Utterly powerless over addiction

 Update: After beginning work on this blog post I found out that my good friend from back east, T, killed himself earlier this month.  T was a very close friend who I have always considered my family and we have lived together and gone through alot of shit together.  I miss him terribly and wish I could have done something to prevent his suicide.  In light of his tragic death I would like to dedicate this post to T and to his family who is now grieving his loss.  I will always love you my brother, I pray that your pain is over now and that you are in a better place.  The people whose lives you touched will never forget you. <3 Rest in Peace.

T and myself in a squat in Portland, Maine 2011

Recently, it's interesting, I have started re-evaluating how I remember certain events.  My perception at the time of these events really shaped the way I had remembered them until recently, now it's like scales of bullshit have fallen from my eyes and I am starting to see things as they actually were.  I remember one of the last times I went to New York City before moving out west, I left from Portland Maine with two female friends, let's call them Nick and Jack.  Jack is a very close friend of mine.  She is one of those rare people who has the ability to drink or use drugs with moderation.  When she says she can quit something any time she wants to it is actually the truth and not one of those lies addicts tell themselves, this is because Jack is not an addict.  I have always envied and admired this quality in her, sadly I myself clearly do not possess this same strength of character, as history has shown me time and time again.  Nick does not use hard drugs.  I was experiencing a brief period of abstinence from heroin though I was still binge drinking, doing the occasional hallucinagen, and smoking weed like it was crack.   I promised my friends before we left Maine that I would not do any heroin when I got to New York.  In all reality, though I may not have fully realized it at the time, the only real reason I ever went to New York was to shoot dope.  Therefore promising not to was an impossible promise for me to make, to me, NYC is the Disneyland of heroin.  The very first night we got to New York after spending a day in Boston, we were invited back to a squat some friends of mine were staying in.  We all got really drunk, I noticed that one of the guys in the squat was shooting up in the bathroom.  Despite direct pleas from my friends not to use, I bought two bags of heroin and shot them up right in front of them.  Jack was very upset and disappointed with me, I had lied to her and betrayed her trust.  At the time I was angry at them for holding me to my promise, I thought they should understand that I was a dope fiend and I was just doing what dope fiends do, how could they get pissed off at me for doing my thing?  I rationalized the whole thing to myself, I didn't really care how they felt.  Over the next few days I continued to get high, picking up where I had left off with my habit, and stopped hanging out with Nick and Jack.  They found their own people to hang out with while I ran around with my junkie friends. After a week I had basically ditched them in New York City after promising I would not do that exact thing.  This was the THIRD time I had done this same fucking thing to Jack.  She ended up leaving New York and going home by herself, I spent a month or two there following around the boy I started doing dope with 8 years ago who I was sadly (as in pathetic) and desperately in love with for many years even though he would never feel the same way about me, running around shooting mass amounts of heroin, and sleeping in squats or on the street. Nick stayed in New York but would not talk to me, she was clearly disgusted by my lack of resolve.  I have never apologized to Jack for this incident or the two other times I ditched her in New York.  Jack has always been an amazing, immensely patient, and kind friend to me.  I am lucky to have her in my life even still.  I can't imagine how it must have felt for her being on the receiving end of my callous junkie bullshit over and over again.  This incident, for me, really illustrates the nature of my disease.  I am completely and utterly POWERLESS over my addiction.  No matter how much I want to abstain, my will and resolve completely collapses when the opportunity to get high presents itself.  Even if it doesn't, I will seek it out.  That is why seeking out a spiritual path to recovery is my only hope of ever conquering my addiction, I have shown myself time and time and time again that I cannot do it on my own no matter how much I want to.  That is the epitome of powerlessness, my life while using was the epitome of an unmanageable existence.

