One Member’s Story: Lady_Myst
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Submitted by Lady_Myst on August 13, 2010
I grew up in small towns in Iowa. My mom and dad were good people who worked hard and loved their kids. My father was an alcoholic though as a child, I always hoped he would drink. He was funny and fun to be around when he drank. He would hold parties and have people over and my momma would play the good hostess and if she didn’t, I always wondered how she could be mad. Having people over was exciting to me. I would steal drinks from them if they didn’t outright give me one. It was a grand time for a little kid.
Mostly I was ignored. My parents worked a lot. They loved me, don’t get me wrong, but there were just so many hours in the day. Many times I would be gone most of the day, coming home when the “street lights came on.” Sometimes that was really fun, but mostly it was really lonely.
My first memories are of sexual abuse. It happened up until I was 13 and as much as I loved my parents, I never told them. I felt responsible and ashamed. I remember my dad saying things like, “i would kill someone if they ever did that to one of my kids.” And so I kept quiet. However odd it may seem, I still loved my brother and I didn’t want my father to kill him. I knew my dirty little secret would blow our family apart. And since I just knew it was my fault, I kept quiet. I have tortured myself over this with drugs and acting out over the years. It just happens to be a part of my story, but it isn’t the reason I am an addict.
I think food was probably the first way addiction manifested in my life. Looking back on it, I think I used food to keep people away from me. People see you when your fat, but rarely do they take the time to get to know you. Remember the fat kid from your school days? yeah. It isn’t judgment, its just the way it was for me. I kept people from getting close to me.
Despite wanting to keep people from touching me and being close to me, in high school I was desperately lonely. I started using diet pills to lose weight. I loved the feeling the pills gave me, the energy I had. I added to that feeling by not eating which would increase the buzzing in my head. When the weight started coming off, and the buzz died, I found other forms of speed to use. I drank before classes, I drank after school, I wrecked cars and I scared friends. But I also found a new identity, party girl. Everybody’s buddy. And I wanted more.
After high school and before college, I lost a baby. I was in an abusive relationship and was knocked down a flight of stairs. I kept that secret too. Right after that, I discovered meth. I snorted and smoke all my money away, and then I stole for it and when that didn’t do it, I dated the drug dealer, drinking the whole way through.
Eventually, I just couldn’t get high enough. I was always trying to fill the ache inside, the one that said I was bad and not good enough and not worthy of. The one that said no one was ever going to see the real me, and that even if they did, I would be rejected, treated as a joke, or hurt. So I started shooting meth. I ended up dying twice. I just kept thinking when I woke up how I couldn’t even get my death right. The nurse said something like, its gonna be okay honey, your in the hospital. And after my initial snarky thought of, “no chit?” My next thought was “no lady, it ain’t gonna be alright.”
I kept using despite all evidence telling me to stop. I used through abusive relationships, I used through a rape, I used through the overdoses, and job losses, and being homeless and people telling me to stop. It didn’t matter to me. I was hopeless and helpless and lost. And I felt that that is exactly what I deserved. I hated god and I hated me and I definitely hated you. and that’s how I came to treatment twice.
I will be forever grateful to the treatment center for giving me a safe place to detox, a warm bed to sleep in, and food for me to eat. I will forever be thankful for the counselors who encouraged me and the knowledge they gave me. But treatment did not save my life.
My first NA meeting was a disaster! I can look back now and laugh and know what happened. But at the time, my ego was fragile indeed. I snuck into the meeting and sat on an old sofa in a run down office building next to the only girl in the room. And a big guy, huge bear of a man actually, was hurting and crying. His friend had relapsed and ran from the police on a motorcycle. He didn’t survive the ride. In pain, he looked at me and said, “kid, I would trade 10 of you for one of him. I have probably spilled more dope than you have ever done.” He said a few more things but that’s what stuck with me over the years. And in my 21 years of wisdom on this earth, I looked at that man and said, “well that just makes you sloppy sir.” and I walked out. I can share that story with humor now, but man did it hurt back then. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t even fit in with “THESE” people! I did what any addict without recovery knows how to do when !
they are hurt. I went out and got drunk and high at him. Showed him! A lot of other things happened with that group. But one thing I have learned is that not all groups are the same.
Years later, I tried to stop drinking on my own. I had been able to stop drinking and using during my pregnancies so I figured it was nothing to stop now. The trouble with that is that I still had this disease called addiction, and the drugs are just a symptom of that disease. I was sick and I wasn’t taking any medicine to get better. My disease broke out in food. I started gaining weight again and I got into another alcoholic relationship. Bringing hI’m to treatment and to the rooms saved my life.
I swore I was never going back to meetings, I didn’t need them. I was two years clean from drugs and alcohol. I had been working with a doctor on my food issues. I didn’t need anyone. But I was miserable and yucky on the inside. I was a dry drunk. I was a miserable wife and a bad mother. And my addiction was running me. I had no idea that I NEEDED the steps, that they were my answer to filling that ache inside me.
I went to meetings as a support for my husband, but I ended up saving my own life. I have been in the rooms for over a year now, working with a sponsor and working the steps. I apply what I learn, to the best of my ability to my life. I don’t always get it right, but I keep trying to do the next right thing. Sometimes I have to back up completely and start over.
This year has been a struggle. I have lost my marriage, I’m in financial ruin, and I’m staring down some pretty serious health issues. I don’t talk to people because they freak me out. Most people know my face but have never heard my voice. And if that were the whole story, I would be drunk and not sitting here, trying to let people know me. The truth is, through the steps and meetings and other recovering people (my medicine for the disease I have) I am stronger today than I have ever been. I am not paralyzed by fear. I have been able to chair a meeting and be a chip monk. I have talked with new women coming into the rooms, I call people. I no longer have to sit in certain places or have panic attacks at the meetings or before meetings. ITR has been a big part of all of those steps forward. As I learn to trust here, I grow confidence and learn to trust others at meetings. I am also in a very rural area with few meetings. Being able to come on line and be with!
Others who are walking this way has been amazingly helpful. I recently completed my 5th step and I feel a sense of freedom that I have never known. Life is coming at me and instead of hiding from it, I am learning to be a lady and walk through it with God’s help.
I have a long way to go. I am just now waking up to who I am, and to what I want in my life. I struggle with reaching out for the right kind of people. I back slide and then find my feet again. But I don’t have to use today. I am still a mystery but less of one. I am not unique and I’m not lost. I still have lonely days but now I have tools to deal with those, and you are the tools! *grin* I don’t have to be alone ever again. I am funny and sensitive, caring and compassionate. I have love to give and I deserve love in return. I am a good mom who is trying to be a better mom. I am neither as good as nor as bad as I imagine. And that is okay with me. I love finding out who I am, and I love having the mystery unravel. Thanks to the rooms of AA and NA, the people in them, and the love of my higher power, I don’t have to be alone and miserable anymore. I’m learning to be the lady I always wanted to be.
