I think the last time I worked a straight night shift was 2013. Since 2013, I have been on the day shift and for the past 10 months on evenings. With daylight saving times, a full moon, change in the month, and getting used to sleeping during the day, life feels a little confusing. I got up yesterday at 10pm. I kept having to remind myself what day of the week it was. I bummed around the house, did a little cleaning, played some video games, and watched a movie. At 8am, I was out the door, did my grocery shopping, Christmas shopping, hit the Goodwill with donations, hit the bank to cash in some excess coins, and got some gas for the coming week. It dawned on me that 8am was such a big deal for getting up previously. Why such a big difference?

The night shift makes me happy. I can't explain why. I like sleeping through most of the day. I enjoy the quiet of the night. My mornings are productive, and I go to bed at 11am. I like not having traffic on either side of my commute. I am oddly energized by this schedule. Are some people just hardwired for nights? I really think I am. Honestly, I was a bit concerned that straight nights would be hard. Since starting my new job, I have been more productive at home than I have been all year! I can't help but think that I am on my ultimate schedule. 

When I was discharged from my first inpatient treatment, my aftercare plans provided by my counselor suggested that I not work nights, not work 12-hour shifts, go to sober living, attend aftercare, and sign up for the monitoring program (as I was obligated by law to do so). Well.....I attended 2 sessions of aftercare and got into a verbal altercation with another group member. I told the counselor it was her or me. They weren't going to ask her to leave, so I did. All those other things.....I did not do a single one. I continued to work overnights. I continued to work 12-24 hour days. I went home and managed to sneak by without reporting myself to the Board of Nursing. I stayed sober for 60 days.

I started working straight nights in 2009. Before that, I worked evenings, then days, then back to evenings and then nights. I tried a Monday-Friday office job and was laid off in mid-2009. When I was offered the transplant position, I trained on days for a month or two and then went to nights. I had managed over the years to have friends who worked similar schedules and never had a significant problem connecting with other people. We night people are a strange lot....we are also a lot of fun, in my humble opinion. I was so happy to get back to nights. In terms of my drinking, the problem is that working 12-hour shifts made it hard for my drinking. I simply didn't have enough time to get home, get drunk, and then recover before needing to go back in. The kicker for me was the 24-hour shift that I worked once a week. It became impossible for me not to drink for 24 hours. My withdrawals were too bad. That was the downward spiral that ultimately landed me in detox and treatment. 

After I finally got some sober time under my belt, I was happy working nights. I had a great co-worker, too, which made the nights go by quickly. I did a sober "no-no" by playing around a lot with my sleep schedule on my time off. I would do a little sleep deprivation to get back onto a "normal" schedule so I could do things on my time off. I have generally happy memories of being with my family a lot and having ample time for friends. When I think of 2012, I was the most satisfied in my sober life during that year. Oddly, working nights as part of happiness. Somehow, my job doesn't feel like it gets in the way of the family and social things I like to do. 

Part of my reason to switch to nights had nothing to do with liking the schedule. I was more fixated on making school work. I don't get a lot of notice of scheduling changes, and now I am in clinical rotations. All the class times and clinicals seem to plop right in the middle of either day or evening shift. While I had a lot of flexibility with my schedule, it just seemed like too much to change every other week to meet my own needs. Nights just seemed like the best option to keep work outside of the schooling needs. A couple of weeks in, I am happy as a clam. The job itself is not overly stressful. There is just enough steadiness, so I can be active. The patients are complex. Let me tell you, it feels good to be nurse-y again. G-tubes, vents, trachs, suction, dressing changes, medication administration, and catheters....there is something that makes me feel proud about being competent to provide this kind of care. The added bonus is that clinical rotations are generally online or through simulation right now. I can get my hands-on skills through the job for the time being. 

I think back over the past seven years about the struggles to be a day shift person. I don't know why I cannot get out of bed at 7:30am. Yet, I am ready to hit the door running at 8am as long as I have been up all night. I knew when I left counseling that I would go to a later shift. Evenings were OK for a while. Nights are feeling much better. I work 10-hour shifts now, which I also like better. Fewer days, still enough hours. As long as I am already there, no problem putting in a couple of extra hours. I don't work more than 2 days in a row, and my weekend off is a 4 day weekend. I am on an eternal grid, so I know my schedule until the end of time. Am I working on July 22nd, 2023? I could actually figure that out and tell you. Consistency goes a long way for me,

Each year of sobriety has brought happiness, challenges, disappointments, achievement, support, new friends, tough times, and times of celebration. I have been chasing the overall satisfaction of 2012. That year was great for work, great for social needs, great for motivation to do something new, challenging to keep sobriety going, and so much time with my family. Of course, there were challenges in that year; however, the future's excitement was well and alive. I had things I was looking forward to. I was also learning a new way to live. I was surprised and delighted when I could actually be sober and like it. Let me tell you, I spend an extra 3 years intoxicated because the fear of being sober was so terrifying. Today I wonder how I managed to live like that for so long.

At the beginning of 2020, I felt that things were going to change for the better. I was happy and sad to leave counseling. I knew that was for the benefit of my sobriety and sanity. I took a giant leap and started school again. I settled into a job which, for many months, was incredible. Despite COVID, quarantines, and a whole lot of unknown, 2020 is turning out to be an OK year for me, all things considered. I valued the time more than ever with my family when we could be together. I ended up working outside of the home, which is very important for me. Had I been working from home, I would not do well. I had a lot of socialization with my work family and clients. I needed these things to survive in 2020. 

2020 has been a year of significant changes. I have a hard time with change; however, I experience a really positive change every once and a while. While I did not like leaving my most recent work family, I know I did the right thing. I followed my mom's advice to really look into jobs and feel good about the position I was taking and not just jump at the first offer. It was a significant change for me not to do that!! I am most happily surprised that the night shift is working out very well for my needs right now. I am working just the right amount of hours to still make school work. I am also feeling productive again. I missed this part of myself, and it's been a bay for a long time. I miss running around and getting things done. I miss not being on top of my home cleaning. I miss not working on the painting around the home. I lost the motivation for all of that. I let things slide more than I would be proud of if you walked into my house. I am finally digging out and feeling organized again. I guess not all change is bad, after all. 

More to come!
Julie

I wrote about being emotionally literate a few weeks ago. I am still on this topic in my mind. This past week, it became even more evident to me how essential understanding feelings and emotions can help me change my mood. After leaving my job, I was experiencing all sorts of feelings - sadness as there was a lot of people and things I like about that job, fear because what transpired to facilitate my departure was very scary to me, guilt for leaving my co-workers behind so suddenly, and frustration/anger at hearing what people were saying about me as a nurse without ever having a direct conversation with me about these events. 

While those feelings seemed to encompass everything that I was feeling, I still felt like there was something that I wasn’t addressing. I talked with various individuals who were incredibly supportive of my decisions and my actions. I worked through some DBT skills to keep my emotions in check and calm myself when fear got triggered in situations where it didn’t belong. I allowed myself to be angry and frustrated, knowing that these feelings were justified. So, why didn’t I feel any better? I was probably the nicest I had been to myself for a long time!! It dawned on me that I might be missing something.

