Saturday intensified all the same feelings time a million. My youth AA sponsor was sharing in a meeting on Saturday and was talking about how something was a “blessing in disguise,” and I remember wishing I had that same outlook. Now that the initial waves of emotions are pretty much over, and I had one on ones with more than ten girls, I feel a little better. I still get in my head and I still get down, but that’s when I have to give it to God.

So back to my first question. I thought all weekend about how I was doing the same crap I was doing when I was getting high. Today, I asked myself how this year (08-09) was any different from my last one year birthday (06-07). At first I couldn’t answer myself. Then again, I wasn’t really holding much of a conversation, I was more concentrated on beating myself up. But now that I look a little closer, I can answer that question. Today I’m willing. Today I’m honest. I was NONE of those things in 06-07. I had to weigh the good and the bad of what happened Friday night with my slip-up. The bad: it happened, I let it happen, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I let in to my instant gratification. The good: I told my youth AA sponsor the next day first thing, I made amends to everyone that was there, I took suggestions, I felt my feelings, and eventually didn’t let my feelings control me. In 06-07, I would have held on to all of those feelings and not shared them with one person. I probably would’ve self-injured as well.

I got through Friday and Saturday. It’s not Sunday, and I’m still alive. I went to bed happy last night. After I threw myself a pity party, I got out of my head and went to my sober party and danced like a crazy woman. And I had fun. That’s the most important part. So today, I went to church and I heard the preacher say some of the most inspiring words I’ve ever heard in a church that it might as well have been in the big book.

Look forward with hope, and not backward with regret.

Wow. It’s so funny how we use our selective listening, and when you really tune into everything that a person is saying, you can apply it to everyday life. If not, save it for later. Today I realized that I have to have hope and faith in order to grow and make progress. If I hang on to my regret, shame, guilt, resentment, anger, whatever then I have no room to grow. I’m literally blocking myself from the sunshine of the spirit. Today I choose progress not perfection and I live my life the way I should. Someone told me during one of my 1-on-1s that everyone makes mistakes and that doesn’t make people that love you love you any less. She also told me that I had to give myself some time to heal and time to feel, but after that time is up, I just need to move on.

So ultimately, God will always be there for me even when I do manage to completely screw things up. People will still love me for who I am, and those in recovery won’t judge me because they know where I’m coming from. In the end, it’s all good.

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My story started when I was around seven. I started injuring myself. That went on unnoticed until I was about twelve, when my mom confronted me. After a big “fight” or whatever you want to call it, I told her straight up that, “I cut myself.” It was the first time I ever admitted out loud what I was doing. Also around twelve or eleven, I started doing drugs. It began pretty innocently, I guess. I was asking regularly for Adderoll from my boyfriend at the time to help me to study or to lose weight. Eventually, it ran my life. I wouldn’t eat for days, sometimes a week, at a time. I’d stay up all night either exercising or studying. That kept on until I was about thirteen, when I started smoking marijuana, drinking, and taking other kind of pills.

The drugs were doing for me what I couldn’t do myself. All I wanted was to feel better, and that was easily accomplished through getting plastered or stoned out of my mind. Oblivion was easy for me and extremely comfortable. My dad and mom then began taking me to regular ER visits for attempted suicide or stitches. I began to go to different psych wards around Houston and I started running away and getting locked up shortly after that.

By the time I was 16, I had tried AA more than once and accumulated thirteen months of being a dry drunk. I was most definitely not sober. I was still going to inpatient places even after I got sober off the drugs and alcohol for my self-injury. I had found out about AA through a rehabilitation center, where I stayed 2-3 months. I began to go to meetings, and Youth AA Groups, such as APGs (Alternative Peer Groups).

Two APGs and about two years later, at ten months sober (the most I had ever had since I started using), I went to inpatient in Denton for my self-injury. The epitome of a dry drunk: Once having removed the alcohol and drugs, I was left with feelings, emotions, thoughts, and actions, which would normally be taken out under the influence. Without any type of a spiritual experience, I couldn’t change my life. I was “white-knuckling” it, as the AAs said. I was miserable, discontent, angry, and so on. I was still acting out on my worst addiction: self-injury. When you’re in jail, it’s pretty damn hard to get some drugs or alcohol. But no matter where I went, self-injury was an easy accessible tool. So I went to Denton to seek help.

