My life has had many ups and downs. It has always felt like a mad dash away from harm, away from guilt and shame, away from something I don't understand. For the most part, I've always felt like I'm a problem. In a sense, somehow broken. Impaired. Much of my life has proving to myself and others, proving despite others, that I'm alright. That I'm worthwhile.
Over the last two years, I relapsed or lapsed quite a few times. During these relapses, I tried to learn. Not give up on myself. Sustain my pride. Define my own story, or else sink into the self-perpetuating victim mentality, and lest once again, do nothing about it.
About six months ago, I once again lapsed. This time was different though. I let someone who loved me down. Someone who I deeply care about. Someone who believed in me and supported me.
It is at this point, after this long yearning for peace and sobriety, after trying everything else, that I admitted defeat. I asked for help. I accepted I couldn't do it alone. I have always been very independent. Followed the beat of my own drum and it has led me in many events to safety. I didn't trust the world. Not really.
I walked myself into Dianella Cottage, an outpatient clinic operating in the blue mountains, not knowing at all what to expect, and I broke down, I wept, I explained, I accepted at this moment that my mistrust of their advice might be misplaced. I accepted guidance and support. The type of help I received was so vastly different, even foreign, to assistance or guidance I had received in the past. It could just be I was in a different headspace now, but I don't think so.
It was completely different to what I thought recovery could be, to what support does! And with this type of support, I got better. I grew, I got on with recovery. And in leaps and bounds. I had always previously thought that recovery was Abstinence. Sobriety. I thought it was holding back from yourself, from bad desires, to fix what was broken. I no longer believe that it is case.
Ant, Kerris, Andy and those at Dianella Cottage, and the others there, provided me with the scaffolding to understand my recovery, more than this to understand myself and my journey differently. Ant, who is an AOD counsellor there, unbeknown at first to me, gently provided well thought out and researched content and support, that he had researched, taken the time to collate, and communicate with me, in a way that met me where I was at. It didn't prescribe. It helped me to find truths, some understandings that I just wasn't privy to before walking in there. He made me feel safe intellectually about my addiction. He introduced me to the idea (a-la- Gabor Mate) that perhaps the noise, the pressure, the big feelings, developed in my childhood.
That I had been taught not to trust myself, not to trust my gut, not to have full confidence in myself. It took a sec, but after some time I explored these ideas conceptually. The SMART recovery group sessions, didn't focus on being broken, they gave us tools, practical tools, to overcome the legacy of trauma in our bodies, to forgive ourselves, others, to reconceptualise what it is to be powerful! A version of power that came from within, consisted of boundaries, ability to be vulnerable, to stop our thoughts in their tracks, when they came from traumatised flight or flight hearts and bodies, and train them over time to be more sensible calm and helpful. To look with kindness deep within and find clarity and peaceful solutions. Some that require courage and support.
Currently I have stuck to my goal. I am not leaving anything up to chance. My solo adventure to protect myself had kept me safe, but only most or some of the time. It had not taught me to head into life, with - and as - my own strength, my own support, my own system of conflict resolution, growth, power. I am currently writing this from a LivesLivedWell live in rehabilitation unit at Bloomfield Hospital Grounds, in a computer room, where scattered around me is the content of a diploma in AOD counselling which I'm working through so I can in turn maybe one day help someone else find the sort of peace, confidence, meaning and wisdom that oozes from every other person I've met here, staff and residents alike. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.
Most of us in recovery know a secret, my main worker Frank mentioned to me on a walk yesterday. That the world is made of people who have had to recover, to be forced into that corner, where they have to a PHD in the very meaning of life, decency, willpower, to truly face themselves, their experiences, trauma, the ills of the world, all at once, and have the courage to work on it and themselves with true grit, and press on to live a beautiful, awake, decent and meaningful, in every respect of the words, for the remainder of the time that we are given here on earth.
I love my life. I love myself. I'm unreservedly proud of myself, and everyone with me on this journey. We are not broken! And I don't mean this defensively. We are the lucky ones! I truly believe, if you could collect the most important lessons of life, the things that challenge you, the overcomes trials and tribulations that form the content of your will and your person, the lessons when you fall, the strength and self knowledge you can gain, the wisdom, you will find all of them in those who recover. It is, in essence, precisely what recovery is!
Seeing the whole me