Certainty of Misery

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

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