Julie / A Desire [to Quit]
This morning, I said it out loud, for the first time, "I am getting sober for real when I get back from vacation." And so it begins.
As of this very minute, I feel excited and optimistic and hopeful about it. Ask me in 15 minutes, and I may be rocking in the corner, in tears, afraid I won't have the guts to put my money where my mouth is. (Unless "where my mouth is" equals "at the business end of a joint," "on the edge of a wineglass," or "around a pill.")
But for now—I am ready to rumble.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm not stopping now. (That's not true. I'm an addict, using addict logic- I'm not stopping now because I have a refill left on my prescription, and that's like leaving money on the table. And hey, what's a tropical vacation without a steady flow of Mai Tais? Also, pot is legal where I live, so I might as well have that, too, while I'm at it.)
I realize I don't necessarily sound ready. But I am.
I've been floating around the edges of recovery for several months now, doing the "am I or aren't I?" dance. (Spoiler alert: I am.) In the rooms of AA, on the recovery web, from all corners, I see people in recovery who are genuinely at peace, and man, do I want that.
How freeing it will be to not worry about "the bad things" (as I called them when I was too scared to call them what they really are.) I won't have to count out pills, hiding them from myself for later, as if that ever actually worked. I won't have to wonder if my husband can smell the marijuana on me. I won't have to wonder if I said something horribly offensive at the neighborhood block party because I can't remember anything past the second bottle of Chardonnay. I will never have to go through withdrawal again.
God, all of that sounds SO great, and like it's maybe just the tip of the happiness-in-sobriety iceberg.
I can't wait to find out for sure.
Julie
Julie is a 40-something professional, married with a soon-to-be 10-year-old son. She has recently come to the realization that her decades-long Vicodin and marijuana use are keeping her from living the life she could be living.
In her own words, "I'm ready to live differently, and I think I'm already starting, even though I haven't stopped yet."