Guest Post- Anonymous from US

Dear readers- I like to have guest posts from all perspectives. Some of you are into 12 step, some are not. Realize the feelings and the desperation are all the same. Love Tracey 

THE DEPTH OF MY INSANITY

 Step Two: Came to believe a Power greater thanmyself could restore me to sanity.

 The first time I sought help from a 12 Step program I became acquainted with Step 2. My first reaction was that it did not apply to me. Being a devout atheist I had no reason to succumb to this concept of weakness. Also, I was clearly NOT insane.

 Up until this time I had defined Insanity in much the same manner that I’m sure most of us do. By my own definition: which I had come to with my own personal experience with the mentally ill. You know, the folks on the bus talking to themselves.  Clearly I was not of this lot.

  Like most Drunks I had come to the realization that my drinking was a real problem. I had transcended recreational drinking. I had arrived to the point where every time I drank, I got drunk. Well, not “every time”. But to be honest, in the last five or so years of my drinking, the only times I drank and did not get drunk were because it was impossible; ran out of money, at work etc. I had, on several occasions, drank myself into actual alcohol dependency, whereas I needed medical detox to get off the sauce. In every instance where I was in detox I always drank the day I was released (you know, to celebrate a job well done!)

 OK, so maybe I was insane. After all, I did a lot of CRAZY shit when I was drunk: stealing cars, getting into fights with police officers, public nudity etc. Oh yeah, I did drugs! Now I do not consider myself a drug addict, though I have done far more drugs than a lot of people I have met in NA meetings. I believe that my drug usage was a result of my ALCOHOLIC thinking.

  Let’s take crack for example. I have smoked a few thousand metric tons of crack. But, not one single time was I ever sober and decided to smoke crack, the thought would never cross my mind. Yet, add some booze to me and the idea of smoking crack seemed like a WONDERFULL idea. Pretty SANE huh?

  Modern Psychiatry defines insanity, in a nutshell, as: “The complete inability to know the truth”.  Sound familiar?

 The last five years of my drinking was an absolute nightmare. I was married with three children and was completely unable to care for my family; booze had rendered me completely un-employable. I could not go to work because when I would woke up (come to) I was stricken with tremors and anxiety attacks that only a few drinks could quell.

 Booze is a mysterious thing. It is a vehicle to delusion. My mind was as deeply addicted to delusion as my body was to the alcohol. I was Peter Pan and Vodka was the Pixie Dust that brought me to Neverland.  I had come to AA believing I had a drinking problem. I was wrong. Booze was NOT my problem. Booze was my SOLUTION. Booze was the solution to happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, success, failure ad infinitum.

 The truth was, every time I took a drink a chain reaction occurred. Every time I took a drink I wanted another, the more I drank, the more I craved. My thirst for alcohol was insatiable. Every time I drank I COULD NOT STOP. Every time I drank I would do absurd and tragic things.

 So when drunk, I did insane things. This was NOT the insanity of my alcoholism. The INSANITY of my alcoholism was the fact that prior to drinking I had no idea these things were going to happen, despite the fact that they happened every time I was drunk. (Remember: The complete inability to know the truth)

 Today, I know the truth about myself. The first drink gets you drunk. How does that even make sense? Well, let me tell you: if you get hit by a train, it’s not the caboose that kills you.  After seven years of sobriety I can clearly see that my behavior could not be described as anything short of mental illness.

 I have mastered my drinking problem. By that I mean that the problem of the drink no longer exists for me. I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. What was it that did this for me? It was a Higher Power. At first, that Higher Power was the meetings themselves. Then it was sponsor. Today, I have a profound relationship with a God of my own understanding. Today, I believe that I was truly insane, lost in a dreamlike existence where I could not cope with reality. Today, I live in reality and have learned to roll with the punches of life. I believe that I have transcended insanity to sanity and it was a power greater than myself that did it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Tar Heroin 10 questions answered

Image
I want to get this in one place. Here you go When was the film made? The film was made from Dec 1995 to Dec 1997. Originally the film was supposed to be for one year but I believe when HBO picked up the film they wanted two years. How were you picked for the film? Steven met a bunch of different people at the youth needle exchange. He wanted subjects that were slightly younger than me. He filmed a few other people  that never made it into the final film Were you paid for the film? No. I was not paid for the film. he bought me a hotel to stay in for a week and bought me lunch a few times. I think they left some money for me when I was in jail too. Documentary film makers, in general, don't pay their subjects. Was I friends with the other people from the film ? Sort of. I never knew Alice. I met Oreo when he was 15 or 16. He was VERY young when the film was made. His mom used to work the desk in one of the hotels I lived in. Jake and I used to hang out. At one point h...
Read more

Ben (revised)

Image
Ben was heroin addled fantasy from a time when I would rather be with someone that barely loved me than be alone. I had just been released from jail after six long months. I had been using in the jail up until the last 45 days. This is did not give me much time to construct any type of recovery. I had spent most my time of planning for things that would never happen. My first week in jail was spent recovering from surgery. When I was arrested, I had four large abcesses. An abcess is a place where bacteria gets under the skin and the flesh starts to rot. I had to have surgery on my arm. When I took of the bandage, I cried. Not because I was in the hospital, not because I was in jail. I cried because they had sliced open my tattoo! The horror of it all. I used to take a sterile needle and cut them open myself. Needless to say, my nickname was the abcess queen. When I was back on the streets, I felt hopeless. I gave up my homeless encampment living for a hotel with some financial ...
Read more

Jamie

   Being able to fall apart is a luxury many people don’t have. They carry their burdens until it breaks them.  Miss Jamie was one of the most aesthetically pleasing  women I had ever seen in my life. She simply glowed. When she entered a room, everyone had to stop to pay attention. She took that space over. Her smile was radiant. Her energy was infectious. She was a fireball of a human. Her petite frame was always draped with carefully selected skirts, dresses, and form fitting sweaters. She paired this with her signature plum lipstick and acrylics.  She always came late in the day, usually when I had the lowest energy. Yet, I never refused her entrance. I was happy to see her. Happy to listen to her while she held court in my desk area.      On this day, Jamie was wheeled into the clinic by a person I had never seen before. Instead of scrubs, he looked as if he had woken up on the streets. He looked left like a caretaker, more like a pe...
Read more