A lot of what I have been reading in AA with M or in groups from the Big Book lately has correlated to this concept of being powerless.  We have read several stories about people who, even though they wanted to quit drinking and made promises and resolutions to that affect, would suddenly find themselves in a bar close to blacking out or waking up from one days later and wondering what the fuck had just happened.  Bill Ws' story is full of such instances.  Every time we addicts and alcoholics have told ourselves "this time is the last time" without actually doing anything besides relying on our will power, our wills have failed us and we have gone right back to our addictive behaviors.   This has happened to me way more times than I can list, and it is really infuriating and demoralizing, I have learned that I really can't trust myself, and that I have no actual will power to speak of when it comes to drugs and alcohol.  To put it bluntly, that fucking sucks dicks, but unfortunately it is the reality of the situation.  What then can I do to put my life of active drug use behind me?  Like the 2nd step says, I need to "[come] to believe that a power greater than [myself] can restore [me] to sanity" and step 3 "Make a decision to turn [my] will and my life over to the care of God as I under[stand] him."  It's that simple, I cannot do it myself, no one can do it for me, therefor nothing short of DIVINE INTERVENTION can heal me from my insane and hopeless addiction.  I am not going to talk or debate about God right now.  No, I am not a religious person, but like I have said before I am willing to try anything right now that will help me change my life, and I am certainly not going to close the door on God and spirituality just because I harbor some negative opinions about organized religion.  There is a huge difference between religion and faith, or religion and spirituality.  I will not engage in a debate about this right now as it is besides the point.  I'm sure the discussion will be had at some point in the future.

At the conclusion of my two lists about how my life had become unmanageable I wrote the following...
Most of all my day to day life had become exhausting, repetitive, and completely devoid of any joy or hope.  I lived in horrible environments surrounded by (in San Francisco at least) fucked up people and I was turning into a bad person myself.  The brief respites of cheap happiness my drug use allowed me paled in comparison to the overall horror of my life.  Over the years I had lowered every one of my standards and morals and I had given up everything I loved to further my addiction.  I was seriously considering suicide as I felt it was the only escape from the pain of my existence.  I was too exhausted even to continue the daily cycle of my addiction.  I was powerless over drugs and alcohol and my life had become completely unmanageable.

I posted before in 'Scars on my Soul - Past Sex Work and Recovery' about my shame concerning my past actions and how I degraded myself sexually through prostitution, among other things.  (I have to qualify this at this point with the fact that I absolutely DO NOT consider sex work in general to be a shameful occupation.  I just feel that my motivations and the way it manifested through my addictions were harmful to me.  I thoroughly support sex worker rights and its' further legalization to support sex workers and make to it safer for those who practice it.)  I felt as if no one would be able to relate to me and like I had crossed a line and done things I could never take back or make amends for.  I spoke to another mentor I have met recently, let's call her S for the purposes of this blog.  She went through very similar shit as me when she was still using, she was a junkie as well and also sold her body to support her habit, though you would never guess any of that shit from seeing her now.  She is a very strong and respectable woman who is  very successful in life, she radiates confidence and self acceptance, S is an inspiration to me.  Talking to her really helped me gain some perspective and allowed me to hope a little bit for my future.  If someone like S can move on from that kind of depravity and hopelessness there is no reason why I can't as well.  I can only hope that in the future I can provide other women (or men) with the same kind of hope by telling my story.

My dad sent me an awesome package in the mail which I received the other day.  Along with a nice card and some much needed spending money, he went to an art store and bought me a huge oil painting kit, four packs of fancy brushes, another set of oil paints, and an art pad.  I was ecstatic, I really need a creative outlet, and it was such a thoughtful gift.  I love my dad.  He is very sick with cancer and I am trying to spend as much time with him as possible.  I will be going to visit him in the beginning of October, and though being around that side of my family will present a lot of challenges to my newfound sobriety, I am really looking forward to hanging out with my dad.  My father is also a recovered heroin addict, he has over 20 years clean off dope and is another source of hope and inspiration for me.  He does however smoke a shit ton of weed, and I have always enjoyed smoking with him and my siblings in the past.  Now that I am in AA I have quit smoking pot, and it is a point of contention for me because I honestly love marijuana and do not consider it to be a harmful or addictive drug.  It is going to be difficult for me to abstain from it while visiting my dad since I see it as an important bonding experience between us, and since he is dying, I do not want to miss out on any bonding opportunities that may be our last.  More on that subject later.

