[21:17] <@Chairperson> I’ve known this addict I think ever since he 1st started coming around not long after he got clean
[21:17] <LORI>
[21:17] <@Vic> =)
[21:18] <MattR>
[21:18] <@Chairperson> I’ve seen him struggle with recovery, life and even himself and get through them all
[21:18] <@Chairperson> so with that I’m going to turn things over to Rae and let him tell us about it
[21:18] * @Lon hugs Jr tightly….
[21:18] <@Rae> Mrrp.
[21:18] <@Chairperson> Rae will you please introduce yourself so we can greet you? – Then we will moderate the room so you can have our full attention.
[21:18] <@Chairperson>
[21:18] <@Rae> Hi, my name is Rae, I’m an addict.
[21:18] * @mabear has handed Rae a dozen yellow Roses! @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}— @-}–}—
[21:18] <@Chairperson> hey Rae
[21:18] <Kat> hi Rae, love you
[21:18] <Ted> Hi Rae
[21:18] <MJT> Hi Rae
[21:18] <@Lon> hi Rae
[21:18] <LORI> Hi Rae!
[21:18] <@Vic> Hi Rae, love you!!!
[21:19] <angie> hi rae
[21:19] <mel> hi rae
[21:19] <@mabear> love you bb
[21:19] <@Rae> So- hi.
[21:19] <@Rae> That was a hell of an intro, Ethel.
[21:19] <@Rae> Uhm. So yeah. I’m nervous as fuck.
[21:19] <@Chairperson>
[21:20] * Chairperson sets mode: +m
[21:20] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated.
[21:20] <@Rae> Who I am today- is- ahh- pretty different than the person I was when I started.
[21:20] <@Rae> So I’ve been trying to think about how to explain how I got from- there to here.
[21:21] <@Rae> I guess I can tell some about- my history and where I started and hope I find my words somewhere along the line.
[21:22] <@Rae> I’m not that old- I turned 24 in October. So- when I got clean I wasn’t actually old enough to drink legally.
[21:22] <@Rae> I used for- a pretty long time before that, considering.
[21:23] <@Rae> My family of origin- mm, kinda sucked.
[21:23] <@Rae> I haven’t talked in person to any of them for about eight years.
[21:24] <@Rae> My father was/is an alcoholic and probably an addict as well.
[21:24] <@Rae> With- some additional mental health issues thrown in there for good measure.
[21:24] <@Rae> My mother has/had her own issues.
[21:26] <@Rae> The ‘best’ memory I have of my father, was sitting in a hot gravel lot in Chicago, watching him work on his car, and I was still afraid of him.
[21:26] <@Rae> I remember that I was allowed to go with him, when I was five and my brothers were four and possibly still a baby, because I could read the numbers on the socket wrenches to pass him the right one.
[21:27] <@Rae> Not passing the right one meant getting hit with whichever one I did put in his hand so- being able to tell 5/8ths from 9/16ths was kind of important.
[21:28] <@Rae> So- to say he had/has a short fuse is something of an understatement.
[21:28] <@Rae> I still really- think I wanted love from him though.
[21:29] <@Rae> Or- something, attention from him anyway.
[21:29] <@Rae> That’s not really- something he can do though, I don’t think.
[21:30] <@Rae> At least, I’m not going to hold my breath for a swell of music and a tearful reunion.
[21:31] <@Rae> I come from a pretty big family,I guess. I have five siblings now.
[21:32] <@Rae> I also had a younger sister who died when I was eight, and she was a baby.
[21:33] <@Rae> I was the one ‘in charge’ at the time, because I was the oldest.
[21:33] <@Rae> When my father came home, I remember he was livid.
[21:34] <@Rae> To say he beat the shit out of me is something of an understatement.
[21:34] <@Rae> I don’t think that was the worst part though.
[21:35] <@Rae> The worst was him holding my face and being told to repeat back to him that it was my fault, that it was because of me-
[21:35] * gaila (
[email protected]) has joined #narecovery
[21:36] <@Rae> that kind of set the tone for- how I thought about shit that happened to me for the next mmm- 12-14 years or so.
[21:37] <@Rae> After that I spent some time in the hospital where I was pretty heavily medicated.
