Pushing limits, the good kind. Crossfit

So how do you celebrate a hundred days of sobriety?  Well admitting I had an addiction was a humbling experience that changed my life.  So I figured I would engage in yet another humbling experience.  My normie friend Rob just started Crossfit.  I thought to myself that would be really good for me.  So I got up and dragged all damn near 300 pounds of me down for an introductory evaluation.  I had to get on a rower for 1000 meters.  Next I was off to doing 40 squats.  Then I think I got to the pushups before almost vomiting.  That was the end of the workout.  I had to quit.  As I pulled myself together and got ready to leave the instructor encouraged me to workout on my own for a bit and come back and try again.  I explained that I am an addict and I need to be accountable to a group.  I asked how much they charged for personal training sessions and bought 10 of them.  So now I will be going twice a week and working out on my own in between.
Today I went back for my first personal training session.  The trainer took me through some great new stretches and functional exercises.  Then it was time for my workout to begin.  I has to run 200 meters, 18 pushups, 18 squats, 18 ring rows, then walk a few laps of the gym while catching my breath a little.  Next I was in to 14 pushups, 14 squats, and then 14 ring rows.  When I wrapped those up I told the trainer I was done.  I had nothing left to give. He thought differently.  So I hung in for 9 pushups, 9 squats, and 9 ring rows.  Yes! I did it! I survived.  Then the trainer reminded me I still had one more 200 meter run.  Out the door and 200 meters I ran.
This wouldn't even be a warm up for many people.  For me it was the physically hardest thing I have done in years.  I wanted to quit because it was hard.  That's what I do as an addict.  Instead, I fought through the pain and exhaustion.  I lived in consultation by listening to my trainer when all I wanted to do was give in to the voice telling me to quit.  By doing those few things I made it through.  I can apply the things I have learned in recover in the gym.  In treatment I worked out my spirituality and my mind.  At Crossfit I am working out my body.
If you are trying to recover from a substance or process addiction, please start exercising consistently.  Start easy but gradually increase the intensity and duration.  Push your body, it will push your mind.  Suddenly you will be seeing things that you couldn't do becoming things you can do.  Do the next right thing.

Recovery, it's not just for the addict.

Recover is a frustrating process.  As addicts in recovery we work very hard at living differently and we are sometimes saddened that our efforts don't bring a change in attitudes from those close to us.  In our minds, every day is an eternity and we have been clean for 9 days.  We can't begin to understand why our spouses, parent's, or children continue to treat us as if we were in active addiction.  The answer lies in the fact that those close to us have their own recovery to do.  Whether our addiction was alcohol, drugs, sex, eating disorder, gambling, or spending, we are not the only victims of the disease.  Anyone close to us has been affected by our addiction.  They are wary of being hurt again.  Many of them have been exposed to the term relapse and the fear that comes with it as they have attempted to learn about our illness.
Recovery would be much easier if we all came  equipped with a digital display on our foreheads that would show where we were in our recovery process.  There are no published guidelines that tell us when to expect different stages of our recovery to take place.  Everyone has a different timeline and that includes our family members.  The key to relief for me in this situation is the lessons taught in step one.  I am powerless over my addiction and I have to surrender to myself to so much in my recovery process.  I am also powerless over other people's recovery processes and timelines.  All I can do is keep doing the next right thing and working my program. In time one of two things will happen.  People will either decide that they like the change that they see and choose to be a part of my life or they will decide that they are not interested in being part of my life.  I have no control over that other than just working on myself and my recovery.  The concept gives me both fear and relief, but that is just rigorous honesty talking.

The Question That Begs to be Asked. Why?

