Since I signed up for Netflix, my poor Nook reader has been all but abandoned. It's important for me to go on vacation every once and awhile so I can grab my Nook again and remember how much fun it is to read. It had been quite some time since I looked at the books I purchased, probably several years ago now. For fun, I was reading "Bossy Pants" by Tina Fey. It's like sitting next to her and having her tell story after story in a way that only Tina Fey really can. 

I paged through the other books in my queue. Apparently, when I was in a purchasing mode, I was quite interested in the "next phase" of recovery. While it sounds cliche, recovery is something a person needs to stay on top of at all times. With any long-term, non-curable disease, making lifestyle changes are for life, not just a little while. It's easy to slip back, stop thinking about, stop working a program. Ever been on a diet? Ever gain any of that weight back? Slipping  back into addiction means losing the peace I fought for and letting anger rule my life. If I ever do get back into physically using again, it will be disaster. I was warned by others who have relapsed after extended sobriety. Things pick up right where you left off back in the day. Addiction behavior progresses much faster and much more dramatically. People also fight with the shame of getting back into recovery. I once saw a speaker that said something to the effect of: Those of you with less than a year of recovery are way more likely to get back into these rooms if you relapse. The longer period of time in recovery with a relapse, the less likely a person is to return to recovery. This is my first time in long term recovery so I can't speak to getting back into the game. When I relapsed in my first year of recovery, my relapses were pretty short and I got back into the game within a week.

Anyway, I started reading one of the books that I purchased a while ago. "Full Recovery: Creating a Personal Action for Life Beyond Sobriety" by Brian McAlister. The author asks the reader to reflect on the lesson of the chapters. I thought it might be sort of fun to so some of the exercises in my blog.  So, welcome to the process of creating a long term action plan for sustained recovery! In general, what I think we miss sometimes in AA/NA is the benefits of recovery. In the meetings I attend, I hear a lot of focus on past behaviors and what the past looked like. There is an insinuation that life now is much better and we are all tremendously grateful for not living like that anymore. We share our war stories. We talk about how low life got. Somehow, we just don't seem to talk a ton about the present. What is our life like now. "It's great!" I don't imagine that answer does much for a newcomer. The 12 steps do talk about a life in recovery for sure. Clean house of our past, help others and be offered the serenity of life without a drink. I learned that more from my readings in early recovery and not so much from meetings. I was grateful for my meetings though, because I got that opportunity to express my grief, frustration, embarrassment and shame of the past. Others would offer me some advice for moving past that - namely - do a Step 4 and 5 which I did. 

In the spirit of AA/NA, following the 12 steps on a daily basis will keep a person sober and naturally offer a person what life is meant to be. I use these principles in my life everyday for sure. The most important piece being step 3. Let Go and Trust my Higher Power. So the 12 steps keeping me moving from day to day. I do, however, like to do some longer range planning. So far, in this book, it looks like I will have the opportunity to look at a little of this. There is a delicate balance between taking action and allowing life to happen. I am interested to see what this author's thoughts are about that.  So, let's get started!!!

CHAPTER 1: Adversity is often an opportunity

1. Discuss how I was able to overcome adversity (doesn't have to be addiction, it can anything): I was actually thinking this morning about my long term struggles with depression. I was out in New York this weekend, feeling so tremendously grateful for not feeling depressed. I was looking at the pictures from the trip. I can tell when I look at pictures how my mood was during that point. I tried on two separate occasions to get off of the medications that I take for depression. Both times, it was clear to me that my mood tanked and I found it hard to get out of bed. I found my thoughts to constantly be in a negative place. I had no tolerance for making mistakes or doing something incorrectly. I can't take criticism. I have officially come to the full and complete understanding that I will need medications to manage my symptoms. Between my DBT skills and my medications, I can overcome a lot of the issues that depression has presented to me. Just like my recovery, I throw everything I can at depression to make sure that I don't succumb to a life overshadowed by a poor mood.

