#sobermovement

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. 

Three Years…

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

FullSizeRender.jpgThree years. It seems like forever, yet at the same time, it seems like just yesterday.

It’s been three years since I’ve heard your voice. Three years since I’ve heard your infectious laughter. Three years since I’ve called you at three in the morning and you let me come over and watch movies and you stayed up with me, just so I didn’t feel alone.

Three years breaks my heart. Three years makes me really appreciate the 23 years I got with you, however it seems so cut short. Three years feels like way too long to go without my Momma’s advice.

However, you left me with the legacy of your life. You reminded me that it’s one step at a time. You reminded me that God holds a light to our present steps and motions. You taught me that it’s okay to not know how the future is going to go, and it’s okay trust Jesus step by step.

More than anything, my Mom taught me that fear is only an emotion…. If we allow it to be. She taught me that all of us get scared, especially about the unknown, but her faith and her unwavering dedication to trusting God with such uncertainty showed me that even though life may not turn out how you want, God is ALWAYS good. He is ALWAYS sovereign. He is ALWAYS faithful.

My life looks nothing like I thought it would at 26 (or regardless of age, wherever I’m at). I’ve learned that heartache doesn’t dissipate. I’ve learned that there will always be reminders of heartache.

Forgiveness doesn’t wipe out the existence or the memory or hurt, it simply allows us to graciously accept our current circumstances. Healing is taking brokenness in stride. It’s understanding that the process of being mended is a delicate balance of joy and suffering.

In order to truly appreciate the journey of healing, you have to know where you started and came from. To see where God brought you to, or out of.  Learning to walk with faith doesn’t always mean walking without grief. But there is a sacred beauty in the joy that comes from that refinement. The scars we bear are beautiful because they reflect the scars of a man who took on what we couldn’t. Jesus. 

Ecclesiastes says that “Everything is made beautiful in it’s time.” There is a time for everything. When we hold onto pain, anger and hurt we miss SO much that is happening to us. When we graciously accept all of this as a tool of refinement, we are able to see past the emotion of heartbreak and see how God is using it to shape us.

In all the “times” that God speaks about love and hate, I’m reminded that when we hate, God is love. In our time of tearing, God is mending. In our time of quiet, God speaks louder than ever. In our time of grieving, God teaches us to dance.

This isn’t a post about having all or really any of the answers, it’s a post about being reminded of that fact that Jesus is sovereign over everything.  My Mom’s legacy reminds me to take every day as if you’re being lead by a lantern.

Every step is lit only one by one. I may not be able to see every step in my future or know where it leads, but I rest in that fact that it’s covered by Jesus. I may have my moments of questioning and doubting, but I am so  reassured of the grace of God. I feel freedom to ask what he wants to show me. I feel freedom to ask where he wants me to go and what He wants to do with my life.

All this to say, I feel like my Mom played such a huge role in me trusting Jesus. Her future was SO uncertain. Her life was ended much sooner than she (or any of us) had planned, but Jesus had planned something different and she rested so peacefully in that. She is my legacy. She is my reminder that Jesus is ALWAYS good. And most importantly, she is my reminder that what I do with my life is not of myself, but of Him.

Through Waters Uncharted.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ 1 Comment

through waters uncharted“Through waters uncharted my soul will embark, I’ll follow your voice straight into the dark. And if from the course You intend I depart, speak to the sails of my wandering heart.”

For the past few years, my Dad has been talking about chartering a boat, and taking our family on a “week long sailing excursion.” It’s important to note that neither my dad, nor any other member of my family has even a hint of sailing or boating experience, so naturally, the thought of this is absolutely terrifying to me. The thought of putting everyone I care about and love most into a boat, one in which none of us have any experience in doing and just hoping we somehow make it “somewhere” safely, seems like a really terrible idea. It raises so many practical questions that I think anyone would inevitably ask themselves… “Where are we going?” “What do we do and how do we do it?” “Will we make it somewhere or will we just float out to sea and get lost forever?” Shortly after these thoughts, and many more like them, go racing through my head, I immediately start envisioning myself in a Tom Hanks in Castaway type situation. All this to say that as much as I would love to have the same confidence my dad does for something he knows virtually nothing about, and have the faith to believe everything is going to be okay, I don’t. In fact, I am quite the opposite. I would love to have that fearlessness, but I tend to operate more within the confines of crippling fear most days.

I know this seems like more of a humorous anecdote than an actually meaningful thought, but all humor aside, that fear stops me from far more than a family sailing trip. That fear dictates much of what I do. It’s the same fear that was the reason I haven’t written in probably over a year. Reading back over everything from the past few years is bittersweet. I read those words and I am immediately taken back to that time and on one hand, I can see how much growth took place in the midst of everything that was changing in my life. I see Jesus in those pages and through those words. On the other hand, I can’t help but feeling a wave of sadness. The path I was on, the path of growing up and maturing; it doesn’t seem so clear anymore. Over the past 2 years, there’s been a lot of ups and downs. Fear seems to be the overwhelming theme as of lately, and it’s left a wake of destruction and isolation in it’s path. As terrible as this may sound, I used to find a bit of humor in the scene of Castway where Tom Hanks is trying to make his escape from the island and as he falls asleep, Wilson drifts off… not because I lack compassion, but because he’s yelling at a literal volleyball with a face on it. I watched that movie again last night, only this time it wasn’t so funny. I found myself relating to that very moment and my heart truly ached; the isolation, the desperate cry to hold onto the one thing that gave him reason to keep going and watching it slowly slip away, powerless to stop it, and the moment of complete and utter defeat before he was rescued.