[21:38] <@Rae> When I came home I was still pretty heavily medicated, and started adding alcohol to the mix and figured out pretty quickly that that would numb me out too.
[21:38] <@Rae> The best memory I have of my mother is lying on the sofa in the living room, listening to her wash dishes and sing ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and being cataclysmically hung over.
[21:39] <@Rae> I was about nine then, I think.
[21:39] * MJT (
[email protected]) Quit (MJT)
[21:40] <@Rae> My mother has her own fucked up patterns- some of which I inherited.
[21:40] <@Rae> Creating no-win situations was one of her specialties. And I think- I wanted the same thing from her that I wanted from my father.
[21:40] <@Rae> I really wanted to be good enough. I wanted to be loved.
[21:41] <@Rae> I coudn’t get that, so I wanted to be numb instead.
[21:41] <@Rae> I used a lot of things to get there, drugs, yes.
[21:41] <@Rae> But also sex, gambling-
[21:41] <@Rae> anything I could do to avoid feeling or thinking.
[21:42] <@Rae> Or to avoid feeling alone.
[21:42] * JUSTn_T (
[email protected]) has joined #narecovery
[21:42] <@Rae> Sex was one of those things that let me feel like- I was good enough.
[21:42] <@Rae> That I was wanted by *somebody* anybody
[21:42] * Gemm (
@AB0CCB24.72E5C09E.BF92D0DC.IP”>@AB0CCB24.72E5C09E.BF92D0DC.IP) has joined #narecovery
[21:42] * Fluffy sets mode: +o Gemm
[21:42] * @Chairperson (
@AB0CCB24.72E5C09E.BF92D0DC.IP”>@AB0CCB24.72E5C09E.BF92D0DC.IP) Quit (Connection reset by peer)
[21:43] <@Rae> There was a guy I kind of- became involved with when I was waaaay too young to be involved with him.
[21:43] * Gemm is now known as Chairperson
[21:43] * d808 (
[email protected]) has joined #narecovery
[21:43] <@Rae> He was my older sister’s boyfriend.
[21:44] <@Rae> He got to feeling guilty I think and wanted to break things off and I lost my shit.
[21:44] <@Rae> Which lead to the one and only time I ever hit my father back, because I had hit upon something else that I could use to avoid thinking
[21:46] <@Rae> I blacked out with anger, and fear and went nuts, threw shit, screamed- anything to try and get my father to understand that I had lost *everything*
[21:47] <@Rae> There are- I don’t know. Hundreds, thousands of instances like that over my using career.
[21:48] <@Rae> Cycling through using to be totally numb, because if I wasn’t- I felt out of control. Extreme rage, fear, grief could be so- overwhelming that I couldn’t function.
[21:48] <@Rae> I went through periods of insane paranoia where I didn’t sleep if I didn’t blackout.
[21:48] <@Rae> Not all- necessarily unwarranted.
[21:49] <@Rae> Being gay- also kind of made me a target sometimes.
[21:49] <@Rae> Because I didn’t really have the sense of self-preservation to back down from a fight, regardless of odds.
[21:50] <@Rae> After one- particularly bad encounter, that I probably should have gone to the hospital after (and didn’t)
[21:51] <@Rae> I got freaked out and paranoid and tried to run away from myself.
[21:51] <@Rae> I think I meant to go to California where at least it would be warm-
[21:52] <@Rae> I ended up in Arizona, and my problems followed me. I was still nuts and paranoid and miserable.
[21:52] <@Rae> I didn’t know who to score from so I stole drugs from the place I was kind of working.
[21:53] * gaila (
[email protected]) Quit (gaila)
[21:53] <@Rae> That was way out in the desert, and I ended up in some more shit, in jail for the first time, and when I got out, worse trouble with the locals.
[21:54] <@Rae> I got pulled behind a tractor for a while, which was enough to cnvince me that I needed to get the hell out of there.
[21:56] <@Rae> I ended up back in Chicago without reporting any of that to the authorities because- somewhere in my head I think- I felt it was what I deserved.
[21:56] <@Rae> Because of how I’d been living, and what I’d been doing, it was par for the course.
