I always say ‘I’ve been in recovery for…’ and then either go on to say ‘Just about two months’ if I’m talking about my eating disorder or ‘Just about seven years’ if I’m talking about alcoholism. I’m not sure why. I guess because I have come to believe that recovery is only recovery if I’ve been ‘clean’ for a length of time. I’m not sure why; I do not hold others to that standard. I’m pretty much alone in that category.
I am now in the throws of working towards my recovery. Like many others in recovery, you may find yourself making drastic life style changes. Whether that be working out, quitting smoking, picking days to socialize, and participating in therapies or support groups. Many of you may also find that it is bloody exhausting. For [...]
At the height of my cocaine addiction, I was doing a gram a day by myself. This was 2005. I was living in San Francisco, unemployed, impoverished, running out of options. For five years I had run through the party circuit, going from glamorous dabbling to hard-core use in squats. I had shifted friends as my use accelerated, always going farther, staying up later, adding days of the weeks and cracked out hours to the night.
Three years ago, when I FINALLY got some psychiatric help for an episode that was already almost a year old at that point (thanks for nothing), my then-psychiatrist diagnosed me with panic disorder/agoraphobia, OCD, Borderline Personality Disorder, depressive disorder, dissociative disorder, and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Believe it or not, I was okay with that. It gave me something to hold onto, because I couldn’t make sense out of what was happening to me anymore. By the time I got in to see him, it was already too late. The damage was done. I will never fully recover. It’s not pessimism, just plain fact. Too much has happened to me, and rearranged my brain and how I perceive things.
Once upon a time, there was me. I was a drunk. I wanted to die. I couldn’t handle the way I was living anymore. So I went into a recovery house. I failed. I went to another one. Three years into sobriety I had a mental breakdown. Things have been fucked ever since. But through it all I’ve also had this eating disorder, see. So it’s not enough to try to get my life back from mental illness. I’ve got an eating disorder too.
My alcoholism reached a head in spring of 2013, brought to desperation by the death of my wife and my subsequent despair. By this point I was drinking from three pm onward everyday, first wine and then vodka, whiskey or rum. Nothing would bring her back, but I could annihilate myself. It was starting to dawn on me, though, that this was making me nothing but miserable. I wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything. I wasn’t socializing or running errands. I could barely cook. Being on disability, I wasn’t working. My full-time job was getting to the bottom of the bottle.
December 6th 2012 marked my 8 year anniversary free from drugs.
The day was almost uneventful. Even after all that I have learned about staying in the now, and just for today, I somehow felt that once I made it to this day, this very tough year that has passed would all make sense. But it was just another day. Another day in my life. My clean life, free from the clutches of chemicals controlling every part of me, everything I would strive for, everything I would do.
Trigger Warning: alcoholism, addiction, mention of drug use
How many of my own garments shuffle
with the scrubs and hospital gowns
They feel disposable
But so do mine
As I prepare
As I prepare to leave the hospital
As I prepare to go to rehab
I listen to Amy Winehouse on my headphones.
She is dead.
That is enough
I say yes to everything but is it enough
In a recent article in Time magazine, Maia Szalavitz suggests that “Pro-Ana” blogs and websites can actually help some anorexics. On the periphery of Szalavitz’s argument, I can agree with much that she says, however when it gets to the core, I have to disagree with the fundamental principles of what she is suggesting.
Sobriety is a different forest, and one I am picking my way through carefully. The level of commitment that AA seems to require is daunting, as is the god issue. But I have seen people speak there that moved and affected me in a way that was more beneficial than any serenity prayer. Balancing cynicism and nihilism with the all-to-clear possibility of death, I’ve relapsed this month but I’m trying to embrace the program without losing myself. When I relapsed, my wife yelled at me to give her the rest of the bottle of vodka, and all I could say was, “I want something to myself, that is mine.” I gave her the bottle. I want to believe I have other things to hold onto, but the glacial heft of a glass bottle is a hand held.
