Tag: 12 Steps of AA

My big mouth.

Secrets escape.

Warning – long post and hopefully a laugh for someone. I am. 😁🤦🏼‍♀️🧐

It’s so easy to fool everyone that you’ve got it together. I recently divulged some recent thoughts and plans to my GPS of 20 years and they lovingly “dobbed” me into my psychiatrist of 12 months. I thought I had told my GP the REAL BAD thoughts.

Until I saw my psychiatrist 3 days later🤦🏼‍♀️. Firstly – she was horrified – “why didn’t we know?” – my response was “Look at me – no one would ever guessed – I’m always “on” and well presented” (hello shopping addiction ❤️ U).

Then she REALLY hit the big time – …”…medication ain’t gunna cut it!” she cried! “…It’s a band aid fix!!!…“

“The Drama of Gifted Child” by Alice Miller was almost ordered as mandatory reading. Then the shocker – once weekly intense therapy sessions with her … “most people need 12-18 sessions Isabella….. you …. you’re looking at intense therapy of up to 30-40 sessions!!!” and inpatient DBT therapy!!!!

“Do you have private health insurance?” she queries yet again. …. same answer – no. “Well this is my specialty and I don’t mean to be rude Isabella but I charge $300 an hour – and I don’t bulk bill or take private health insurance”. We both looked at each other – both immediately hoped that the lovely (unnamed for privacy reasons) funding will agree to pay for her …. we have decided to proceed and charge. THEN deal with them if they reject the additional costs. I love acting first apologising later!!!

As for private health insurance – I do now! Hello top private Heath insurance company- welcome to draining my savings.

THEN this little black duck went back to her GP (I ❤️ Them) and thanked her for “dobbing me in”. When I mentioned the car/garage, my GP looked majorly confoosed… spun around to her computer notes and said “I don’t remember you mentioning THAT!” That’s when I realised …… I HADN’T ACTUALLY TOLD HER THE ENTIRE “BAD” bits!!!! So essentially dobbed myself in twice. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ ****Note – Phenergan fucks me up big time****

So I threw out my Phenergan a second time in 3 weeks….

Clearly all this shit is why I was abusing substances for so long…. and a deeper me wants help not….. the other alternatives.

Lessons for me: my inner core and other internal/external drivers want to live life with peace, calm and something called happiness. At just over 3 years sober I’m smacking my forehead and saying to my lovely medical team – this is why I drank and drugged…. to avoid these memories and feelings.

This is why I’m so fucking alone in the world:

    No family – except two males I keep at text/email distance,
    close acquaintances I see every 4-6 weeks maximum 2-3 hours whom I’ve know maximum of 3-4 years,
    an erratic, beautiful fucked up guy since 2013 in/out of my life (hello Joey!)
    Nil social outings or I rotate/space out lunches or dinners or I have spurts of social engagement that drains me and leaves me vulnerable and agitated.
    No job or career aspects anymore.
    Income protection kicking in soon.
    The option of employment is out of the window for at least 12 months.
    Medicated but not a zombie.
    Hobbies include reading, new to gardening and …. online shopping.
    On bad days I lay on the couch watching the sun and clock move from morning to night so I can go to sleep.
    I see blood and death everywhere….
    I have three cats that calm me.
    l look great on the outside – even act it for a while…. guys think I’m awesome. Until they get into a relationship (I snare them quickly before they get away) and realise I am not wife material or as good as I seemed. But they’ve hung in there bless their cotton socks – coz I look good … and have other talents that I’ve refined over the years. I know my worth and skills – “a lady in the living room …. a whore in the bedroom..” 😉 Never been into casual sex – I’m too clingy. 😳🤣🤦🏼‍♀️

I truly believe I’ve been cursed or my soul lesson is to learn to be completely alone – everyone dies or leaves me. In my 20’s and 30’s when I had friends we would joke that everything does around me. 2013 onwards – it’s no longer a joke but reality. If I followed Buddhism faithfully, or at all, I would believe my life journey is to learn to live without attachment to people, places and things. And that’s ok.

Drinking is not an option – I refuse to die a drunk. But I haven’t ruled out euthanasia or other means …. but that’s for another day and decade hopefully.

