Lightning Bug

I have been a busy Bug dropping a few lines on a lot of posts. After reading I decided I need help with accountability and instead of creating multiple new threads (a habit of mine!) I thought I would start one thread and go slap happy with my thoughts in one place.

So as I mentioned in my just coming back post, I just got out of 30 day inpatient rehab. I can gush all day long about what a wonderful experience it was, but I wrote that all out in my other post. Check it out if you are interested! And for anyone struggling with the decision to go inpatient or not and have questions about my experience, please feel free to drop me a PM! All said and done, inpatient was one of the best decisions I have ever made and I really wish I went years ago! But I can't change my timeline, it is what it is.

My new sober date is 6/29/16.

So my aftercare plan is in place. I will be going IOP at a treatment center locally on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6-9. If you ever see me online at that time feel free to call me out on it. I am not saying I plan to miss but let's face it. Women get cramps. Sometimes they have to sit on a cushy couch with a heating pad binge watching The Walking Dead instead of going to IOP. Seriously, Crack the whip on me and don't let me give you a lame excuse. Accountability is very important in my recovery journey.

I have AA meetings on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday at 7. I plan to be online here for the meeting at 9 on Friday. So far so good, right?

I have scheduled an appointment with a new psychiatrist for Aug 20th. I am leaving my old doctor because, honestly speaking, I manipulated her to get Klonopin. She knows nothing about my substance abuse problems. I feel by getting a fresh start with a new doctor with complete honesty on my part is the way to go. The selling point on this doctor was that he listed plainly on his website that he doesn't prescribe Benzos. Win for me! I won't find myself calling him in the middle of the workday to call an emergency script in for me because I was in the middle of a panic attack (totally did that with the old doc. She never batted an eyelash).

So that is my aftercare plan. Doable. Yes?

Lightning Bug

OK so I promised myself I would be honest and forthcoming in my posta. So here is my confession of the day. I started smoking in detox and haven't stopped. I was an adamant nonsmoker for all of my 42 years. Never smoked. Got on my husband's ass all the time about his smoking. And then I picked it up as easily as I have been smoking all my life. So now I stopped fearing I would drop dead from liver disease and am now convinced my lungs will explode.

But it is soon calming.

Ok I feel better I confessed.

Lightning Bug

Life was easier in rehab. We had structure and rules and accountability. I am struggling to bring my strict routine from rehab and fold it into my household. Easier said than done. I already screwed up and threw up my hands in defeat and said F that. Chaos is the new sexy. Now if I could just get out of my pajamas and pretend to be a functional adult - that would be a start.

Soberwolf

Awesome idea with the thread Bug

saoutchik

I don't suppose the slightly artificial world in a rehab centre can be transplanted to people's real lives but it does establish in a real way that you can live without drink or drugs

Congratulations on one month, you have something to build on now

Lightning Bug

I am having a hard time finding my place in my home. I created such chaos before my relapse that I isolated and detached emotionally. I literally hated ever fiber of myself. I created an irrational perception that I was not good enough to be a wife and mother. So I retreated to a safe place where I was not consumed with negativity and self loathing. I created an image of how I believed others perceived me and that image was dark, toxic and empty of all emotions.

My husband and I have been fighting all day. I think he believed that I would come home completely cured. I believe his expectations were unrealistic. I can't change all my negative behaviors in 4 weeks. I can't just be rid of my depression and anxiety.

Yesterday when I came home and was confronted with the same reality I left, I panicked. I was consumed with anxiety, loss of control, and I felt the core that I straightened and aligned to give me strength melted like jello. I instantly reverted to past behaviors. My old coping skills. I isolated, I stayed glued to my phone to tune out the chaos around me, and I stopped talking to my husband. Old habits came to haunt me again.

Today we are fighting because I honestly feel like an outsider, that I don't belong, that my value is not good enough. Self hatred reared it's ugly head again. I worked so hard on building myself up, believing that I matter, understanding that my perceptions of other people's beliefs about me are not based in fact but a distorted way of thinking that I created myself.

My husband expected a real partner to return, someone who will share an equal part in our parenting. I came home disillusioned, fragile, confused and off center. My strict routine was such an important piece of my stay that when it started to unravel my spirit wilted and I felt lost and out of place. I got home and I realized that they did just fine without me. This lead me to doubt my purpose. What if the changes I made are not good enough?

I am lost right now. Confused. Not balanced and not centered. This is detrimental to my recovery

I am going to a meeting tonight.

Darwinia

You know this already but I will repeat. Recovery is a long hard difficult journey. No easy fixes. It is so for you and for all of us.

Lightning Bug

It is a hard journey and you can't expect immediate changes in relationships. I feel my husband expected me to come back home driven with the desire to be supermom, suddenly cured of all character defects with no emotional baggage, no need for support and understanding of the fragility of early recovery. I don't even know what defects he wanted to change. I kbow what I want, but what if he is expecting a change in behavior that I didn't even know was a problem?

He told me that I don't know how to love someone. He called me selfish. He says he questions if I really want a family at all? I hide my emotions so well that it may seem like to unattached, but I feel love. I love my children. I feel love for my husband but I question whether I am in love with him. God I sound like a monster.

Dee74

I think an accountability journal thread is a great idea.

Most of us want things to be OK right now...it's hard to have that happen when there are other people in our lives. If recovery is a massive change for us it must seem more so for our partners and spouses.

Go gently but steadily is a good way to go I think. Things really do have a habit of working out so long as we keep our course.

