Duality of self

In November I celebrated having three consecutive years away from a debilitating cocaine addiction.

I took a cake for this achievement in the very room that saved my life. I heard my friends share the changes they’ve seen in me, the challenges I’ve faced and the inspiration I share with others.

Sitting there, I started to reflect on this practice. You could think of a “cake” event almost like a mini-funeral except we don’t pay tribute to who we were. Every year we remind ourselves and others of what things were like, how bad they got and why we walk the path we do. We lay our old lives to rest by never forgetting them.

This is important.

The further into this “normal” life I get, the more removed I am from my disordered wheel of crazy, the more likely I am to start telling myself that I am, in fact, “normal”.

I am not.

I am incapable of stopping cocaine once I begin. Wavering from this knowledge could very easily take everything I work so hard for and, ultimately, me.

Deviating from the path I’m on means death. This is dire. It’s not hyperbole. It’s possible that I relapse and realize immediately it was a mistake and never touch it again. What’s more likely, though, is that I relapse, realize it was a mistake and can’t stop. It’s more likely that I lose my home, my relationship with my children, the respect for myself I’m working so hard on building. It’s more likely that if I make a choice (today, picking up is a choice) to relapse I will have all my choice stripped from me.

That’s the reality. If I pick up cocaine it will kill me.

Perhaps in body, but most certainly in mind and spirit. When I am in addiction I lose touch with my morals, my boundaries, my humanity and my “self”.

In that same way, though, staying the course means experiencing a different kind of death, a different way of dying.

I have given my former self a name.

She’s with me all the time, speaking softly or otherwise. In times of conflict, crisis or adversity she always gets louder and if I’m not careful about it I just let her take the wheel.

This version of me was driving the bus for most of my life. I was seeking, yes, but seeking approval rather than peace. I had faith, yes, but my faith was put in the wrong things.

From where I’m standing today I have an understanding that everything I did was about feeling wanted, accepted and enough. I didn’t have the ability to see that at the time.

As with anything, it’s about making progress rather than seeking some kind of perfection. When I become emotionally elevated I have to take action against doing what I’m used to. Patterns don’t just pause because we become aware of them, they need to be replaced with a new approach.

When I think about my life there is a very clear turning point. There is the person I was and the person I am.

This isn’t the kind of undertaking that has a goal post in mind. I think we have a tendency to think about life like, “when I arrive I’ll really be happy” when there’s no arrival afoot.

Finding a way out of addiction is a placeholder for me. It’s a symbol of finding myself underneath all of the false beliefs and desperate codependency. It’s about finding the crack that let the light in.

And let it in I have.