Competition in the Recovery Stakes!

Blog 25th March 2015 Early recovery is exhausting and being with someone in early recovery can also be all consuming and relentless. I am delighted, comforted and relieved that my son has returned to the bosom of a twelve step programme. It’s been a good leveller for me and a healthy reminder of the pain and suffering this illness causes. Going to lots of meetings, being with newcomers and sharing experience, strength and hope helps me as much as it helps others. The flip side to the coin is that I have become totally and utterly preoccupied and consumed with Joe’s recovery. This happened the first time he entered in to the process, so keen was I to see him well I chivvied him everywhere. I took him to meetings, put money in the pot for him, drove him here there and everywhere, tried to control and take over his life. He was not ready; he was using recovery as a means to please me, to shut me up and to obtain money and cigarettes. My emotions would veer from ecstatic to anger to hope and despair in the blink of an eye. I was hyper sensitive to his every emotion when he was happy, I was happy when he was angry, I was furious and when he was low, I would be on high alert looking for signs of the red-eyed relapse. I would constantly quiz him, nag him to ring other members of the fellowship and follow the programme. Looking back I must have been a nightmare. I was in early recovery too and floating on a pink cloud. I realised I was in danger and enabling the other night. I lay in bed and was totally preoccupied with him using. Questions whirled around my head that were impossible to answer. I could not sleep, I kept imagining him using and the fear of him using was driving me mad. I finally drifted in to a fitful sleep where I had nightmares about attacking him physically and verbally. I even took a co-codymol to get myself off to sleep rationalising this insane addictive behaviour by pretending that I had toothache. I was unable to switch off, and unable to see the damage I was doing to my own recovery. Co-dependency at its best! Joe needs a lot of support but he also needs to toughen up stand on his own two feet and find his own way in life. I want to give him a flying start and help him as much as I can, but I have to keep myself safe in the process. If I go under and allow people, places and things to possess me, my recovery is in trouble. Joe is similar to me in many ways, one of his coping techniques is exactly the same as mine and that’s a tendency to talk ten to the dozen about himself and block everything else and everyone else out. Wyn calls it talking your feelings away or verbosity. I do it, and it’s dangerous as you are so preoccupied with yourself and your self-preservation that you don’t listen to others: you can also talk your feelings away which prevent you from actually sitting down and feeling them. I was a master of this and can still be guilty of it today. It’s quite exhausting to the people around you but the addict is oblivious to this and just keeps on and on like a Gatling gun. It generally stops when the recipient can take no more and hollers “Shut up” at the surprised addict. I, self, me. It was all about me when I was addicted and it’s all about me now. It’s one of the hardest things for us to learn to be “givers” not “takers”; I need work on this one daily. I have to take a step back and resist the urge to enable. I don’t help him when I enable and I destroy myself in the process. I hinder his recovery with that thinking, tough love and stepping back does work. Joe is living proof of that but as soon as he starts to do well there I go again treating him like a child, rewarding him, enabling, prolonging his agony; keeping him sick. Wrong things; right reasons. I’ve made some mistakes this week in the name of “love” giving him money, paying his rent, paying off a dealer. All backward steps for me and leading me to those feelings of panic, fear and resentment. Getting the balance right is tough, trust takes a long time to build and action has to be put in by the addict. Openness, honesty, willingness, forgiveness and re-establishing the family relationships are what are required. Compassion underpinned by that bond of unconditional love I feel for him. He seems committed, he’s been clean for three days today which is miraculous, he’s been attending meetings every day, 1:1s, sharing, reading, phoning, using the tools of recovery and the path has started to open. He moved in to The YMCA (I am resisting the urge to do the song and dance routine) he now has a Dr, a support worker, is in process of getting a dentist and is going to see a specialist about his ADHD and Tourettes. He has plans to improve his literacy and numeracy. He looks alive again instead of stupefied by the drugs and it’s like he’s woken up. He’s started some pre step work too and is going to get a sponsor. And I need to learn how to butt out and let him find his own recovery path and standalone to find and become the lovely person he always was and always will be. Joe could go on to help many, many, people. I am so proud of my brilliant son. As for my eating, I have been so wrapped in in Joe, I have not thought a great deal about it. I’ve stuck to my three meals a day with a small snack. I don’t seem so fixated, routine most definitely helps. I’ve also tried to identify my own feelings more this week, generally when I’m lying in bed. When I’m feeling something I’m trying to let it in and work out why it came and what it’s trying to tell me. I was overwhelmed by anxiety the other night, that electrical feeling in my stomach like a jolt shooting through me. I worked out I was worried as I had interviewed seven of the staff from the ward for a senior job last week and there was only one vacancy. I knew that I had conducted the interviews fairly and marked fairly. What I was feeling was fear, fear of disappointing people, and fear of upsetting people. Fear that people would dislike me and say unkind things about me, fear of being accused of favouritism and people thinking that I was useless and hopeless at my job. Deep seated horrible and insecurity gnawing away. I challenged these thoughts then rationalised them, I sat with the feelings and they didn’t hurt me or kill me, they were not very nice to feel but the sky didn’t cave in and I survived. This is what recovery is all about - learning to deal with life. Julie