Benediction

“Benediction”

 

            This morning I woke up and lay in the dark and prayed before I even moved.  I said the third step prayer out loud to my empty bedroom so I would hear it with my own ears and so that my higher power would hear it also.  Today I have four years.

 

            I am writing this and I can’t really even wrap my head around that.  Partly because the journey is ongoing and this is just a marker along the path of a lifetime but partly because I never would have guessed four years ago that my life would have looked like this today.  My God am I lucky and my God am I thankful.

 

            This time four years ago I woke up in detox at Caron treatment center in a state of panic and dread.  The depths of the despair I felt then are difficult to describe but they rivalled the feelings I had when Liam died.  The difference was I had brought them on myself and I alone was to blame for the state of affairs and I alone could fix it but I didn’t think I could – or so I thought.

 

            By that point I had no self-worth.  I spoke to myself in a language of hate.  I shouted words at myself inside my head that dripped with disdain, disgust and anger.  I no longer knew who I was and I was trying, through substance abuse and other maladaptive behaviors, to reject my own soul. 

 

I had reached a point where I had relapsed enough that I did not think I would ever make it.  I had reached a point where I thought my children would be better off without me and that Frank and all the other people who cared about me and were trying so hard to make me well would be better off also.  I am not saying that to be dramatic and I had no plan to kill myself, but I had a sincere desire to wish myself out of existence.

 

            Something about the stay at Caron kindled a tiny spark of hope and I started to want to try again.  Then Frank put up some healthy boundaries.  I don’t know where he found the strength to do so, but he did.  At the time I was angry but I am ever so grateful to him now for doing so.  Those boundaries forced me into a recovery house.  That time in the recovery house forced me to look more closely at myself and it is where I found my sponsor and where I started working the steps that transformed my life and changed the way I see myself and the world.

 

            I then wrote a thorough fourth step that re-introduced me to my own soul.  Through that process I was able to see myself from all angles and accept the good along with the bad I had become so familiar with.  I saw myself clearly for the first time and began loving Fiona.

 

            So many things have happened over the course of these four years.  Some wonderful things and some things that have brought deep sadness.  But I am blessed with new perspective and a love for myself and life I never had before.

 

            I get to help people today and not hurt them.  What’s more, I am good at it.  And I no longer think people are better off without me, chief among them are my kids.