There are few absolutes in life. With the exception of birth, death and taxes everything else falls in a hazy gray area subject to loopholes, pitfalls and mediocrity. There is however one other thing I can say with 100% certainty about my life in general. No one should ever use my life as a model for sobriety. The road I've walked to get here has been an exhausting one. I did everything the Mildred Ratched method instead of doing them in a way that would have been faster, easier and with better results. Never being able to completely surrender has always been a huge problem for me. My inability to learn by other people's mistakes and having to do everything the hard way isn't due to any genetic mule-like tendency. My real problem stems from lack of trust.
When a person is damaged at a young age, they spend their entire life either trying to heal or trying to run away... or both. Their futile attempts of trying to gain normalcy is like some slow emotional death sentence. Somehow they manage to prove ourselves right time after time by the unhealthy relationships they form and the tangled, drama-filled situations in which they become involved. The outcome is always the same...disaster, disappointment and despair. Throughout life I have learned how to skillfully navigate through failure, but never have learned the proper keys to success.
As long as I manage to remove drama and negativity from my life, I'm able to stay afloat. As long as I isolate myself from having any intimate relationships involving love and sex, my thinking stays relatively unclouded. As long as I have virtually no life, I can live drug free. So what! So what if I can say "Hey, look at me. I stopped doing drugs!" My life absent of drugs is far from what anyone would call a life. Every fiber in me screams at anyone looking at my life for answers to look elsewhere. Anyone looking at me needs to quickly come to the conclusion that they need to do things the right way and not the Mildred Ratched method. They need to find a way to let go and trust others. They need to stick with it and know anything good in life requires great patience and extreme effort.
So here I am 50 something years old and I'm wondering when the hell that happened. How have I managed to come so far, but never leave square one? The ugly truth is that I isolate myself just to stay sane, sober and safe. Surely, there could have, should have been some other way to get here, but Miss Mildred Mule picked the path of least resistance. She picked the path where all she had to do was do what she does best...listen to herself and no one else. Trust herself and no one else. In doing so, Mildred picked the path once again of self-destruction. Mildred's addiction without drugs is like a gun. She just keep loading her gun, placing it to her head and firing away. So far, her gun has shot blanks. So far all her gun has done is numb her to its horrors. So far, all her gun has done is kept her from living, from being able to succeed and be happy, from being able to accomplish anything that requires effort, focus and stamina. Pulling that trigger everyday is the easiest thing Mildred has ever done!
* reposted from November, 18, 2011
Can I say something asinine like you seem to have a good awareness of yourself? I don't mean to sound trite but it sounds like, just based on reading your blog, that there's a lot more to you, and you have a lot to offer, and you deserve to get more back.
ReplyDeleteI see this as her giving her best advice without advising...You have done a lot of living and have a great deal to offer even when you think you don't. I am thankful for you :)
ReplyDeleteNWNMG, you didn't come across as being trite. I wrote this blog post with someone specific in mind. This person is like me in many ways and is at a pivotal point where she doesn't need to walk the same path as the one I've walked. Thank you for your kind words and I do appreciate your feedback.
ReplyDeleteMargie, if nothing else it might be food for thought. I'm thankful for you also.
I second both of the commentators above and I want to add that the most valuable lessons are the hardest (some say)... When our learning is done here we move on and I reckon you and I still have some learning left to do! (I'm a runner BTW)
ReplyDeleteDisplaced, I've done a bit of running myself. Don't you find it exhausting?
ReplyDeleteI spent so much time running, I never figured out what to do when I stopped. I liked the race, I guess.
ReplyDeleteThe race is nevr over, my friend until we take our last breath!
DeleteHave you ever read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin? It taught me a great deal about myself, and how to relate to some of the people in my life.
ReplyDeleteNo, I've never read it but I'll certainly check it out, Thanks for the tip!
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