     My whole life, all I ever wanted was a chance to start over.  Nothing seemed more necessary than an chance for me to be me without all of the baggage of my family if I was ever going to lead a "normal" life.  By the time I was 23 years old my sister, mother, and father had died.  In a very sad way I got the chance to start over.  That same year I met the woman who would become my wife.  With the exception of her mother, I was about to become a member of a "normal" family.  So, I got married and for quite a while life was really good.  I had a good job, financially things were good and we were doing alright.  Then came addiction.  Whether it was alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, work, money, or sex, it took control of my mind.  I honestly believe that addiction is a mental illness.  Perception and thought processes become helplessly distorted.  Logical thought becomes non-existent in active addiction.  The very thought of making sense of addiction may be crazy to begin with.  I have to realize that I may be trying to get an understanding of something that is not able to be understood.
     So I got this new start I always wanted and my life still became everything I never wanted it to be.  How does everything change for the better and yet I end up being an addict just like my parents?  I have given this a lot of thought.  Everything didn't change or more accurately everything changed, except me.  I was still the same person who lived in that chaos of my childhood and the trauma of my adolescence and the loss of my early adulthood.  Even though everything else had changed, I still hated me.  I have never been ok with who I was.  The idea of being anyone else than who I was always seemed so attractive to me.  I never wanted to deal with myself, my emotions, my issues.  If I could find a way to not feel what I felt, I would find it.  This entire process would just happen subconsciously.  Looking back my behavior patterns never stood out to me, they were all I ever knew.  My addiction has been there my whole life.  At times my addiction may have been dormant but it was there.  Addiction made every effort to make sure that the anxiety, loss, and trauma that I knew growing up would be all I would ever know.  Luckily through NA, in-patient treatment, and individual counseling I had found help and started to be able to piece this all together.  Everyday I find another piece.  What the puzzle will look like when finished remains to be seen.

One Day at a Time

     Patience.  Patience is not this addicts strongpoint.  In 12-step literature it clearly states that we did not become addicts in one day so don't expect recovery to be a fast process either.  Wise words but not easy ones for me to accept.  I hate what my addiction has done to me, my wife, and our family.  I want it to go away, but addiction doesn't do that.  For the rest of my life I will have to deal with addiction.  I need to be aware of my thoughts and actions everyday.  I can't let myself get comfortable and fall back into old habits or entertain old ideas.
     We are promised that if we are painstaking about our recovery we will be amazed before we are half way through.  That is such a true statement.  I am repeatedly amazed with how much I have learned about myself and how far I have come in such a short amount of  time in recovery but I have to remember that the recovery that my wife is going through is happening at an entirely different pace.  My wife isn't an addict, she needs recovery due to my addictions.  I want things to be better and I want them to be better now.  On the addict timeline there is only one time, now.  Life on life's terms does not work that way.  I am stuck living in an apartment away from my wife, pets, and comforts of home for at least the next 6 months.  The thought of living alone is maddening but intellectually I understand my wife's need to not be around me right now.  Emotionally I feel as if I am being punished.  I feel like I am being made to jump through hoops because of my actions in addiction.  The reality may lie somewhere in between what I know to be true and what I feel to be true.
     All in all I am very grateful though.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to live in an apartment that is very sparsely furnished but it is warm and safe.  I have been able to spend two separate days working at my house cleaning out the garage which my wife has been wanting me to do.  I have gotten to see my dog and my cats.  We have had two nice snowfalls with another on its way tomorrow.  Maybe I will be allowed to plow my driveway tomorrow night after work.  Life on life's terms.  It doesn't always need to be bad.

Hating your sandwich. It's a lot deeper than it sounds.

     Sorry, I have been busy working on life and recovery recently and haven't had time to write.  I finally got my 60 day trinkets.  After living in a hotel for two and a half weeks, I move into my apartment tomorrow.  It isn't anything glamorous but it is just what I need.  I can have my dog come over for visitation so that is something I am looking forward to.  Despite my attempts to get a furnished apartment, so I could avoid moving things out of the house I hope to eventually return to, that didn't work out so I am buying some furniture from Ikea and was given a used mattress and tv stand from a friend. 
    So what is this silliness about hating your sandwich?  Last night at my NA meeting the speaker was a 17 year-old who got clean when he was only 14.  He has stayed clean, has a sponsor, works steps and hasn't relapsed.  For his age, this kid is incredibly inspiring.  His message was clear but his delivery could use work, but it is the content that is truly important.  He was talking about how he would eat lunch with a kid everyday in school.  Every single day this kids would complain about how he hated the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that he ate for lunch.  Day in, day out bitching about his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Finally the young man who spoke at my meeting said, "Why don't you tell whoever makes you your sandwiches to make you something else?"  His friends response was, "I make my own sandwiches."
     Think about that for a second folks.  Doesn't that situation feel awful familiar?  How often did we find ourselves doing something over and over again when we didn't want to?  How many times did we put ourselves into uncomfortable situations that were completely avoidable?  How many times did we keep making that sandwich that we couldn't stand eating?
     That is all I have for today.  I'm not writing any more because I want to reflect on that story of the boy hating the sandwich but repeatedly making it anyway. 
Thanks for being there for my recover,
Scott

Can we talk?