[21:57] <@Rae> Somewhere in my brain that was really- deeply ingrained. That I deserved shit.
[21:58] <@Rae> When I was still going to high school, I’d had guidance counselors tell me I was killing myself-
[21:58] <@Rae> and that seemed- pretty okay with me.
[21:58] <@Rae> Since I was a kid- I thought about dying all the time.
[21:58] <@Rae> I remember standing on rooftops and praying for God to knock me off.
[21:59] <@Rae> I didn’t want to commit suicide- although I had plans for how I would do it- because it was a sin I couldn’t atone for.
[21:59] <@Rae> Everything else I thought I could eventually say enough Hail Mary’s to make up for it and be good enough.
[22:00] <@Rae> I still really wanted to be good enough,I just didn’t think I would get there.
[22:00] <@Rae> I didn’t think I deserved any other kind of life.
[22:00] <@Rae> I did some time in prison, for stealing a car and beating it to shit and running from the cops and things.
[22:01] <@Rae> Junkie stuff.
[22:02] <@Rae> When I got out, someone who knew me said I could stay with her if I could stay clean.
[22:02] <@Rae> I couldn’t.
[22:03] <@Rae> She kicked me out.
[22:03] <@Rae> I ended up back on the street.
[22:04] <@Rae> For- a few more months.
[22:04] <@Rae> That’s a pretty foggy period in my memory.
[22:05] <@Rae> I woke up behind a bar, or "came to" behind a bar
[22:05] <@Rae> And I was so- tired.
[22:06] <@Rae> I wanted to die, and by all rights, I should have, but for the grace of my HP.
[22:06] <@Rae> And I was pissed off at God for not killing me.
[22:07] <@Rae> I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted- something to change.
[22:07] <@Rae> The basic text says that when we were beaten, we became willing.
[22:08] <@Rae> After three years of homelessness, time in prison, too many years of feeling completely alone- I was pretty beaten.
[22:08] <@Rae> I went back to the lady I’d been staying with and said I wanted to try to stay clean, if she would let me in.
[22:08] <@Rae> I didn’t really know where to start, or what to do.
[22:08] <@Rae> I thought maybe- I could get some therapy or something to fix me. So I turned to google.
[22:09] <@Rae> Where I ended up was- a website a lot like this one, with one other addict hanging around.
[22:09] <@Rae> A guy from Oregon named Richard, who asked if I was an addict.
[22:09] <@Rae> And I think I said yest.
[22:10] <@Rae> I was pretty freaked out about even talking about any of this.
[22:10] <@Rae> He talked about how he came to recovery, and said he had 24 years and some clean.
[22:11] <@Rae> And- that was pretty incredible to me, that somebody could be clean for- 24 hours. Much less 24 years.
[22:12] <@Rae> To say that- I was full of sweetness and light when I came here- is- a joke.
[22:12] <@Rae> I did stop using. I stopped smoking cigarettes as well, because in my head- they’re all the same thing.
[22:13] <@Rae> For me, one leads to the other. Whenever I smoked, I wanted to drink, when I drank, I wanted to use-
[22:13] <@Rae> But the emotional side of things. The out of control rage and fear and panic side-
[22:14] <@Rae> well, when I was using, I had periods where those were numbed out.
[22:14] <@Rae> When I got clean- those numb periods went away.
[22:15] <@Rae> I fell really hard into using sex for a while, because I couldn’t handle dealing with those feelings.
[22:16] <@Rae> I started seeing a therapist, who was also my first temporary sponsor, because he was also a recovering addict.
[22:16] * MattR (
[email protected]) Quit
[22:16] <@Rae> For a lot of people- just NA is enough.
[22:16] <@Rae> I had/have some other stuff with anxiety and paranoia that I needed professional help with.
[22:17] <@Rae> I didn’t have the stability to go to meetings at first because I couldn’t sit in a chair for 15 minutes without freaking out.
[22:17] <@Rae> The first few times I tried I threw up outside and was paralyzed with anxiety.
[22:18] <@Rae> But people in the chatroom I went to still kept telling me to try- and I did. I just had to recognize that i needed some extra help getting there.
[22:18] <@Rae> I still see a therapist, actually. But I’ve cut down from three times a week to about once every other week.