I was raped in Denton, and therefore had a lot of resentments towards the place I went to, God, the rapist, the hotel, etc. etc. Most of all, I was angry at God because in my eyes, I had gone to get help and stop self-injuring, and then that happened. For a very long time, I felt as if it was God trying to tell me I wasn’t ready to stop cutting. What a delusion that was! But they were my feelings, and therefore legit. I was very angry for a long time because I wanted God in my life and I wanted to stop hurting and to stop harming myself, and then someone else harms me. I didn’t think it was fair. Now I realize that God does throw curve balls, but I don’t need to justify it. I needed to take it as it came, accept it, realize that bad things happen to good people, learn, heal, talk about it, and move on.

After the rape, I stayed sober for about 4-5 more months until I put myself in a position to get high again. I wasn’t thinking about getting high, it just happened. Once again: I was without defense against the first drink/drug. I ran away that day for about three days and when I tried hitch hiking home, the woman that had picked me up flagged a policeman down. I was taken into custody, and my dad picked me up later that day from the juvenile detention center. After that, I went to another placement and decided to run away from there. I ran away with someone else and lived on the streets for about a month and a half.

Within that month and a half, I learned how to sell my body, and I began a life of drugs all over again. I had never done “hard drugs” before I ran away, and by the time I came back, I was hooked on crack and had done meth, ecstasy, cocaine, and several others as well. For a long time I only saw myself as a crackwhore. It was really hard for me to look myself in the mirror and accept who I was and what I had become. I had lost all knowledge that I didn’t have to be that way. So when I got back home, I chose to continue doing drugs, just not to that extreme. This was around March 2008. I continued to go to school high and I had no self-respect.

Eventually, my actions caught up to me and I was locked up for assault and domestic violence. I had hit my dad. The abuse I caused him went on for years before I finally “got caught,” but today I’m glad. My dad and I have an amazing relationship and when I talk to other people about him, I often refer to him as my “knight in shining armor.” He’s always been there for me through everything and has never left nor rejected me. He’s always loved me for exactly who I am. “I don’t love the things you do, but I love the person you are,” he often says. So when I sobered up in jail after the assault, I had a lot of guilt and shame riding on my back, to the point of where I couldn’t speak to him civilly in a window visitation while in JDC.

I got out on house arrest fifteen days later, and still thought I could play the system. I thought probation and house arrest were merely jokes. Two days later, I was back in jail, under the influence. After not coming home for two days straight, my dad caught me and turned me in. I was so mad at him at first. I remember telling him I hated him and I hoped he would die. I live with that every day, now. Yet, I know things don’t ever have to be that way anymore. From JDC, they sent me to a rehabilitation center in North Texas since I had been admitted under the influence for the second time.

I spent nine months in that rehab, and everyday I live today; I thank God for the events that caused me to go there. I don’t think I would have ever sobered up again on my own, no matter how much God I had. I think it really took a lot of time away from that kind of atmosphere to gain a clear head and decide not to use again. I cut for the first month I was in there, and then realized that cutting wasn’t getting me anywhere either.

As far as what it’s like now, I have to maintain a spiritual connection with my higher power, because I know that if I don’t then I’ll end up right back where I started from. Today I’m so grateful that I don’t EVER have to be that person that I used to be, and I believe that is the greatest miracle God or recovery could have ever given me. I’ve been through a lot, and today I consider myself a survivor. I don’t act anything like I used to and ultimately I’m just not the same girl that I used to be. I can’t really express my gratitude anymore than that. I’m happy, joyous and free today and for that, I thank God. I value my freedom more than anything today, and right now I don’t wish to put anything in it’s way. I’ve spent about an accumulated two years behind gates and fences and maximum security places. Today, I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to live my life the way I’ve always dreamed of and be successful. I know I can accomplish all things through Christ, and that’s my plan.

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I was once living on the streets and I had no other way to support my habit than to go sell my body. It’s a degrading thing to do, and today I still can’t seem to forgive myself. Yesterday I cried throughout the meeting because all I could think about was how I’ll never belong because of what I was and what I’ve been through. How wrong was I? I’m sitting in a group full of women who in one way or another, been through what I’ve been through and I was completely isolated by my own mechanisms. One thing that a woman shared with me is this: Isolation leads to fear, fear leads to anger, and anger leads back to our old ways like drinking, drugging, cutting, overeating, starving ourselves, and so on and so forth.

I really liked this because ultimately, I think that’s why I relapsed after being dry for thirteen months. I isolated like no other and even had people tell me it was to the point to where it was a character defect. Of course, I shut down and wouldn’t speak to them EVER again after that, because they hurt my feelings. It’s so true, though… My isolation in the past led to my fear of never being wanted. This made me angry because I was mad at myself for isolating and putting myself in the position to not be wanted. I eventually used again and repeating the alcoholic/addict cycle.

