Tag: alcoholism

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Beautiful gift…

5-6 min read

It feels like a lifetime ago that I wrote a blog post (it’s been just over 8 weeks). I imagine it feels that way because of how different life is now. So many things have happened, and my journey isn’t close to over. I don’t want to get into all the nitty gritty details, but let’s just say that my recovery has been put to the test in so many ways and now I’m tired… really, really tired. I have had to step back and take real good care of myself and my family. It was the only option I’ve had for survival. I’ve been mostly stabilized for a few weeks now but reality is, I have a long ways to go before I recover from everything that happened after my car accident. There is much to learn from everything I have gone through. Pain has a way of breaking you down. I’m pretty sure I experienced every emotion possible over the last couple of months (7 months really). There have been many tears shed. Lots of conversations and pleas with my Higher Power. My life has fallen apart completely, and now I can pick up the pieces and rebuild. Honestly, I gave up trying to understand how I have made it through all this and why it all has happened the way it has. All I know, is that my recovery is how I survived. The tools I learned, the support I have, my relationship with God. I didn’t have any of those for a really long time. Everything I have ever been through, prepared me for these times. And it’s amazing to me because I feel stronger than ever. How that’s possible, I have no idea. I know deep in my core that I will come out of this with more strength, courage, wisdom, serenity, confidence, understanding, humility, resilience, fearlessness, perspective, hope, forgiveness, faith, acceptance, gratitude, trust, and so much more. Phew, that was a mouth full. These times have given me great opportunity to put my tools to test. Each time I overcome one of these hardships (and there are lots of hardships), I come out feeling stronger. I come out feeling proud of myself for everything I have learned and being able to put my tools to work. I come out having more trust in myself to do the next right thing. It would be so easy for me to focus on the negatives, but instead my recovery has given me an opportunity to do better. I am a work in progress, yet also a masterpiece.

The greatest gift to give the people you love is your recovery.

-Anonymous

Recovery has given me a beautiful gift. A gift of faith, hope and trust. A gift of peace and joy. When I think about life before recovery, I think of an empty shell. I remember feeling lots of anger, hate, humiliation, insecurities, rejection, anxiousness, submission, inadequacy, worthlessness, jealousy, powerlessness, shame, abandonment, and fear… lots and lots of fear. It was awful. I don’t even know if I knew what anything else felt like. I think I tried. I remember feeling love. But then again, I was so broken, I’m not sure I was capable of accepting love if it hit me square in the face. And because of that, I ended up hurting people I care about. I’ve had to work hard at forgiving myself for that. Thank goodness for a living amends; it’s a gift I can give to myself and others, by never going back to where I was. What more can one do when words are never enough? Now I can proudly say that I have worked hard to overcome my past traumas, so that I don’t repeat the same patterns and poor behaviors I did in the past. Of course, I am still only human, so I make mistakes from time to time, but my past no longer drives my behaviors. I pick myself up and keep working hard to do the next right thing. When I think back to my childhood sexual abuse, being strangled, and even the family disease of alcoholism, I don’t remember the horrible things that happened. Instead, I see hope for change. I see hope for recovery. I see my Higher Power hard at work in every moment and every hardship. This is the priceless gift of recovery. Every… single… day… I fight for my recovery. I protect it as if it is the most precious thing to ever exist. Because without my recovery, I wouldn’t be here today, and I wouldn’t be the person I have come to know and love. I still have a long way to go, but at least I wake up everyday and put in the hard work.

These difficult times I’m going through now are far from over. But I can say with confidence, that I am supported, loved and I will make it through stronger than when it all started. My recovery has given me strength beyond measure. As I mentioned, over the last few months I have experienced many emotions that I did not have the tools to manage before. Now I embrace each feeling and work through it with grace. At times I find it quite challenging. It really just depends on what comes up for me. But this part of my journey was meant to happen just as it has; as if I was meant to get thrown into the trenches, so I could fast track my growth and be the leader of change, I know that I am meant to be. Stay tuned followers, the best has yet to come.

