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