Month: November 2022

A candid letter from someone coming straight out of rehab. Part 1.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

Treatment. Recovery Program. IOP. Addiction Center. 

All of these names are just different ways of saying what it really is. 

REHAB. 

In short, rehab is the place you find yourself in (if you’re fortunate enough to survive a raging addiction) when a “life-controlling issue” (usually drugs, alcohol and sex and oftentimes all of the above) becomes unmanageable and you need help to learn how to live a healthy and successful sober life. 

In other words, when your life completely falls apart due to said raging addiction, chances are you’ll wind up in rehab. 

Rehab is weird. 

Everything about it is weird. 

For someone who’s never been, it’s hard to understand what it’s really like being in a treatment center. Typically, the only point of reference is what’s seen in movies and TV shows, and honestly, most don’t give an accurate depiction of what it’s actually like. 

So for anyone who’s never had the privilege of going themselves, I’ll do my best to give you a semi-snarky yet still incredibly accurate depiction of what it’s like…. In rehab.   

 I liken rehab to stay-away summer camp when you were a kid. 

You leave your friends and family for a few months and “camp” now becomes your home, your life and all you talk about for the duration of your time there. (And probably for months after you leave because it’s all you’ve come to know, but more on that later.) You eat, sleep and breathe “camp.” 

You can always tell a first timer from someone who’s been a few times already. There’s a certain fear-ridden look accompanied by awkward body language that screams of discomfort. But much like camp, you eventually find your “tribe” and you might shed some tears, but you’ll definitely share some laughs.

Instead of cool camp counselors with even cooler nicknames, it’s counselors of the therapist variety that just want you to call them by their first names. Everyone is just hoping to get that one chill counselor with a killer personality that all the other “campers” rave about… looking at you “Kyle”.

There aren’t cabins and sleeping bags, however there are still bunk beds and uniform comforters for every “camper.” 

Depending on where you go, you may or may not get to experience a campfire. But instead of eating smores and telling scary stories under the stars, you’re sipping caffeine free hot tea at a twilight trauma process group… (Honestly, there are still scary stories, but it makes you miss the ones about a shape-shifting creature that lives deep in the forest.) 

Instead of fun and games, there’s awkward encounters and “icebreakers.” 

For those of you who never played a game called Medic at summer camp, it’s where a small group of people line up at one end of a field and literally everyone else stands sprawled across the field with pool noodles in both hands. The smaller group then makes a mad dash in hopes of making it to the other side while the larger group with the pool noodles try to smack the runners trying to cross. If you get smacked before you reach the other side, you’re down. This continues back and forth until all the runners are out. Without fail, there’s always one kid who smacks way too aggressively and someone ends up getting hurt. In rehab, this is the equivalent of what happens emotionally during group therapy when the counselor says, “Does anybody have any feedback?” 

Instead of learning skills like how to ride a horse or how to do archery or how to survive in the wilderness, you learn skills like how to cope and how to deal with grief and loss and how to survive social anxiety in the real world. 

Instead of learning to navigate a high ropes course, you learn to navigate your negative emotions. 

Most camps have certain cheers and chants that you’ll know by heart for the rest of your life, but instead of “Peel banana, Peel peel banana”, in rehab it usually goes something like “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…”

Sometimes there’s arts and crafts, but it’s usually either a way to pass the time or some sort of art therapy. (I can’t knock on this one too much because as a creative, I happen to really enjoy art therapy.) 

You have a completely scheduled day 7 days a week,complete with 3 meals in the “dining hall” with all your fellow campers and a certain allotted amount of freetime. You have a time to wake up and a time for lights out. 

At both camp and rehab, there are many different personalities and you’re in close quarters with the same people all day, everyday, so meltdowns are to be expected. However, few compare to when someone takes the last of the “good cereal.”  (Me not at all speaking as the one who had a meltdown over cereal… this is where the coping skills would have come in clutch.)

At the end of the summer, you find yourself filled with memories and experiences that you’ll never forget. Rehab is very much the same way. Although not always “fun”, it’s definitely an experience you’ll never forget, and HOPEFULLY, you’ll be the better for it. But unlike summer camp, the hope is to never have to come back, although many often do…

You might be the kid who only goes for one summer or you might be the kid who’s far too old to be there, but her parents sign her up anyway. Either way, if you just go and keep your mind and your heart open, chances are you’ll be glad you went. (Or maybe you’ll just goof off all summer and end up there again… but hey, there’s always next year.) 