[22:19] <@Rae> I remember I was so proud though, to be able to tell Richard that I’d been to a meeting and sat all the way through it.
[22:19] <@Rae> I ended up asking a friend to come with me, someone I trusted who was familiar enough with my nutcase-ness to keep other people from touching me.
[22:20] <@Rae> That guy and I have been dating for- about three and a half years now.
[22:20] <@Rae> Despite the fact that when I got a sponsor and said that I *really* wanted to date this guy, he said to wait for a year-
[22:21] <@Rae> Mm, I made it seven months-
[22:21] <@Rae> Relationships are- ri-cock-ulously hard for me.
[22:22] <@Rae> When I was in prison, and when I started seeing a therapist, both evaluating personell diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder.
[22:22] <@Rae> Kind of the- hallmark of which is- the ability to make other people crazy, and an inability to deal with relationships.
[22:23] <@Rae> I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with my boyfriend- but I suspect that he’s had to get a lot healthier along the way, as I’ve improved as well.
[22:23] <@Rae>
[22:23] * d808 (
[email protected]) Quit (d808)
[22:24] <@Rae> I did work on the steps, once I got a permanent sponsor an started going to meetings in the real world-
[22:24] <@Rae> I need the steps, meetings, sponsorship (on both ends, I also have a sponsee now) to keep me clean.
[22:25] <@Rae> When I was new, I needed those things to keep me clean so that I could work on therapy and get the mental health end sorted out.
[22:26] <@Rae> I needed therapy to eventually have some other tools to get better at dealing with those uncontrollable emotions.
[22:27] <@Rae> After one round of working on the steps with my sponsor, I worked on applying the steps to self-injury.
[22:27] <@Rae> Which was- another major problem for me, when I stopped using sex and drugs to cope with emotion, I fell back on harming myself physically.
[22:28] <@Rae> I think- of anything that may have been the hardest to cut back on. I still have to watch my thoughts sometimes, regarding that one, because it’s such an old habit for me.
[22:28] * d808 (
[email protected]) has joined #narecovery
[22:29] <@Rae> Applying the steps to that, and working on it in therapy has helped, at least to get to a point where- emotions weren’t so overwhelming that I needed to use or self harm to deal with them.
[22:30] <@Rae> I feel kind of- odd really, talking about this, because the past year or so has been really- introspective for me.
[22:30] <@Rae> I don’t feel as much like I’m fighting against myself.
[22:30] <@Rae> I’ve done a lot of work to- validate my own feelings, to recognize that whatever I feel is- just what I feel, and it’s okay.
[22:31] <@Rae> It’s just a feeling, and it will pass.
[22:31] * d808 (
[email protected]) Quit (d808)
[22:31] <@Rae> I try to pull recovery from everywhere, to keep me grounded.
[22:32] <@Rae> Because I think- my higher power speaks to me in a lot of different ways.
[22:32] <@Rae> Pretty much- any way I’ll listen to.
[22:33] <@Rae> Songs, other books I’m reading, other addicts-
[22:33] <@Rae> Keeping an open mind helps me to be open to any of the ways my higher power might try to convey a message to me.
[22:34] <@Rae> Today I found a line, while just- nosing around online that kind of- sums up how I feel about all of my recovery.
[22:35] <@Rae> ‘Gratitude turns what we have, into enough.’
[22:35] <@Rae> I don’t expect my parents to suddenly come around and love me. I still have a family today that loves me, and that’s enough.
[22:36] <@Rae> I’m clean, and most of the time, I’m pretty happy- when I’m not too negatively in my head.
[22:36] <@Rae> I don’t feel like that scared little boy any more, hiding in corners and tiptoeing around the house to avoid being seen and hurt.
[22:37] <@Rae> And I don’t feel like the person full of rage and fear that I was when I first got clean either.
[22:38] <@Rae> Most of the time- things are just peaceful, and I’m pretty happy with that. It’s not super exciting in the way that being homeless and ducking police and trying to cop is exciting-
[22:38] <@Rae> but I’m happy. Which is enough.
[22:38] <@Rae> Thanks for letting me share. Done
[22:38] * Chairperson sets mode: -m