Glad you're hitting a meeting - great stuff Bug
D

Lightning Bug

So let me throw this out there. My sober date is 6/29 buy being in impatient treatment your sobriety is forced and you are are tested regularly for compliance. I am thinking of making my sober date tomorrow. It will coincide with my return to reality, my acceptance of the return to real life as it stands.. Yesterday and today don't count because of all the turmoil, negativity wrapped up in my disaster of a homecoming. Tomorrow I will be on schedule, hopefully calm and peaceful, and ready to start. Thoughts? Good idea?

Lightning Bug

OK crisis mode here, the stress from all this negative energy and his blatant disregard for me has me triggered. This is the first time I have felt a compulsion to self medicate since before rehab. I need help and I can't get that here.

Dee74

Make you date whatever makes sense to you Bug. My sober date has meaning for me, even this far down the road.

There is always help here

Can you be by yourself for a bit? Read around the forums?
D

Soberwolf

Bug play the tape, this will pass & try this

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...e-surfing.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-cravings.html

You don't have to drink, think about why you came back here

Fly N Buy

I went to over 100 meetings the first 3 months. I engaged with a step sponsor and immediately started taking action. We are all different but that process has put me on a path leading to over two years to this point.

It works if ya work it...

Lightning Bug

I just meditated quietly and realized I want sobriety much more than a drink. It calmed me down. I leave for my meeting in 15 minutes. Thanks friend.

Lightning Bug

I just calmed myself down with the breathing exercises I learned. It was calming to just breathe quietly.

Lightning Bug

I bawled in front of about 60 people in a packed AA room. I confessed that I feel Iost the power and the strength I built up in the rooms at rehab. I confessed that I feel alone and scared and unwelcome in my home. I confessed that I am scared that progress I made in rehab is not real and I am tricking myself by believing it is. I met with a group of women who held me up when I cried and made me feel less alone and less scared. They gave me hope.

After AA I parked myself in the McDonald's parking lot with a burger and coke and then proceeded to pour out to my husband in tect exactly how I managed to breakdown this weekend and come home more broken and lost than I was when I left for detox. I gave him the ugly truth and I didn't sugarcoat anything. I told him how he pushe'd and pushed at me until I completed shut down emotionally. I told him how wrong he was when he tried to keep me away from this board when I was desperately clinging to it for support. SR was the closest thing I had to sober support and I needed to keep it close toe today. I told him that I feel I can't talk freely with him about recovery because he doesn't understand the mind of an addict because he is not one and he minimizes their pain and suffering which makes me feel like ****. I told him that the only person who can change me and my behaviors, reactions and habits is me. When he tries to change me I put distance between. Us. I am the one who has control over the changes I make. He may not like the changes but they are my changes to make.

I am done crying, I feel relieved that I finally got a chance to tell him everything I feel without his constant interruptions with negative and triggering remarks. I have let go of my anxiety about my homecoming and am now focused on starting my recover work at home.

How should I feel about all of this? Happy? Guilty? Embarrassment? I don't know.

I hope I find my peace tomorrow. I feel restless without it.

Bug

Bekindalways

Hey Bug, looks like you are in the midsts of the really hard, life-changing, light-giving work.

I come here from the Friends and Family thread as I find the stories of the newcomers to be inspiring. Would your husband consider going to Alanon? It is super hard for us codies to keep to our side of the street.

Mxdad2003

Hi bug
My wife will soon be where you are and what does a husband need to do to help with your recovery?
I just ask because she will be home around 8/15
I started alanon and am a long way from being an expert but im sure it would help him be more accommodating.
I know im not a perfet husband and sure yours isnt either but wd need to know what to do.....

Lightning Bug

I found my peace again. I came out on my patio at my scheduled time of 5AM for my morning meditation and I felt the calming sensation of serenity, hope and light fill my whole body to center me in the present and ground me to the Earth. I was terrified that I lost it when I was rushed through the discharge process and dumped into an unfamiliar and unwelcoming homecoming. The anxiety and panic this weekend was intense and I could not center myself in the real world. My distorted thinking tried to make me believe that I undid all the hard work I did in rehab and I was back to being this broken and lost being filled with negativity, hopelessness and fear.

I opened myself up to God and I begged God to bring peace back into my heart and to restore my self control. I asked him to help me take personal responsibility for all that I do and say. I felt instantly better, the core of my body felt strong and I felt love in my heart. I have not lost my progress, it was just hiding in the field of anxiety I built up when I felt unprepared for my return.

I feel strong and ready now. I feel prepared and focused. I will be at home for the next two weeks because we don't have childcare or a summer camp option for my kids until they go back to school. So I will be returning to work on the 15th. I asked God to help me with the daily stress of handling two young children. I asked him to restore me to the role of Mom. I feel like I am strong enough. I have to retrain them to listen and respect me. Before I got sober I let them walk all over me because it was just easier than using proper discipline and enforcing rules. I was so detached from responsibility over them that I was withdrawn and distant. My powerlessness over alcohol and prescription meds tried to break my relationship with them and I am finally getting the chance to restore it to balance.

I am sitting here on the patio with the comfort of peace draped around me like a soft blanket. I want the blanket to stay tucked in tightly so I will never be without it. Looking out into my yard I see my fruit trees with branches swaying in the light Floridian breeze. I hear the sprinklers spraying water over the tall blades of grass. I hear the frogs in the trees singing their morning song. There is a baby gecko sitting peacefully on the chair next to me. Describing my view to you is calming, it lets me appreciate my surroundings as I enjoy being in the present moment.

Thanks for listening.

Bug