2. One challenge I am currently facing and finding opportunity: I have to admit that I find my career choice to be a challenge. When I first entered treatment, I remember others talking about wanting to become a substance abuse counselor down the road. I remember tilting my head in an extremely judgemental way thinking "Seriously? Hell no. Not for me." A couple of years into recovery, my thoughts on that did change and here I am today. I find my career to be very challenging. Interesting, I got my first annual review at work and it was quite positive about my abilities. It was nice to hear because I have pretty much felt like I am floating on a boat in the middle of the ocean since I started interning. I know what I personally know about recovery, but there is so much more about working with others with their recovery. Not every counselor is in recovery and a person in the field doesn't need to me. That is because we are clinicians. I struggle with not injecting my personal recovery into everything I do. It's separate. So, how is this an opportunity? In a bizarre way, it has directed me back into my own recovery. Getting into recovery as a profession is making me want to understand my own recovery that much more. It also makes me want to research all the recovery possibilities out there. What I do know about addiction is that addiction sucks. The lifestyle sucks, the decision making sucks, the terror it causes sucks, etc. etc. I am learning that it is OK for me to do whatever I need to do with my own recovery. If I go in a totally different direction alongside someone else, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I don't need to question my own recovery for it. It's like looking at the freeway system. If we all need to get to downtown, there are at least 20 different ways to get there. Some ways get you there faster. Some roads have construction. I take the road I take because I know it. You take the road you take because you need to get there from the other side of town. Why drive to my side of town to take my road, only to loop back to the original destination?

3. Undisciplined behaviors I would like to change: I have to be really honest on this one: eating. Aging probably doesn't help the metabolism much anyway; however, in my recovery, I think all the sugar and carb cravings have gotten the better of me. I have been pretty unhappy about my weight for some time now. I look in the mirror and ask myself "if you don't like, do something about it." There is always an excuse. "Too tired", "have to work", "maybe I will be fine living this way." Sadly, I have been on enough diets to know exactly how it works: Calories in need to be less than calories going out. If it is so easy, why is it so hard!!??? I will be honest in say that I have thought about going back to drinking to lose weight. The reason I lost so much weight while I was drinking was because I didn't eat for days at a time and I was a floor nurse, walking about 6 miles a day. Now I am a desk jockey and I have more than 3 meals a day. I need to get this figured out. It's a goal of mine. I will be turning 40 next year and I want to be like so many of my friends who welcomed 40 with great health. 

4. Write down at least one thing you experienced today for which you are grateful: Ahhh...the bedrock of my sobriety - the gratitude list. One thing I experienced today, just a few hours ago actually, was a phone call I have been waiting for since last week. I was awaiting a decision about my participation in a court proceeding. I don't have to participate. For that, I am truly grateful. Additional gratitude is related to an amazing trip out east. I have a dear, dear friend NH in New York. It was a weekend full of laughs and sights and culture. We had good food, good company and yes, a crap ton of snow. In this book it states" Gratitude helps you to understand what you want, what you enjoy, and what brings you true contentment. I clearly understand how important my friends are to me and how much laughter and joy lights up my world.

So that completes exercise one. If you are in recovery or not, I always recommend a gratitude list. Many times when I am having trouble falling asleep, I recite 10 things I am grateful for. By the time I reach 7-8 I am really getting tired and often times don't remember getting to 10. It clears my mind and also relaxes my body and mind. A quick reminder to myself that all my stressors will still be there tomorrow. For now, it's just a few minutes to remind myself how really great life is anyway. Here you go if you need inspiration:

1. Always so grateful to my amazing family
​2. Always grateful for my amazing friends
3. Grateful for my niece and nephew who are always a wealth of laughter and joy
4. I am grateful for the educational opportunities I have had
5. I am grateful for these smelly, crazy, fur-shedding beasts (cats) who cuddle with me at night
6. I am grateful for all the opportunities for work even if they didn't work out in the long run
7. I am grateful for my continued sobriety
8. I am grateful for reliable transportation
9. I am grateful for the seasons of the year
10. I am grateful for my Pinterest (sounds lame, but I love crafts and I have found at least 200 things I am capable of doing!!!)

