3rd Night of Insomnia

Wow 2 months w/o a post!  I appreciate all the support I can get and I know I get a lot from my blog b/c there are fellow addicts I may never meet that can so relate to where I am, where I have been, and many who have a lot of hope to offer because you are further down the road of recovery than myself. So here goes.....

It's been a hard few months to say the least. I fell into a pretty deep black hole, dug out of it somehow and landed right back in it again not too soon after. I'm now digging out of it once again. I had somehow managed to make it to about 142 days sober. And let me clarify, when I say sober, I mean w/o ABUSING drugs of any kind. I had actually made it 100 days w/o using a narcotic of any kind at all, but then I did a REALLY stupid thing and went whitewater rafting and have had a new lower back (sciatic nerve) problem in addition to the chronic cervical spine problems I deal with ever since. I tried and GOD KNOWS I tried to make it w/o a pain pill of any sort, but a person can only take so much. So I do *occasionally* get something for the pain, but it is very controlled and the really cool thing was that my tolerance to the pain meds dropped quite a bit more than I had ever expected it would. However, that also led to my downfall.

This is a really hard time of year for me anyway because I'm naturally in more pain during the colder months (physical) but I also deal with more depression and some years are harder than others, but this year has been for some reason tremendously hard for me in missing my dad. He died from alcoholism a few years ago and it seems just like yesterday sometimes. I think this year it might be so much harder because I so BADLY want to talk to my dad about my pain and the addiction combination because he would understand more than anyone I know, as he had his own addiction to pain killers and lived in chronic pain from 2 hip replacements at a very early age. People say you can still talk to him, blah blah blah..... but I sometimes wonder if it's something people say to try and make you feel better. I wonder if he can really hear me. I don't know and I don't pretend to understand that whole side to life and death. I do believe he is with Jesus and I'm happy he isn't suffering anymore but God do I miss him!!!!! It's during this month and next that I watched him live his last 2 months in and out of a hospital w/ very little hope of survival. The thing is, he had quit drinking almost 8 months before he even got so sick enough to be put in the hospital and I thought my dad would be one of those recovering alcoholics that would have so much hope to share w/ other addicts/alcoholics. My heart hurts and aches like no other ache.... there just isn't any other like it! Although, I haven't had to bear losing a child and I can't even imagine what that would be like and I hope to never have to, but losing a parent at only age 24 isn't too easy either. I'm 32 now and I need him now more than ever!

You might say if I'm so "spiritual" why not just talk to God about it and be at peace with it? It's not just that easy, really. Of course, I talk to God about it and I know He hears me of course! But sometimes, it doesn't exactly dull that ache that I'm talking about and I need it to! So that's where I'm at. I went out and sang karaoke the other night. It's one of my favorite stress relievers. I absolutely love to do it and it makes me feel closer to my dad in a way because although I will NEVER be as talented as he was musically, I do have it in me a little bit, especially on instruments, but I sometimes sing for my dad and it brings me comfort. That's just what I needed the other night and it really helped, but I can't afford to do it all the time so I do it when I can.

Onto something else, I am having these constant headaches and I just want to flippen scream sometimes. By the way, I didn't mention that my relapse was very short-lived (about 4 days b/c I got ahold of some narcs w/o giving over the control of them to my husband as I should have) but I wonder if I was set on a relapse somehow. I wonder if I felt like such a failure, even w/ all that I had accomplished thus far regarding recovery, but because I could NOT pull myself out of this black hole, I felt useless and I just wanted the pain to go away. I honestly don't know, to be honest because I barely even remember getting them to begin with and I don't remember abusing them at all, but I do know that I did because I did things VERY out of character for myself during this time, as I was told. It makes me feel like I am literally losing my mind because I remember NONE of it, including GETTING the narcs and getting them filled or anything! Yea, I'm ashamed and feel like a total screw up for all of it but I quickly bounced back and although I will still occasionally have to use a LIMITED amount of pain pills (I've tried, I can't get around it.... I really am in too much physical pain that my physical activity is almost down to nothing anymore) And honestly, I've asked myself over and over "is this just an excuse to use pills for the emotional pain? It's something I honestly answer to God for everytime I take A pill..... yes, A pill.... not 7, 8, 10 pills at a time like it was before...... and I push myself far before I will require something. So I really have done great with recovery aside from those 4 days of I don't know WHAT the heck happened to me.... I prefer to pretend it didn't happen but I can't. It did and I hate that it did but I have to forgive myself and move on. God has.

So there ya have it..... that's where I REALLY am..... and that's how I'm REALLY doing...... now i'm hoping that since I've blogged and gotten all of this off my chest that maybe God will give me THREE hours of sleep before I have to be up? Seriously, these insomniac phases never turn out well for me emotionally..... going on 50 hours now..... grrr