“The
Elephant in My Head”
“Think
like a queen. A queen is not afraid to
fail. Failure is another stepping stone
to greatness.”
―
―
I drank.
A little over seven months ago now I
relapsed for a night. Some will call
that a slip, some will call it moral failure on my part, some will call it
shameful; I have been calling it a relapse.
Whatever you or I want to call it, it
has thrown me completely for a loop and I have not been myself since. I haven’t been able to write about it until
now and not writing about it has made me feel like I have had an elephant
living in my head taking up too much space and all my energy. Like the image attached I have spent an inordinate
amount of time tending to the relapse; trying to figure out what happened and
why I did what I did because I have to tell you it feels as though it came out
of left field. I would have, in the
past, characterized myself as a former chronic relapser, but I thought those
days behind me. This relapse was not the
same as the others though. I did not
start thinking about it days in advance.
I did not start planning on that first drink and fantasizing about how
it would taste or how I would get away with it.
I simply got to an intersection on the way to class one night early and
instead of turning right to go to campus I turned left and went to the liquor
store as if on auto-pilot.
When I think back to why I started this
blog in the first place it was to write about my journey in recovery and I
promised myself I would write honestly about the good the bad and the ugly so I
don’t feel as though I can stop now. I had
a lot of victories for a long time and now I have an “ugly” to write about and
process with everyone.
The night I drank back in December I
went to the liquor store and then to class.
I left class early because I was supposed to go to Wren’s choral
concert. I never made it because I
started drinking. I ended up getting a
DUI. That is something I will forever be
ashamed of. I was on the side of the
road but the car was still running and in drive and I could have hurt someone,
but mercifully I did not. I let my
daughter down, disappointed my family - scared them and frankly horrified
myself. Being arrested is no fun.
I had to and still have to face a lot of
consequences from that one decision to turn left instead of right. I built back a lot of trust over five plus
years and now… I also lost my self-respect and a lot of my
confidence. I had to face my children
and Frank and the rest of my extended family.
Fortunately for me, my family is versed on the disease of addiction so
they understand the ins and outs better than most and they are loving and
understanding so, though they were not happy, they have been incredibly
supportive and forgiving. I immediately
got back to working through my fourth step with my sponsor. I contacted my sponsor daily while and made
sure that my home group knew what was going on.
I went to both my internship and the
counseling job at the methadone clinic the next week and informed them both
about what had happened. This was
incredibly difficult to do as you might imagine. But I could not in good conscience continue
to counsel others as a substance abuse therapist without telling them and
allowing them to let me go if that was their decision. I had seen a TED talk a few weeks prior with
some of the patients at the internship site.
The premise was that addicts in recovery have to do three things. They must be authentic, they must do
uncomfortable work and then they must surrender the outcome. I kept thinking about those three tings when
I explained about my relapse and subsequent DUI. Both sites thanked me for my honesty and told
me they would let me know in a few days.
They both decided to allow me to stay, though I was let go from the
methadone clinic later for billing reasons after a state audit and ironically
it was the agency’s error. The one
caveat they both gave me was that I could not let any of the patients know
about the relapse and I could not write about it on the blog because some of
the patients read the blog. I have only
now been given permission to divulge my relapse as I am no longer at either
site and am no longer counseling anyone.
So
why did it happen? Many people in and
out of the recovery community have opinions as to why and some have not been
shy to share what they think I was or was not doing. I have been told I was not attending enough
meetings. I have been told I was holding
onto too many resentments. I have been
told I was not praying often enough, or hard enough, or correctly. I have been told I wasn’t helping enough
other addicts or alcoholics. I have been
told I was doing too many things at once.
I have been told I should have been doing more things. I have spent the past seven months going over
and over what went wrong and the simple answer is I have no idea exactly why I
drank.
What
I can tell you is that there is a lot of stigma about addiction. This is something we all knew. I can now tell you, there is a lot of stigma
about relapse also. I feel it, have felt
it and just like I write about addiction because I want to break down the
stigma surrounding it, I am writing about relapse in the same vein. I don’t want people who relapse to be afraid
to reach out for help because of shame.
I hesitated myself. As much as I
wanted to write this because I know it brings me back to my authentic self, I
am also afraid because being this authentic and vulnerable can sometimes come
with consequences. I get it. But if I can relapse and get help and get
better again, then so can others. If I
can write about it and be vulnerable and normalize this very human experience than
someone else may not feel so alone.
Relapse does not have to be a part of addiction and recovery but it
often is and I am here to tell you that if it happens to you, you are not
alone. I am here and I understand your
pain.
Being
a psychologist now I know that addiction is a biopsychosocial disease. That means that genes play a part in my disease
as do my emotions and hormones and so does stress, environment and trauma. I have addiction in my family tree and I
certainly have trauma in my past. Those
things were there before. But this past
fall three other things happened that I now believe played a part.
I shifted into peri-menopause. Hormonal shifts are important to speak about
for people in recovery, especially women.
I read one article recently that women’s hormonal cycles have a role in
their addiction and in their relapse rates.
I also read that when women relapse it is often during PMS.
I got a new diagnosis in the bi-polar
family (last post I mentioned I am bi-polar II – it has since been changed to cyclothymic)
which came with a change in medication that I had a severe reaction to. I was put on Effexor (an SNRI). I started on the medication just before the
relapse and I had such a severe reaction to it that I eventually started having
tremors and began to have slight hallucinations where my vision shifted around
the edges of my periphery. It was a mild
form of serotonin syndrome and I had to be titrated off of the medication. It was horrifying.
I was also extremely busy with work and
school and my schedule was packed with recovery activities and activities
speaking, volunteering and promoting the book.
So throw that altogether and I was a hot mess.
Does that excuse the action I took and
the effect it had on my family? No it does
not, but does it help me explain some of the reasons behind it to myself? Yes, I think it does. It helps me understand that I can’t go at
break-neck speed like I was going. If
you remember my post in November was even entitled “The Center Cannot Hold” so
somewhere inside I knew it was too much.
It helps me to see that hormones and co-occurring mental health
disorders are a part of my life as well and have to be managed. That is not
something I can “pray away” as much as I and well-meaning others may want to be
the case. It helps me to be able to
share that with other women who are on this journey with me now or will come
along after me.
I have been wallowing for a long time
since December. I have not been
myself. I have been looking at this as a
failure and to be sure it is nothing to be proud of. However, today I am choosing to think like a
queen and look at this as a stepping stone to greatness. Getting a job in the current climate is far
from easy for me and countless others.
Getting a job with a DUI on your record when you planned to work as a
substance abuse counselor makes it even harder but I have gained a great deal
of insight and empathy about relapse and what it does to your self-esteem and
your confidence. I see what it takes to
dig yourself out of depression and shame and how hard it is to make amends
again and again and again. I know what
it takes to embrace a brain that is both creative and fascinating but also
capable of betrayal and torture. I am
slowly seeing my way forward to holding my head up high again and straightening
my tiara.
