Recovery...Only By God's Grace

November 23, 2009 is a day I shall never forget.  Why? you ask?  Because that is the day that my life as I know it today began.  It was, for the first time in a long time, that I made a life changing decision and the day God showed me His love and grace.  The day my recovery began....

Each year at this time is not only special because of Thanksgiving this week but it is always more special since it is when I first entered in to recovery.  Since I started this blog, I always do a post on my clean date.  And I share about what has happened to me since I started this journey.  I hope that someone, anyone, or more of you find the message of hope as that is what I am trying my best to express to those in need.  Whether it be that you have the disease of addiction or suffer from depression or any other reason that the message of hope will lighten your spirit.  With a little bit of hope you can make it through anything you must face.  So, this post is as much for me as it is for you, the one reading this.  Trust me, with hope you can go a long way in life...

Yes, today marks 6 years living clean without the use of drugs.  When I realized that I did indeed need someone to help me, I had my aunt call my mom and dad.  Knowing that they cared about me, I knew they would come for me and get me to where I needed and wanted to go.  Now, just to let you know that this year, my clean date is on a Monday and it lands on Monday once again, so this year really takes me back to that day.  More than taking me back to that day, it takes me back to the night of my last use.  I can still see, feel, smell everything from that night as if it were etched into my mind.

From day one in my recovery, I was taught to never, ever forget my last day of use.  Why??  Because as long as I kept that thought, the events of that day/night, fresh in my mind, it will help me from going back to that life again.  Once I forget where it is I came from, I am subject to repeat and God knows I don't want to do that.  I have come too far, but yet still have a long, long way to go in my recovery, not to do what is suggested to me.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may hear or read things that I have written about more than once.  Part of me would like to apologize for that, but on the other hand, those are the issues that linger with me.  They are the issues that keep coming up, are deeper than others and still need to write about cause I'm still working on them.  As I have always said, most of these posts are my personal experiences, but there are some that others I know have allowed me to share their experience to may be help someone else that may face the same struggles.

Before I entered into recovery, I remember I prayed that God would just take me on.  That He would take me out of the pain and suffering I had dug myself so deep into that I felt I could not do it for myself.  Since I've gotten clean and have reunited with God, at first I would always say why me God?  Why me?  Why did you save me and give me this life I have today?  No longer do I question God, for  I know that He saved me in order for me to reach out and try to help others the best way I know how, by sharing my experiences, my hope and my strength.  And this post is no different than any others I have posted.

First, I'd like to share something that I find on a social media site that caught my eye:

"Addiction is a disease.  There is no cure. You can't beat it.  An addict will always struggle with it.  It's like lupus or MS.  You just learn how to deal with it.  Manage it without feeding it.  Don't come to me and tell me addicts are weak.  Recovering addicts are the strongest people you will ever meet.  They are strong because they know the only way out of their addiction is death.  They know this and yet they continue to fight for their sobriety.  They fight to regain all the things they lost in active addiction.  They fight EVERY SINGLE DAY to be better than they were the day before.  And they will fight every day for the rest of their life.  Don't tell me I'm weak because I'm an addict.  How many other people can say they survived walking through Hell and have the scars to prove it?"

Second, I'd like to share the definition of recovery as it is defined in Webster's Dictionary:

:  the act or process of becoming healthy after an illness or injury
:  the act or process of returning to a normal state after a period of difficulty
:  the return of something that has been lost, stolen, etc.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, how does drug addiction stack up against other chronic illnesses?

*  30 - 50 percent of people with type 1 diabetes fall to stick to their treatment plan

*  50 - 70 percent of people who suffer from asthma fail to take their meds or make recommended
                lifestyle changes

*  50 - 70 percent of people with chronic high blood pressure don't that their hypertension medication
                as directed

*  40 - 60 percent of drug addicts will relapse from their plan of treatment

With sharing this information with you, my hope is that when you read this and see what my odds or any other addicts odds are as far as recovery goes, you will understand why I am the way I am.  I do attend a 12 step program.  Without it I can tell you that I would not be able to write this blog.  I would not be able to be a daughter to my mom and dad, or a sister to my sister or brothers.   Addiction is chronic, fatal illness that has to be treated on a regular basis as the other chronic illnesses do.