Lots of love peeps,
​J

I went to church tonight; the first time in several months. I have to admit, I didn't really care for the topic this evening. The series for the next few weeks are about dealing with family and "the elephant in the room" that we all experience with our families. For some reason, tonight's sermon just reminded me that I am single, in no substantial relationship and have no kids. I do remember that this church has a lot of families so the pastor making some more directed statements at them and not me would be reasonable. I just found it kind of depressing as my birthday is coming up. I go through the ups and downs of my life and I am very happy where I am today. I don't think a "traditional" family is in my future. For some reason, I felt rejected by the church for choosing the path I have. Anyway, end of rant. 

What I did appreciate about the message this evening was about change. Change is hard. It doesn't matter who you are or what you have experienced in your life, change is hard. A quote was in our bulletin this week: "Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty" (Virginia Satir). When I saw this quote in the bulletin before the sermon even started, my head started spinning with ideas about a blog entry. So, here I am. :)

If you ever chat with someone in recovery, you will often hear how miserable their lives were prior to getting better. I was in misery trying to hold on to a major secret. I was in misery for making bad decisions. I was in misery because I was lonely and scared. I had hit the point of "sick and tired of being sick and tired" long before I actually stopped. I was in really deep denial for a long time. I think I had alway known that I was an alcoholic. I just didn't know that there was a way out. So, I just kept telling myself that I could probably quit. I just didn't want to at that time. One night, I woke up to go to work (I worked nights at the time). I had a headache, the world was still spinning and I was quite nauseous. I was in the shower telling myself that I was not drinking when I got home in the morning. I felt awful. On my way out the door, I looked at the nearly empty bottle and told myself, "that won't last me for a day...." and off to the liquor store before work. I remember thinking, this is nuts! I told myself 20 minutes ago that I can't do this anymore, yet here I am. 

Family and friends of people trying to get into recovery are often confused by the misery this person experiences and continues to go back every time regardless of the consequences. I found it REALLY confusing too. I felt worse when I drank. My health was failing. I was miserable. Instead of taking a deep look at the one thing that was causing all the misery, I desperately wanted to blame it on something else. Maybe I was extremely mentally ill. Maybe it was my stress related to my finances at the time. Maybe it was because of my divorce. Maybe it was because of my job. Even as things started to become more positive in my life, I still didn't want to blame alcohol as the one thing that was keeping me back. I could hardly understand why I was defending this stuff anymore. 

There were two things that scared me more than anything about getting sober. 1. My family would know about my problem. 2. Was there even remotely a possibility of having any kind of life after I stopped? With regards to my family, I knew once the cat was out of the bag, I had to get sober. My family cares deeply about me and if alcohol was doing all of this, they would want it out of my life. My mom was tremendous in getting the education about how to help me with my sobriety. The other piece with my family was the idea that I had failed them somehow. I was warned as a teenager about the rampant alcoholism in the family. I didn't understand how most of my family can handle alcohol and I can't. I guess I still had a stereotypical notion in my own head of "what an alcoholic is". I didn't think I fit that definition because I was still working, had a place to live, etc. etc. I had never been in any trouble with the law.  I assumed everyone around me would think less of me. I lost control and that was very sad.

As far as the life after drinking was concerned, I literally could not imagine how I could possibly have a life. My life up to that point was spent at bars. Many of my closest friend were people who drank excessively. It's just easier to hang out with people who drink too much. They didn't judge me when I blacked out. Heck, they were blacked out right next to me. I hadn't done much socially if it didn't include drinking so I was lacking any idea of what I would do without alcohol. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to come home and not start drinking right away. I was in a hole and it was deep. I was miserable but the mere thought of living without was too overwhelming. The drinking continued for another year and half after I started thinking that it might be time to get sober. The certainty of what I was doing was more comfortable than the idea of trying to stop.

I think that my time in inpatient treatment was pretty eye opening. Physically, I felt a ton better. I hadn't been sober for more than 5 days at age 33 since I was about 23. The most I pulled together in the previous 10 years of my drinking was 72 hours.  Then, I started learning all this stuff that I was going to have to do once I got to stay sober. Yikes, that was a lot of stuff. I was recommended to go to sober living, stop working nights, consider another job other than nursing and do aftercare programming. I rejected everything but aftercare which I attended 4 times and then quit. 