I make no secret that I see a therapist. Right now, I see him every couple of weeks to once a month, depending on life circumstances. Some appointments, I am just checking in. Here’s what happened; here are the things that went well and not so well. Other times, I have a particular issue that I am seeking feedback on. And yet at different times, I come in with a whole load of stuff that I needed to give away. I forewarned my therapist about the events of the past couple of weeks. For one, I was indeed in fear, and it triggered a super irrational fear that I have held for years. It was starting to impact my daily life (I will write about this some other time). So, I plopped down on my favorite part of the couch and laid it all out there on Saturday. He was as speechless as others I have talked to have been. He offered support and validation that I was not incorrect and what others had to say about me was not necessarily accurate. I am entitled to my own feelings and perceptions.

Where things really took off for me was him asking me what I felt when I was alone at home. Was it fear, anxiety, depression, defeat? Oh, that word defeat. Yes! That was the feeling that I missed. I felt defeated. I told him that I thought this same way when things started to fall apart at the county. I was trying my most challenging, yet there were times when I was actively sabotaged or wholly ignored. My feelings about the situation were disregarded or downplayed. I vowed not to let myself get into this situation again. I think that was a tall order since I wasn’t in this situation a month ago. Everything changed over the past six weeks. While most of those changes were helpful, the last series of changes were detrimental to me. I was feeling defeated this week, asking myself, “why?”. Is there something wrong with me that makes it impossible for me to succeed at working at places long-term? Not necessarily, while I am by no means perfect, I also hold my integrity very tight, and the limitations of that integrity are firm. If I have to protect that which is of importance to me, I have to go. Some positions are more successful for me than others. This most recent position was quite successful until decisions were made that I had no control over. My protests went unacknowledged. I was told how I felt by people who were not present. The only person who gets to tell me how I feel is my therapist, and I pay him to do that!

So, why was a defeat so essential to recognize as a feeling. Simply, I know what I need to do to make myself feel better. Do something that makes me feel productive and worthwhile. For the first time in 18 months, I finally started painting and working on several projects that go abandoned so long ago. You have no idea how much installing a doorknob makes me feel empowered. I can also see the results of my work instantly. I am doing things I have never done before. All of the decisions are mine, and I get to do what I want! In the matter of 20 minutes at Menard’s, picking up some primer, I was already on my way to defeating the defeat in my life. Just like that, my mood has shifted to a different place that is much more tolerable than an absolute lack of desire to get out of bed.

Defeat is a powerful emotion for me. It lurks under the surface a lot of the time. Defeat will slowly undermine my self-confidence to the point of no longer feeling capable of making a decision. I let that feeling of defeat consume my life for over a year before I changed jobs. Nothing I could do was good enough. I was exhausted at playing the game of politics.  And, let’s no forget, the synonym to defeat…..failure. When the feeling of defeat isn’t addressed immediately, it will turn into thoughts of failure. I take my therapy time very seriously. I am not perfect, and there are things that I would like to change about myself. Other times, like now, I need someone outside of my experience to help me identify what I am feeling and how to move forward. And we did just that.

​So, after a pretty rough week, I am feeling back in the game. I passed my first quiz in pharmacology with 100%. I did all my homework on time. I got out on Saturday to be a part of life with my family. I am grateful for the significant shift in mood as I look to start my job search again. There is no shortage of nursing jobs out there. It is nice to have the opportunity to be selective.  
   
Thank you all for the support! Let’s get rid of defeat in our lives!

During the first semester of courses when I was going back for addictions counseling was a research course. I was pretty terrified about this course because, you know, math and things. I had an excellent instructor that broke down everything I really needed to do into smaller lessons. My the end of the semester, I only had to hit the "print" button and my project was done. The first part of the project was picking a topic. In my heart of hearts, I had hoped this project was an individual assignment because I had a specific area of interest I wanted to research. It was actually a group project. Even though I was the total newbie in the class (this was a 2nd semester class for a cohort group), I managed to convince them that my topic would be easy to conduct and experiment for and also to research. 

What I was interested in was the rise of social media and whether or not it helpful for hurtful to those in recovery. That was a little to abstract so we focus our projects on people's opinions regarding online meetings versus in person meetings. The results were pretty straight forward, those in recovery felt that in person meetings gave the best chance for sustained recovery and online meetings should only be used when traveling or no other option is available. I became aware very quickly that MN and WI have A LOT of meetings available. It might be easy for us to say in MN that an in-person meeting is always the best. We also have 100+ meetings going on every hour and about 1 mile from each other. I think some times we take that for granted. Anyway, the irony is watching everything go online and see how well a lot of people have adapted to meeting this way. 

I still remain curious about whether social media is helpful or hurtful. I see more arguing online in recovery groups about everything from politics to AA is horrible to treatment is just a money grab, etc. etc. I rarely get involved in those types of conversations because 90% of the time, it's just someone trolling to get a rise out of others. I find that annoying and also disrespectful. One reason I don't care for recovery and social media. On the flip side, however, I have connected with many people over the years by just posting the fact that I am sober. I also get a bulk of my traffic for this website from FB. So, no fear that I will be running away any time soon. In general, I feel that social media is part of my toolkit, whether it be a place to checkout for a while after a stressful day or to reach out to the few communities I trust on FB to talk about a bad day. 

Since 2014, I have spent a lot of time developing my relationship with technology and social media. What strikes me often is that most of the lives on Facebook and Instagram, etc., etc. are pretty fake. I post memes. I like to make people laugh. These posts make me laugh so I hope to share the joy. I filter the reality of my life on all my social media platforms with the exception of this blog where things are a bit more real. I was watching a documentary on Netflix about a murder in a suburban neighborhood in Colorado. It dawned on me how much the woman who was murder posted videos and pictures of this perfect life. As the story unfolded, the texts between friends and her husband were shown and things were not quite so rosy. I flashed back to the times when I was counseling in the jail. "Social Media is NOT REAL LIFE!!!" I used to get into some pretty interesting debates with my groups. The intrinsic desire to compare ourselves to others is well and alive scrolling through my 700+ friends. Sally just got engaged. Martha is pregnant. Joe bought a house. Melanie has the perfect children. Yeah, these are all the happy things that people like to post online. Most of us tend to shy away from things like screwing up at work. Having several bad days in a row. Talking about how stressful kids are. Talking about not wanting to get married even though everyone is exciting and loving your post. 

Over the years, I have developed this certain approach to social media. I know that algorithms are running constantly to "enhance my consumer experience" with focused advertising. I try to remind myself that I am the commodity here. My time and my clicks are worth millions to the right companies. So, I try to be selective in what I engage in while I am on social media. I have fallen away from most of the recovery oriented groups. I guess with 11,000+ addicts get together, the prospect of humility and comradery starts to regress. Again, trolls. I don't have time for it and I prefer in-person meetings anyway with people I will get a chance to meet and engage with in the long-term.    

As I was  scrolling through my feed tonight, I came across a few stories that were heartbreaking. A young lady who lost her life to cancer after a heroic battle. Another person posted the loss of grandparent while another one posted picture of her son for whom she will grieve forever after he was gone. I appreciated the somber messaging here for some reason tonight. We are all on a journey of some sort. We have all experienced losses and gains in life. Some part of the journey are hard and I have an extra appreciation for people who are willing to share that publicly. I find people are quick to like/love pictures of the kids and at the same time thing for 10 minutes about what emoji is appropriate for someone talking about struggles with a physical or mental illness. 

