The Unwasted Life

I'll often tell my clients that one of things I really don't want to hear from them is "I have wasted my whole life....." When I was sitting on that other side where they are right now, I remember exactly how that feels and why people say that. There is so much regret and shame of a life that seems to be wasted. We will focus in on time lost with those we love, time we "could have or should have" been doing something else and the tough one - with my clients - not being the mother to their children. 

For some reason tonight, I have been paging through the various years of my Facebook profile. I joined in 2007, which was 3 and 1/2 years before I got sober. Boy I was really trying hard to make sure the world only saw the best of my life. Not that I live out every bad moment on Facebook, but knowing my drunk self than anyone, I was really working hard to make sure that my life appeared normal and UBER happy.

There was definitely a change in tone when I was starting to get sober. I came out on that treatment high and had all sorts of inspirational things to say. Then, as time went by this whole "I have wasted my life" thing was starting to sink in. I wanted to share something that I had wrote in late 2010 - I was coming up on 6 months of sobriety. I had posted this in the personal notes for the world to see. My heart was hurting and this is why:

And I reflect....while packing up the memories
December 15, 2010 at 9:52pm
I guess there isn't much you can do about the past except to reflect on the lessons learned and how I will do things differently in the future. My heart is somewhat heavy this week. During the snow storm, I took the opportunity to go through my filing and get rid of papers I no longer needed. While gathering the boxes together, I came across a "keepsake" box I guess I had put together several years ago after my wedding. While the memories of that day were fond, it brought up some heartache about the eventual demise of that marriage.

What I finally came to realize as I discarded pictures, cleared out frames and packaged up several items to go to Goodwill, is that I don't think I am mourning the loss of my marriage so much as the dream I had built around it. A dream of my own family, security, the social comfort of being "married", etc. It's the death of the dream that is pulling at my heart right now. I wonder if I will ever have that life again. Did I screw up things so badly that I cannot tread near those dreams because of the current pain I feel? Deep questions, few answers.

I think these feeling are especially strong during the Holiday season. I do feel inadequate around my family. Everyone is married with children of their own. To me, it seems that everyone else is living the dream I so desperately wanted.  And still do want. I feel like I am a loser for not being able to "pull" it together and make it work. I feel unlovable at times.

As I reflect on my feelings and emotions, I search for what is needed here: Perspective. If God chose this route for me, maybe there is a bigger and greater good which has yet to be revealed to me that will satisify the cravings of my lost dream. I am sitting here trying to challenge my own perceptions of this situation. Am I unlovable? No. Am I loser for not being married? No. Is it OK to feel this way? Yes, but.....

The pain has to be felt and dealt with. I need to find a way to mourn my dream. Maybe some radical acceptance is in order here. I can change the future, which I am doing everyday. I cannot go back and change what has happened. In the grander scheme of things, all of the events of the past 10 years has led me to this point. A change to live and dream. Maybe a new dream is in order. Maybe what I think I want so badly is something that other people want for me. In an effort to people please, I am seeking this dream so others will be happy for me. Maybe that is not what I need or really even desire.

I think all mixed in here is a lot of shame and guilt. Two very furious feelings which can so easily drive behavior and choice. Again, these feelings need to be felt but not at the sake of my own sanity. I am thinking right at this moment, that my self-talk is about the only thing that is really going to help here. Propping myself up, acknowledge these feelings and talk myself into releasing it. In releasing the feelings, I am not forgetting what I learned or what I need to change. I am simply giving myself the opportunity to engage the world and try again.

Wish me luck as I venture to do this in the next several weeks.

Happy Holidays all!

Julie 
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In this entry, I was processing these feelings of massive regret, wondering if there was something bigger and better out there for me. My heart jumped a little while I was reading this tonight and I found myself wanting to say to Julie 2010 - oh yeah, there was something huge for you, just wait until a few years. When I wrote this, I just wanted to be married and "like everyone else". I was still in a bit of the self-pity mode about being an alcoholic. "OH whoa is me, why me?" Additionally, I had felt lost and uncertain about what this life of sobriety was really going to look like and feel like, for that matter. In December 2010, it felt pretty crappy if you want to know the truth. I felt lonely, unsuccessful, angry, wallowing in self-pity. I refused to believe the promises of the 12 steps. I was still harboring some anger toward God and I was still mad as hell about being on that monitoring program. So much insecurity, so much misdirected anger and just a good ole ton of fear.

A few weeks ago, I covered for a group for another counselor. Since I didn't know these guys, I had them go around and introduce themselves, tell me what brought them here and on a scale of 1-10, what was their motivation for recovery today. Well, if you guys remember, I started with the men's residential program.....doing this type of introduction with 15 men took about 29 minutes. "Yep, name is Bob, my wife put me through an intervention and I am about an 8 today." Bless these women....I got from age 4 until the present, a monologue of perceived reasoning for walking through the doors, and not only a number, a short dissertation about that number. 