I got my bill from treatment for $7,000. I knew this was coming. I signed a waiver when I went into treatment knowing this was coming. This is how badly I wanted inpatient treatment. I walked out, disappointed that they didn't fix me. I walked into my condo after being gone for 30 days. My first thought, "this sucks. I have all the same problems and I don't get to drink alcohol anymore." About 3 weeks later, I stopped going to meetings and never called my sponsor. "Well, if I am going to feel this crappy, I will drink again, at least I know what's going to happen." That is exactly what I did a week later. Again, the misery of certainty was better than sticking through the misery of making major changes. Then I just held on to the resentment that I had to pay this bill and I was back drinking. I wanted to use it as an excuse to never go back to treatment again.

The last time I went into detox, something happened that had never happened before. I had pulled together I think about 90 days of sobriety. I decided to go back. I felt this tremendous guilt and shame about what I was doing. I reached out to a surgeon that I work with which was entirely unprofessional and I was very intoxicated talking with her about needing help. She was so tremendously cool about me paging her and dealing with that crap. Then my friend KG who saved my life that day got a call from me. I was hearing voices. Being drunk felt different this time around. I was panicked and paranoid. I was off the charts manic doing crazy stuff. When I got into detox this time, I had the same doctor. He sat next to me while I laid there with alarms reminding me to stay in bed. I wasn't steady on my feet and almost fell once. He waited until most of the alcohol had cleared so I was at least sober. He reminded me that this was probably the first time I had actually taken my anti-depressants consistently and alcohol was a big no-no for the one I was taking. Because I was hearing voices, psychiatry got involved which lead to the famous quote that got the ball rolling for recovery. "Julie, there are two ways out of detox this time. One, I will report you to Board of Nursing and recommend that your license be suspended indefinitely OR you can enroll in this monitoring program for nurses, complete it and move on with your life." Finally, the fear of being sober was less scary that losing one of the few things I still had in my life which was my career as a nurse. My whole identity was wrapped up in being a nurse. If I lost that, what the hell was I going to do? For a minute, my brain did try to think of what else I could do for a job.....addiction is a sneaky beast.

I don't always agree that someone has to hit a bottom in order to start getting better. Most people in recovery will talk about a "moment of clarity". I had that. I had consumed somewhere around a liter of hard liquor and for about 1 minute, my head wasn't spinning. I actually remember talking on the phone to a friend at 2:37 am on 02/08/2010 completely intoxicated. Then I blurted out to her, I think I need to go to treatment and that I was totally drunk at that moment. At 7:00am that morning I called my mom who got me to detox for the first time. Although I didn't stay sober, my desire to change was slowing building to overcome the fear of the unknown. As far as a "bottom", mine was pretty soft. 

What I try to convince people of now, is that unknown that seems so scary is not so bad after all. All the fears that I had about my family were totally wrong. Everyone was so relieved to know what was going on and that I was getting the help I desperately needed. They have been nothing but 100% supportive of my recovery efforts. The life I was sure could not exist without alcohol has been around for 5+ years now. It may not be as exciting as my life at the bar, but I have real friends and I can finally appreciate the quiet. I am able to take care of my obligations in my life. I don't have to go to work sick everyday. I have the opportunity to share my experience both personally and professionally. I got to do a TEDx talk because of my recovery. I got to learn my own value as a person. I am doing things that I love to do. I can afford to live in a place that I really like. I am relieved of my financial stressors. I have what I still consider to be my dream job. What is the benefit of recovery? Everything. Literally. 

So the challenge with making any type of change in your life is getting over the fear of that change. If there is something that is making you miserable, there is only one person that can change that. Yep, it's you. I am a bit of an optimist these days when it comes to change. I believe that everyone can change. I am realistic that not everyone will, but people can if they make the choice to. 

Happy New Year everyone!
Julie