Obviously, this is a very light-hearted take on a very heavy topic. The process of getting sober and living in recovery can be daunting and often, that process starts with rehab. I will forever be so grateful for all of the amazing therapists, friends, groups and time I spent learning and changing because I made the choice to go to rehab. Some people can absolutely quit cold turkey and that works for them, however I just wasn’t one of them. 

It took me a few times at summer camp to really get it, but now the time has come where I take everything I learned and apply it to life back home. With that has come a lot of different challenges in adjusting to life again.

More on that later…

A Morning In Recovery.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ 1 Comment

It’s a chilly, sunny morning in November. It’s that perfect cold right before the temperature really drops to freezing. I have the morning to myself. I decide to go to my favorite little coffee shop in my very favorite part of town. I order my usual black and white mocha, extra hot, with oat milk and a banana chocolate chip muffin. I find the perfect table right in the back where there’s the perfect balance of sunlight shining in and cozy lamp lighting above my tiny table perfect for just me. The place is buzzing with people but not overwhelmingly so. The sound of milk steaming, laughs and conversation between friends and jazz surround me. I put my phone away and only have a book, my coffee and my laptop to write. 

It’s the perfect morning. 

I sit and think to myself that in this moment, I am truly happy. I am truly content. It’s the most present I’ve felt in about the last month or so. 

As I sit and just soak in the moment, there it is. A voice that although silent to everyone around me, might as well be yelling in my ear. A loud and intrusive guest who sat down at my table without being invited and whose only intention is to ruin my morning. Maybe even my whole day. Maybe even my life.

“A cocktail sounds really good right about now. I really want to drink.” I think to myself. 

It’s 10 a.m. 

Where did that even come from?! Here I am, minding my own business, enjoying a beautiful morning and having a completely blissful moment to myself and I want to drink?! Why?! 

I’m not upset. I’m not grieving. I’m not in a triggering location. I’m not around alcohol. I’m not feeling sad, angry or depressed. I’m not nervous or socially anxious (which is usually, without fail, my greatest trigger to drink). 

I sit and so begins the overanalyzing and I find myself drifting to the past and to the future. I find the present moment slipping away. My head starts spinning and the thoughts start flooding my mind. Suddenly, I’m not alone at this table. Soon enough, anxiety, frustration, shame and discouragement sit down and join me, just as unwelcome as the urge to drink. 

Now in the past, honestly, I probably would have just agreed with the voice tempting me to drink and walked myself to the bar next door and called it “bruch”. I mean it is Sunday after all, therefore it’s totally acceptable to be wasted by 1 pm. And I’ll have the rest of the day to just sleep it off and still make it to work at 7 am tomorrow morning. 

Or, I would have just packed up my stuff, morning ruined, spiraling in shame and discouragement and finding myself fighting the urge to drink the rest of the day. Chances are, eventually I would have given up and given in. 

But today is different. 

Addiction is a bully. One who’s bark, unfortunately, can be just as brutal as its bite. At times, unceasing and relentless. 

I really shouldn’t be surprised by moments like this. When thoughts come unannounced and seem unwarranted. But still, I am. 

That’s the thing about addiction. It’s not logical. Its nature is confusion, chaos and destruction. It doesn’t wait for life to fall apart or disappointment or anxiety to hit you AND THEN presents itself. It comes whenever and however it pleases. It will make itself known on the bad days and the best days. 

As I sit here this morning, I decided I could either let the shame of struggling with thoughts of drinking consume me like a sickness, OR, I could simply put pen to paper, so to speak, and take the road of vulnerability and shed a little light on what it’s like for someone who’s just trying to better their life and choose recovery. 

So today, that’s exactly what I’m doing. 

It’s amazing the power that’s lost when we’re just honest. Shame has kept me silent so many times before, because even admitting that I was struggling with wanting to drink seemed like a failure. I felt like I had failed even before I picked up a drink. 

Sitting in this little coffee shop, I made the decision to just say NO and with it, anxiety, shame, frustration and discouragement all got up and left my table. I can’t help but feel like those rude and intrusive thoughts are just lurking, waiting for a moment to sit down with me again. But for the moment, at least they’re quiet. 

I wish I could say it was that easy all the time and that I won’t be tempted again 5 seconds after typing these words, but the truth is that’s just not always the case. But for this moment, I’m saying NO. 

I turn my attention back to my book, and continue to slowly sip on my latte, thankful that I’m still sitting in this coffee shop and not at the bar next door. 

Today was a win and as much as addiction tried to steal my joy this morning, it didn’t succeed. 

It’s still a beautiful morning and I am still sober. 

