but living with the resentment that developed in the wake of all of those bad choices has been much harder. During this time, I failed miserably at being a person of character and I failed miserably at setting appropriate boundaries for my own behavior and the behavior towards me that I would allow of someone else in my life. I allowed my feelings of loneliness to overwhelm my sense of morality - which resulted in confusion, shame, and anger when the real needs that I was trying to satisfy only ended up frustrated and unmet...and I still felt alone, I still felt unloved, and I still felt untouchable. Not only did the choices I made NOT solve those problems for me, they made them worse. I thought I had all of the answers when it was happening, and I did - all the wrong ones. I wouldn't listen, I made excuses, and I stubbornly continued for several months on a path that was risking my sobriety and tearing me apart. I am left now with the pieces...looking for the lessons, learning from the pain, and figuring out what this was meant to contribute to my journey.

And here is what I have learned :

1. shut your mouth and open your ears - sometimes people outside of the situation know better
2. choose what you know over how you feel - often, feelings lie
3. be proactive in finding healthy ways to address loneliness and low self esteem - people will value you if you value yourself...and if you don't, they won't either.
4. there is a reason for the practice of rigorous honesty, and for the saying "Secrets keep you sick"
   

Here is the biggest thing - today - and every day for the last 5 years and 9 months - I am clean, sober, and clear headed.

That makes it a good day :)

Thanks for letting me share...

Demons of My Own Making

Early in my recovery, I once said "I'd rather feel it than not feel it - whatever it is." Sometimes I can be so dumb.

It's a bad day today, and by bad I mean sitting in a dark room hugging my dog listening to the same song over and over staring into space ruminating about my horribleness oh my god I just want a pill kind of bad day.

On days like today, I reconnect with an uncanny ability to look inside myself and find a way to remember every mistake I have ever made, every sideways comment that I have ever said, every disappointment that I have ever caused and put them all together as the best evidence ever of my own stupidity and badness. Everything people say (or don't say for that matter) goes through my "I hate me" filter and straight into my heart.

Today, I am struggling with a demon of my own making. More than a year ago, I had a brief affair with someone that I knew was otherwise attached. To make it ok inside my own heart, I told myself that their relationship must not be what it should be, or the affair wouldn't be happening at all. I told myself that I was in love with her before the two of them ever even met. I told myself that it was only a matter of time before she would understand that I was actually the one she needed. I lied to myself over and over again.

What it took me a while to really understand was that, to her, I was nothing more than a conquest, and ego stroke, a toy. She had the life she wanted barring a little forbidden excitement - which was where I came in. When the forbidden excitement threatened to affect her stability at home, she decided we should just be friends - unless, of course, I could find a way to reconcile my position in her life in a way that would NOT affect her loving committed PRIMARY relationship - and then it would be great to continue on exactly as things were going. Her argument was that if I couldn't be happy being her friend with benefits, I must not have ever cared about her to begin with. After many attempts at the friendship thing, I eventually began to pull away...the truth was just too hard.

This weekend, they are getting married.

And I can't watch.

And she doesn't get why.

My emotions are cycling all over the place, I hate it. Sad, angry, hurt, guilty, ashamed, grieving, self loathing, resentful. impulsive, crazy, overwhelmed... and I remember saying that thing about how I would rather feel it than not.

Dumb....really dumb.

A demon of my own making...

All I have to do is not take a pill...this will pass

This will pass...