I am going to Ms house in a little while to finish my step one work, which i have been procrastinating on like a total douchebag.  Once I have finished it I will post it here.  Thank you for reading.  As always please comment or contact me if you need any help or support with anything, and I wish you all the best of luck and strength in your individual journeys. <3

PS - Today is my 30 day sobriety birthday!

tiny cuts and puncture wounds.

Last night was really hard, but I'm lucky to have a sponsor who really cares about me and is there to help me through times like that.  Hitting two back to back meetings tonight with M and her friend, I really need some hope and inspiration, and I think Ms friend can relate to what I'm going through with my shame and guilt about my past.

Coming back from the clinic today was an interesting bus ride to say the least.  We were a couple blocks from ward 93 when the bus driver refused to let this guy on the bus because he tried to come in the back door without paying.  As the bus started to drive away he was pounding on the doors and started chasing the bus.  Several passengers spoke up, one girl went to the back doors and demanded to be let off, when the driver opened the doors she let the guy on the bus and sat back down.  It became immediately apparent why the driver did not want this particular rider on his bus.  He was obviously on drugs and probably had severe mental issues.  He was talking to himself and fidgeting all over the place, eyes rolling around in his head.  Several riders were obviously uncomfortable, but two people in the back of the bus started yelling to him asking him questions and egging him on.  They asked "what did it to you man?  Was it the coke?  The pills?  That Molly?"  asking what had led him to be in his current state, mocking him.  The guy went to sit by them in the back of the bus and they continued to make fun of him and ask him personal questions, laughing at his nonsensical responses.  At one point I heard the sound of a picture being taken on a phone and heard one of the riders exclaim "That shit's goin' on Instagram!"  Eventually the guy made his way off the bus, followed by the sound of laughter and mocking comments from several riders.  I looked out the window at him as he left, feeling saddened and reminded of how fucked up I used to be.  The whole experience was very jarring.  I wondered how many times I had been mocked by people who witnessed my erratic and insane behavior while high or out of my mind.  Despite my empathy for the man, I couldn't bring myself to say anything in his defense, so I just sadly watched him walk down the street gesticulating wildly and talking to no one in particular.

As I was opening the front door to my building; someone standing behind me (I didn't recognize the voice or look to see who it was,) yelled "Getting off work so soon?  I didn't know sucking dick  was a part time job!"  I quickly shut the door behind me and hurried up the stairs to my apartment, not daring to acknowledge the insult or look to see who had hurled it. Once inside I locked my door and put the chain on, glancing furtively out the peephole to see if I had been followed, paranoia already beginning to set in.  My dog Kali jumped at my ankles and wagged her tail, excited to have me home, I could tell she wanted to go outside but I was afraid for her safety.  There are people in this city who do not have my best interest at heart, I have been attacked and threatened, and people have even threatened to hurt my dog on occasion.  I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something bad happened to Kali.  She is my best friend and I love her more than anything in the world, if she got hurt I am pretty much positive I would relapse, if not do something even more self-destructive.  I reached down to pat her and rub her belly, "In a little while I'll take you out baby, there are some mean people outside right now."  I tried to put the insult out of my mind, but it so directly correlated to what I had been beating myself up over last night, and I found it hard to distract myself from the truth in the statement.  I still have no idea who it was, I'm not sure if I even want to know.  All I know is that I am a different person now and am trying to put all of that shit behind me so I shouldn't let people who want to drag me back down affect me or my progress.  I just need to keep reminding myself that I am not that person anymore.  Maybe some day I will even believe it.

More later.  Thank you for reading.  As always, if you need some support or someone to talk to please do not hesitate to contact me using the contact form on this page or by leaving a comment on any one of my posts.  Take care and stay strong.

