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Another pre-dawn beginning to a "new-dawn" day...or some such thing. Anyway here we are at the precipice of a new day...lock and loaded, ready to fire I suppose. Nothing BIG really going on..lots of "small" Nuts & Bolts type stuff is always happening. In my life and those of my close friends I have in recovery, the old adage that if you are not moving FORWARD then you are in reality slipping BACKWARD holds pretty true.
That notion used to really make me leery, it motivated me alright, using FEAR...I was so concerned about screwing up, that failing to do the right thing that would somehow cause me to drug/drink again. For a long period of time I was truly afraid that I would indeed relapse and everything good that had happened up until that particular point would be for naught.
I had very little confidence, at all...in ANYTHING...this was in the day before FAITH was a factor in my life, I trusted no one and nothing...certainly NOT what little bits of progress I'd made. I was damaged goods and I knew it. I had no conception, no idea at all what I might be capable of. I definately had no room in my minds eye for the conception that I would continue to slowly progress in recover over a period of 4 YEARS then KA-BOOM, have a profound spiritual awakening that literally changed EVERYTHING.
I have often had this idea that loneliness is corrosive...it eats away at HOPE. Addiction however, is corrosive as well but eats away at one's SOUL...So when I suggest I had no true or realistic idea what I had left in the proverbial tank, that I was damaged goods...I am partially referring to those facts as well. This of course is in addition to the obvious damage emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually that 30 odd years of substance abuse and the aftermath/fallout damage from rape had on me.
So I had no clue whether I could even function as a rational human being any more. I didn't know what was actually left of me...I also very much doubted my ability to continue on through adversity. Again these were days that I did believe in some type of all powerful being...God, but had no relationship or any real hope that I ever would "feel" such a thing as faith.
It was a very lonely, isolated time in my life...I was clean and sober yet that is all I was capable of. I had done no work toward changing my behavior, no effort toward restitution to those I had hurt. I was just abstaining for the drinking and taking drugs at that time...honestly I was miserable, just plain miserable. But I did not know what else I could do...I was so fearful, so unsure of my self but somehow...some way I managed, one day at a time to hold on long enough until good things began to happen.
I can honestly say now, looking back in hindsight that I probably was not "out of the woods" or "stable" until after my THIRD full year of sobriety. So for those first 3 years I was a walking time bomb to a certain extant. I am so grateful I made it through that period of time...I remember how touch and go it seemed to me even then.
And once they did, though it wasn't an avalanche...it was steady progress toward the LIGHT, the light in this case representing positive change, hope, release from fear and ultimately a relationship with my CREATOR.
Oh there is so much more story to tell, perhaps later then...
(Painting by Alfred Sisley)