Another woman told me something else that I really related to and latched on to. I have eating issues. I either starve myself, or I’ll overeat and either feel disgusting or make myself throw it up. Lately I’ve been eating a LOT, and just not bother to throw it up. I’ve tried a couple times in all honesty, but it wasn’t satifying. Then one of the women told me I was overeating as a defense mechanism. I’ve gained 60lbs. since I quit smoking crack and now? I hide behind my weight, hoping no one will look at me yet at the same time craving that old attention. It’s a lose-lose situation. I’ve gained weight and am now unhealthy, I don’t want to be looked at, yet I still am. Go figure… I guess that’s just the way the world works., People will look, people will judge, and people will come to their own conclusions. Whether I’m an ugly duckiling or a beautiful swan doesn’t matter to other people. What matters is what I think of myself.

In the meeting yesterday, we also talked about success. One of the reasons I was crying was because I have been successful, but I feel like it’s not recognized. I’m off the streets, I have food to eat, I’m getting an education on IMPORTANT things, not the street life and gang banging knowledge. I don’t sell myself short, and I make people deserve waht they get from me. That’s a blessing. Yet, yesterday I felt so sad because I wasn’t recognized. Granted, I was in a meeting where the women don’t really know me on a personal level, I still wanted that recognition.

“Selfishness, self-centeredness. That, we thought, was the root of all our troubles.” is what the big book says. Maybe if I let these wonderful people in and become a part of my life, I’d feel recognized. But I think the important thing I learned last night is this: I was being selfish. “What about me?” I thought, “Why do all these people have such great things to be said about them and I don’t? Aren’t I special too?” I am. I just didn’t think about that at the time. Someone told me I was taking the aphorism, “Think, think, think” too literal. Really, the aphorism is meant to say: Think about something once, think about it twice, maybe even think about it a third time and then just STOP. That hit the nail on the head for me. I love to sit on my pity pot. I used to say I sat on it SO much that it was embellished with all my personal keepsakes, jewels, fur, whatever. The point I was trynig to get across was that I sat on it SO much, it had become my natural state. Yesterday, I feel into my old ways.

What did I do? I talked to my sponsor, I talked to other SOBER women in the program, and I got over myself. I got into the solution instead of wallowing in the problem. I have an appointment next Wednesday for the doctor to see if I need surgery again, and I asked a woman to go with me that’s very dear to me. She’s been through the same things as I have and knows where I’m coming from. Although, I’d love to think that’s RARE, it’s really not… If I sat in a group of women in sobriety and point blank said, “I smoked crack, I sold my body for it, and now I’m living with the consequences,” they’d all probably relate. THAT right there, is the beauty of alcoholics anonymous as well as narcotics anonymous.

Today, I try to live in the solution. A lot of the time I need reminders to stay there and it’s hard. But I’ve come so far for being where I was at. Most people can’t get out. It’s too hard for them. Today, I consider myself a survivor. I’m a strong, beautiful woman and I need to recognize that MYSELf more often…

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My schedule isn’t half as jam-packed as it used to be in my past sobriety and I don’t necessarily think I’m wearing myself too thin… yet. I feel it coming on if I don’t try to stop adding things on. So far my schedule looks something along the lines of this: On weekdays, I go to school from 7:30-2:30 and catch a meeting around 8pm. On Mondays, I have orchestra rehearsal from three o’clock until five, which is when my bass teacher then picks me up from school and we go back to the house for an hour long lesson. UIL contest is in a week on next Saturday, so we’ve really been preparing for contest with our picked pieces as well as sight-reading.

Wednesdays, I report to my Probation Officer, followed by a women’s meeting on that side of town with my sponsor and then I go out to dinner with them. For now, that’s my set schedule aside from the TAKS tutorials on Saturdays. Sunday, I try to go to a meeting as well. Next year is going to be a struggle though. I have the rough draft of my courses picked out and it seems like it will most definitely be a challanging year, but I’m up for it.

My year should consist of Orchestra, Newspaper (I’ll be a reporter, next year I’m an editor.), Chemistry, US History, English IV, and Algebra II. It’s flexible, so that’s a good thing, especially since next year in August, I REALLY want to try out for Volleyball. Plus, after this first month of probation (which I have a week left for it to be a full month), I’m allowed to go job hunting! Yay! I’m thinking retail for now just to get me on my feet. Fast food is not an option, simply because it’d probably make me super sick to my stomach.