When the intro finally came back to me, my usual role is to talk about some consistencies I see in their stories. The one absolute, overriding similarity was overt shame over a wasted life. Even the 16 year old clients were talking about a life wasted. I don't like hearing that because I stand here, today, proof that all that hell and anguish was worth something. However, when I came across this old entry on Facebook, I was reminded that I not only felt that way, I used it over and over again to justify relapsing. 

I am still trying to figure out a better way to convey the message of the Unwasted Life in a way that is tangible to my clients. I don't do my testimony at work because, well, it's work. I am not their recovery buddy, I am their counselor. So, I don't usually tell them that this addiction can be a catalyst to a whole new world of opportunities. There is this balance in recovery about the past, present and future. One of my male clients came flying into group one day and told me "I heard the best thing, 'if you are anxious, you are living in the past, if you are worried, you are living in the future and all you are doing is pissing on the present.'" I have a feeling the original quote was a little different as this is an AA ideal. If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you are not able to be in the present, or in the case of this quote, I guess you are peeing on it. Noted and actually quite correct. 

As addicts, we should never forget the past. The past can function as a reminder of who we don't want to be. I believe it is important to remember some of the pain for the sheer reminder that only I can bring myself back to that place by picking up the bottle again. What I cannot do, it focus on the divorced, the lost time with my nephew, other people's time that I wasted. I need to do some 8&9th step work there (Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them. Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, unless do so would injure them or others )  By making the amends, I have asked for forgiveness for the wrongs that I have done and am making a commitment to that person to work my program of recovery and lead a good life moving forward. It's like we need to draw that line in the sand and say "what happened, happened....no going back....no changing it.....time to accept the past for what it is and the lessons learned....move on, move forward." There is also a need, at this point, to forgive ourselves for the past as well. Again, this is not forgetting it, it is learning from it and building a life on the complete other spectrum.

We certainly cannot live in the future because we will just set ourselves up for failure. That whole "one day at a time" thing? Yeah, we live and breath it in recovery. There was a lecturer that came in while I was in residential treatment. He told us his story and used a lot of humor. I ran into him in the lobby area as he was leaving. I told him "I really liked being able to laugh a little tonight. It's been a rough week." He looked at me and told me "one day at a time". He handed me a medallion from pocket and said "you know, someone gave this to me in my early recovery. You are going to do, I can tell, you take this and just remember one day at a time." He smiled and walked away. I don't know if he knew how much that meant to me. I have that coin still. It says "I may drink tomorrow, but I am sober today." As addicts, we just can't live in the future. We are too up and down and back and forth ~ let me tell you 24 hours is more than enough to deal with at one time

So maybe my lecture should be about 2 different things: How to come to a place of acceptance of what happened in the past. Acceptance does not mean we endorse it, love it, hate it - we just accept that it happened and if we are at all unhappy with what happened, let's figure out how to change this moving forward. The second part is talking about the lessons learned from addiction.
NEGATIVE:
1. I am a whiny, needy, annoying drunk
2. I become severely mentally unbalanced when I drink
3. I nearly screwed up my career
4. I lost my marriage
5. I spend gobs of money I did not have on liquor (~$520 per month just on liquor)
6. I COULD have had the following things......nope. stop. don't go there because it doesn't do me any good.
POSITIVE:
1. I am WAY stronger than I ever thought I was
2. I can do it and am going it! (Recovery that is....)
3. I am a good public speaker
4. I started a new career that I said I would never do
5. I have made and kept more commitments in the past 4 years than I did in my entire drinking history of 18 years
6. I have more gratitude for the little things in life after getting sober

One of the skills of DBT I learned in my first week of treatment that made me sign up for the year program was RADICAL ACCEPTANCE: 

When you've radically accepted something, you're not fighting it. It's when you stop fighting reality. That's what radical acceptance is.It's when you accept something from the depths of your soul. When you accept it in your mind, in your heart, and even with your body.  It's total and complete. There are three parts to radical acceptance.  The first part is accepting that reality is what it is.  The second part is accepting that the event or situation causing you pain has a cause.  The third part is accepting life can be worth living even with painful events in it.~Marsha Linehan, PhD, Developer of DBT

It's this idea that by not accepting, we are perpetuating our own suffering. That is what I want to try to convey to my clients. The whole idea of the "Wasted Life" keeps us from being able to accept what we need to accept about our past in order to move into the future. We have to believe that our lives are worth living even though we have done what we have done. We also have to accept that we are all susceptible of going back. It's a lifelong battle, every day. And that is OK. (One my favorite guys from AA told me once "30 years, 30 days, 30 hours, 30 seconds - we are all the same distance from the ditch. All it takes is just one sip....") 

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great 4th! I was able to spend some time with friends and do some very fun activities. It is always a great reminder of what life has to offer when I am sober!

Peace Out!
Jules

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