What I have learned in my recovery thus far is that my writing this blog is a God given talent that I will not hide from anyone for any reason.  Me being able to speak and share in front of large groups of people and most of all to read in front of people I do not know for when I entered into recovery, I had what I would guess to be a 6th grade or so reading level.  Not great at all.

For the past six years life has been life on it's terms not my terms.  There have been good days, okay days, not so okay days and days that I wish I could just stay in bed and cover my head up.  But everyday is a good day as long as my eyes open each morning to see God's beauty and His glory.

Some of you will understand what I am saying and others, just come back later and read this again or a different post that fits with what you are going through today.  All I have is this moment, just this very moment and no more is promised.  I am however promised in recovery a daily reprieve from active addictions as long as I work a program.  None of us are promised tomorrow for it is not here yet.

This is a very grateful addict that has found her new life because of the recovery I work on.  I'm not perfect, far from it, but I do the best that I can.  People are in recovery for many different reasons, but there is a common bond between us addicts, we all go to any ways and means for one more.  We all have a obsessive and compulsive facts.  If you always look at the differences how can you find the similarity?  When you learn to see the similarity between us addicts then we begin to understand each other that much better and the better we understand each other, the sooner our recovery process can start to come together and we can have growth from  that.

I'm not a rich person as far as material things go, but I am so wealthy in the spiritual sense.  I have TRUE friends.  Not those friends that are nice to you in person but stab you in the back first chance they get.  No not those folks, I mean people that if you are in need just let them know.  Sooner or later, normally sooner, things will begin to change and you, I, will have growth that we can share with others to help them through when they need it.

Yes, there is an end to this, just another moment or two, I promise...

My recovery has and will always be a big part of my life.  But today I do have other things and people that help fill my days.  Yes, most are in a program or in recovery and some are family members.  Although I do have a friend or two that are outside the program yet they understand me and know that there are things that I must do today to keep my clean date of November 23, 2009.  I must say that I am not and nor do I want to be the person I was before this date.

I know this post is somewhat here and there but my head is full of things to say and I must be careful when blogging as to what I can say and what I shouldn't say.  But I will say th is and the I will close this post down:  I LOVE MYSELF, MY LIFE, MY RECOVERY AND GOD, as I understand Him.  I do hope this post makes some kind of sense to someone as I feel that I rambled there for a bit and that is normally when I need to close the post because I know I have shared what God wanted me to share, just for today...I love each and every one of you and I pray that one person, just one but more would be nice, that one person find something in this or another post that will carry them until they get through whatever it is they are going through....


Thanks so much for your support in reading and keeping up with me and my blog.  Please fell free to share my blog website with folks you know that may be helped or that may know someone that needs help...till next time...

Relationships - Healthy Ones Today

Relationships, boy, that's a big one.  Healthy relationships at that.   When I first entered recovery, I so realized that I really didn't have any, not a one, healthy relationship in my life.  So, what did I do about that?  Well, I find out that first I had to get a healthy relationship with myself before I could ever hope to have healthy relationships with others.  I had to find out who I was, what it is that I enjoy in life and what I wanted to get out of life.  But even before getting a relationship with myself, in the beginning, I had to trust someone, somewhere to help me get started...

And so it began, I put my life in the hands of my parents to start with.  I knew I needed help and I also knew, that they would find that I got the help I needed and was asking for.  For the first few days of the beginning of my new life, way of life, my mom was with me 24/7.  Mom sat with me on nights I couldn't sleep until I went to sleep.  Mom made phone calls to find out what needed to be done, what were the steps to take to get me into treatment at the place I knew I wanted and probably needed to go to.  I felt that if I went to this place I would and could get the help I so desperately needed and was searching for.  I knew that they could help me because they had helped another family member and they were still sober.

This process of mine, which is on going and will be for the rest of my life, started almost 6 years ago.  Yes, on November 23, I will be celebrating my 6th year in recovery and being clean from all mood and mind altering chemicals.  Now I don't say that to brag or boast, I say that so that the one person that reads this post knows that they too can do the same thing.  It is possible to stop using, have that desire lifted and learn how to live a new life without the use of drugs, alcohol, or any mood/mind altering substance.  So, that was my beginning in learning to trust someone other than myself for the care of my life and the relationships that I would make and/or remake.

