Facing (more) Stuff

My life for the past 17, coming up on 18, years has been about overcoming addictions. The first big bear I had to get into the ring with was drugs and alcohol. Rehab was a real eye-opener, and it was complete and utter hell. I've had to face the fact over and over that where I come from I cannot take that first drink or take that first substance because I do not know where the stopping point will be - or even if there will be a stopping point before hospitalization, a jail cell, or an institution, or the grave. That is the reality of addiction. One who has to grapple with it will have to keep on his or her guard up for the remainder of his or her life. It is work. It is something one has to give attention to consistently - especially at the beginning. Even though it's been nearly 18 years since my last drink, I have had to tell people who've tried to talk me into just one drink or whatever that I went through hell getting clean and sober, and I'm not about to go there again and that I'm just one drink away from having to go through it all over again. People who don't struggle with addiction or who haven't stepped out of the shadows of denial about their addiction do not understand this. That answer is hard to hear, hard to swallow, but too bad. It's become a necessary part of my recovery to give that hard answer from which I will not be swayed. If they push too much harder I'll go ahead and add that I looked down death's corridor with my addiction. My decision is that if I have a brush that close with death again, I choose to meet it full-on, fully awake, fully alive, fully aware...in other words, I choose to meet it straight on and sober.

Like any addict, am I above falling? Let's rephrase the question. Like any human, am I above falling? No human is above the frailty of falling. No, not one. I am no exception. Sobriety is a choice - that I have to make and remake daily.

Through the years I've had to tackle other addictions. I quit booze and other substances cold turkey - whether I wanted to or not. Every day I had to face the hard questions, and I hated it. I didn't want to quit, are you kidding me? Not for a second! I hated quitting! I quit relationships and the physical aspects that went with them cold turkey too. Hated that just as much. But, you know? It came down to this: what Jesus did for me in my recovery. Seeing Him meant seeing life, and I could see the contrast of what I was living. It was a living death. Addiction is merciless taskmaster, and I was beyond tired. I thought I wanted to die and get it overwith. Seeing Him made me realize that I didn't have a deathwish after all. It was a revelation like I cannot explain. I was completely unaware of this quiet, underlying wish to live, truly. Realizing I wanted to live made me then ask the next obvious question: if I want to live, how do I want to live?

It's a process of defining and re-defining how I want to live. And I can't tell you fully what that looks like, but I do know I want there to be joy, I want there to be peace, I want there to be a free and open line of communication between me and the God who helped me see that I wanted to live in the first place. I want there to be honesty on all fronts. I want to be a help and a hindrance to those around me, a blessing and not a curse. There are certain things I get to choose every day to have all this. The first is choosing not to drink and do those other things and not to be in revolving door relationships with men. In all honesty, it wasn't fun abstaining from all those things I craved, but, (and only) by the grace of God, miraculously (and God gets all the credit as the miracle worker), I somehow have managed to keep my eye on the prize, thus far.

There are other addictive behaviors I've had to address through the years. The final frontier is the arena of finances. I have been an addictive spender since the very first wages I ever earned (I was 15 if memory serves me correctly). I started out okay, just like with booze. I could handle myself pretty well and stay within a reasonable budget. But then I started, in my 30's, applying for credit here, credit there. It was so easy. And they were so happy to see a good candidate. Within 4 years time I had completely wrecked being a good credit risk on paper. And when I got laid off my job after nearly 5 years, I had creditors calling all hours of the day and night. I was in a mess. I lived in constant terror and was paralyzed. I just froze. I stayed true to the pattern of all my addictions: I did nothing and let it all come crashing around my ears and sat in the middle of the devastation until God would come and grip my face in His hands and say, "Really? You're just going to sit here?" He was like, "Oh, no, you're not! Take hold of my hand, don't let go, get up, and let's go." Those conversations one has with oneself when one wakes up from the insanity? That's not happening in a vacuum. There is divine intervention going on. And, somewhere, it seems God sensed a willing participant in me.

