Thank you for your honesty Sherry! And, glad you came back!
I want to share something here that happened last night at one of my meetings. A girl I'm pretty good friends with apologized to us for messing up and basically living a lie for the past 2 and 1/2 years. She picked up her 6 year token last week, and she said that she had been dishonest because she actually used 2 and 1/2 years ago! It was soooo hard for her to admit and I swear, I have never had so much respect for someone than I did last night. Especially since she's been working a really good program and she's someone who I look up to for advice and such. She came into the program when she was only 14, and she admitted that she loved her pride so much that it kept her for being honest for all this time. I couldn't imagine living that long knowing that with each year I was supposedly sober--it was actually a lie. But, I can definitely relate. I've even had the problem where I was so consumed with my lies and the fabrications that I actually started believing it was the truth, and it was so hard to differenciate between the two. Amazing how our minds work!
Now, for me--it's not so much how I think other people are going to think of me if I'm honest--it's more like I hope that I'm helping someone else out with my honesty. Sometimes I can't even be honest--no matter how much I try--because it's become so much a part of my life to lie that only with the help of someone else (a sponsor for example) I'm able to see the situation as it really is.
So, I want to be honest with you people here too. I've started becomming honest with people in my homegroup so they know of my struggles. It's true that I had my last drink in May of this year, but I've been struggling with over-the-counter cold pills for the past couple months. I'm able to stay off them for maybe a week at a time, but something takes over me--and I can't help but take them to "blur the edges" as I say. My sponsor says that even though the threat of death isn't as immediate as it would be if I were drinking or taking "the hard stuff" (oh, and thank God, I've never been able to get to the "hard stuff" .That's totally by the grace of my HP because I know I would be totally strung out if I had the chance) I'm slowly killing myself. I think I'm in the process of surrender--and it's really hard! It's like--I wish my self-will would just die...and it's taking FOREVER!!! A couple weeks ago in my homegroup meeting--I called my sponsor after I took some of these pills and admitted that I was high and hopefully I would come down enough to be able to drive to my meeting. I did--and at that meeting, I told everyone what was going on. It was horrible--because when I take them, my speech motor skills are screwed up and not to be offensive--I seriously sound like I have Down's Syndrome. It was one of the most horrible, yet totally liberating things I've yet to do. I also had to read something afterwards, and the words on the paper were jumping all over the place. That coupled with my slurry speech, I was mortified. I tried handing the paper over to my sponsor--and she's like--"no, keep reading". Now, comming from someone who had a background in Communications and won awards for speeches I've made in my Public Speaking classes--you could imagine how I felt. But, it's so important for this process--I know. And, like I mentioned before, it really isn't about how I look anymore, it's about helping someone else out with my story and just by the way I look and what I'm going through.
So, thank you again Sherry. I swear--when I came back to AA to start working a program of recovery...I didn't know what I was getting into. I am a "REAL ALCOHOLIC" and this disease wants me dead--any way it can. That's so scary and I'm praying and waiting for the moment where I totally surrender to that idea. But, it's been taking a while for that fact to travel from my head to my heart.
Thanks for being here everyone. By the way--I've been asking others who go to NA too--do you think that would help...I mean, REALLY help with this problem I'm having with cold pills? I guess like AA, I would have to find really good NA meetings too. And, since this thread is mainly people who identify themselves as addicts--does anyone know of anyone who might be able to help me out?
Danielle