Amber T

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Acceptance and trust…

That’s been the theme of my life these last few weeks. It’s been really challenging but also has come with a lot of growth. I’ve had more tears than usual that’s for sure. Acceptance is a lot easier for me. It’s something that I’ve worked hard at these last few years. It was a foreign concept before then. Trust on the other hand. That is new. To trust that everything will be okay… to trust that someone is genuine… to trust that I deserve the good things that are happening in my life… to trust myself… these are all things that I fight myself on constantly. I am grateful that I have any level of awareness about trust and have improved my relationship with my Higher Power, otherwise I’m not so sure it’d be as possible as it has been. My mirror reminders are super helpful too. Not to mention the amazing support system that I have developed. You see, I spent the majority of my life surrounding myself around poor quality individuals and accepting much less than I deserved… people wanted to take advantage of me. And they did, let me tell you. So these last five or so years have been rough because I have only allowed very few people in… everyone else has had no possibility of even coming close to me letting my walls down. Now that I trust myself more and have grown as a person, that’s changing. And every time I let my wall down even just a smidge, I cry. It’s so challenging for me to allow myself to be vulnerable. I have been on my own now for so long, and I have been broken for even longer… to trust that someone is not going to take advantage of me, takes every atom in my body to hold myself together and not just run as far away as possible. Just the thought of it has me tearing up. Since trust has been the theme of my life lately, I am extremely sensitive to any situation where I have to trust and be vulnerable. So I just cry. I allow the tears. Sometimes I have to work really hard to hold them back. Not today. Today I let a few tears out here and there, and then when I got home, I bawled. For like an hour. In the moment I was having a hard time being positive. I was wanting to give up on trust. In my brain, everything would have been a lot easier if I could just sell everything I own, run away to another state and never look back. Give up on this whole endeavor. Give up on my friends. Give up on the idea of ever dating again. Give up on helping people in my community. That was a pretty crummy place to be in at that moment… so I just cried. Because the reality is, I want trust. I want what trust has to offer. But trust is not something I am used to. Trust is not easy for someone with the level of trauma that I have. Of course I’m working through it all, but it doesn’t mean I don’t fall sometimes. And I always pick myself up. You see, I work with people almost daily in helping them overcome their own traumas and not getting in their own way of living a fulfilled life. I’d be a total hypocrite if I just ran away. Instead that motivates me. It helps me push through and continue the journey of helping people… being able to help walk with someone in their journey. I teach what I learn, and I also share what I go through as a way to help other people because I can relate to these feelings of shame, guilt, fear, embarrassment, insignificance, worthlessness, abandonment, emptiness, rejection, anxiety, humiliation, anger, resentment, loneliness, the list goes on. And I always try to imagine what it is that I would want from someone that I never got in this journey, and then offer that. Sometimes it’s hard because I’m blessed with this level of awareness that I get to help bring out in other people, whom which are fighting for exactly what I am working through. So I get to be a persons rock, when I need a rock for myself. And these amazingly strong and beautiful people I support, end up holding me up without even knowing it. They push through and don’t even realize how inspiring they are for doing the very thing that is keeping them surviving. And they don’t see it because they get tore down by everyone else in their path. They get barked demands that are unreasonable and not possible for someone with lots of trauma. I’m just grateful that I have come to… I have seen what living in an alcoholic home has done to myself and my family. I have seen what being raped and molested by a family member does to our behaviors, poor coping and accepting of really crappy people and relationships in our lives. I know firsthand what abandonment, single mom-hood, domestic violence, being low-class or bullied, losing important relationships, being strangled, living with chronic pain, can do to a person. There are so many people walking around refusing to accept the fact that these terrible things have happened to them and then they are treating other people terribly. They are contributing to this awful cycle of abuse and they don’t even realize it. No level of awareness at all. And what’s crazy, is that I used to be one of those people. I used to surround myself with those people. And as soon as I got my head out of my butt, started reaching out and taking better care of myself, everything changed. Now I live this crazy, overwhelmingly fulfilling life. Literally I cry all the time just waiting for the shoe to drop. I cry because I can’t believe something positive it happening for me. I even sometimes feel like a fraud because how could anything good happen to me, when I was one of those negative, crappy people for so many years?! It has taken so much acceptance and trust, for me to push through and allow myself to welcome these new, out of my comfort zone feelings, things and people. I also never want to go back to being that empty, angry, submissive little girl, that was capable of hurting other people. Not after experiencing such amazing things. And though this endeavor that I’m on is challenging and just makes me want to scream sometimes, I will continue to push through and fight for what I know is the right thing for myself, my friends and family, and my community. Spreading hope and helping bring awareness to recovery in its many forms, is what is going to help me and anyone struggling with their own traumas or addiction. We grow when we know we are not alone. Stay tuned followers… the best really has yet to come.