scars on my soul

 Update: After writing this I texted my sponsor assuming she was asleep.  She called me right away, I told her what I was going through and how I was starting to feel hopeless and she helped me put things in perspective.  I need to try and pace myself instead of trying to fix everything right away.  I'm only on my first step.  She assured me that as I continue to work the program I will work on all of this shit in depth and that once I define and turn my life over to my higher power I will feel a lot of relief.  She also told me that on my fourth step I can work on the resentments I have towards myself as well as other people and situations and that my on my fifth step she will help me prioritize my shit and figure out where to start with healing myself and my life. I am really starting to trust her and am very thankful that she approached me at my first SF meeting and offered her help, I don't think I could do this without her support. I am going to try and hit an early meeting after I go to the clinic and then I'm going to two meetings at night with my sponsor and my grand-sponsor.  This goes back to the issue of blind faith, something I have never had because I always over analyze shit and quit before I even start to try.  I know I'm really fucked up but I'm not the only one and I'm not the worst addict that ever lived.  If people like me and people who have been through and done worse shit then me can recover, then I can too, I just need to have some faith.  I thought about deleting this but then I reminded myself that I am not alone in my pain and that it might help someone else to see it and know that they are not the only one who has been fucked up.

Continuing to work on my first step, it's a lot harder then I expected to actually write this shit down.  If you are easily triggered by descriptions of traumatic events, abuse, and drug fueled depravity you might not want to read this.

Times that my life was unmanageable (Continued)

• I have had hepatitis C for seven years now because I knowingly shared needles and took rinses from people who had it.  I didn't care and thought it was no big deal.  My father is dying from liver cancer right now because that is how his hep C progressed.  It is a big fucking deal.
• For five years I continued to drink heavily after testing positive for hep C even after my doctor told me I was destroying my liver and my LFTs reflecting the damage were shown to me.  I only stopped drinking when I started coughing up blood, blacking out randomly after hours of drinking and not getting drunk, and feeling pain in my liver the day after drinking.
• A month after I moved to San Francisco I got beat up and robbed on sixth street because I was there at night smoking crack and shooting dope.
• Several of my good friends have overdosed because of heroin I sold to them, gave them, or shot them up with.  None of them died in these situations because I always carry Narcan kits, but they easily could have.
• I have had dozens of friends die from overdoses, commit suicide, die on the streets, or be killed.
• I have overdosed myself on heroin twice, over amped a couple of times on meth, and twice from shooting coke and crack.  Had I not been with friends I could have died each of these times.
• I have been raped three times as a result of getting high or going on missions to by drugs in dangerous places or with dangerous people.  I have been physically assaulted numerous times.  I would intentionally put myself into situations in which I could get killed or hurt because I wanted to die.
• I was raped, robbed, and almost killed by a man I met while prostituting myself to buy crack and heroin.
• I have prostituted myself for money to buy drugs more times than I am willing to admit to myself and I completely despise myself for it.
• I have literally had psychotic breaks from reality while using drugs, especially when I used to shoot meth / coke and smoke crack.  There have been months at a time where I ran around actively hallucinating people chasing me, would hear everyone around me talking shit about me, and would see faces of my rapists on random people, loudly talk to myself and scream at strangers in the street because I was so thwacked.
• I would constantly pick at my skin or pull out my body hair (especially my eyebrows and arm hair) with tweezers while high.  I could not control the obsession and would spend entire days and nights sitting in the same spot on my floor or standing in front of the mirror picking.  I did this to the point of seriously disfiguring myself and was completely unable to stop myself.
• I have neglected my dog because I was dopesick.  I would lay in bed for days at a time without taking her out just letting her piss and shit on the floor.

As you can see I am a total piece of shit.  I am starting to understand how important this initial step is to my recovery.  I didn't realize how fucked up I was when I was using.  I thought I was a decent, moral person despite my drug use.  I would look down on and judge other drug users.  My life was completely fucking out of control.  I was lying to myself.  I understand the whole concept of giving myself over to a higher power and relinquishing my control, because I have no control over my addiction.  I am lucky to be alive.   I am terrified though that I have scarred my soul with this shit, that there is no way to heal or make amends for a lot of the shit I have put myself and the people I love through.  I am not going to use this as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, an excuse to go back to the way I was, I just have no idea how I can ever be a somewhat normal person given my past.  I'm not sure if I can handle the truth of how much I have destroyed my life.  There's just so much horrible shit, it's a lot easier to put it out of my mind and feel nothing.  Maybe I am getting ahead of myself.  I feel very overwhelmed right now. One day at a time though right?  I'm just going to focus on not using right now, tomorrow is another day.

I am going to pray, go to sleep, and call my sponsor in the morning. Stay strong everyone.  Goodnight.