Six Years, I Believe...
I don't track my sobriety like the AA people, but I think we're there.
Y’all know that I don’t run my sobriety the way the Anonymous folk do. I set out to do quite the opposite, matter of fact. No offense to them, they’re doing big things. However, their program didn’t work for me. I tried, probably not as hard as I should have, but it wasn’t my time.
Because I don’t keep chips or mark days on the calendar or any of that type of thing, I had to reference my old agendas, but yes…we’re at the six-year mark. I knew it was getting close because of a story I published on Medium, back when I was really in the thick of the Andy and I scenario, and I was on the verge of a relapse for the first time in years.
Well, a few days ago, someone added that story to the Recovery list, and that makes me officially a voice on sobriety.
I kind of started to tremble in the chin area when I wrote that, so excuse me for a moment.
I didn’t think I would ever see this day. I can remember Beattie telling me after Mike, the one who died of the same oxy/xanax combo I had the very night before, that everyone was so afraid I would be next. I looked at her and said, “what in the fuck is everyone so worried about? I’m fucking ready”.
It still took my sister overdosing with a needle in her arm, another divorce, and countless other incidents for me to decide that enough was enough. And then it was. I put it down. I had made up my mind, and that was that.
That’s typically how my life goes. I don’t have very many grey areas, my life is in or out, wrong or right, and addiction fell into one category or the other with me.
I don’t expect everyone to do it the way that I did it. However, if you’re here to say it can’t be done, let me reiterate, I was an 8 thirty mg. a day habit when I kicked. Baby, that’s enough to lay down 2 ponies, and the whole dog show. That’s enough to drop both of my ex-husbands, and at least 2 of my ex-fiances. That’s enough to be enough.
I don’t claim to be some sort of recovery specialist; as a matter of fact, I don’t often speak on the recovery side. I will talk of the trap queen days, and the weeks on end I don’t remember, and the countless dollars I had and lost under them. The time I spent incarcerated, the people I came by and lost, and the reason I picked them up to begin with.
It feels a little different to be a voice of sobriety. Like maybe I somehow leveled up. Like all this karma farming I’ve been doing has finally come to the season of reap. I’m in a different place in my life now, and it’s mellow, and it’s introspective, and it’s honest. I love being all of those things. I couldn’t live that before.
So, if you ask me what 6 years of sobriety feels like, I’ll tell you I haven’t been keeping track, I’m not with the Anonymous group. But if you ask me what it feels like to know that my words keep a couple people from that horrible trip back into the bullshit, I’ll tell you that’s what is paying the tab for my solace these days.
I’m buying my righteousness with words to comfort other junkies. I’m paying the proverbial piper in street credit.
It’s such a good fucking thing I’ve long since paid my dues.
I'm happy you found a way to stay on this Earth and speak your truth for others to hear. ❤
Proud of you. Not worth a lot from an internet stranger but I feel lucky to have found your writing.