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What is recovery?

That is the question that was asked of me during my first day of training as a Recovery Coach. The answer seemed a lot easier when writing it in the workbook, at least it seemed easier up until I was asked to write my Recovery Journey anyways. I’ve had to really give it some thought so I’ve just been sitting in this hotel room trying to get lost in my thoughts by reflecting on what my Recovery Journey looks like to me. I have been on my journey now for three years. I have learned so many things and come so far, and I’ve also been writing about my journey in this blog that whole time. Though I don’t actually talk much about many of the details that get me to the new tools or healthy coping. Instead I’ve always been fearful of doing that without knowing who was reading so I’ve just left those details for my face-to-face interactions with people in my community and in my life, as a way to keep myself safe from judgment. For me I guess in order to put down on paper what my Recovery Journey is, it starts with asking myself “in what ways do I believe I am in recovery?”. I often tell people I am in recovery from my codependency and attraction to chaos. But reality is, it is so much deeper than that. Those are just symptoms. I am in recovery from the affects of growing up in an alcoholic home, being sexually abused as a child by a family member, the affects of alcoholism in my relationships and work places, as well as my past sexual assaults in my adult years, the affects of being strangled, emotionally abused, in recovery for my mental health (depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD), homelessness, single-motherhood and physically for chronic pain from a prior car accident. With each of those major events were unhealthy learned behaviors that I am now working hard towards unlearning in order to be healthy. I work an active 12 step program where I am active in service, have a sponsor, and I work the Steps, Traditions & Concepts. I also have a therapist and do active talk therapy & EMDR sessions to work through some of the bigger events in my life that had the most harmful and unhealthy learned behaviors, so that I can work to reframe that trauma and come out with more awareness for change in how I cope. I recently went through a Domestic Violence Support Group for a year before I finally was able to grasp what domestic violence really is. With all of these traumas, I have taken steps towards recovery in some way, so that I can get better and be authentically me. Once I really started to address my early childhood sexual abuse, it really helped open my eyes to my past behaviors, in a way that I now have much more compassion for myself and others. Plus I just end up learning so many things about myself, that it helps me identify more goals and strengths. With all of those traumas came effects such as low self-esteem, low self-worth, low self-value, low confidence, people pleasing, submission, shame & guilt, fear, never feeling good enough, believing I could never amount to anything, believing I didn’t deserve anything good, the list goes on… awful effects that I know I am not alone in feeling. I have walked the journey with so many people who are strong and courageous enough to share their feelings of vulnerability, which has helped me grow further as a person and as a healer. I recognize that no one story is the same, just as no one recovery is the same. We are all on our own paths, in our own ways, but to be able to have someone on the journey with us… that makes all the difference in how we recover. With us… not judging, not bias, not objectifying. Just supporting our decisions to figure things out on their own. It brings a new meaning to ‘Meet them where they’re at’… it’s not about meeting them physically at their tent or on the street. It’s about meeting the person in those deep dark feelings that we have overcome already, and help them through the mud. That is part of what I am hoping to offer that is different than other organizations in my area. Though I do recognize that there are lots of helpers, lots of providers out there doing the work in their own ways, setting myself apart and truly getting in the mud with those suffering, and helping them come out stronger, that is where my passion really lies. I know that walking the journey with them is what is going to help them recover, and in-turn I will come out a better version of myself. And of course I am going to have to take extra care of myself while I do this work. That’s so important. I will have to focus even more on refilling my cup in order to be successful, but thankfully that is just another skill I get to teach other people. There are still many things in my own recovery that I am not yet ready to face, so it will also be important to set appropriate boundaries for myself and the people I serve. I’m grateful for my time working my Al-Anon program; that has helped me learn why boundaries are so necessary. So many things that have happened throughout this journey of recovery, and each one of them has happened in the time that it was needed. Recovery cannot be rushed, pushed or demanded. Recovery is by our own definition, on our own terms, in our own time. It is self-identified and self-driven. What a powerful word, recovery. I look forward to finetuning how I get to encompass being a Recovery Coach into this business and this journey. Stay tuned ya’ll.

