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Payment Plans In Recovery Life

Payment Plans In Recovery

Recovery has been a sort of payment plan in becoming a better person every day.  Every day is a gift!  The biggest is waking up clean and not having to depend on any substance to be a productive member of society.  I am so beyond grateful for my life today.

Life Continues

So, I lost my license three years ago because of mistakes that I have made and didn’t commit to paying the court fines I owed because I was living dirty. A few months ago I started working a second job so that I can save up to get my license back. I had no idea of the new program they were offering to be able to set up a payment plan on your license, get a clearance letter so you can get your license back that day. Anyways, I started saving up the money.  Then I got hit with a letter for child support and had to put my license to the side because they were originally proposing an order for over six hundred dollars. I went to court last month and my child support was dropped to $275 a month.  That was a blessing in itself.

Payment Plans To Right Wrongs

So I set the goal to go get my license back. Since I’ve started thinking about it I have been very patient. I knew that everything happens in right time as long as I keep doing the next right thing. I had to go to both court houses today, and I set up a payment plan.  Then it was time for the Department of Motor Vehicles. But I walked out of that DMV with an official Florida State license, which I worked so hard for.

It Comes At The Right Time

Blessings of recovery vary from even the smallest things to the big things. The amount of gratitude I carry in my heart is overbearing. I knew that the patience and hard work would pay off. And it’s all coming at the right time.  You can say I’ve got a couple of different payment plans going on today; my recovery and recompense for my past mistakes.   I’m proud of myself today.  My name is Lauren and I’m an addict. I have been Clean eleven and a half months.

Grateful recovering addict, Lauren

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Where Do My Loyalties Lie

Where My Loyalties Lie

In recovery, I rarely question where my loyalties lie. They lie with my loved ones, my family, my support group, my friends, my employer. I can say I am a woman of integrity today. But there come times when I am forced to face hard truths. Just because I am not speaking a lie out loud doesn’t mean that I’m not withholding pertinent information from people, and by people I mean those who actually give a shit about me.

Loyalty To Myself

Sometimes I forget that my loyalties need to lie with myself too. I can’t throw myself in front of a bus to protect someone else. And recently I have found myself in a situation reflecting that. As okay as I might have been at the moment it doesn’t mean that it isn’t risky.

Human In My Recovery

When you love someone and they relapse you’re typically faced with two options: stick by their side or cut them off, the old fight or flight. When I found myself in that position it was easy for me to justify the fact that it is not my story to share.  Simply because I didn’t want to face the judgement from those around me. But, the truth is everything always come out in the wash and I get to points in my recovery that I forget that. And that doesn’t mean I don’t have recovery, it means that I am human.

I am not perfect.  But today I have the willingness to learn from my mistakes.  And with that willingness growth can and will continue.

~Samantha

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God Made Other Plans For Me

God Made Other Plans

God is a large part of my life, so I spent seven months in a faith-based recovery program.  This program was very strict and it gave me exactly what I needed at that time of my life. I was able to build a fellowship, work on the 12 steps and learn how to live sober. Although I wasn’t quite ready to leave but it seems God made other plans for me.

My Relapse

I wasn’t paying much attention to my recovery; I stopped calling my sponsor, stopped going to meetings and I was working way too many hours. It was a Sunday night and I had worked all day. I was off the next day on Monday, and I can’t even recall how everything happened but the next thing I know I’m at a friend’s house and we’re drinking. Someone suggested getting drugs and it was over from there. I went into a blackout and I overdosed, and woke up in the hospital on Wednesday. At that point I knew I had lost everything once again.

Grace Of God In A New Home

Two days later I was released and a friend told me about The Da Vinci Home. By the grace of God I was welcomed in. The very next day I showed up and wow, the ladies were having coffee on the front porch. There was a beautiful dog and a pig in the backyard. I was so happy to be there. The fort first week or so I was allowing my thoughts to tell me I was a major letdown and I did not deserve the help of these ladies or a bed in this house. One afternoon I just broke down and let my feelings come out in a good cry.

Doing Things Different

Angie was very supportive and assured me I was safe and at home. I started feeling much better after our conversation and started looking for work, getting to meetings, I found a sponsor and I’m now working on my first step. I’m doing things a little different this time. And so far I really love this new fellowship. I’m having a hard time finding a job but I have faith God has the perfect job waiting for me. This is my very first blog and I hope the next one is much better.

