Removing the Blinders to Face the (health) Facts
A Personal Account of a Multi-Substance Addict, and How I Pulled Myself from the Depths of Depression by Dropping One of Them.
Do you ever get to a point in life where you take immediate inventory of your situation and ask yourself…how the hell did I get here? When the person in the mirror is not someone you recognize, not only on the outside, but seeing through to your being.. and not recognizing the person looking back at you. This can prompt the question, does anyone know or recognize me right now? The REAL me..
This point found me deep in active addiction, at what I thought was my prime.
I, like most of us, was thoroughly disappointed to find myself at 25, 2nd bottle of wine in hand, music blaring, tear soaked floor.. feeling just empty. Asking God ‘why’. I was addicted to two substances. Alcohol and Heroin.
Anyone I met would have had a crazy reaction. Taken aback, a dramatic gasp, “YOU? Desirae?! No way YOU are a heroin addict..” That is, IF I told them.
No one knew. Well, no one who I didn’t want to know, knew this about me.
A drinker though? I couldn’t have hidden that if I tried. No one who starts at 10am with a 6$ bottle of vodka can hide that.
The alcohol was killing me. I woke up to my death daily, and did one of two things. I either drank more to bite the hangover, or if my husband was home, I would stay asleep til noonish - wake up miserably, while he would nurture me back to health because I couldn’t even eat. That was distinctly the only time he didn’t get mad or impatient with me. It never seemed manipulative at all, as if he genuinely cared. It was probably the only act of kindness he showed me that wasn’t thrown in my face sometime after in a fight.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in such a dark place. But I’ve been battling that since I can really remember. I had isolated, in a big way.
In the darkest point of my life, I still didn’t think I hated myself. It wasn’t until after I quit drinking alcohol that I realized how much depth of emotion that I had been avoiding drowning in booze.
I figured hey, I’m crying my eyes out on nearly a daily basis, I’m totally feeling my emotions out! Wrong. There is definitely a difference.
I haven’t had any alcohol for 3.5 years. HUGE.
Since putting down the bottle, my self worth skyrocketed (in comparison to where I was), and I reconnected to the Spirit realm and with God. My depression was something I’ve never even looked back on.
It IS possible to still be addicted to your substance while simultaneously building yourself up, while connecting spiritually and while being a generally happy person! (in other words, we don’t need to succumb to the stigma of a “lazy, messy, depressive, self loathing, thief, liar or junkie” and all the nasty things people say about addicts trying to cope)
But here’s the catch, we are still addicts. There is something beneath that. Always.
So after about a year of rebuilding, what was still holding me in that place? I was stuck. I felt so lost because from the outside, it looked like I should have been …in a better position than I was.
If you follow spiritual content, its common to hear the spiel of it being part of our wounding from childhood, deeply ingrained belief systems that are conditioned and are not really ours at all. I have been down that road several times. I thought I had explored all there was to know about my own shadow. But I came up with nothing. My ego wouldn’t allow me to see the truth.
No one discouraged me growing up. I was talented, and I did everything I wanted to. So where does one find the answers when it seems like every answer I could come up with was contradicting my reality.
Maybe I could stick it out a little longer. Take the disrespect. The lies. The harmful place I was allowing myself to be. I could get along well outside of my home, the rare times I was around other people I laughed a lot! I felt closer to myself, I felt okay. When I spoke about my marriage, I highlighted it. Like many do.
OH.
It was staring me in the face. THIS. ENTIRE. TIME. 2.5 years of wondering what the fuck was going on in my energy.
My confusion and perceived insecurity is a PROJECTION.
Life Audit #256. How was I so blind.. my self love was suspended inside the false projection from someone who kept me blind from that very thing! Its like the micro version of the government lies…I was brainwashed into thinking I wasn’t capable of really coming into my own, achieving my greatness, recognizing and believing in my talents!
I gotta liberate myself from living underneath this energy. It isn’t even me. Its someone else’s projection onto me. My husband. Though he’ll never admit it, he doesn’t exactly wish me well. WoW.
Solution time. How do I make this happen then? How do I change my energy if I am more or less “stuck” in this home for however much longer until someone figures it out and I can move?
Something told me this was easier than I thought. The hard part was an oncoming inevitable body detox. Seems like cake right? Wrong. The HARDEST part of the detox is the first 24 hours. I avoided that the most.
To back up, yes, I am an addict. A drug addict. But I refuse to use the word “junkie”. (that word seems like it has always been associated with people who used needles) Even though that was my route of administration and had been for some time. I truly believe I was addicted to the process. But I don’t believe I was any less of ‘me’ than I was before I got on it.
Reminding myself that I had built myself up so much and climbed out of a hole I never thought would show me the light of day again was kinda motivating honestly.
So if I can do that, what is a detox for 24 hours… Or what is a heartbreak that I’ve been dealing with and processing for 6 years. I’m past it.
I chose not to go to a treatment center because they aren’t aligned with me. Probably because I’m here to create a new way. In my opinion, we can therapize ourselves (with thorough research and a semi-massive self understanding or at least a search for that) and actually THROUGH that search for self understanding we become a whole different version of ourselves. Matter of fact, Mother Earth has an abundance of wisdom right under our feet.
At my core, I am a powerful and talented woman. I may have made mistakes, but I don’t honestly believe they took me “off of my path”. I have always been right where I was meant to be. Including now. I’ll be guided. I trust that.
I say all of this because it is a journey. Liberating from addiction is far more than just “putting it down”. It takes a tremendous amount of self work and curiosity about what makes you tick, what your wounds are, analyzing how you grew up and your influences. Considering a NATURAL lack of dopamine in your brain is a VERY real contributing factor to addiction. (so ADHD, and ADD diagnosis)
I could go on.
Beginning to take away the stigma of addiction will take our own willingness to still be, or return to our authentic selves! Try to first get on the happier side of your SELF and your heart. This is SUCH a powerful step towards sobriety and most of all, avoiding relapse.
Till next time, keep your head up.