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Perspective

Well this last week has been quite challenging. It started off with working 5am shifts on little sleep. Working on my fixer upper every day after work until bed time. Three days in a row of that wore on me and I wasn’t even close to done. My muscle help was not readily available so things took me a bit longer than I anticipated so I took Thur/Fri off work to just work on it to alleviate at least that stress and just get it done. Plus my job is stressing me out so I needed a couple days away before I snapped. So I tore apart the engine, pulled the knock sensor, and put it all back together. I cleaned all the parts up, replaced both the lower & upper intake gaskets, both valve cover gaskets, spark plugs & wires, re-loomed some wiring, tightened everything up, had to replace a few bolts and hoses, and had to get crafty with creating my own fuel injector “insulator” aka the grommet that the injectors sit on because one was damaged and it was a spendy special order part from Nissan! I learned a lot of patience with this vehicle. I worked on it in complete silence for about 11 hours on Thursday before I called it quits for the night. Got back to it first thing Friday morning. By noon I had everything back together! I relocated the knock sensor so it wouldn’t be so darn difficult to replace again if necessary. Fired it up and it started the first try! It started smoking right away from the engine compartment and the exhaust so I turned it off immediately. I was not about to have it catch fire or cause more damage. I had my fire extinguisher on standby just in case. Later I remembered that I had got coolant in the fuel by accident when I released the cooling system so it had to burn off. Phew! Started it again and let it burn off. I test drove it around the neighborhood and found that I had fixed the original issue of the exhaust leak and lack of compression going up hills. Buuuuuuuuuut, now I have a hiss coming from under the upper intake thats likely causing my cylinder 2 misfire and rough idle. Myself and my mechanic friend verified all the hoses are good and clamped tight, gaskets are in place properly, and the spark plugs and wires are all good. we both think the grommets need to just be replaced. I’ll find out more on Sunday. At least I got SOMEWHERE with it and it RUNS!! I’m pretty proud of myself. I saved myself a few hundred dollars in labor costs for a mechanic by doing the work myself. Lucky for me, both my dad and one of my best friends taught me a lot about mechanics and I really did pay attention! Still more to do but for now its running. Anyways, I got that taken care of so went about working Saturday to get caught up on my day job uninterrupted. Afterwards, I decided to go to the fair with one of my best friends! It was him, his coworker and myself. We went and walked around for a bit before we were gonna ride rides! Well lucky for us we didnt head straight for rides because my friend started getting winded from walking around so we sat down for him to rest. As we were resting, I realized this situation was worse than just shortness of breath from walking around, he was having chest pains and couldn’t even speak! So I sent his coworker to get a paramedic I had seen just around the corner. He pulled pills out of his pocket so I gave him one not even knowing what they were for. I later found out it was nitro for this exact moment. He took it and then the paramedics came, took his vitals, gave him oxygen and called for help. Backup came quick! Within minutes he was on a gurney and headed to the hospital so I raced down there. His coworker and I got there before the ambulance did. I asked them to update us right away. Well within minutes of their arrival they called a Code Blue!!! I was a mess!! One of my best friends was in there and I had no clue what was happening… completely helpless. All I could do was pray. I prayed so hard. After about 10 minutes someone came to grab us to update us on his condition. He was stable and they were sending him to another hospital because he had a heart attack in the front of his heart… what they call the Widowmaker. There’s a reason they call it that. How scary. His heart stopped twice. Once in the ambulance and again at the hospital. I am so thankful that he is alive! Of course I called him and told him he can’t die on me lol An experience like that really puts things into perspective. The first thing he told me was that this heart attack was a good reminder to never go to bed angry. You never know when your last moment will be. I hope my family, my loved ones, know how much I love them. Which I guess brings me to why I wanted to share this trying week with you.