Love, Virginia

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Time To Change And Move Forward

Time To Change And Move Forward

The time to change and move forward has come.  I first started coming into the rooms about 7 year ago. I honestly just did not get it. All I kept hearing is “get a sponsor,” it works if you work it.” I knew it worked for everyone else, but I would stay clean for 30 days here, 60 days there.  What I was doing wasn’t working for me, and nothing changes if nothing changes.

Same Results

Looking back on it, I now know I was just dry. I would not consume alcohol or drugs for short periods of time.  But drinking or using would constantly be on my mind.  I would even get excited in my head when I would plan out when I was going to drink and how much fun I am going to have.  Of course it never ended up being fun, and consequently I always ended up back in jail or baker acted.

A New Time In My Recovery

I noticed too that my relapses would get worse and worse as I get older. This is the first time in my recovery history where I am free of that mental obsession.  That obsession to use, and it feels absolutely amazing!

Step Four And Secrets

I just completed step four and it is such a relief to get everything off of my chest.  To share things with my sponsor that I thought I would take to my grave with me. I was able to talk about these secrets that were ultimately keeping me sick. From just doing that step, I feel like a completely different person.

A Bright Future

I am no longer embarrassed about everything I have done in my past, in order to grow as a person I cannot hold on to the things that I have done. I cannot dwell on the past. There is nothing I can do to change it.  But I can determine my future, and with step 4 I can tell it is going to be a good one!

~anonymous

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Broken, Battered and Bruised

 Broken, Battered and Bruised

When I arrived to Da Vinci broken, I was battered and soul bruised. My life post relapse has been a process of waiting for the dust to settle from the whirlwind of chaos that I have created. When one makes the decision to gain sobriety, the evidence of destruction comes into focus with clear and exact precision. The excuses and justifications for using drugs or alcohol have instead become the very fuel that fires my motivation to stay clean and sober.

 Emotions Surface

Dealing with the multitude of raw emotions as of late has been a challenge indeed. Prior to sobriety, when painful emotions surfaced, I could not or shall I say that I would not “sit” in the emotion. The emotions of being broken, battered and bruised were akin to uncomfortable and tight clothing that I wanted to immediately shed, never to wear again. I could not allow the natural course of the emotion to take place.  The desire to blunt the feelings with one substance or another was overwhelming.

 Perceived Problems

Dealing with life on life’s terms seemed unfathomable to me, an impossible task if you will. In sobriety, I am slowly learning to sit with the feelings.  Even as I chant “this too shall pass”, to convince myself that perhaps it will pass. I realize that using substances certainly never made anything better.  In fact, it compounded my perceived problem with heavy interest. Feelings are not facts, so the saying goes.  With time I hope the feelings of failure as a woman, a mother, and a human being will pass and recede like the tide upon shore.  Today, I am learning to ride the waves of my life, choppy waters and all.  Something I have not been able to do in adulthood.

 Untouchable vs Unworthy

As I have begun this journey into recovery, I have attempted to make sense of the Higher Power concept.  A concept spoken frequently upon in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. My concept of God thus far has been largely religious, versus a spiritual concept.  In childhood I was taught that God was an untouchable, omnipotent being and I was unworthy of a direct audience.

Create Attributes

In the rooms I have been listening and have heard a different take on the Higher Power concept, however you may refer to that Power.  It is said that the Higher Power can be of ones own choosing.  Therefore one may create the attributes the Higher Power may have. I have begun to redefine my concept of God. Perhaps God is not the old testament wrathful being that reflected poorly upon a lowly being such as myself. Maybe, just maybe I can commune with “God”, or in other words- communicate with the universally good force within my reality.  That force could then in turn guide my life. I am open to the idea of this possibility.

Laying the Foundation

I have gone through my life sans direct personal contact with a power greater than myself, or a support group of a more terrestrial nature. As new as it is for me to reach out to others, I know there is great value in doing so in efforts to lay a foundation of recovery. I can not recover alone. I have tried previously and failed miserably. As far as direction from a Higher Power goes, I continue to “pray” or directly communicate with such a force.  At times feverishly so. If this force is universally good and loving in nature, then should I make the next right decision.  Then I may be more open to receive guidance. I will remain open, willing, and most of all, I will try to listen.
~CB