I’m also trying to get some college credit before I actually apply, that way I’ll have a good start. In Texas, we have dual-credit high school courses, which is where you can take ONE class and it counts as both high school and college credit. I’m doing that for US History and English IV. So yeah, next year will definitely be intense but I’m looking forward to staying busy with school, work, and orchestra. That way I’ll have structure and be pretty grounded.

Lately, a lot of old people from my past have been popping up. Mostly ex-boyfriends. The boy I was so anxious to see that came back to school last week and I are alright. I’m trying to keep our friendship strictly at school, and so far it’s working. I guess it helps that I’m on house arrest. A really good friend of mine I’ve known since I was 12 also popped up out of nowhere the other day and we had a really nice talk and we plan to keep in touch. Now that he’s 18 and I’m 17, we’re bound to see each other soon because I’m planning a road trip to go see him once I get my license. Eventually. All things will happen in good time.

Then there’s the biggest person of all that’s back around. I hadn’t heard from him in year, due to being locked up. He lives near me and him and I were REALLY close. We went through a lottt of things, including relapsing together. Well, I saw some of his family at a meeting the other day. It was actually the same meeting where I had met him. Long story short, his family’s trying to get back on their feet again. So I exchanged numbers with his sister and when I called her, he picked up the phone. We talked for less than a minute because he was fixing light fixtures, but it was so nice to hear from him…

He’s not “completely sober” in his words, but he said it’s working for him. I’m not quite sure if it really is or not, but I really hope it is for I wish him ONLY the best in life. After we talked, I had a lot of old feelings come up. When I first saw his family there, I almost cried. Seriously. It was so weird, because I hadn’t seen them in SO long and I was just scared of what they would think. But I shared and after the meeting, they said I looked and acted SO much healthier. Yay. I just wish things could change for him like they did for me. And they might… They might not. Whatever happens, it’s God’s will.

The feelings I felt regarding him were most along the lines of guilt and shame than of happiness and joy. That bothered me. I really don’t know what to think right about now… I’ve had thoughts of calling him, but I’m still undecided. I do, however, remember that when I saw his family in that meeting, all I could thing was: “Okay, God, you can STOP throwing crap at me now!!” And it was funny at first until I realized that now I have to deal with my feelings. Real, gut-wrenching feelings, not just superficial “Oh, I’m mad. What am I really feeling?” feelings.

I have a lot of old resentments coming up recently, and I’ve been working my hardest to deal with them along with God. I do, however, know that resentments are the number one offender and they lead only to a life a unhappiness and futility (page 64 of the Big Book). I have yet to talk to my sponsor about it yet. I’ve been waiting for her to be available for us to go over some step work so I can talk to her. Lately she has been very busy. I saw her today at a meeting and she had to go straight to work. After she chewed me out about not calling her last night.

Last night, I went to a Geek Gathering at Coffeegroundz. It wasn’t bad. I got to meet a lot of my dad’s friends who helped him with putting up posters from when I had ran away. It was kind of a celebration of my homecoming, was what dad said.

Tonight, I’m going to a play about a teenage girl and her venture through the social media world. It’s called Wallflower. I’m excited to see how it all goes, and I’ve promised to blog and review it afterwards. I have lost of ideas for what I want to do with this blog, it’s just putting into action that is the hard part.

I want to start doing music reviews not only because music is my number one passion, but because I need practice for Newspaper next year as well as it’d be a GREAT opportunity to combine both my main passions in life – writing and music. So I’ve got some things in mind. I actually really want to do a Self-Injury article again after watching The Secret Cut that came out this year for Self-Injury Awareness Day. It was really good, and I really want to reach out to other self-injurers.

Like I said before, it’s just a matter of putting my plans into action. There’s a lot of things I want to happen here and they should be happening soon.

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While we had intermission, dad started asking me questions about while I was on the streets. They were short and simple questions, yet for every answer I felt as if I had to explain myself in addition to a LOT of shame, guilt, and remorse. I talked about some of my “friends” I had while I was out there. When he asked me where I slept, I told him about different people telling me where to stay. Not only was there pang of the typical shame and guilt, but frustration at not being able to explain the way -I- wanted to.

I’ve been wanting to write a book, specifically a memoir, for years now. I started writing one while I was in rehab, called Life on the Streets, but my story is so much more than that, although that really is a huge chunk of all the terrible crap I had to go through to get here where I am now. Which kind of leads me to my next subject. Friends.

