Left Over Wreckage

I never really understood it when I heard people say things like "You just don't get it, I'm not the kind of person who gets 100 days clean and sober." I didn't understand that because there they were being presented with their three month keytag. Obviously they were that kind of person. I would sit there and watch them while I barely clung onto a few hours of sobriety and feel completely defeated. I wasn't the kind of person who would get those keytags and I knew it.

It wasn't like I couldn't imagine my life without using...the problem was that I could. I could imagine waking up every morning and automatically wishing I hadn't. I could imagine having nothing to relieve the unbarable amount of anxiety I felt. I could imagine laying paralyzed in my bed because I didn't have the motivation or the strength to even stand up. I could remember sobriety...and I remembered it was a living hell.

For the most I always had a very priviliged life. I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted. Then one day as a teenager it's like I decided to take my big happy yacht of a life out on the water for a celebration. All of a sudden this giant tsunami came through and completely tore my yacht apart so I scrambled and grabbed onto the only piece of my life that was left over from the wreckage. So here I am now floating on this tiny piece of what my life use to be and all I can do is float there until the pressure of my weight eventually causes it to sink. That is exactly what my life had become; a small miniscule fraction of what it use to be. I eventually got to the point where I didn't even remember having an entire yacht to begin with. I had completely forgotten how it felt to be whole.

Sobriety seemed so terrifying because I thought the most I could ever get back was that tiny piece left over from the tsunami. Everything else was just broken beyond repair. Did I want to be miserable and high or miserable and sober? That choice was obvious. I didnt think it was possible for my life to be more than that. The core problem wasn't my using, it was the obsession I had with it. Regardless of whether I had a needle sticking out of my arm or not I was still tormented by that obsession.

The counselor I had in Florida helped me more than I ever could have imagined. Every time she spoke I felt it. Because I felt it I believed it and because I believed it I started to live it. When she told me that I wasn't the one who had to remove the obsession I believed her. When she told me God could take that away and make me new again I lived it. It was something I had already heard 1000 times before but all it took was that one person saying it again for me to really feel like it was possible. God will always send you help if you sincerely ask for it. I desperately needed her. I desperately needed her to be right where she was. I stayed in that 30 day program for 70 days if that says anything about the desperation I had.

I have found that a lot of the time God will send me exactly what I need in a package that I don't want. I didn't want to uproot my life and travel 950 miles. I didn't want to live in a place I had never been to with people I had never met. I didnt want to fall in love with all the people at that treatment center only to have to leave them two months later. I didn't want any of that...but I needed it. I needed them more at that time than I needed air. I definately owe to God my life but to that treatment center and especially that counselor I owe my freedom.

I have 100 days clean and sober. I AM that kind of person.