I was just starting to come out of spending addiction jail/hell when I had a relapse a year and a half ago or so. I suppose it was a relapse in 2 different areas: spending and relationships that fly high on a whim and crash hard. They were just starting to see a promising candidate for granting credit, and the cards started collecting in my wallet, and the spending started spiralling out of control once again. I had no business doing any of that because I worked part-time in what had to be the lowest wage-earning part of the country, but, then, that is the nature of addiction, isn't it? Giving in to what one knows is hurting oneself for reasons one cannot even begin to explain.

I wanted to be debt-free when I got married. Life didn't work out quite that way. When Steve and I got together, I'd just started getting caught up after getting a couple of months behind. I'd been on a debt consolidation plan for only a couple of months when we started a serious relationship. When we married, I saw how he was freaking out at all the bills I had incurred and knew I'd hit that wall. I really had to commit to changing. It's one thing when it's just me having to live with the consequences. It's quite another putting that kind of strain on my husband and on our marriage. I can't do that to him and live with myself. A few years ago I'd been to 12-step meetings about overspending after my first hard financial crash but didn't really take my recovery seriously after losing my job. I just went broke, stayed broke, and basically just threw up my hands for a few years then slowly started picking up the pieces and cleaning up and salvaging what could be salvaged of my credit history - which wasn't much. I had completely thrashed my credit rating. I had a bankruptcy attorney look at my situation after I started working steadily again and started actually trying to deal with my credit disasters, and he told me that bankruptcy was a no-brainer for my situation. I just couldn't do that. I had incurred the debt; somehow I had to find a way to pay it back. I started working on it and ended up settling a lot of the debts and was able to pay the settlements in large part thanks to a small inheritance that was paid out in once a year increments over the period of a few years. The last installment was substantial and was enough to get this last ball rolling for getting this latest relapse under control - thankfully, most of it before Stephen and I married.

Stephen had been so committed to living within his means for so many years. As much of a handle as I'd been able to get on them before we married, even so, my debts scared him. He didn't know how we were going to make it at first. So I made myself accountable to him. I tell him about pretty much everything I spend. I work off of this piece of paper - that I have several copies of - to stay on track with what I owe, when everything is due, and how much I intend to apply toward this bill or that. I paid off my car this past August. It was a 60-month note, and I paid it off in 42 months. When I put that last car payment in the mailbox, the feeling was indescribable - especially in light of the fact that the last car I'd purchased on credit (it was actually a lease) 13 years before had been repossessed.

I have stuck with my debt consolidation plan to deal with the last credit card relapse. This month is my last payment on the plan. I can already see that I'm really going to have to reign myself in when that payment is eliminated from my monthly expenses. I'm thinking I might need a little something drastic to break the cycle of addiction...a meeting, perhaps? Something. My mind is already starting to go in a million directions of all the things I can do with the extra money. Yeah, I think it's time to commit to a program or a specialist that deals with this area - or something. At the very least, I feel I'm making a start and making myself accountable just by going public with this. I don't know. It's something that seems to help me with the process. Skeletons don't seem to stink as much and look as ghastly when they get prolonged exposure to the open air and light. That's my hypothesis, anyway, and I'm sticking to it, for now.

Comments

[Jean Kirkpatrick]

Hello! Welcome to my world... not the drinking and stuff... but cigarettes and credit. I just have not used any self discipline in money. But, I'm learning. And I got delivered from the cigarettes.. 6 years ago!! Praise Jesus! Maybe you should save that money? Or give it to a ministry? or increase what you're paying on something else? Don't just leave it around to shop with.. that's too much temptation...:-) Give it to Steve to do something with..Congrats on getting hold of it..Get angry with the demons of addiction, and MAKE THEM LEAVE! That's what delivered me from nicotine.. I hated them, and I never want a cig anymore.. I hate it...and those demons.. The Lord is so good!
hugs,
Jean