     I'm a big 290 pound guy.  Who new three simple words could strike fear in my heart to the point I can barely function?  "Can we talk?"  That's all it took.  In my addiction I hurt my wife emotionally and psychologically in the worst ways possible.  I am already living out of the house.  I don't have a place of my own yet and my life is filled with uncertainty.  Egg shells crunch under my feet anytime I go back to the house to talk to my wife.  Today she asked to come by my work and speak to me.  I work as a security officer and in the past she has come up to take walks with me but I can't get into anything emotionally heavy.  Anxiety is another problem I wrestle with.  Talking about something when I will not have any hope of talking it through and trying to resolve it will just drive me crazy.  In treatment they always told us to practice "sitting in" those feelings.  I am sure that there is a good reason for that practice but today I just don't have the strength to do that. 
     Step one speaks about powerlessness.  I really struggle with this.  Logically I know that I have no power over whether my wife decides to stay with me or leave me.  Logically I have come to accept that.  Emotionally all I want is for my wife to stay with me and see through my character defects and love me.  Emotionally I can't accept my powerlessness.  My addict thinking would drive me back to lying, deceiving and manipulating to get what I want but I don't want to go back to that way of living because that isn't living.  The sad truth is I don't need to use to be in active addiction, I just need to think or live like an addict and there I am , right back in that place that I don't want be in. 
     This disease will either kill us or make us wish we were dead, if we let it.  It is so easy for me to look at what I don't have and be miserable.  Why does that happen?  Why don't I think of the love and acceptance that I got from my home group last night when I shared?  Why don't I think of the hugs and encouragement I got when I picked up my 60 day tag (They were out of 60 day tags.  It's cool, I can wait.)?  I have a list of names and phone numbers of people I don't even know who are willing to talk to me anytime of the day or night to help keep me clean.  I never had that.  People who have been in my life for years haven't offered that kind of support. 
     If you are reading this and you are struggling with addiction, please get yourself to a meeting.  These programs work.  Recovery is not an easy process and you will only get out of it what you put into it, but it is worth it.  You are worth it and we all deserve to live much better and healthier lives.
Thanks for reading and for being here for my recovery,
                                                                                         ScottinRecovery

Life in the real world

     Those of you new in recovery will often hear references made to people being on the "pink cloud."  That term is used to describe that period where you are in treatment long enough to feel really good about your recovery but you have yet to have to deal with the stressors of daily life.  For patients who are in a residential treatment facility the pink cloud can give you a dangerous false sense of progress in your recovery. 
     When you leave treatment and go into the real world you have to face everything and do it in a way that you aren't accustomed to.  In recovery you have to abstain from the substances and behaviors of your addiction so you can't use them as the unhealthy coping mechanisms that your are used to falling back on.  So how do we go about handling the challenges of daily life in the outside world?  The answer is deceptively simple.  We need to incorporate the regular practices that we learned while in residential or intensive out-patient treatment.  This requires time management and self-discipline which as addicts we typically are not great with.  We have to realize however that our old ways of doing things brought us to the breaking point.  We became powerless over our addictions and our lives had become unmanageable.  Returning to our old patterns will take us right back to the edge of the cliff and if we are not capable we could easily allow ourselves to be pushed back into the abyss of active addiction.
     A schedule can be our best friend, in fact it can save our lives.  I have found that putting my schedule in my phone allows me to have time for everything I need to do and luckily there isn't much time left in which I could relapse.  Meditation, step work, prayer, exercise, meetings, therapy and even sleep are all scheduled.  When the time rolls around for me to do any of the above listed things, I simply do them.  Even if I don't feel like it, my schedule is the script by which I can stay sober and I do whatever the activity scheduled for that time is.  People often ask me "What if you don't feel tired when it says it is time to sleep?"  I have always found if I lay in bed with the lights off, I will often fall asleep faster than I thought.  Now don't get me wrong.  Following a schedule this strictly isn't always fun and at times it certainly doesn't feel easy, but I am still free from all substances and behaviors that plagued my life in active addiction. 
     Following a schedule is great but it needs one other thing that is essential for addicts in recovery, accountability.  I print my schedule out and check off items that I complete.  I share this with my sponsor and if I am not sticking to my schedule he does and excellent job of giving me an assignment based in step work to help me start to buckle down and see the importance of getting to everything on my schedule.  I'm sharing this because it has been helping me.  Please feel free to share what has been working for you by commenting.

Thanks,
            ScottinRecovery