I am not exactly sure what the point of this entry is tonight. "The Journey" kept coming to my mind. We are all on one and very few will know all the details of it. Social media is one of those things that has divided us so terribly and in some cases, I have been made aware of journeys where I can be of support. Living in the gray has never been a strong suit of mine, yet here I am again, needing to see that not all things are black and white. Remaining flexible can ease the journey and releasing expectations of outcomes can calm the winds. It's not the easiest thing though. I can speak first hand about that. In that first year of recovery, I kept saying "If I could just see that in 5 years I was still sober and happy, then all of this would be so much easier." I could keep wishing for something I can't have or try my best to make the current moment productive/happy/satisfying, etc. 

Thank you all for the support from my last blog. I am taking a little time off for myself before I get back into the working world. I am getting settled into this quarter quite well. I am looking forward to cooler weather and the end of 2020 :)

Julie

I have hopped around to a lot of jobs over the years. It may not feel like that as I post things like "Happy 11th anniversary with transplant" or "I made it 5 years with WI." However, prior to 2009, in a span of 6 years, I held 11 different jobs, feeling like an 8 month stretch was so incredibly long in nursing. When I graduated with my masters, I held 3 positions in a year before joining the county where I stayed for 5 years. Even though my work history is much more stable now, I feel sensitive about job hopping. I try to keep in mind that between 2004-2009, I was drinking....a lot....and it was easier to change positions than have people express concern that I was too hungover to work. The minute someone made a comment in my general direction, I was out looking for a new job. 

So, I put in my notice with my current position this last week after completing 10 months. For reasons that I will not get into here, I know I am making a good decision. The sad part about all of it is all of these great co-worker/friends I have made at this job. I feel like I am abandoning them. Each person I have spoken with this week since I put in my notice have been the utmost supportive of me even if they wished I weren't actually leaving. My team understands my position and I hope to continue on these friendships beyond those walls. I suspect we will all make that effort.

I have no regrets about attempting to return to a nursing role in the field of chemical dependency treatment. What I have found, however, is that there are so many striking similarities here as I experienced previously as a counselor. I think there is a broader culture to addiction treatment that needs some work. While nursing offered me some distance from the most intense features of working with addiction, I could not escape the questioning of my skills and the validity of my perceptions. Sadly, this whole situation has nothing to do with my direct supervisor. She has actually been the reason to give it one more day and try again. The concerns I held with my previous position and now, this position are at a higher level where decisions are made with little input from the direct care staff. It's sad and frustrating.

One of my biggest professional worries is this: Will I ever be happy working? That sounds kinda weird given the fact that working is most of my life. At one point, I was "happily" (mostly) working three jobs about 2 years ago. Let me take you on a little history since getting sober of my work life. In 2014, I accepted a counseling position where I was interning. I was so nervous about getting a job, I jumped at the opportunity to take this part-time position. I still had the transplant position that could utilize me part-time. I adored my supervisor. I, however, did not adore some concerning things I was seeing and attempting to convey to my superiors. When my client jumped out a second story window during a psychotic break, I walked off the job. At 38 years old, I walked off my job for the first time. No notice. Nothing. 

I interviewed and found another position that seemed decent. I lasted in this position for 6 weeks before finding a hidden camera in my office and every email I sent was programmed to send a copy to the director. Again, I walked off because of the massive breach in ethics of taping sessions without my or the client's consent. I was hoping I hadn't started a new habit here. I returned to transplant full time while I was searching for a job. I struggled in the transplant office situation. The whole "nurses eat their young" was alive and well despite the fact I had been a nurse for over 10 years at that point. I was "just an LPN" and apparently "less than". I returned to the on-call position in 2015 which is the best of all worlds for my time with transplant. Working from home and working with some of the best people I know. In order to accommodate school, however, I had to step away. I miss it like hell and I am relieved to not have that stress. I struggle in the office world there.

I, then, started with the position in WI. About two years in, I really started to struggle again. Thus, about 2 years worth of entries about whether I was cut out for counseling. Was my recovery helpful or a hinderance? I had amazing co-workers and teams of people. I was offered a lot of different things in that job that I will never find again. If I wasn't happy here, what's next? I struggled to figure out if my unhappiness was a job related issue or a field related issue. It's a little clearer now, in that it was both. The support that I received from the upper levels was borderline abusive. I felt that some of these individuals were sicker than the people I was treating.  I feel like each of the positions I held in the chemical dependency field has these themes of those in the power position requiring complete and total control of everything. I see so much addictive behavior!!! Micromanagement, changing the rules to keep people at their mercy, sending inconsistent messaging so that the only person that is wrong is me and a total invalidation of my experiences/feelings. (I want to be clear, this is not my direct supervisor.)

My sincere hope is that I am not being over the top here. I just can't help but feel like the whole industry is plagued with this type of behavior. Am I just unlucky that I picked at least 4 different positions in which micromanagement and questioning of skill came to pass? Am I too quick to accept a position because I am worried about the next step. When I put in my notice in WI, I didn't have an idea of what I was going to be doing. I started interviewing around and was getting rejected pretty regularly because I was a very overqualified LPN. I heard "Um...you can come in, but I think you would be bored here." When I am now was the first interview where I felt comfortable. I had been out of direct nursing for along time (8+ years) and wasn't sure who was going to let me have a shot at it again. How could this position not be perfect? Treatment center + nursing. The best of both worlds right?

I am in this position again. I put in my notice without a plan in place. I can afford life without a job for 3 months. No way I will wait that long, however, I am a little panicked. The one person's opinion I wanted was my Mom's. I knew in talking with my Mom that she might tell me things that I might not totally like. Let me tell you, though, she has been through this with me about 100 times now. "I quit my job and found the newest, greatest position on the face of the earth!" Only for me to call 5 months later and say the exact same thing. She has encouraged me to slow down for a minute and take the time to find the next adventure. I have the luxury to do that right now. I have no shame in saying I need to listen to my mother. I may be an adult, but she knows me better than anyone out there. 

What I have learned about myself in recovery is that when I am angered by something or someone, I make fairly impulsive decisions to make changes which make me feel good. With all those jobs after graduating nursing school, I was always upset by someone or something and headed right out the door. Right now, as my Mom so eloquently put it, I am hot. I am mad. I am frustrated. I want to act to change that feeling by getting a job without much regard to my instincts about the fit of the opportunity to me. That didn't happen when I interviewed where I am today. I had time on my side and we were willing to wait for each other (I gave a 7 week notice and they hung in there for 2 months). 

Now I am in this sort of no man's land of "what should I do when I grow up?" I am in school. I know I want that RN. Half way there already! What do I want to do after all is said and done - work in a hospital? Go back to transplant full time? Work hospice? Find a teaching gig? Surprise myself and work in pediatrics? I just don't know. I don't live in that grey area very well all the time. I work hard to and I know it's something I need to have on my radar. It doesn't all need to be black and white just yet. Try to remain present. 

So, I am on a new adventure again! Wish me luck!

Julie

There are a lot of new things to learn in early recovery. For one, my emotions were back, and I had to learn to deal with them. In looking back at that time, my biggest hurdle was actually identifying what I was feeling. Everything felt just short of rage all the time. I told myself many times, "if I am going to feel like this, I should just drink. This is just as bad." I was sad, mad, angry, numb - all at the same time. It was like 15 years of emotion finally got unearthed when I stopped drinking. 