AA program and beliefs (I don’t go to meetings anymore), other program tools, sober acquaintances and a strong belief in my Higher Powers (I’m so special I have a few 😉) a stupid internal resilience and ego keeps me alive, sober and trying to break the curse – one day at a time. Not friends, family or other social connections. Just my Drs, cats and an internal driver.

Luv,

Me

xxxx

Where to Start? It’s been so long.

Where to start my friends?

Well. I am still sober and completely and utterly happy about it – I am in a really good place, the sun is shining, I am at peace with the world and with myself.

That makes it 27 days sober and alcohol free.

I am pretty pleased about my progress, without getting to ‘up myself’. I have had a lot of help from others, had a lot of down moments, however the biggest change in me has been that my cravings have gone. My instant default thought is no longer that I need a bottle of white wine to energise, dull or sedate me. My thought is that thank god I have options – many, many options and I don’t have to drink anymore.

It is mind-blowing to be in my head at the moment. I have been sober for six months before –  over a year ago now – and it was a constant struggle to keep going, to fight the urge to drink and to keep sober. It was exhausting, mentally draining – I was full of anger, denial and resentments. There was no peace in my heart or mind, no serenity or let up from the madness that is my addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Today. I wake up happy that this is my life, that I no longer have to struggle or fight myself, that I just have to be – to let someone else do the heavy lifting, to steer the boat and to make the decisions. My job is to keep being willing and open, to hand over my life to someone who knows best, because god knows I don’t – that’s how I got into this mess in the first place.

I would like to share a couple of readings I found today that sum me up at the moment:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.34

Second reading:

“Our whole trouble has been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us.”

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.40

 

As you may have guessed, I have turned to the last place I have to help me with my addictions – AA.

A year ago, I left AA in resentment and anger as I thought of it as a cult, full of people who really didn’t care and who were blind to the psychobabble. I was still fighting the need to let go of my self-will, failing to see that it was my self-will that had gotten me into some pretty damn scary places where I had no right to be. That I could not trust my self-will, even though it had done a lot of good as well.

It was only until this weekend that I realised that my self-will had gotten me into a situation where I had a loaded gun put to my head, and I still stuck around because I could get free drugs. It was my self-will that saw me (extremely drunk but fully aware of what I was doing)  get into a car full of ICE addicts and go to their place to score some free speed. My self-will should have me dead. Indeed I think I wanted die.

This weekend, M helped me see that my self-will was full of disease, that I had no right to trust my self, that I was not following a healthy path. However I used to marvel and thank god that I had gotten out of a situation unharmed and alive. Which told me that I have always had a universal soul looking out for me, helping and protecting me – I have always been aware of that, of him, and have always thanked him after the fact.

So this weekend I decided that I would flip this sorry situation on its proverbial head and hand my self-will over to my universal saviour and let him decided what is good for me. I will no longer be apologising for my behavior after the fact, I will be asking for guidance before acting.

My reward thus far is feeling serene, happy and most of all – craving free – I do not even want a drink, I am not scared of myself nor am I needing to get away from myself. That in itself is amazing.

Life is amazing.

I am blessed.

Isabella.

xxxxx

Step 1 – Is My Life Unmanageable? (Reposted)

I have been told (advised) by my sponsor to think about how my life has become unmanageable. Because – you see – I am struggling to understand at a deep, intrinsic level, that my life is in danger and has become unmanageable. I have a strong desire to stop drinking and stop the madness, however the addiction is strong and the voices persuasive.

My life on the outside is one that many people would envy and is one that I can see that I am very fortunate to have. I am not overly wealthy, I don’t have a ‘normal’ life (no kids, not married), however I am safe, secure and have people who love me for the person they think I am.

Yet. On the inside, I am a boiling cauldron of hot mess and I have a self-destructive nature that is constantly battling the urge to live, succeed and be healthy. It is an ongoing battle that is an internal one.

