Finally Got it...
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Finally Got it...
My name is Jon and this is sort of a stream of consciousness about my experiences with alcohol. I'm compelled to post here for several reasons, one of which I altruistically hope what I write might help someone in some small ways. In July of this year, I was pulled over for weaving in the afternoon after an intense therapy session trying to deal with some issues surrounding my ex wife and our daughter. This is much too long a story for this post; suffice it to say there is quite a history of emotional abuse from my ex directed toward both my daughter and myself, which has been ongoing for the better part of 20 years. The point here is that in this particular afternoon I did what I had been doing for about the last 8 years and I stopped off at the liquor store and proceeded to use alcohol to make the pain of the past go away. On the way home I was followed by the local police and was pulled over for weaving and was arrested on suspicion of DUI. I spent the night in jail and was bonded out in the morning and was put on pre-trial personal recognizance. It was an experience I both never thought I would endure, and certainly don't recommend. It was quite a wake up call for me. I spent the next two weeks trying to wrap my mind around all the consequences of what I had done, and what the future would hold for me now and how it was going to be in a lot of way quite different from what I had assumed.
In this period several things quickly became quite clear and I took some action. I realized that I didn't want to live a life anymore that revolved around drowning very frequent emotional pain, having a substance continually knocking me down and keeping me from moving forward, and that regardless of what I thought of myself there were people, my family and especially my daughter, that deserved me to be living a productive and happy life. Being clear headed for about 7 days really made me see the unauthentic life I'd been living, but that also made me see that while I'd know deep down covering my pain was holding me back, I had absolutely no idea how to move forward. I had never tried to stop before even though I had admitted to myself on countless occasions something needed to change. I certainly knew in my soul that I couldn't do it by myself. And asking for help is not a thing which comes easily for me.
I was able to find that there was no IIP which would take my meager insurance, and I certainly couldn't pay what seemed like insurmountable out of pocket expenses for that kind of help. I was forced to enroll in an IOP group which is offered by a local community health provider that accepted my insurance.
The program consisted of nine hour weekly for a total of at least 12 weeks, along with random UAs and bi-monthly one on one counseling. This sounded great to me; not quite what I'd hoped for, but at least it was something which could in theory help me and would possibly be looked upon favorably by the courts (and yes this last sentiment was certainly something I considered). I went on the first day after my intake process with high hope.
After four weeks this hope was almost completely dashed. I was simply not getting whatever personalized and intense help I thought I needed as the program was simply not geared toward or able to provide that. Which is to say that is not the fault of the program itself or the organization behind it. I despaired and had probably what we all have had in a relapse. I spent a week mostly drunk, and in a much deeper rock bottom than I thought I could ever get to after a night in jail. Then I just woke up on a Wednesday and decided that regardless of whatever help I thought I wasn't getting I still had at the very least an opportunity to finish a self enrolled program which I would most probably be sentenced to anyway before any court dates. Leniency from the courts is really what made me attend the session the next afternoon, which I was clean for. I didn't expect anything more from this program other than a nice letter and one more box to check off in the list of DUI related obstacles I would have to overcome in the eyes of the law.
That Thursday changed my life. As often happens it seems like there is some invisible presence nudging people and events into my life when I least expect it and most need it. That day we had a substitute facilitator, which I was informed of before that session by a friend in the class. I didn't really expect anything earth shattering, in fact I didn't expect anything different at all.
This person took about two thirds of the three hour session and completely eviscerated and deconstructed my life from when I was quite young to the present of that afternoon. That period of time took the place of at least 20 years of therapy before it, and without going into much detail, from what I learned that day I have been able to reconstruct a great deal of the damage I'd caused my life. Here are the secrets I was made privy to:
1. It is not my fault nor the fault of my parents that I was brought up the way the VAST majority of boys are brought up in this country learning that feelings, especially feeling which would appear to be preceived as weak, are not acceptable and should be kept hidden. Now I needed to learn other ways to express and constructively deal with those honest, and more importantly completely valid and masculine feelings.
2. I needed to quit "shoulda-ing" all over myself. Replace that phrase with slang for the act of producing excrement. I needed to understand that the habit of looking back on my life and painfully saying "I should have" and "I could have" needed to be followed by changing the track of those thoughts into realizing "yes, probably, but now look what you can do going forward!"
3. I needed to understand that there is a vast distance separating the concepts of guilt and shame, and that I certainly didn't need to equate myself shamefully with some specific things which I had endured in my childhood and in my marriage.
4. I needed to understand that alcohol was just a band-aid over wounds that I just didn't have the courage or understanding to heal. The substance, for me, could have been really anything, or even any kind of obsessive behavior. I know if I would have tried to do this on my own I would never have gotten to the root of the cause.
4. This one is the last and the simplest but yet the hardest: I needed to ask for help. I needed to ask for help with the really painful things regardless of whatever level of comfortableness I may feel. Period.
After that day I changed. I could feel a sense of peace I'd never really felt before, It could have been any substance or manipulative behavior which I chose. The change was very apparent to those around me as well, which I found sort of embarrassing but also very encouraging. I sort of breezed through the rest of the IOP, actually enjoying my time there and able to actually use and understand the subtle tools given out every session.