For that, I’m grateful. 

Potential.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

By definition, potential means existing in possibility; capable of development into actuality. 

I’ve really grown to hate that word. I’ve lived my life under the weight of my potential. It seems to me like it’s been a lifelong competition between what I am and what I could. As much as I can appreciate every time someone would say that I “have so much potential”, or if I could “just see my potential” all I could hear was, “you’re not enough as you are right now and you could be better.” And to be honest, to this day, that’s still what I hear. 

The concept of someone’s potential is such an interesting thing to me. I know we’re all striving to be better… to grow, to learn and to change. However, I feel like sometimes I lose myself in the potential of who I could be. It’s hard to find your identity when everyone keeps reminding you that you could be so much more… 

The idea of potential can be particularly difficult for someone trying to navigate life in recovery. In one sense, you have to know that there is so much more to who you are and so much more to life than just your addiction, otherwise, why even bother spending the energy trying to better yourself? On the flipside, it’s easy to get crushed underneath the idea of who you could be, and in turn, you’re left feeling like the person you are today, falls short of that idea of who you could potentially be in the future. 

Potential is tricky. I find myself dwelling on this today. Over the last few years of recovery, I’ve heard mentions of my potential over and over and OVER again. Who I am and who I could be are two very different ideas in my mind. As someone who lives with a chronic fear of inadequacy, nothing is scarier than the idea of my own potential. 

It was said once… 

“The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.”

I think this scares me more than almost anything else. I don’t know that it’s that I truly believe I’m inadequate or that I’m not enough, I think it’s that I know that I am, in some way, however I constantly feel like I’m falling short of everything I could be. That I will never live up to the person that I’m capable of developing into or possibly becoming. 

Keyword… Possibly. 

I’ve had so many questions that were tied directly to my identity. Who am I and who am I becoming? What do I believe about myself and what others have said to and about me? What hopes and dreams do I have? What are my books that need to be written and my songs that need to be sung? (I’m going to leave the cures to be discovered to those brilliant, researcher types…) And what are my fears that get in the way of that first step of actually carrying out those dreams? 

I sit here writing this in the place I grew up. Although it’s familiar, it’s no longer home. It’s the strangest feeling being back here. The person I was when I left is in so many ways, is not the person who sits here writing today. When I left, I was so broken that life didn’t matter anymore. I had let go of the hopes and dreams of my life years before I left here and I was simply existing rather than living. That girl was so terrified of any sort of potential that she rejected it all together and chose the path of destruction because it was so much easier that way. 

After a few years of some serious healing and searching, I’ve found that I care far less about my potential and far more about my purpose. I’ve heard it said that “your potential is everything you could be and your purpose is everything you’re called to be.”

I like that. 

So I guess my question now is what is my purpose in this life? What is my purpose even just today? I blame it on being a HARD enneagram # 4, but this question alone motivates so much of what I do and don’t do in my life. 

I’ve lived my ENTIRE life feeling like a failure because I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential. The potential of who I wanted to be and who everyone said I could be. And I fell short every single time. 

What I’ve learned in all of this… 

God calls us according to HIS purpose, not OUR potential.

He doesn’t call us to our purpose. He doesn’t call us to anyone else’s idea of our potential. He calls us unto himself, for himself. I’ve learned you can’t run from that. As much as you try. He always runs faster. His purposes ALWAYS prevail. His words never return void. His word is ALWAYS final. In a lot of ways, I used to see this as control and I didn’t understand it. However, over the years, I’ve started to see that his purposes are for his glory and our good. And he is ALWAYS good.

I’ve recently started to understand this more, and I’ve realized that in the searching, that there really is nothing that can separate us from his love. His promises are true… ALWAYS. Under the authority of his purpose, my potential crumbles. And I’m grateful for that. And the more I understand that it’s his purpose and not mine, the more I realize that  I don’t really have to worry about trying to figure it all out anyway. That’s HIS business, not mine. It’s only for me to trust him in this very imperfect process. 

Those dreams I have? He placed in me. Those books I want to write? Those are his words. Those songs still to be sung? Those melodies belong to him. Without him, I would have NOTHING.

What I know is this. No matter where you live, what you do, what you’re struggles are, how you feel or think or where you try to run to, he never changes. He is always the same. Clinging to Him has been the saving grace of my life and I wouldn’t be here to even write this if it weren’t for him and I never want to lose sight of that. I didn’t save myself, he saved me, despite the fact that I was hellbent on destroying my life… because his purposes always prevail. His ways are always higher. 

And for today, I’m grateful.