As I was working through treatment, again, we had this article about anger as a secondary emotion. That is just a fancy way of saying there is another emotion present; all I know is anger, so that is what I display. I got this big long list of emotions, and I was supposed to identify which emotions I really was feeling when I would have an episode of anger. I didn't want to take my counselor's word for it that I couldn't identify how I was feeling. "Listen, I am mad. That is what I am mad about. Pissed. Nothing else, just that." For a person that is as stubborn as me when it comes to emotions, even the exercise of identifying them was intrusive. 

It wasn't until I hit the first year sober that I was really willing to look at much. My survival mechanism for the first year was going to meetings and being mad at meetings for being put into a monitoring program that made me have to think about more than just myself and drinking. Mad, mad, mad. I sat in first step meetings for over a year, trying to get the first step figured out. I can't control my alcohol use - got that. Life is not going very well for you......well, smartypants, it doesn't feel so great sober either, so maybe the drunk like wasn't so bad after all. Then 365 days in, the wall came down. I don't know what I was doing differently or what happened. I just remember feeling like I could breathe for the first time since I was in college. The rage calmed. The testy moods seem to vanish on that day. Maybe the wall just finally collapsed? Or maybe my brain made a new connection that I was empowered to anything in this I wanted, except drink. Think of all the possibilities!

I returned to DBT after that moment and decided I was ready to look at all the emotional stuff. The two emotions that came up most frequently were disappointment and worry. I carried a lot of worry with me about everything. I believe that to be part of my anxiety disorder and nervousness can get out of hand for me if I am not paying close attention. Disappointment is what surprised me the most. I was in a long-term relationship for the first couple of years of my sobriety. In the final six months of that relationship, I was chronically disappointed. I had changed. I had started going back to school. I began to meet up with people again. I was trying to rebuild my life. His life had so much drama and chaos. I tried to wait calmly in the background, I tried to fix things, I would worry, etc. etc. I was just never a priority in his life the way I had made him a priority in mine. 

When I have experienced anger in the past two years, I feel I was trying to relay to the world that I was feeling traumatized, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, and/or frazzled. Between the atmosphere of the job, the job, and my horrific lack of personal life, all I could feel was angry and upset. I could go "0 to raging" in a matter of minutes. That is not the way I want to live, and I do kick myself on the occasion that I let it go for as long as I did. I also was feeling guilt. If I did leave, what about these amazing people I leave behind? What would happen to the people I care for? My desire and nature to care for others can easily overwhelm my personal emotions. Sadly, it turned into beating myself up for not being able to hack it. 

The anger and rage is my life is fairly quiet these days. I still think disappointment is an emotion that I have learned to identify easier. Because that is a vulnerable emotion, I would rather be mad and angry. Being furious and angry makes me feel more powerful than feeling sad does. It's an Achille's heel of mine. The emotion of being disappointed is tied to my previous entry about expectations. I have been told by both professionals and friends that I have a hyper-independence issue. In some of my most vulnerable times, some people walked away. Instead of mourning the loss of the relationship and attempt to understand my role in things, I will walk away from almost all of my relationships (family excluded in this conversation -- they are my rock). I would vanish them from my life, never to be spoken of again. Deleted anything related to them - email address, phone numbers, messages, social media connection. Gone. Not only do I react as if I was abandoned, I see it as a betrayal.

So, this hyper-independence thing. I get it. It's the attitude of "well if you want it done right, do it yourself" gone extreme. I literally feel guilty when someone does something for me. "I can do it myself; it's no problem." I handle it all on my own. I will figure it out. I, then, end up disappointing myself because I keep people at such a distance. I crave the closeness, but I refuse to engage in it because I believe I am saving myself from the inevitable heartbreak or disappointment. If I get in a one-sided friendship and that person vanishes the minute I have an issue I would like to talk about, it will be months before I will speak with anyone about anything. It further validates my ultimate worry - I wasn't good enough to get the help I needed, and people will always betray me. I no longer trust myself to determine who is good and who is not. So, I participate in relationships where the other knows little about me. I  know just about everything in their lives. Much of which is by my own doing. 

People tend to think that independent people are super strong and courageous. I wonder how many of us really struggle with independence consuming everything. I have become so rigid in my independence that I will rarely allow people into my home. I will struggle at times to make decisions because I lack trust in the input I solicit, or I don't reach out at all. It's a strange place to me. I have set myself up in such a manner that I expect myself to do everything by myself. I have been yelled at on more than one occasion for driving myself to the emergency room, for not reaching out when things were going south, and not telling others around me that I am having a bad day. I am resourceful and can get things done, no doubt. I just have trouble allowing myself to be dependent on others. Especially when I believe that these actions would unequivocally change someone else's opinion of me. I have been round and round with my therapist on this one. Intellectually, I get it. If someone asked for my help, I am honored and happy to help. If I ask for help, I failed in some way that I couldn't figure out how to do it on my own. 

As I said in my previous blog, I hate not writing for weeks on end. These are the thoughts that just roll around my head. Writing gets these thoughts out of my head and in a place to help me make sense of my own perspective. I find it strange that my "safe space," so to speak, to be vulnerable and real is here. It was about this time last year when my blog posts were given to my supervisor as I was processing my next steps in regards to my career. In a vulnerable moment, my words were used against me. In that moment, I snatched back the power and said, "Yup, you know what? Let's be real. I am unhappy. I hate this career path. I have a career issue not a job issue. Something has to change." In a way, when people mention to me that they read this, I feel empowered in those moments too. Like, hey, you're not treating me any differently. You still think I am OK. So, maybe this blog is not so much a "safe space" as it is an experimental place for me to see if I can let my guard down without the world stopping. So far, so good. This blog will turn eight years old in November. Hopefully, many more years of experimenting ahead! Here's to healing!

​J 

I cringe when I see that it's been over 6 weeks since I published something on my blog. For those of you who know me, I always have a lot to say. Not to mention, this blog is part of my therapeutic process. (I can't say self-care anymore without wanting to scream at the top of my lungs thanks to a previous employer.) I haven't had a lot of time of energy of recent to sit down a write. Mainly, school sucked up a whole bunch of time and energy. With an average of 10-15 pages of writing due per week on topics that took me forever to research, coming up with my daily thoughts of the day was pretty hard. It would have sounded something like this: "School is hard. Work has its moments. I am tired. Be well." Not really my style.....

So, what's been going on. I finally finished up this quarter which was the most intense quarter yet. The previous quarters were more about my generals and I think I got a little too comfortable in thinking that this whole RN thing was going to be a little easier since I have been in the field for so long. Well, one my first recovery lessons got flung back in my face: "You don't know everything, kid." While my pride hurts a little bit, that was an awful big assumption on my part. So, lesson learned. RNs are some of the smartest people I know. And now I know why - they have to and do know EVERYTHING. Maybe some day I will get there. For now, I have 4 more quarters until graduation. I'll give it my all.

Work is work. I still like evenings a lot. I have some really great co-workers. A few days ago, I was having a chat with one of our counselors. It was interesting to hear my words coming out of her mouth. She will be moving on from counseling at some point into other ways to deal with people and addiction. She is going for the social work/case management route while I chose behavioral health nursing. Our reasons for moving on were so similar. The trauma of working with people with extreme trauma is extreme. The support of the counselors and the management can only go so far. And it doesn't always matter if you are the king/queen of self-care (screaming). I, as a human being, can only handle so much before my world view gets distorted and lose hope for anything good in life. Nursing allowed that better separation and I hope for her, social work gives her some peace as well. 

