Been MIA

I logged on today to renew my membership for another couple of years. Happy Anniversary to Grateful for Recovery.com! :) One whole year.....I realized  upon logging in that I have not been on here blogging for almost a month now. Wow. Where does the time go?

This month has been another learning experience in the world of recovery. Since getting sober, my career has been all over the place and mainly because of me. I am coming up on 10 years in the nursing field this winter. I have been back and forth, up and down with all sorts of employment throughout those 10 years. While I have been at the same place for over 5 now, I have still had a variety of positions. Nights, days, part-time, full time and now I am working from home. The working from home part has probably been my favorite. I get a lot of work done and I have my own project. No one else's fingers in my pie, so to speak. I just had a meeting with my boss this last week. It was nice to see the old place again. My name tag still hangs on my "former" cube which was probably one of the worst spots in the whole office. Got some hugs and HIs from people I haven't seen in a while.

I entered the LADC world in May and it is turning out to be much like my experience in beginning nursing. Lots of uncertainty plagues my day. I try to remember what it was like in early nursing, but I think those memories of the real trials in the beginning have faded somewhat. I believe that I feel more uncomfortable right now. Maybe because I feel like I should know more or being doing more. Who knows. Like my nursing career, my first position started from another arrangement. When I started my first nursing job, this facility had hired me as a PCA and I was to take over the nursing area for a series of group homes when I was done with school. About 2 months in, I couldn't handle it - I felt too unprepared and had absolutely no answers when people would call the triage line for help. Heck, two weeks before my first call, I was the one calling the triage line for help. I had a great boss who tried to mentor me as much as she had time for. Ultimately, it was not enough for me and we parted ways. 

With my first LADC position, I started as an intern with 2 or 3 clients. No treatment planning, just some groups and a few individual session.. I was hired to be an outpatient counselor and hit the ground running. Before I knew it, I had 12-14 clients, working part-time, feeling extremely overwhelmed. I have to admit my attendance was not great at this position. I became overwhelmed and was struggling with a crisis of confidence. The crisis of confidence was starting to effect my health in pretty bad ways. I was constantly tired, I couldn't get out of bed. I was up all night and needing to sleep during the day. I started relying on fast food as my primary source of nutrition. The weight keeps piling on, I have low energy and my nerves are shot.

I was offered an opportunity to move to a different area. I accepted the transfer. It was a huge mistake. Maybe I wasn't doing so bad in my previous spot. I had to put in my notice and leave under less than ideal circumstances. Again, I had a wonderful boss who was attempting to mentor me the best she could. I think I was too broken there to get back on feet again. I didn't like who I was becoming - enterally negative, self-critical and quite frankly - depressed. There were no medications that could save this situation. For my sake, I made a heart-felt plea to leave and my boss was very gracious to me for a rather untimely and abrupt departure. Ultimately, my physical health was suffering and I can say that my mental health was not doing well either.

I have started working at a new facility now. I am on straight days. I worked really hard to change my sleep schedule the week before I started. Guess what I noticed? A normal sleep pattern does wonders for someone's mental health. I am tired but not exhausted. I can fall asleep without the aid of any sleeping medication. I sleep for 8-9 hours and naturally awake a hour or so before my alarm. I dropped 7 pounds from just bring my lunch and not being bed-ridden all day. I am active and more engaged. I know it has only been a week but what a difference. 

I still carry some of the crisis of confidence with this new position. I wonder if I really do know anything. I know that I do, it's just hard being in a new field. I try to remember back to 2012 when I started the processing of returning to school. What was that all about? What was the passion? What was the desire? It's still there, the passion just needs some dusting off after a very difficult summer. I suspect this time next year, I will be looking back on these struggling entries and tell myself "geez, you just needed to give it some time!"I am hoping to restore some of patience with myself again.

During all this chaos in August and September, it did help me look at a few things in my life and what I want to do. I started writing my book. So far, I have started out with a history of my addiction. I am finding that to be something more therapeutic than a book. It dawned on me last night.....maybe this book should be about all the research I am doing about gastric bypass and the unintended side effect of altered alcohol metabolism - aka people are turning into alcoholics at twice the rate of the general population after gastric bypass. Hmmm.....my TED talk will be for 15 minutes, but maybe there is much more I can do with the wealth of knowledge I am collecting at this point. Not that my story doesn't have value, there is just something more I want to say. There is something more I want to accomplish with a book. I will keep you all posted.

Additionally, I am working on starting my own private practice. It will be a year or more before I have the means to get really started. However, with all the work experience in nursing, etc., I have found that I do best working in an independent setting. When I worked nights with the transplant center, I walked in motivated and always got my work done. I enjoyed solving problems and gaining knowledge. I built that position from the ground up and it was probably one of the best jobs I ever had. My self-motivation has been low since leaving school. Heck, I would say that my self-motivation was lacking for about 6 months prior to that. I got lost somewhere. Starting up my own business, working under my own rules (and the licensing board of course), I feel like I would have the opportunity to do specifically what I want. On my time. On my terms. Build it from the ground up. I am not afraid of hard work. This just seemed like the right direction to move right now. 

In my MIA status, life has been chaos as usual. I have worked hard to see the silver lining in all of this. There is one. It's just difficult to see in the middle of everything. I am seeing the sunshine again. Sleeping at night is always helpful for that one. I just feel more positive and less stressed by life right now. I am tremendously busy - working on the business, working as an LADC, working as an LPN from home, volunteering for two organizations, getting ready for my TED Talk. Ironically, this is the most relaxed I have felt since leaving school. I think I was in a survival mode for the past 4-5 months. I was getting by financially. I was getting by with my work. Just getting by....Just getting by isn't enough. I have never been happy living like that. My drinking days were all about getting by....working enough to afford to drink. Doing the minimum to not get caught. Just skating by. I wanted a different life than that and that started the journey of getting sober. Four years into this new life, I was starting down an old path. While I was drinking, on some levels I really felt like I had started again. Some of the same feelings and the same actions. I would call the last 4 months an emotional relapse. I was thinking about it. The Cons well outweighed the benefits but I was letting my mind wander down that path. "What if...." 

I am no longer there and back in the groove of recovery. Actually, all this program development has been helpful to see all the tools and recovery assets I know and usually employ in my own life. Although I hadn't quite fallen off of the wagon, I feel like I have been hoisted back up in the front seat again. I was starting to look at the ground....it was getting closer and closer....but now I have my eyes back on the road again. God is still driving the wagon though. If I were to take the reigns full I would be in the ditch in no time. :)

Peace and love my reader.....J

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