I’ve had quite a few people reach out lately, asking me how I’m doing. To most all of you, I’ve said something along the lines of “I’m so great. Life is good.” I felt led to write this, not because I need sympathy from anyone, but because putting this out in the light, takes away its power. Being honest allows accountability and the more I’m willing to be open, I know the more freedom God will allow me to experience. I have a habit of trying to hide my weaknesses and play it off like everything is great. Without fail, God exposes my heart for where it truly is every time. Honestly, it sucks in the moment and it’s really hard to face your biggest insecurities and shortcomings head on, but I believe that’s the only way to find healing.

To all of you who have asked, the answer I should have given you is, life is hard right now. I have found that being in your twenties is one of the most tumultuous times, and I’m only halfway through them. For me, the biggest cause of this has been alcohol. I know this is something that people of all ages deal with, but there’s something about being in your twenties, that you feel almost an entitlement to drink as much as you want, and not have to answer for any of it, because you’re in you twenties, and it’s “just what everyone does.”  You hear things like this a lot, or at least I did, which could be due, in part, to the people I was surrounding myself with. What I failed to realize, is that its not actually what everyone does, and it does affect the people around you, especially when it gets out of hand like it did for me. I will be completely honest, I’m not writing this from a place of having learned my lesson or gotten past it, I’m writing this from step -5. I am in the heart of the monster that, for me, is alcohol.

The allure of drinking started when I was 21. I was in an incredibly vulnerable place in my life, and alcohol made me something I thought I couldn’t be on my own. It allowed me to be this confident, outspoken, beautiful, charming woman, when what I really felt like, was this shy, inadequate, purposeless, scared little girl. It started off great, or so I thought. It allowed me to live without consequence. When things were good, they were great, and if I drank too much, which happened way more than I ever cared to admit, I could get by with the excuse, “Oh well, I was drunk.” Far too many times did I use that as a reason to not be held accountable to things I said or did, and it became a lifestyle.

I read a book in which the author compared struggling with alcohol to an abusive relationship. Now when I first read that, it sounded like a bit of a stretch. To me, it’s apples and oranges, 2 completely different situations. But the more I read, the more I understood. I’m paraphrasing here, but she pointed out how at first it charms you, it draws you in and makes you feel warm and accepted. It gives you confidence and seems to squash any and all insecurities that you have. But the more you give into it’s power and allure, slowly it starts to break you down. Some people see the red flags right away, and are able to correct it and walk away. But for others, myself included, the more you try and walk away, the more appealing it becomes, and soon there after, it seems like it controls everything you do. You become isolated and dishonest, and before you know it, you don’t even recognize who you are anymore, yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t walk away; you need it.

Growing up, when I thought about who I would be at this point in my life, I never in a million years would have guessed that I would be battling with alcohol and consequently watching the relationships around me crumble, watching people that I love or have loved in the past consistently be hurt, friendships be torn apart, jobs be lost, attempts at school fall through, all because I let alcohol hold more value than the people I care about and the plans God has for me. It wasn’t until just recently that I finally hit a breaking point with all of this, and everything fell apart. God finally exposed the one thing I’ve been trying so desperately to hide and he brought it forth with the brightest light possible.

Having to finally be honest with my family, my best friends, and hardest of all, the love of my life, was the hardest moment of my life so far. Having to come clean about all the times I’ve lied about drinking, tried to cover it up, tried to diminish just how badly I was struggling with this for years now, and watching the hearts of everyone I shared this with break for me, broke my heart in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I finally came face to face with the hurt that’s been caused by this and finally saw just how deeply this affected everyone around me, and it was almost too much for me to handle.

For some of you that have known me, I’m sure this is coming as no shock to you. Some of you have even called me out on it, and I want you to know that even though I chose to ignore your words at the time, they weren’t lost on me. To others of you, this may be completely surprising. To share something so personal and something so private is nauseating beyond belief. I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it all go away. I wish with everything I have that I could take back every terrible drunken word or moment that’s caused hurt not only to myself, but to the people I care most about. In all my regret and all my fear of losing just about everything, I am reminded that God is still good. That no matter how far I’ve veered from the path He laid out for me, I was never, and am never out of his sight. I have a nasty habit of making things much harder for myself than they have to be, but I can’t help but feel like God knew exactly what He was allowing me to walk into the whole time. He had to allow me to lose myself so I could rediscover myself in Him. I’m not there yet, and I desperately wish I could say I was. What I do know is, and I firmly believe, is that even in my greatest weakness, God is made greater. That in my most sinful and shameful moments, He is still magnified.

For those of you who took the time to read all of this, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I truly believe God is going to bring good from all of this, some days more than others. I feel like I’m starting from square one again, which is sort of beautiful, because that’s where this all began. It began with me walking straight into the darkness of the unknown and doing my best to rely on His voice to carry me through. I’ve seen Him do it before and I wholeheartedly believe He will do it again. I believe that God desires so much more for us than to live in the shadows, to hide in the darkness in fear of judgement or shame. Thank you to everyone, past and present, who has come beside me and helped me start to move forward. I have no words to express how grateful I am for every one of you.

“Even when my strength is lost, I’ll praise you. Even when I have no song, I’ll praise you.
Even when it’s hard to find the words, louder then I’ll sing your praise. I will only sing your praise.”