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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***

I’ve hurt so bad in life.
All I knew before was the knife.
I now know better ways to cope,
When before I thought there was no hope.
The rape and the abuse,
The feeling of being so used.
I got through it all and now I can see,
God has something great in store for me.
I used to scream and cry,
Always asking, “God, why?”
But it wasn’t God’s doing, it was Hell on Earth,
Now I stand proud and say I fight on His turf.
I’m a soldier for God today,
And nothing will bring me down, nope, not this day.
I used to write sad rhymes,
Always thinking about the bad times.
But now I think about what’s good,
Instead of dwelling on life in the hood.
I was blind but now I see:
God has something great in store for me.

***

One of the hardest things for me to have done so far is to change the way I think. In that poem, I wrote about how I used to always dwell in the past. Basically, I never dealt with any of my feelings. Needless to say, my latest aphorism is: Deal, not dwell. In other words, I have to learn that my feelings are indeed valid and that it’s perfectly okay to feel them.

There’s a book out there called Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. It’s about a man and his old sociology professor, Morrie, whom he goes to see when he gets sick with Lou Gherig’s disease, also known as ASL. The book is basically their last several meetings every Tuesday and speak on several different topics such as Death, Fear, Love, Marriage, and so on and so forth.

In Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie talks about “detaching” from our feelings. I believe this can be summarized as this: Feel your feeling, envelop yourself in it, drown yourself in it, feel all the different aspects of it, and then just let it go. One of the aphorisms of AA is “Let Go And Let God.” I strongly believe that what must do with my feelings is feel them, get used to them, and then give it to God and don’t worry about it anymore.

I recently had a very personal surgical procedure and I was (for lack of better terms) scared shitless. This was less than a week ago. I found the surgery would take place about four or five days before it was to happen. That four or five day wait, I was an anxious, nervous, scared wreck. However, I felt my fear and did my best to give it to God. In AA, I was told several acronyms for ‘FEAR.’

Fuck Everything And Run
Face Everything And Recover

False Evidence Appearing Real

As the days went by, I decided I had to face my fears rather than running away from them. Finally, the day of my surgery arrived. Every time I sat in the hospital bed with my little gown on and got scared, I said a little prayer: “Okay God, I don’t want to feel afraid. Take it away from me. Amen” And it worked! I waited six hours until I could finally go into the surgery room and once they scooted me onto the surgery table, I said a prayer. The next thing I new I was waking up from my anesthetic sleep. Granted I was sore, the point is that they put me to sleep before I even had a chance to really feel afraid or anxious, which is indefinitely a blessing.

It just so happens that I’m actually a lot more blessed than I think I am. Go figure… He’s watching out for me.

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