What's been rolling around in my mind for the past 6 weeks is the concept of expectations. I carry high expectations for myself. I need to be striving for something or learning something new. I get exceedingly bored otherwise. I need some level of "too much" in my life which I have done for many years. Working three jobs at one, picking up one to many shifts, throwing in a job change and school all at once. I think I thrive off of the adrenaline I get from it all. And, when I am done, I can look back and say, "man, look at what I was capable of." I am getting older now and that adrenaline doesn't seem as ample as it once was. So, I am doing my best to not "lower" the expectations for myself, rather get them back into a reasonable place. I still fight that I am lowering my expectations which I honestly can't stand the idea of doing.

I have had the expectation conversation with so many people. "Would you expect your brother/sister/best friend/child to do that you are expecting yourself to do?" Very. very rarely do I ever hear someone say "Heck yeah! I expect my kid to work 65 hours a week and go to school!" We put such pressures on ourselves to have nice things, to be the best at work, to earn a lot of money, to have perfect kids, to have buying power, to be the most popular. It just goes on and on. I push myself to be perfect at my job (ugh) and I push the expectation that I am 43 years old and I still don't have it together. I am back in school again. I better figure this out now, because there is no way I can afford to or want to return to school after this round. (Famous last words, by the way, I said the same thing after I completed my masters.) Anyway, I have a really loud inner critic about not having life together and having wasted the better part of 15 years being in a drunken haze. I feel compelled and driven to do more things because of the wasted years. Sadly, adding activities doesn't always mean adding happiness.

I have odd expectations of others too. I get into some trouble with relationships because of these expectations. I would consider myself to be pretty intuitive and can usually find something encouraging to say to someone in distress. Or be silent with a person to let them know that I am there in the ways that I can be. I just can't solve all the problems. So, when it comes to people asking about me, I will change the subject. And shortly thereafter complain that no one is hearing me. Well, I am not talking, so there is that. I fear vulnerability. Oddly, I can sit here and pour my heart out and not think anything of it. Even my best of friends, I will still flip the conversation back to them. I can't show anyone rust in my armor. Additionally, I get in the bad habit of comparing. My problems (and I am not minimizing here) are quite tame to what others have going on. I am able to plod along with the external world in chaos. I have enough money. I have enough work hours. I am passing my classes. Why should I talk about things that are more along the lines of an existential crisis versus a concrete "something needs to change now" problem? It feels cheap on my end and honestly not anything I would worry other people about. 

An existential crisis, I am coming to believe, is my version of a mid-life crisis. I have all the stuff again. I have a house, I have my kittens, working on another degree, working full time, got a car, got friends.....yet in all of this amazingness, I feel like something is missing. Please don't tell me a romantic relationship. Folks, I have really given it all legitimate tries over the past 10 years. Once over the initial "oh wow, someone is paying attention to me," phase, I hate it. I feel confined. I feel like I have to answer to someone. I feel like I have to justify my decisions. I dislike feeling the need to be available on whim. I plan my life out to create structure for myself. Without it, trouble in on the horizon. I have tried dating people in recovery, not in recovery. My recovery, in either case, becomes a problem. Either they need/want to drink all the time or I am not doing recovery correctly. I will not be judged about my recovery. Ever. (Are you hearing the expectations here too? I know....I know....)

OK, back to the topic. I am missing something. I know for one thing I am missing being around people and family. Everyone is experiencing that on some level or another. Pandemic life. Ugh. If it weren't for my friends at work, I would have likely not survived this pandemic. Seriously. Is it work dissatisfaction? I don't think so. I have much less responsibility where I am at now. I don't worry much about working when I leave. The facility is staffed 24/7 which means when I leave, the work is picked up by my team and not just me. Underlying all of this, I feel is some fear. But I don't know of what. I will admit that I avoided going back for my RN because I didn't think I could. This education is tough and requires a lot of effort. I always took the path of lesser resistance and chose things that were easy for me. Yeah, my master's was easy. And I chose where I did because I didn't have to take the GREs. I am resourceful, no doubt. So, I oddly have high and really low expectations of myself. I fear failure more than anything. Part of that keeps me sober, but certainly not the main reason. I short change myself on things I am really interested in because I think it will take more work than I want to put in. Or, let's be real, I want it to come easily because most things do come easily for me and who doesn't want that? Well, apparently me at this point. 

Other than 2020 being one disaster after another, I would have to say there way more good things in my life these days. That's why this existential crisis is so annoying. I wasn't expecting it. I took a leap and did something huge at the beginning of the year. For all intents and purposes, it is working out swimmingly. I have health insurance. I am adequately financed for school and life. I am not over working (well maybe a few times). I like the people I work with. I like where I live. I do get to socially distance see my family. I am fortunate. I know that. And hence why I don't tend to say much to others about the struggles I some times face. Annoying things have happened like injuring my foot again, getting identity-thefted (again) this year, ongoing battle, although better, with health, loss of my kitten, almost the loss of the other one, etc. etc. With all that is going on in the world, my inner expectations tell me to suck it up. Shit happens. You can't change any of it, so, move on. Part of me just wants to feel bad for a minute and have someone give me a hug. I don't let people in far enough to let them know I need one. 

As my therapist tells me....I stand in my own way. A lot. There are things I will jump into head first because I have the expectation that it will be successful. Where the good stuff is that I would really like to do, well, it's around. I just panic at the idea that it might not work out. That whole "is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"? So, I am going to leave it here tonight. I have a few weeks off and I am resting by foot for the next week. I got nothing but time to write and reflect. 

Hope everyone is hanging in there!!
Lots of Love,
​J

It was three or so years ago, I decided to participate in the Recovery Walk in the Twin Cities. One of the acknowledgements they offer is a called the "Honor Guard" for those who have more than 10 years of sobriety. I remember clearly thinking, "I need to get there." Well, here we are! And the walk is unfortunately canceled for this year, but I still made it and will hope that I can be on the Honor Guard in the future. 

10 years. Wow. What can I say? I posted my anniversary on one of my Facebook groups. About 80% were "congratulations", 15% were all about themselves (happens a lot with addicts, our worlds are pretty self-centered sometimes) and 5% were warnings - literal warnings. "Don't get too complacent. You know you could lose it all tomorrow." "10 years, maybe, but remember you are 10 seconds from the ditch." Sigh. I know on some level they are right, never lose site of recovery because addiction is sneaky and will pounce at any opportunity. I found these responses, though, to be frustrating at the least. Is it too much to ask to share a happy moment of 3,652 days of making the right decision instead of worry about tomorrow?

One post, though, albeit a warning was worded better than the others. This gentleman posted - "I asked my sponsor about his 10 years. He said once he got to double digits, it was time to recommit. Started over with the steps, remembered where he came from and didn't forget what 10 years and 1 week ago was like." For whatever reason, I appreciated that. And honestly, around this time every year, I remember exactly where I was, waking up in detox, embarrassed, yet again. I remember thinking "I can't do it, I just can't. I don't know why I want to be sober. It's hard and it sucks." 

