In my years spent battling addiction, a gnarly eating disorder and devastating alcoholism, all I wanted was to hide, to escape my skin, to numb my mind and heart. Staying hidden behind smiles, social masks, lies and pretending--walls up and guarding painful truths. And yet there was a part of me just screaming to be seen and heard--by others and especially by myself. The trust that I had broken over and over again with myself--the inability to not run when faced with slowing down in my body, mind, and soul, to be actually present with myself-- reinforced the fear of being alone and yet it was the only thing I ever really wanted in my addictions.
Any addiction feeds on isolation, and the need to protect itself by hiding. It can become an all-consuming relationship that blocks connections with everything and everyone else.
The pain of suffering alone is a weight that no one should carry.
My drinking wasn't glamorous, and it led me to some pretty scary, dark places. But it served its purpose for me--an escape from reality and myself--the unbearable task of being in my skin and present with who I was, all the feelings I had. It was a way to cope, until it wasn't. I wasn't always great at hiding the addiction and it had some serious life consequences for me--it quickly became unmanageable but letting the problem be seen was a step towards addressing it for me.
The eating disorder was a whole different beast that intertwined and crossed paths with the drinking on various levels, ultimate control and then ultimate chaos, a pendulum swinging back and forth rapidly, never finding center. The obsession with food, body, weight-- a fixation that distracted me from everything that was really going on underneath--the soul pain I wouldn't let myself feel for fear I couldn't bear it. The deprivation, scary lows, hospital trips--the shrinking away from who I was--again just an ultimate escape. And again, sometimes harder to keep hidden.
I relapsed a lot. Recovery was not linear, and I don't expect it to be in the future. It took a lot of treatment and therapy, support from friends and family, groups with other addicts, spiritual connection, but mostly this slow, painful, beautiful, process of getting to know, to see and hear, and to radically accept myself with unconditional love. Which does not always feel good. It meant doing no harm to myself, not choosing a destructive path when that actually felt better. It meant not numbing out or escaping from pain and life's challenges. It meant sitting in discomfort and leaning in, being present with stress, shame, sadness, grief.
It meant finding stillness when all I wanted to do was run.
Something magical started to happen as I built this new relationship with myself. It felt like waking up to who I really was, finding my soul alignment. But it was, and absolutely still feels like a process, its own entity that changes and transforms. I didn't just recover and cross a finish line. I am as much as any living being constantly changing and finding balance. I have to and get to "wake up" everyday, to choose recovery, to choose what's best and sometimes more painful--not instant gratification or the easier, softer way. But I'm very human and love that I embrace that now--perfection is not a human trait. I get to fuck up and own my mistakes, to accept failure and learn, to see the grey in all things. To understand the layers we all have and appreciate when others let me really see and hear them. To continue to grow and move forward, and take steps backwards sometimes.