My take a ways from the IOP that I would share with those just starting out on the journey:
- Yes there is a first step, and yes take it! Don't be afraid of the steps after the first one.
- Be an advocate for yourself. Take that responsibility that you probably haven't taken.
- Fake it until you make it. Get in there and do it. You never know when you'll get what you need.
- You are not the horrible things you think you are.
- Listen to the universe. It has ways of putting you on the right path when you're on the wrong one, even if that path isn't one you'd consciously choose.
In this period several things quickly became quite clear and I took some action. I realized that I didn't want to live a life anymore that revolved around drowning very frequent emotional pain, having a substance continually knocking me down and keeping me from moving forward, and that regardless of what I thought of myself there were people, my family and especially my daughter, that deserved me to be living a productive and happy life. Being clear headed for about 7 days really made me see the unauthentic life I'd been living, but that also made me see that while I'd know deep down covering my pain was holding me back, I had absolutely no idea how to move forward. I had never tried to stop before even though I had admitted to myself on countless occasions something needed to change. I certainly knew in my soul that I couldn't do it by myself. And asking for help is not a thing which comes easily for me.
I was able to find that there was no IIP which would take my meager insurance, and I certainly couldn't pay what seemed like insurmountable out of pocket expenses for that kind of help. I was forced to enroll in an IOP group which is offered by a local community health provider that accepted my insurance.
The program consisted of nine hour weekly for a total of at least 12 weeks, along with random UAs and bi-monthly one on one counseling. This sounded great to me; not quite what I'd hoped for, but at least it was something which could in theory help me and would possibly be looked upon favorably by the courts (and yes this last sentiment was certainly something I considered). I went on the first day after my intake process with high hope.
After four weeks this hope was almost completely dashed. I was simply not getting whatever personalized and intense help I thought I needed as the program was simply not geared toward or able to provide that. Which is to say that is not the fault of the program itself or the organization behind it. I despaired and had probably what we all have had in a relapse. I spent a week mostly drunk, and in a much deeper rock bottom than I thought I could ever get to after a night in jail. Then I just woke up on a Wednesday and decided that regardless of whatever help I thought I wasn't getting I still had at the very least an opportunity to finish a self enrolled program which I would most probably be sentenced to anyway before any court dates. Leniency from the courts is really what made me attend the session the next afternoon, which I was clean for. I didn't expect anything more from this program other than a nice letter and one more box to check off in the list of DUI related obstacles I would have to overcome in the eyes of the law.
That Thursday changed my life. As often happens it seems like there is some invisible presence nudging people and events into my life when I least expect it and most need it. That day we had a substitute facilitator, which I was informed of before that session by a friend in the class. I didn't really expect anything earth shattering, in fact I didn't expect anything different at all.
This person took about two thirds of the three hour session and completely eviscerated and deconstructed my life from when I was quite young to the present of that afternoon. That period of time took the place of at least 20 years of therapy before it, and without going into much detail, from what I learned that day I have been able to reconstruct a great deal of the damage I'd caused my life. Here are the secrets I was made privy to:
1. It is not my fault nor the fault of my parents that I was brought up the way the VAST majority of boys are brought up in this country learning that feelings, especially feeling which would appear to be preceived as weak, are not acceptable and should be kept hidden. Now I needed to learn other ways to express and constructively deal with those honest, and more importantly completely valid and masculine feelings.
2. I needed to quit "shoulda-ing" all over myself. Replace that phrase with slang for the act of producing excrement. I needed to understand that the habit of looking back on my life and painfully saying "I should have" and "I could have" needed to be followed by changing the track of those thoughts into realizing "yes, probably, but now look what you can do going forward!"
3. I needed to understand that there is a vast distance separating the concepts of guilt and shame, and that I certainly didn't need to equate myself shamefully with some specific things which I had endured in my childhood and in my marriage.
4. I needed to understand that alcohol was just a band-aid over wounds that I just didn't have the courage or understanding to heal. The substance, for me, could have been really anything, or even any kind of obsessive behavior. I know if I would have tried to do this on my own I would never have gotten to the root of the cause.
4. This one is the last and the simplest but yet the hardest: I needed to ask for help. I needed to ask for help with the really painful things regardless of whatever level of comfortableness I may feel. Period.
After that day I changed. I could feel a sense of peace I'd never really felt before, It could have been any substance or manipulative behavior which I chose. The change was very apparent to those around me as well, which I found sort of embarrassing but also very encouraging. I sort of breezed through the rest of the IOP, actually enjoying my time there and able to actually use and understand the subtle tools given out every session.
My take a ways from the IOP that I would share with those just starting out on the journey:
- Yes there is a first step, and yes take it! Don't be afraid of the steps after the first one.
- Be an advocate for yourself. Take that responsibility that you probably haven't taken.
- Fake it until you make it. Get in there and do it. You never know when you'll get what you need.
- You are not the horrible things you think you are.
- Listen to the universe. It has ways of putting you on the right path when you're on the wrong one, even if that path isn't one you'd consciously choose.
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