Trust Fall

Day 1

The Sun set and I could feel the sweat pooling on my forehead. "How could I stop?" The question kept repeating itself in my head like a state of psychosis. My fingertips running along the scars and sores on my arm. I took the web of my thumb and pinched it between my nails until I felt pain. Its as if I had run out of tears. Pain was the only emotion I could process clearly. At this point my mind was confused as to which feeling was which. Just as I thought:

 "Why does no one care?"

"How does no one else feel this?''

My phone lit up with a message from F.

     F: Are you okay?

     P: I don't know

     F: The first month is the hardest. You CAN do this.

     P: I CAN try. I'm safe, for now. Talk soon.

   I put the phone down and thought how does he know? Why isn't he freaking out.  We had similar problems, but  F had been sober for much longer.He was always more grounded.  He had a better grip on things. I couldn't see the light. I had been dealing with addiction more than half my life. At that time I was 24. The journey I was on hadn't even begun yet, and still I thought my life was over.  Most people would have been established with a diploma and a nice house. By this time I had already left my husband and two kids. I was an 8th grade drop out, and the black sheep of my family.

    Looking back on it, I should've just had a female sponsor. NA doesn't allow sponsors of the opposite sex. I had always gotten along better with men than woman though. Growing up in a big family of boys alongside my own fear/disdain for my mother. F didn't ask as many questions as my last sponsor, a female. There was a connection I had with F, that I couldn't describe.

   Trust was hard to come by. Every fiber of me told me, the drugs were more important than them, the drugs controlled me. I would break trust, and then have a shitty track record. I would cause pain, and seek it out. It was in this pain that I realized, no one is in control. Not the drugs, not the pain, the emotions, not even me. I needed help...

    Sleep was the hardest part. I would lie in wait hoping my mind would stop racing. Hoping I would fall asleep. Then, in a twist, hoping I wouldn't wake up. Sleeping pills did nothing. No chemical could knock the pain of "feeling". Its hard to describe. I've compared it to the pain of losing a person. When they die, its sudden, unexpected..  You know you're never going to see that person again. In this case, I was watching myself deteriorate.  In a way I was hoping I would emerge from the ashes, a new person. In another way, I just wanted to emerge.