As much as life is miserable in use, there is a comfort in that use. Working with people in early recovery now, I see that internal struggle happening. "I don't like my life as it is. Oh, and I don't like change." I remember feeling terrified about finding something to do sober. What do people do besides drink? My world became so closed, I simply didn't know what I could do instead. Luckily, I had a lot of supports and some external motivation to pull it together. And, here I am ten years later. 

I don't really feel like I need to recommit to my sobriety right now. I don't feel like I have ever walked away. There are certainly times that I have wandered a bit. There are times when my ego got the best of me. I am fully aware of when my internal addict is having a fit. That is what I spend the last 10 years learning - when I am OK and when do I need to seek help. My addict side got 100% activated last week. Wow, I don't miss her. She is kind of a bitch. I reached out to an AA friend of mine and did a little 5th step. I knew I was behaving badly. Part of me felt totally justified. My recovery part knew I was full of it. My AA friend put me right back into my place. Five years ago, I might not have even been in a place to get myself called out onto the carpet. Heck, I am not even sure if I would have fully realized my addict side rearing its head. I am constantly monitoring my behavior and activities. That is not a job for anyone else. I have to decide if I feel like my behavior is appropriate. If I decide "no", then I have to decide how to move forward. Can I do it on my own or do I need the guidance of another? It's a lot of work, but let me tell you, in the past five years, I have stayed more true to my value system than any other time in my life. I spent the first five years figuring out who I am and what I believe in. The last five years have been my attempt to live within those perimeters the best I can. When I don't, fix it. 

"Progress not perfection" is one of the many recovery sayings out there. It honestly doesn't matter if you are in recovery or not, those are just wise words. If you are perfect, great! I have yet to meet a perfect person in my life. Everyone has flaws. What I most intrigued by is how people react and deal with those flaws. The answer is different for each person. I may need to apologize. I may need to look at myself in the mirror. I may need to show more compassion. I may need to institute a boundary. The gift of recovery is knowing that all of these options exist. Picking one is still a lesson in process and each time I am presented with a situation, I learn more about who and what I want to be.

As for a quick update on life: Duke and I miss Daisy so very much. I brought in a new senior lady by the name of Lily. While I was excited about it, Duke was not. The stress from all the changes brought forth some medical issues that were relatively dormant. We are slowing working our way through it. They fought a few days ago which oddly brought peace in the household. Duke is now dominant, Lily couldn't honestly care less and now they bump noses and eat together. We are on our way.

School is grueling this semester. I often think "no wonder all my RN friends are so damn smart, they have to know EVERYTHING!" I love it though. You would think I would be exhausted since this will be years 21 and 22 in school. It's what I love (learning and nursing) so I jump in with both feet. I am plugging my way through mid-terms right now and looking forward to the next break in September.

The job continues to go well. There are a lot of changes coming down the pike. That whole "change is hard" thing is what I got my internal addict all in a bunch. I am exercising patience right now in the hopes that whatever decisions are made are in the best interest of our clients and staff. Most of the changes have seemed to make other departments somewhat happier so I will wait until our department has our day. I can't predict the future. My goal is to stay put until at least October of next year (2021). I like my co-workers. I like my job. It's nice to be back in nursing and in the field of addiction. This placement feels much more natural than counseling ever did. 

So, I thank you for reading. I thank you for your support with helping me to 10 years. 

Lots of love,
​J

Things are going a bit better since my last post. I am working through grief, slowly but surely. The outpouring of support probably has more to do with the improvement than coming to terms with Daisy being gone. I thank you all for that. I wanted to be alone and also knew that I was no alone. And while I have my misgivings about having to work through a pandemic, I am also so grateful that I was working. I like the people I work with and it was a good distraction from all the sadness. 

One of my active alcoholic mantra was "I don't like the way things are! I don't like change!" It is such a weird place to be. There is this absolute understanding that life is terrible. Things are falling apart all around me. I hate being sick all the time. I hate having to hide all my secrets. But, whoa, the minute anybody suggested that I change something, watch out! "You're not the boss of me." Making life changes is never easy. I have to take a leap of faith, on the some level, that I am making a decision that is positive for me. The irony with changing my life out of addiction is that I honestly didn't think I was making a positive decision for my life. Addiction warps the thinking ever so profoundly.

I knew that 2020 was holding big changes. Change of jobs, going back to school, taking on a board position. Then....COVID. Oh man, that was a change out of left field. That change has probably been harder than I have realized since I am usually out and about on the weekends. Now, it's basically grocery shopping and work. On the whole, I have been doing well because I do get to work several days per week. I really think I needed that. I have talked with my former co-workers and they are generally working from home. I thought, "maybe I missed the boat here!" However, I don't do well at home all by myself. I need to have interaction with people and I am fortunate enough to have a good place to go.

Daisy was a change I knew was coming. I have talked with people over the years about which hurts worse: knowing a death is coming or having that death happen suddenly. I have experienced both. Having experienced both, I will no longer have that conversation. There is no "better" way to experience a death. Both scenario suck so what's the point the of arguing which one is suckier.  That being said, Daisy had been ill for some time. She would bounce back though so I got to be in that place of denial that I was going to have to make a decision about that. That change just came a bit sooner than I was expecting. 

Tonight, I am sitting on my last few hours of transplant call. In September, I will be celebrating 11 years with the transplant center. In late May, I started thinking about where things were at. I was initially furloughed for a few months. It was time to come back and I felt stressed by it. Not stressed because I don't like it, stressed because I couldn't be as available as I was previously. Initially, when I was hired by the treatment center, I thought I was only going to be working a few days per week. My thought back in January was that I was going to need about 4 shifts per month with transplant and the 2 days per week at the treatment center to make ends meet. Well, a full time position opened up and I snatched it! That decreased my availability. The hours are available where I am at so I have been taking them since the overtime is a little more reliable in terms of cash flow. Slowly, things are available to do again (PLEASE BE SAFE PEOPLE) so my schedule has a few more social components than normal. Basically, this is a long-winded paragraph justifying my decision to leave. I am writing it all out because I am not sure I did the right thing. I love this job. The stories I have from my experiences are wild, some times unbelievable and also funny. 

Usually with change, I am super excited. When I went back to school for my masters and going back for my RN now -- super exciting!!! I am going to change jobs - nervous but mainly excited! Taking on a full time position -- exciting! Leaving transplant....not exciting. Maybe because this change is so close to an unexpected change, I am feeling more emotional about it. I have not left the team permanently. I have stepped down for now until my schedule can accommodate more hours. What I could see very clearly is that my lack of availability was not fair to the team I dearly love. The full-time call coordinators need time off and there are so few of the on-call people available to pick up those hours. Part of me just doesn't want to leave right now. There is another part of me that knows I will be back in the future. 

So, tonight, I am feeling a little like "I don't like the way things are and I don't like change!" It's not entirely applicable to this situation. I guess I could say I don't like not being available for transplant and I don't like the idea of stepping away. So, here we are. This team of people have really been a rock for me over the years. They have been a constant in my life since 2009 when I accepted the position. I have talked about this in previous entries: I loved the idea of transplant and working in transplant so much, I got sober. My supervisor at the time was the supervisor I needed to get better. She supported me getting treatment. She never judged me for one minute and was happy to celebrate my successes. I had mentor doctors over the years that sometimes treated me as an "almost equal" (that's what I called it anyway) even if I didn't understand what they were talking about all the time. I met other really cool people in other departments - OR, immunology, blood bank, acute care lab, admissions, etc. etc. About 95% of these people I have never met in person, but they feel like a constant anyway. 

