email to the therapist:
okay bethany...
so i picked up a copy of the resource book for adult children of alcoholics. i found myself in those pages. i think i need to start going to ACOA or alanon meetings, but i'm terrified. this is really what i need to talk about today, but i'm afraid i won't be brave enough to really go into it. so i'm writing this to ask you to help me bring this up. it's important, and i need to talk about it with you. i'll bring the book in, and we'll chat. deal?
thank you.
see? i told you i was much braver at 2 am...
-hothead
well, there it is. no taking it back now...
from a conversation with a friend in NA:
me: i think i need to go to alanon. but i'm terrified. absolutely terrified.
her: I understand. Hey, so was I, 1 year and ten months ago.
me: i read this book about ACOAs and my GOD....i was *everywhere* i named things in myself for the very first time.
her: Kiddo, you're the (step)child of an alcoholic, and let's face it, your mom was very much an addict. You have ACOA all over you. The codependency. The abandonment stuff. The caretaking.
me: it's just that feeling of pain coming to the surface. i'm messing with stuff that my body says should be left alone. and i can't anymore. i have to deal.
her: Honey, that pain's going to force its way out sooner or later. I think Bethany is going to strongly encourage you to make a meeting.
me: i'm scared of being in a 12 step, and i'm really weirded out by that whole higher power thing. i'm scared to be in a 12 step because i still am waiting for someone to reject me, and tell me my pain isn't real. that once it all comes out, it won't have been THAT bad, and i'll look like a liar or just really lame.
her: I had that too -- am I really an addict? I was never homeless, I never shot dope. But on my last night of using, I was crawling on the floor. It was that bad. For me. Yours was exactly that bad. For you. How much more of a bottom do you need to hit?
me: oh my god. this whole time...it wasn't me being stupid or lazy or insane?
her: Girl, you've been hitting bottom since that shithead died of this disease...
what a gift it is to have a name for this, to begin to understand. to be able to cut myself a break. to have resources that actually correspond with what i need.
because it needs to stop. i need to stop. the past year, it's all gotten so much worse. she's right: this is my rock bottom.
j had some pain and got a prescription for painkillers. they've been sitting on the computer desk, and i just had to put them out of sight. because this conversation kicked up so much fear that all i wanted was to just sleep. i want to cut again, to dull the pain. release.
i can't and i won't. so i wrote that email and this entry instead. hooray for progress, right? it's something...i just have to go forward. i can't go back. i want out of this. i want to work through it. i'm willing. i daresay that i'm ready. because this is where i need to be, what i need to be doing. no backouts, no excuses.
doesn't mean that i'm not scared shitless. doesn't mean that i won't need lots of love and affirmation and support...
but this is me breaking the family cycle. this is me choosing health and happiness. because i feel it happening. i could easily be an addict. haven't i always known that? that's why, even though i went to a famous drug school, i never touched a thing? because i knew i wouldn't stop and i'd be dead in a year. and you know what? that was a good choice for me. but it's not enough, because tonight i get the sense that what hasn't happened just hasn't happened yet. it's time to stop this shit. my parents gave me their disease...and i don't want it anymore.
so here goes...hothead does 12 step.
who ever would have thought? yet, i can't help but know that now, right now, those same parents and the fierce drag queen in the sky are cheering me on.
here we go...