My mom, sister and aunt were all with me in the beginning.  Helping me, doing what was needed to ensure my recovery.  Without these three women loving me and protecting me, mainly from myself, I really don't think I would have been able to come as far as I have.  To this day, they are still in my corner.  Aiding when needed to see that I stay on track with my recovery and my life.  You can read previous posts that are about my mom and my sister and what they mean to me.  Most folks probably would say well it's your mom's place to love you and try to protect you and for the most part they would be right, I guess.  But, you see, I used my mom so much and did such bad things to her that she has every right to tell me 'no I not going to put myself out there just to be hurt again by you!'  But she didn't and neither did my sister or aunt.  They all stood beside me and helped  to guide me in the right direction.

So on Thanksgiving Day, 2009, I left my parents home and started the process to begin my recovery.  When we arrived at the treatment facility where I would spent the next month or so, I had to trust that the people working there would help me.  I had to believe and trust people that I had never met before in my life, with my life.  Not an easy thing to do but when you are in need you learn to do what you have to do to make it.  So at around 1 a.m. on November 24, 2009, my mom, sister and aunt left me in the hands of people that none of us knew.  We all put all the trust we had in these people at a time in my life when I thought I would go crazy because I knew no one.  What relationships I did have that were somewhat healthy had just pulled out of the parking lot and there I was.  Scared and all alone, with nothing or no one to help me except the people of the facility and a loving God.

 While I was in treatment I did meet people and formed a friendship type relationship[p with these people.  But I was very careful not to get too close, I had been in that mind set for years now and had to learn that it was time to forget how I did things before and to trust the process that I was beginning.  My dad told me before I left 'don't go there if you're not willing to do what they tell you to do.  They will and can help you but you have to be willing to listen to them and do as they ask.'  So I did what he suggested I do,  I followed all the rules and did as the counsellors ask of me and like I said, had some folks that I talked to and hung out with.  

 While in treatment I learned many things about relationships,   Most of all I learned that what I knew about relationships were not what a 'healthy' relationship was suppose to be made of.  So in short, I knew nothing about relationships at all.  But I wanted to learn how to make relationships, keep those relationships and what these relationships were suppose to have in them to make them work and last a life time.

Needless to say, this is one of the biggest things anyone will ever do in  their life, create relationships the healthy way and how to work and nourish those relationships so that they are always as healthy as they can be.  Some relationships are not meant to be ones that are long term and then others are meant to be long term.  It's best, I have found, to take new relationships slowly.   See them for what they are and what they are not.  Try to see that person and that new found relationship for what it really is.  Learn what is healthy and unhealthy for you.

Next, I had to get a relationship with myself.  I needed to learn that I mattered.  I desired to be treated with respect.  I desired to be loved for me and not what I could do for someone else.  Yes, these may be simple things to you but for this addict it was hard at first.  Please don't get it wrong or twisted, I am still learning about relationships and the different levels of each relationship I have with people today.  What level am I on with this person?  Do they treat me the way I want to and desire to be treated?  If not, then why do I find it necessary to continue to have said relationship with them?  What kind of relationship do I really have with said person?  Should I be on a different level than I am in this relationship?  And many other questions that I feel I have to ask myself about the relationship I have or think I have with people in my life today and then questions for those that will come into my life in the future.

Relationships are, for me anyway, always going to be a work in progress just as my recovery is and will be for the rest of my life.  Why?  Because that's how I stay healthy with mind, body and soul.  Today, I know I matter and I have a lot of worth.  So, those that I have meaningful relationships with know my worth and respect me for who I am today and love me for me with the good, the bad, and the different inside me that makes me who I am.

Thank you for those who continue to support me and my blog.  You are greatly appreciated and I humbly thank you for the confidence you give to me freely to continue writing as it seems to be a passion of mine today.  As always, if this post or another post to this blog helps just one person then I have done exactly what I set out to do with this blog.  Also, please check out the 'about me' and 'resource page' to learn more about me and the support that is out there in many different areas and for many different purposes.

May God bless you and yours and may you have a very blessed day....



And continue to watch this blog as there is more to come for in recovery, everything is subject to revision...