Although I know I will be back at some point, I can't help but feeling sad. Honestly, I am a little tired of feeling sad right now. I know there is some more happiness coming down the pike. For one, I will be starting the nursing courses for my RN. I have wanted these initials behind my name since I was in high school. I took some detours and LONG side routes, but I am almost there. That does make me happy and I know that transplant team will be excited to get me back as a registered nurse. Just need to keep my eye on the prize. 

Love to you all!
​Julie

I don't understand grief. Actually, I don't think that's totally accurate. More accurate: I don't know what to do with grief. Loss is certainly a part of the human experience. Personally, I have experienced some pretty big losses throughout the years; everything from my first pet goldfish all the way to losing a parent at a young age (14). Most recently, I lost my baby kitty girl Daisy. I, alone, needed to make the decision to put her to sleep. In my logic mind, I know I did the right thing. My emotion mind is reeling from the loss and looking for anyway to mitigate that pain. So I question my decision. I wonder what do I do now. How do I make these powerful feelings stop so I don't feel so bad about it.

When I encounter the grief of another individual, I immediately feel uncomfortable around it. Do you know why? Because I can't fix it. I can't offer advice. I can't DO anything about it. Because there is no action to take, I feel helpless. I have studied about grief and loss because I want to know what the right thing to do with friends and family that struggle with grief and loss. You know what all my studying found? There is no answer really. Each person experiences grief and loss in different ways. People may grieve over different things. The "answer" so to speak is that each person needs to find what they need to make the world move again. That isn't a great answer for me. Not only do I need to figure out HOW I grieve, I will have to figure out a way to BE with the grief. I can't just take and apply someone's plan. 

One of the hardest things about grief and loss for me, personally, is that each loss tends to bring up all the losses in my life. Maybe it's the familiarity of the feelings that suddenly thrusts me back into the memories of things lost. With my dad's death, those emotions were pretty profound and I think I lacked the ability to articulate and understand those feelings. My whole family was left devastated from the loss. Each of us needed to grieve in different ways. I didn't want to grieve. That was sad, hard and uncomfortable. That made my stomach turn. In the first year after his death, when anyone would talk about him, I would try to change the subject because the grief as I physically felt it would come rushing up. I would feel nervous and nauseous. No person wants to feel like that so I did everything I could to just make it go away. My way of doing that was to block it all out. I did that long before finding alcohol. When I did finally find alcohol, it was literally the best feeling I had known to that date. I didn't have to try to forget, it was done on my behalf.

As my alcoholism worsened, I started to lose more things. I lost my marriage. Although we were probably never meant to be anyway, I had to grieve the loss of what I thought it was going to be. For a short period of time, I felt socially acceptable. I was married and had a home. I was doing all the things that we like to write our schools about for the alumni updates. When marriage was gone, the person I felt knew me the best was gone and he had already moved on before he was even out of home. My way of dealing with that was to drink some more and to vanish him from my life. From the time I asked for the divorce (Feb 2007) to the actual divorced (July 2007), I saw him once. After that time, I saw him once in early 2008. I talked to him on the phone twice after he moved out. I needed him gone and out of my life forever. It was years before I could talk about times when we were together because I had the same physical response as I had with the loss of my dad. 

Right before my wedding in 2004, I lost of friend. I have tons regrets around this particular loss because I decided to be spiteful for pretty much no good reason just weeks before he was gone. I wasn't able to attend his funeral. Not only was there this tremendous grief from the loss, I carried around such regret about our last interaction. His death was another huge spike in my drinking. I screwed up and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change it. I grieve a friend who was always more devoted to me than I was to him. He had a huge big brother mentality towards me. I wish I had valued that for what it was. It took many years for me to realize the real extent of what I lost and what the world lost the day he died. Ironically, the fight between us was related to my marriage. He begged me not to get married. He did not like my ex-husband. 

Now, I am experiencing the loss of my cat. To the few people who will tell me, "Oh my God, it was a cat, get over it," I implore you to give me a chance to explain what these cats mean to me. In 2007, I was crushed when my divorce was finalized. I thought I was going to be really happy, but I wasn't. I was drinking daily, overdosing regularly on alcohol. I stopped eating, I was less functional at work. I was totally lost. I had 2 cats with my ex-husband, and for the sake of the cats, I sent them with him. One was highly bonded to him and the other cat was bonded to that cat. My world was collapsing around me and I didn't know how to handled it or what to do. So I thought leaving life would be my only "out". I didn't know how to stop drinking anymore. I didn't know how to make the pain stop. Therapy wasn't working. The medications weren't working. If my life was going to be like this, I wasn't going to make it. 

My suicide attempt obviously failed. I was in the psych ward for almost 2 weeks after that. There were all sorts of differential diagnoses around my mental health. For the first time in about 10 years, I had been sober for about 35 days. I tried to sell my home to change my environment. Part of the reason I didn't adopt again was related to my attempt to get rid of the property. It was easier to try to sell without animals. When the house did not sell, I returned to therapy and made my announcement that I was going to stay where I was at. The therapist immediately looked up from her notes and said, "...and I hope that you are intending to get yourself a cat. Go get a cat. You need one." I don't ever remember talking that much about the cats prior to that although I remember telling people then and now that letting the cats go was possibly more hurtful than the divorce itself.

So, I did as I was told. I found these two tiny 8 week old kittens at a shelter. They were a light in my day. No matter what my mood or my status, they always ran to the door every single time, tails in the air, looking for some attention and love. There were only a few things in my life after I returned to drinking in late 2007 that made anything worthwhile - my family and my cats. The thought of my kittens returning to a shelter if I wasn't there was almost too much to bear. I needed to be there for them. These kittens have been through 4 different moves, 3 different stints in rehab, a couple serious relationships and umpteen job changes. When I look back at the past 13 years, one thing I came home to every day were these kittens. In return, they gave me unconditional love especially during the time in which I didn't feel like I was all that lovable. Here's the thing: The only other people in the world that love me like that is my family. Therefore, to me, Daisy and Duke the cats are my family.

In saying good-bye to Daisy, grief is back in my life and dredging up a lot of residual feelings of loss. I don't like when I experience one loss that all the other losses seem to surface. I mean, really? Haven't I figured out how to move forward with life? I know that I am associating powerful feelings with powerful events. I guess I just get frustrated that grief never really goes away. We find our way through it, find ways to live with it and maybe even find ways to accept it. There is this intense longing to have things "be the way they were". Unfortunately, with loss, things are never going to be exactly the same again. It's easier for me to see the losses experienced when I was younger made me stronger. For the losses in the past 15 years, I feel there is some acceptance around those things and with how life ended up changing in some aspects, I came out ahead (getting sober, getting additional education, working my way out of debt). With every new loss, though, I feel like I fall back to square one with all life's losses. I don't like it. Why doesn't grief ever resolve?

So, the new normal now, without Daisy, is loving her brother up as much as I can. He is depressed. He can't find his sister and I don't know how to tell him she is gone. It makes me burst into tears when he is trying to find her. I am working to keep myself present and not turn this loss into all losses. I am also trying to let myself feel through some of this stuff. God forbid I have emotions like everyone else, right? I still feel a little lost and definitely very sad. If I find the magic secret to moving through grief in one week or less, I will be sure to share it here first. From what I am learning this time around, though, I don't think that will be the book I write. 