These last few years have been some of the hardest years I’ve ever had. I mean really hard. And lately things have been extra difficult. There have been many days I didn’t want tomorrow to come because it was just too hard. And yet they still came. All I can do is push through it. I don’t have a choice. I have a family to live for. I have a son to live for. And lucky for me, every time I hit my breaking point, something happens that gives me strength to go on. For instance, how I got started with this whole candle thing in the first place. My family has been affected by alcoholism. In the blink of an eye, without warning, everything changed. That has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. A family that loves each other unconditionally, just lost. It’s devastating for it to just be over without warning when you know the love is there. Alcoholism is a terrible thing. The day I realized what was happening is the day I said my first prayer… February 2nd, 2016. It’s also the day I went to my first meeting. A day I’ll never forget. For the next couple of years when times were hard and when I was so heartbroken that I didn’t want to go on, I did everything I could to stay busy and take my mind off of the easy way out but prayer wasn’t yet something I quite understood and it wasn’t something I did often. I sang, played guitar, worked long hours, played music constantly to distract myself… I crafted, scrubbed my house until there was nothing left to scrub, got out in the garage and built stuff, worked on my car, mowed my lawn, drove for miles and miles, tried to move on, you name it. Nothing was working. Well one day when I was just about to give up, I turned to prayer out of desperation. I prayed for something, anything to help me. It was then that I saw something I just had to try. I got my hands on a DIY candle making kit. When I made my first candle, I knew that was it. That was what I could pour my love into. My heart break into. And it all just came together. However, starting this business has been one of the most trying experiences. Everytime I think I can finally move forward, something else tries to stand in my way. And each time I’ve wanted to just give up. What’s the point right? Yet somehow everytime I hit that point something magical happens and in my darkest of moments, I am given the strength to take another step forward. How it’s been possible is something I didn’t understand at first but now I realize it’s because in those moments, I pray. Every time I want to give up because times are just too difficult to handle and I just want everything to end already, I pray. When I am faced with the most trying of times, I pray. Im finally starting to realize that prayer is powerful. I pray for Serenity. I pray for Courage. I pray for Wisdom. And I pray for Strength. Most of the time I don’t think about praying. I need to figure out how to remind myself to pray more often because without it… well those are definitely my hardest and darkest times. I tend to lose focus on the big picture when all these things happen that keep making everything more challenging. Last time I prayed as hard as I did Saturday was almost two months ago. Two months ago I wanted to give up. I wanted my life to end. I thought that everyone would be better off without me. I thought that I was a failure. I thought that things would just continue to get worse and worse so whats the point. So… I prayed. Nothing happened. I prayed again, nothing happened. And then I thought an awful thought that I convinced myself to not act on and I prayed one last time… desperately. The next day something happened that I wasn’t expecting. Something that I didn’t understand. Something that meant so much to me but yet I was so confused at the same time. And in that moment I was given the strength I needed to survive another day. So, that following Friday night when the work week was over and I could finally breathe, I turned off my phone, locked myself in my house and prayed from Friday to Sunday! I was so thankful that all I could do was pray some more! Praying gave me the strength to trust that everything will be okay and make it through another day. It gave me the strength to get through some of the most challenging obstacles since then. It gave me the courage to stand tall when all I wanted to do was crumble. I have overcame situations that would have normally turned me into a big mess but I persevered and now I am stronger. Saturday I prayed. It helped me hold myself together long enough to save one of my best friends lives! I had no idea about the power of prayer until the day I lost my family to alcoholism. This last couple of years have been by far my hardest and yet I have held myself together enough to gain the strength so I can handle and overcome what’s still to come. Everything truly does happen for a reason, even if I don’t understand. I pray that everything will be okay. I just have to have faith that it will be. I hope and pray that one day I am given the opportunity to tell my loved ones how much I love and care about them. Sometimes things are still really hard and I just want to give up. When I remember, I pray. I just really need to remember more often that when things take a turn, I should pray. This business means a lot to me. It represents the love one has for family and friends. It represents the power of prayer. It represents the trials and tribulations of alcoholism. It represents more than anyone truly knows. I look forward to the day that I can finally kick off and share this experience with the people who matter most to me. So even though things are slow moving, I will do what I can to make this successful because of what it represents.