“Perfect” Recovery

I am speaking tomorrow at an NA campout and I’m kind of nervous. Not because it’s my second time - I was in theater for many years and love sharing my story. I know it will all be friendly faces, most of whom I know from the previous year. However, the last time I spoke, I started going to more meetings in the weeks leading up, calling my sponsor more, etc. Because I was scared of sending the wrong message while speaking, that I don’t do everything in recovery perfectly but I am still clean, in recovery and for the most part, very happy. I think this is the important message to send, especially to anyone who is a perfectionist as I am. While speaking to my boyfriend about this yesterday, he said:

“You keep talking about being perfect in recovery. You’re clean. That is perfect recovery. It’s cool if you want to get into the steps but you’re not using. That’s the point.”

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Recovery Challenge // Day Seventeen

Day 17 - What in your life has improved since you entered recovery?

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Well, everything. My relationship with my family has improved a lot. I feel that I am more honest, more aware of other people, more motivated to continuously become a good person. I have a relationship with someone I love and try to stay open, honest, and caring about him. I care about my body and my health. I am more responsible with money and schoolwork. I am more open to suggestions from others, rather than caging off defensively all the time. And on more days than not, I like myself.

While all of these things have improved, there is definitely room for improvement in every area mentioned. There are unresolved issues with my family, trust issues I have in every relationship, I am still judgmental as fuuuu, sometimes I spend too much money on coffee/food/clothes, I procrastinate on my schoolwork until the last minute, I still can interpet a suggestion as criticism, and sometimes I am driven insane by myself. The point is, progress, not perfection. I have made a lot of progress and it’s exciting/disappointing/terrifying to think of how much more I will make if I stay clean.

Recovery Challenge // Day 16

Day 16 - List 5 things you are grateful for.

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“…a lot of the time, so-called gratitude is just a jaunty hat thrown over the ugly face of smugness. Let’s get real—I’m smug as fuck, so I’m pretty good at spotting it in other people. But I don’t pretend it’s gratitude. I don’t feel “grateful” for my sobriety. I’m grateful that my parents were supportive of my recovery and could afford to send me to rehab. I’m grateful that I live in a country where women aren’t stoned to death for having the audacity to operate motor vehicles.  

But am I grateful for my sobriety? No. I’m not grateful for that. I earned that shit with the thousands of meetings I’ve sat through, and the thousands of pages of fourth steps and eighth steps I’ve read and written. Gratitude, I think, is for things that came to you by chance, or luck.” - Lily Weinstein, thefix.com

On that note, 5 things I am grateful for:

1. My mom and step-dad allowing me to move to Virginia to get clean and continue to live with them.
2. The rest of my family, who are all endlessly supportive of my recovery despite how much they suffered during my active addiction.
3. My health, despite my drug of choice, method of choice and my nearly constant flagrant disregard for my safety in the past.
4. My boyfriend, who will literally pull me to safety if need be, despite my determination/pride (metaphorically and literally, i.e. when we went swimming in the New River today lololol).
5. Going to treatment at a young age. My parents admitted me when I was 17 and although it took 3.5 years to actually want to get and stay clean, I seriously doubt I would have gotten clean at age 21 and have the amazing life that that affords. I lament over wasted time a lot but in the scheme of things, I got off pretty easy because I was introduced to recovery early in life/my using “career”.

12:09 PM

Today I am so mad at addiction.

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12:35 AM

Safety

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I lock my doors at night.

It’s a quiet rural town;

It took me a month

to get used to the silence

when lying in bed at night

after I first moved here.

Sometimes you can hear the trains

crying in the distance.

There are no cicadas here

like in my hometown.

The air is empty, waiting,

but nothing ever comes.

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Pick-Me-Up Protein Shake!

• 1 cup refrigerated coffee
• 1 cup vanilla almond milk
• 1/2 cup ice cubes
• 3 rounded tablespoons vanilla soy protein powder

Blend and enjoy! I’m doing half before I do strength training and half after. I put the second half in the freezer (pictured above) for a cool down :)

Recovery Challenge // Day Fifteen

Day 15 - When you are triggered, what do you tell yourself to calm down?

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Affirmations that help:

• “A craving is a feeling. A feeling is temporary. This will pass.”
• “I’m a fucking drug addict, it’s normal to have a craving.”
• “Just because I want to do something, doesn’t mean I have to.”
• “A craving lasts 12 seconds. Now I’m just torturing myself.”
• “‘Just one’ is a myth. I would just be pissed off and miserable if I had ‘just one’.”
• “I need food. It is not a negotiation.”
• “The average woman needs at least 1,200 calories just to sustain organ functions.”
• “Think of your future/family/boyfriend/friends/life/dreams/clean time.”
• “Do I really want to prove all those fuckers who said I couldn’t do this right?”
• “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” (I’m quite wary of “the power of prayer” but I use the serenity prayer more of a reminder of what I am and am not capable of changing. It helps me feel empowered.)
• “YEAH OKAY BYE.” (If I encounter a TV show/movie/blog/conversation/etc. that glorifies use of my drug of choice and/or addiction rather than portraying it realistically… yeah, that’s a deal breaker.)

ALL THE PROTEIN

Today I went to the grocery on the way home to get a fun post-work out lunch. I only realized after I was about halfway home that when reading the nutritional information in the store, I did not glance at the calorie count even once! I was only concerned with the nutrients, specifically protein content.

(And my lunch of Amy’s Medium Chili with Vegetables and quinoa is delicious, if you were wondering.)

Recovery Challenge // Day Fourteen

Day 14 - Think about yourself one year ago, how have you changed?

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Physically, I’ve changed quite a bit. Looking at pictures from last year’s Memorial Day campout, I am now about 20-25 pounds lighter, have color to my face, and chopped off my awful “using” hair (don’t ever dye your hair blonde, Italian girls… then black and then brown, lololololol) into the kick-ass pixie haircut I have now (and will never stop getting).

Emotionally, mentally, I have changed a metric BUTT TON. At that point, I had a little over 3 months clean time and it felt like ages because it was the longest I had willingly been clean since I began using. I was always on edge, always frightened of my clean time - it felt like such a tremulous, fragile thing. On the way to the camp out, I thought, I could take this money and just go use all weekend, I could relapse and it turned into one of those cravings where I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. I had just fallen off the “pink cloud” of sobriety (the initial euphoria addicts/alcoholics experience after withdrawals where everything about sober life is AMAZINGWONDERFULYAYAYAYAY) - more like face planted. I also drank a lot of Red Bull and smoked a lot of cigarettes at the time, so this did not improve my jittery nature. I think I had also just committed to living in Virginia for one year. I didn’t know what I would do after that, but I certainly did not imagine staying here any longer than necessecary.

If you would have told me at that point that in a year, I would be going to a Virginia university in the fall for something I love, in a stable relationship with an amazing man I love, quit drinking Red Bull, quit smoking cigarettes, eating healthy, beginning to exercise, and still clean/sober and satisfied with it, I probably would have laughed in your face, stopped short, then said gently, “Oh… are you crazy? I’m so sorry.” This is the same reaction I had to a newcomer telling me the other day in a meeting that I “looked so put together”, even without make-up or clean hair. I almost laughed in her hopeful, eager face but the more I keep thinking about it, I do have it together. I’m not perfect, I still struggle, I have the occasional passing thought of using, I buy cigarettes when I’m freaking out, smoke three, then toss a 3/4 full pack, but, damn, I have come a long way. Being clean/sober is just my life now, it’s just a simple fact for my day. It feels solid and I realize that I trust myself a little bit today. That’s awesome. So much more motivated to go on about my day now :)