I Am Enough

I can't be in a relationship with someone who gets angry with me - other than my kids. I allow their anger, of course. I want them to know that they are safe to get and be angry, even with me. I recognize their "kid-ness," after all. I recognize that I've passed anger onto them from my own abused child-hood. 

I'm working to change the patterns of abuse - taking a 52-week course called "Changing Abusive Patterns" at the Center for Violence-Free Relationships. It's been a few months and I'm already seeing the progress within myself. This course, which is a group therapy setting, along with counseling sessions with my son as well as the 12-step program and (new) sponsor, are having such a positive impact on my life and steering me into the direction of the woman I want to be. 

I'm 46 days clean and sober after my July 9th relapse with #40. I had taken a hydroxyzine as prescribed for my anxiety before going over to cook for him again. While I was there he offered me a gabapentin, and I took a second hydroxyzine instead of a gabapentin. It was almost automatic. A "strange mental blank spot" our big book calls it. No defense whatsoever against the "first drink" - or 2nd drug. Or 40th man in eight years after my husband.

If you've been reading about me for long, you know my disease manifests in a trifecta of drink - drug - man. I haven't had a drink since my first AA meeting on January 19, 2012, then relapsed on weed on March 1st and got clean and sober again March 2, 2012...then relapsed on weed again in October 2015. Got clean and sober again before the year was over, relapsed again on weed in December 2015, got clean and sober January 17, 2016, and can't remember exactly when the next two relapses and clean-and-sober-ness occurred, but I would get about a year+ clean and sober and then relapse, repeat. Got clean and sober from weed for (I hope) the last time on April 6, 2019. Then July 9, took that second anxiety pill. July 10, 2020 is my new (and I pray to God, my last) clean and sober date. 

Alcohol, check. Drugs, check. Men? Well...

My highlighted post on the desktop version of this blog, on the right hand side, is my sex & relationship inventory. It also includes crushes, molests and rapes - really, any "intimate" interaction with a man, whether real or imagined.

I've known for years now - a total of 7+ - that I've needed to drop this last rock. Knowing that this last manifestation of my addiction hurts me (and others) doesn't stop me from responding affirmatively to any man who is even possibly the slightest bit interested in me. And knowing that any man who would be interested in me must also be sick doesn't enter into my consciousness with sufficient enough force to stop me from engaging. Something deep within the deep hole carved by the lack of love from my parents constantly cries out for attention and affection, even if that means I also have to deal with the anger that comes when I say or do something the man I've found to "fill it" doesn't like. 

Anger was a normal part of growing up, coming from my stepparents, so I confuse that with love, certainly. But, I'm sick and tired of it. As aforementioned, I'm trying to heal my own anger. I, really, no longer want to compound it with the anger of another adult human any more.

I've said "I'm done" countless times. As we alcoholic / addicts know, it takes what it takes. Last night, it took me saying, "I don't like it when you say [insert here]," and him (#41) reacting lividly. And it wasn't the first time he's gotten so angry with me that it ends with us "being done" with each other. It's happened every day or two in the past few weeks that we've been seeing each other (every day, addictively).

But this is just another repeat. The common denominator is me. I can't blame any of these men any more than I can blame any of the 18 sponsors I've had. Sick people are attracted to each other, I think.

I'm not healed yet, and I want nothing more than to be restored. Once I'm healed, I know won't be entering into a "committed partnership" after just a few weeks of getting to know someone. I won't be painting the red flags green - my red flags, or his.

The bottom line for me today - the deal-breaker that ended this relationship with #41 - is that I'm done with anger. It's going to be a long healing process (the 52-week class and 12 steps - again!). Gotta keep on trudging the road to Happy Destiny. I know I can do this.

I love my kids unconditionally, and I'm starting to finally love myself, unconditionally, too - enough to change the patterns of abuse. 

Because I am enough.

Angels and Demons

My sister Nagela (I actually meant to write "Angela," but the typo is strangely fitting) and her fiancé Chester today sat me down for a talking-to. They do this with the best of intentions, each of them with their third beer in hand with many more to follow. The line of questions and comments was as follows:

"So you've been supporting Bernard all this time?"

"And you're going to keep supporting him when he comes up here with no job?"

"So why is it that he has no job and no money?"

"So this is his second DUI?"

"Do you know what happens when he gets a third?"

"And you're okay with that?"

"You need to make better decisions for yourself and your son."

"You have an opportunity here with Lucas' dad's life insurance to really turn your life around and do something good for you and your son."

"How do you feel about Ron's death? You know your sister Angela is here to talk with you. I haven't seen you talk to her about how it makes you feel. How does it make you feel?"

"You should get a financial advisor."

"You should work hard and get a good job so you don't even have to touch that money."

"You could find a good man up here, who works hard, who would provide for you and Lucas, who doesn't get himself into this kind of trouble."

"A real man provides for his family."

"If Bernard works the way you say he does, you're hardly ever gonna see him anyway."

"What about your meetings and sponsors and stuff actually helps you?"

"Are you going to find a place by the time Bernard gets up here?"

"You've been with him what, five months? And you think that's love? Do you know how many times we've heard this before?"

"Do you see how fast it's moving?"

There was more, but my stomach hurts. I'm pretty sure I undercooked the chicken that I put into the enchiladas before I rushed off to the meeting to meet with my sponsor and this cool old timer named Rufus. Total book-thumper, guru-type. The first meeting I saw him at up here, he gave me my now-sponsor's number and made me text her and ask her to be my sponsor right in front of him. I'm glad I listened. I have hope this time around that I'll actually get through all 12 steps. I didn't before and didn't make it. Didn't stay sober. Smoked weed over my resentment against Bernard.

Now, I'm on the 4th step again, on day 13 sober. I've never gone through the steps so quickly. But I'm doing it with the desperation of a drowning woman grabbing onto a life-preserver.

As far as all this other stuff, I have faith that God will work it out as I draw close to Him and begin to perform His work. That's how it works.

The Answer to the Previous Post's Title Question: A Big, Fat, "NO"

It might have been a whole two weeks before I begged him to forgive me and come back.

I made the decision to forgive him for whatever he did or didn't do, and decided I wanted to just love him.

Meanwhile, I had relapsed with Bernard on weed in October.

There're a lot of meanwhiles....

1. My sponsor dropped me because she said I was fucking my life up, and my best friend decided to stop talking to me for the same reason.

2. Bernard quit at the restaurant because the restauranteur wasn't respecting him.

3. Bernard, my son, and I went to Northern California to my sister's for a vacation.

4. We decided to stay.

5. I quit the restaurant via text.

6. We realized we should at least go back to clear out the apartment.

7. I came back up to my sister's (what fake name did I give her? Until I go back and figure it out, we'll call her Angela) with my son Lucas (is that the fake name I gave him?) so he could start school when vacation was over.

8. Bernard stayed behind to finish packing up and selling the entire contents of my apartment for a total of $300.

9. Bernard went to court twice to try and transfer his DUI case to Nor-Cal but was unsuccessful.

10. I haven't seen Bernard in about a month; he's serving this weekend and next weekend in jail, and then he can come up, maybe.

11. Lucas' died dad a week ago today.

12. I don't have a job or a place of my own to live; I had gotten two jobs that turned out to be Craigslist scams, since apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time I got screwed on Craigslist.

13. My sister and fiancé are annoyed with me because they think I'm fucking my life up.

14. I'm fucking my life up.

15. I'm now 13 days clean and sober again and have a new sponsor up here and have started over on the steps.

16. I'm applying to be a cook/dishwasher at an assisted living facility if I can get my depressed ass out of this trailer bed. 

Yeah. Here I go.