Returning To Treatment

Yes, that's right, I returned to the same treatment facility that helped me when I first got clean and entered into recovery.  My sister and a very close friend took me.  We had some time for both of them to get to know each other a little better.  Fairly nice traveling weather up there, but got colder the closer we got.  Stopped to eat supper at a nice restaurant named "Granny's" in Icard.  Simple, quiet, family environment and good food.

It did get colder and a bit of wind blowing as we got closer.  All kind of thoughts were rushing through my mind.  Just the thought of returning much less seeing some of the same staff members that were there when I was there before.  It has been a little over 3 years since I left from there and I can still remember a lot of my experiences there, from the first moment I arrived up to the moment I left to come back home.

Yes, returning there was somewhat surreal for me.  You see, when I left there I was told that they would love for me to come back to share my story but I had to wait at least a year.  They want you to come back but they want you to have at least one year being clean/sober before you come back to share.  No, I did not go back into treatment, I did go back to the treatment facility to share my story.

This is something that I have bounced around in my head and with mom and my sister for the past 2 years.  Well, ever since the time came that I could go back to share.  You may think that would be an easy task.  Just go back and now you are on the other side of using and you can see, feel and you know exactly what these folks that are there now are experiencing.  You are able to have some empathy for them.  I knew exactly what most of them were feeling for I had been there and done that, never to forget from where and what I came out of so as not to return.

So, after a trip to Asheville, I reunited with one of the staff members at the treatment facility and he asked if I would consider coming back up and speaking to the patients there.  Sounded like a good idea and most of all, I did feel ready to go back.  You see, I feel, that unless you 'have been there done that' then you can't understand fully the feeling, well for me, I felt somewhat afraid to return.  Why?  I think it was just knowing my state of being when I was there and how I am today.

In the treatment facility as a patient, I was hungry for more of recovery than they would give me.  I have not lost that hunger, but this time I was going to be the one feeding them on recovery.  I have never done anything like this before.  Never have been someone that gets up in front of a room full of people and talk about myself.  Never in a million years would you find me doing that until I entered into recovery.  There is just something that tells me 'you need to do this, you can do this and you know you can and you should'.

There were three of us that showed to speak so I got the men's group and the others took the women's group.  I told part of my story.  How I went out looking to get high.  How the life style and the drugs became my life.  Some of the things I lost.  People that I hurt.  What my experience was in treatment at this same facility.  How I knew what some were thinking of me.  What some of my thoughts were while there was some of the same thoughts they were having.  Feeling the same, an unspoken understanding just because we were, are, all addicts.

You see, yes I spoke to a room full of men, but this is what I told the counselor when he asked if I wanted the men or women's groups, an addict, is an addict, is an addict.  Just like a drug is a drug is a drug.  It made no difference to me who I spoke to because I was there to speak to addicts, any or all addicts there.

As I told my story, my sister and sponsor were sitting in the back of the room.  They were there to give me some support.  When I thought I have no idea what to say next, I could look back there at them and I was able to find the words to tell just a little more of myself to these men that I had never met.  I had no written speech to read or go by.  No note cards.  Just me and my bottle of water.  Doing it that way was how I was taught.  Speaking from my heart.  Yes there were things that were hard to tell of myself, but as I stood up there in front of these men I thought 'hey, he is getting this and that one too.'  

My heart filled and I paused for a moment here and there.  Making sure that truth was all that I spoke to these men.  It would do them and me no good at all to make up stories about my using or my recovery.  That is only doing them and myself an unjust service.  There were things I shared they could see the emotions come to the surface again just as they did when that experience was actually happening.  The could identify.  Yes I am different from them, but when it comes to my addiction and using goes, we are all the same.

All of those men sat there and listened.  I mean they 'really' listened to what I had to say.  Yes, there were some that were just being polite but I could see when I hit home with one of them.  I could looked at all of them in the face and explain that I had been there done that and what I didn't do I have no intention on going back out there just to do those things.  I explained that even though I had not been using, my addiction was still and is still growing just in case I did slip.  There may be one more run in this old gal but she, I, know I do not in anyway, shape, or form have another recovery.  If I go back out I WILL die out there.

Yes, there is no way I could make it back if I started all those lies up again.  Why?  How do I know?  Well, all I can say is 'I know myself and I have never done anything half way.  It is all or nothing with me.  There was one thing I did not tell them that I knew and that was that only 1 out of 30 people ever get this thing called 'recovery'.  I did tell them that I knew some would have to relapse and there would be some that will die just so someone else's eyes can be opened and for them to understand that this could happen to them just as easily as it did that person.

Drinking, drugging, using, selling, whatever part or parts you are in or someone you knows is in can be stopped.  You can lose the desire to use, sell or whatever is your thing.  You can learn a new way to live life on life's terms.  Never told anyone that it was going to be easy.  Why?  Cause it ain't easy at times and recovery really is not easy, but it is necessary for survival.  There are only three things that will happen if they continue to use and go down that path:  jails, institutions or death.  That someone has to die for someone to live is something that is very real and true.  Sometimes it takes an addict that is still active in their addiction, for them to die before others see that the same is happening to them.

No, I can't afford to forget my last run.  How I felt.  What I was doing.  And so on and so on.  That circle that is never ever ending.  Well, today someone may very well think that they are in a circle that is never ending.  They are correct in that thought if they continue to use, yes that is what they have to look forward to.  Doing the same thing day after day after day expecting different results.  There will be none.  You must change what you are doing in order to get different results.  Some will get it and some I am afraid will not get it.

Thank you all for allowing me to tell parts of my story in hopes that one of you or someone you know will be inspired enough to seek the help needed against this disease.  I, too, have loved ones that are still in active addiction and it is heart breaking to see.  Knowing that there is a better life to live if you, they would just stop using.

Until next time, may God bless and keep you this night so if you wake, you will start your day with God.  He is good and recovery is well, just plain WONDERFUL!!!