In AA, they say there’s only one thing we have to change: Everything. I’ve always liked that saying. When I talked earlier about feeling alone at school because I barely knew anyone and the people I DID know, were pretty much horrible influences, I was surprised at myself. I was in girl scouts for several years when I was in elementary school and the one thing I’m constantly reminded of is this:

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold.

– Girl Scout Song

We would all sing it, holding hands in a circle. But I think that there should be another part added onto simplified to, “make new friends, keep the GOOD old ones, and TRASH the ones that are negative influences.” How I would rearrange that into girl scout fitting song format, I have no idea. That’s my theory, though. I’ve been experiencing a LOT of anxiety actually lately, because an old friend of mine that was ALWAYS there for me, and I was ALWAYS there for him is coming back to school Monday.

He really should have been there when -I- got back, but apparently he got into a lot of trouble and was either expelled or put somewhere else. I have no idea what the story is. I am, however, feeling very scared about the entire situation. He got me into SO much trouble and was also a “drug buddy” of mine, regardless of how much we were really “here for each other.” I was expelled and put in Campus Alternative Educational Program because of him as well as getting kicked out of court ordered classes, and so on and so forth. I could definitely go on, but I’ll spare thee.

Anyway, my point is it’s going to be REALLY hard to deny him any friendship, attention, or even acknowledgement come Monday. I know if I do talk to him. even ask him how he’s doing, things won’t go well, because he’s still using and still doing the same things that I’ve moved away from. So I’m scared of being sucked right back into my old habits and behaviours. So I will most definitely be relying on God, AA, and my sponsor. I actually just talked to my sponsor and these were the gist of her words: It’s not like you can just run away from him when you see him, because y’all have a history. You can however, keep it strictly at school and make it VERY clear that you cannot hang out.” So really, maybe I’m just getting too scared for nothing, but I don’t know.

It’s the first time I’m facing wanting to hang out with someone old that actually wants to hang out as well. I’ve tried reconnecting with old GOOD influences, and most of them want nothing to do with me because of my past. Which doesn’t bother me, because that’s how life goes. People come and go… I guess it’s just that sometimes you don’t want them to go, and they don’t want you to go either. But when it’s best for the both of y’all, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. So I’m going to put my big girl pants on and deal with this crap head on.

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“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Have you ever loved something such as a hobby that it made you a better person? Have you ever lost that one special ting? If I didn’t have music in my life, whether it be creating music or just listening to it, I would not be here today. Music is my number one passion, my confidante, and the only thing that has kept me alive besides the Grace of God.

I think it’s crucial for everyone to have something they love – whether it’s a person place, hobby or idea that keeps them going and gives them guidance. For me, that thing is music. Music and performance have been in my life since I was a baby, still in my mother’s womb. My mother used to put headphones on her pregnant belly with me inside. I would jam out to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Vivaldi. Once I grew older, I found the joy of my life. In middle school, I joined orchestra and started playing the double bass.

Really the double bass found me. I went to orchestra orientation and my new orchestra conductor asked me what I wanted to play. At that point in time, I had an attitude problem and I told her I really didn’t care. So she pointed at a big wooden instrument, bigger than a cello. I picked it up and even though I was tall, it still stood taller than me from the ground up. I experimentally plucked a string. It was actually the E string, the lowest string on an upright bass. It had such a deep, rich tone. I immediately fell in love. From there, I learned how to read music and taught myself piano, guitar, drums and the violin.

There have been times in my life where I have felt a lot of regret, shame and guilt over the things I have done in my past as well as things that have been done to me. These things affected me in such a way that I started to act out. I began using drugs and started cutting myself with razorblades. Because of this, I lost my music. I started getting locked up, sent to rehabilitation centers, and was arrested on a consistent basis.

Music in my eyes is the Universal Language. My double bass carried me not only physically to other places, but also through my trials and tribulations. Yet, at the same time it showed other people how I was feeling. That’s just something one musician can see in another.

The way one creates such a melodic, melancholy vibrato is beautiful to me. I believe my emotions flow straight through my fingertips onto the fingerboard and strings of my bass. Have you ever heard an instrumental duet? Notice how each instrument’s voice battle each other, loves each other or even cajole each other. I also believe musicians communicate through their instruments – a language of love and passion or anger and strife, a language of happiness and joy, or sadness and depression.

Loving music so much and then having it taken away from me has definitely taken a toll on my spirit; however, I also believe this test has made me stronger and merely love music even more. Music has always been there for me when nothing else had been there, aside from the love of my higher power. I believe with all my heart that God and music are the only things that really, truly make me happy. Music keeps me going no matter what and for that I thank God!

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