Love to everyone,
J

One thing I promised myself after my first year of recovery was that I would never be ashamed of my story of addiction and recovery. I felt it was necessary to shed my own stigma and shame of this experience in order to move forward with my life. It felt so amazing to just be honest. "Yeah, I was drinking a lot. Yeah, life got hard. Yeah, I got sober. Here I am. Take it or leave it." Only on a rare occasion have I been rejected by other based solely on the fact that I struggled with active addiction for a lot of years. I found that rejection most prevalent in the dating world. A few people had really nasty experiences with addiction and did not want to even consider a person with addiction issues - in recovery or not. The other group being those who felt ashamed of their drinking and the thought that I would not be partaking in a drink on a date was just too much. Honestly. that never really bothered me all that much because my recovery is a part of who I am. If a person cannot accept that, they will never be able to accept me. Relationship killer.

As I became more vocal, more and more people started reaching out to me. (If you know me personally, by the way, never ever hesitate to ask me any questions about my experience or what your experience is like. I am beyond grateful to help whenever and wherever I possibly can.) In the beginning, I had a lot of people reach out to me and talk with me about their own recovery. People from high school, college, former employers - all people I had known for years and had no idea that they knew what I was going through. Then, the shift happened with the folks reaching out to me being those who were still struggling. If AA taught me anything, it's that I can share my spirit, strength and hope with anyone at any time. That is truly a gift of sobriety. The first thing I will usually say to people who reach out to me to talk about their struggles is: Thank you. For one, I know how damn hard it is to reach out to someone and talk about it. I am honored that this person trusted me enough to break the silence and take a chance that something different might exist. 

As the years of my recovery went on, a majority of people who reach out to me now are family and friends of someone who is struggling. Often it's a friend of a friend who got my number or email address. The family, too, has chosen to break their silence and start figuring out what needs to happen to get their loved one help. Each situation I have been contacted about is so very different. I talked to a mom whose 16 year old daughter was using opiates and might have been lured into sex trafficking. I talked with a husband whose wife was constantly in and out of the hospital at his wit's end. These contacts are in my personal sphere and not even my professional one. Professionally, the stories of concern and fears were reasonably similar although many of those cases were coming from professional referrals such as detox centers and hospitals.

When I started to hear from more family and friends, I had to pause for a minute. I know what it is like from my perspective of being the addict. I know that my decision making process was ridiculous and frightening at times. I know how I went about manipulating people to get my own needs met. I don't exactly know what it was like for my family to deal with me. As a family, we did do a family week while I was in my first treatment. My family went into their own rock-star level recovery from me right out of the gates. One of the reasons I didn't seek help for many years was that I knew if my family knew, the gig was up. They love me fiercely and they are not going to let me down with addiction. I wasn't ready to make that level of commitment to stopping for a long time. Even when I finally did reach out, I knew the cat was out of the bag and things were going to change. And the ways things changed within my family unit basically offered me consistent level of support as long as I was putting the effort into my sobriety. The more open I became about my struggles, I think the more proud of me they became. There was no more hiding. I came out on the other side and they are happy to celebrate with me.

I did a lot of thinking and research about what type of advice or resources I would want to offer to a family member or friend in the event I was contacted. There are different schools of thought on how to approach addiction. The question becomes: what needs to change in order to encourage a person to change? What if the person does not want to change? Do we really have to let go? I am going to bet that many of the people who read this blog would go to the ends of the earth to help a loved one. Most of us can think of something extreme that we did for a person we loved. (Quick insert here because I love this story: In college, I had the lead in play. I was talking to my mom the night before the play opened who was 850 miles away about how fun it would be to have her there. I understood though. She grabbed a friend that night and drove all those miles to see me in my theater debut. If that is not love......I don't know what is!) This is what we do for love. 

How do we love when addiction is in play. Pretty much all of the nice supportive things you would normally do for a person who is suffering is not going to be entirely successful with addiction. I just haven't really been in the drivers seat, so to speak, when it comes to the family's perspective on addiction. I can only try to imagine what my family dealt with in terms of my very liable presentation and trips to the psych ward. I can only imagine what my ex-husband would have to stay about the very active alcoholic wife he was married to. I can tell you what I didn't respond to. Never make a threat you won't follow through on. Addiction is one of those things that will take a mile if an inch is available. Addiction is amazingly creative at times and we become masters of manipulation to protect the drug we can't imagine living without. When I talk with families, I often think about all the ways I tried to avoid and weasel my way out of any situation that would change what I was doing.

I wouldn't dare write one catch-all advice column about how families should approach addiction. Honestly, this is not my area of expertise, although one I would consider myself competent in talking about. I am much more clinical oriented when I talk to family members. When someone is reaching out to me because s/he is still drinking, I am less clinical and just another alcoholic in the room looking to support another person find what s/he is looking for. When families come to me, they want answers and an action plan. I totally get that. Things are generally at a really scary place by the time I speak with them. I do have a wealth of information at my finger tips and will provide any and all information I can. I just can't quite promise you that I will be the exact person to provide the plan. Just be prepared that some of what I may suggest is going to feel very uncomfortable because it is the exact opposite of how we are wired to take care of our friends and family. Addiction does turn everything upside down.

What I will end with tonight was an experience I had when I attended the Family Program at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. I attended as a graduate student. I was three years sober at that point and sat through as a "patient". I introduced myself as a patient but it became evident quickly that I was there as a student. I was accepted nonetheless. The way that HBF does there program is that the family members go through the program one week and the patient of that family attends a different week. My family week in my first treatment felt like a firing squad of the family confronting the patients in a large group setting. So I was intrigued about how this works when the patient and family go at different times. Anyway, during the week I attended, there was a mother of a 27 year old patient who was attending the following week. He was addicted to opiates and had overdose 3 times in her home and she found him passed out on the streets on numerous other occasions. She was broken and this situation was killing her. He was talking about coming back to live with her after his 21 days were up. This was his 14th treatment in 10 years. She was terrified. She, for some reason, really gravitated to me and almost had a motherly instinct toward me. 

We broke out into smaller groups at one point to have a more in-depth discussion about dealing with addiction. By not having the direct family members in the group while still having people who are experiencing addiction, the family members asked really interesting questions. "Why do you do [insert crazy behavior]?" This mother asked me "what did your mother do for you?" I thought for a second and responded: "She started to have an adult relationship with me. She will always love me like her baby; however, I was 33 when I got sober and it was time for me to stand on my own. It was the most loving thing she has ever done for me." I saw her light up, probably thinking for the first time about her own child being an adult that has adult decisions to make. She replied, "Oh my gosh, yes, I want an adult relationship with my son. How did she do it?" That question I could not exactly answer other than I know my mom listened very carefully during our family week and made some changes in her life to support my new life. I wish I could say by the end of the week she had decided to make that transition. Her son eloped from treatment on the last day of our week together. She completed the program and graduated. She announced after she received her medallion that we was going to start looking for her son because it would be dead in a matter of hours if she didn't. That's a mother's love that is hard to change in a 4 day period. The interaction, however, has stuck with me today, 7 years later. Despite how things played out, I suspect that she remembers our conversations too. I can only hope she found what she was looking for.