So – is my life unmanageable? Let’s see:

  • I am constantly wanting to divorce myself – to leave me behind;
  • I am paranoid and constantly worrying that there is something going on that I am not aware of;
  • Fear is a large part of my daily life – I am petrified of being caught out, seen as a fake, a failure;
  • I am constantly depressed – occasionally with thoughts of ending it all, however not having the energy to bother;
  • I am moody and all over the place – I feel my highs and lows hourly;
  • Confusion is a constant – I don’t understand others, I am always trying to figure things out;
  • Normality is an unknown to me yet I strive for it and feel the absence keenly;
  • Lying is a big part of my life – lying about drinking, how much I have had, how much I have spent, why I am late – always to cover up a binge.

The list could go on, however looking at it these feelings have been with me since I was a child. So yes. My life is unmanageable – my internal life is rather than my external. I cannot go on as I am – I don’t have the energy or the will. The only way to stop the insanity is to stop the cause.

Alcohol is a poison to me – one drink will set me off again.

BUT. There is good news – I am now six days sober – by 12pm tonight I will be seven days sober.

I will share the last binge with you another day soon – when the horror has died down a little, and when I need another injection of reality as a reminder why I need to stop drinking.

Isabella.

xxx

Whats a Girl?

 

*** Reposted as I will be starting a Steps insight as I am now up to Step 2 and would like to focus more on my recovery steps and my experiences with AA, as well as my daily challenges, difficulties and wins.

I’m Part of a Whole

For so long I have felt different and alone. As a child of 12 I used to catch the bus for the hour long ride into the city just to feel a part of something. That practice continues today. I seek comfort in the community sometimes – particularly when I am drinking. When I drink alone at a bar, hotel or cafe, I do so to be social – to feel a part of society. Don’t get me wrong, I quite often sit on my own reading, then observing, then if I have the time or enough wine, I socialize. However I always leave alone and disconnected – feeling buoyed by the talk and safe in my anonymity.

I have always have the feeling I am searching for someone – someone I have lost. Someone who will find me.

Now, I don’t feel as different, I have found out that I do have a group that I belong to and they are there should I choose to accept them. I just have to reach out and ask – which is hard for everyone and I am no different.

At the moment I am part of a “hole” that is within me – one day I will be part of a “whole”.

We all will be.

Isabella.

Xx

Step 1 – Is My Life Unmanageable?

I have been told (advised) by my sponsor to think about how my life has become unmanageable. Because – you see – I am struggling to understand at a deep, intrinsic level, that my life is in danger and has become unmanageable. I have a strong desire to stop drinking and stop the madness, however the addiction is strong and the voices persuasive.

My life on the outside is one that many people would envy and is one that I can see that I am very fortunate to have. I am not overly wealthy, I don’t have a ‘normal’ life (no kids, not married), however I am safe, secure and have people who love me for the person they think I am.

Yet. On the inside, I am a boiling cauldron of hot mess and I have a self-destructive nature that is constantly battling the urge to live, succeed and be healthy. It is an ongoing battle that is an internal one.

So – is my life unmanageable? Let’s see:

  • I am constantly wanting to divorce myself – to leave me behind;
  • I am paranoid and constantly worrying that there is something going on that I am not aware of;
  • Fear is a large part of my daily life – I am petrified of being caught out, seen as a fake, a failure;
  • I am constantly depressed – occasionally with thoughts of ending it all, however not having the energy to bother;
  • I am moody and all over the place – I feel my highs and lows hourly;
  • Confusion is a constant – I don’t understand others, I am always trying to figure things out;
  • Normality is an unknown to me yet I strive for it and feel the absence keenly;
  • Lying is a big part of my life – lying about drinking, how much I have had, how much I have spent, why I am late – always to cover up a binge.

The list could go on, however looking at it these feelings have been with me since I was a child. So yes. My life is unmanageable – my internal life is rather than my external. I cannot go on as I am – I don’t have the energy or the will. The only way to stop the insanity is to stop the cause.

Alcohol is a poison to me – one drink will set me off again.

BUT. There is good news – I am now six days sober – by 12pm tonight I will be seven days sober.

I will share the last binge with you another day soon – when the horror has died down a little, and when I need another injection of reality as a reminder why I need to stop drinking.

Isabella.

xxx

Whats a Girl?
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