Today I watched Dr. Phil and his show was about people who came on his program and had addiction issues and how all his guests now are sober from their addictions. They thanked Dr. Phil and his staff for helping them and changing their lives. They came so desperate and almost on deaths step. Yesterday I wrote a blog about being almost 4 years free of addiction. One of the guests on his show said that she remembered even though Dr. Phil was tough on her she felt that love and compassion from him even when she was so messed up.
I don’t share maybe as often as I should about my sobriety and where I was before I got sober. One of the things that stands out huge to me in my life was finding people or persons who stood by me no matter what. For years on end I tried to not to fall in addiction. I’ve had multiple addictions I fell back on. When one went away there was always another to replace it. I hid a lot in my addictions because who wants to tell their friends you fell again. I love my friends a lot but sometimes even though they never said it you could tell they just didn’t quite know what to do or say. Some have stood by me since day 1. Those people understand what addiction is. For me what got me through was a woman who stood by me and pushed me when I didn’t want to stop or just have up trying because it was to hard. I manipulated, lied did everything I could to get my next high. I used addiction to numb when things got bad or I just didn’t know how to feel.
This person never gave up on me. When I pushed her hard she pushed me back with love and grace. As I write I’m crying because when your in addiction that’s not who you really are. When I was in my addiction I was a different person then who I was sober. I often was told I could do this. It was hard and I made tough choices and slowly I got better and better and fell less often. I worked hard on myself because do you think that I liked who I was. I hated myself and I was filled with shame. Even though I did not like what I heard many times. I prayed and sometimes many times a day to get through.
I knew that if I have up my counselling and support I would not be alive today. The day I kneeled down to ask God to kill me or fix and that no matter what He asked me to do I would do it. He told me one day brushing my teeth that I could get free from my addiction with forgiveness. I had to forgive the two people I hated so much. I wrestled with Him on this. I fought it so hard and got deeper into addiction. My accountability partner told me that it’s not forgiving them for what they did to me all those years. It was about breaking free from the hate I felt in my heart. It was about them never being able to hurt me again. It was about me forgiving God for me thinking He was never there when I called out to Him as a kid.
Beauty from Ashes. 