Craving

I kinda miss it. The buzz, the euphoria, the escape. I drank alone in my room mostly at night. But sometimes in the morning and during the day too. I would watch Dateline and 48 hours bc it made me feel better about myself. At least I wasn’t murdering people. I was just a drunk.

I think if it wasn’t for the shame I would still be doing it. My husband said “It just takes the life out of you”. And I liked that it did. I think so much, about everything. I’m like a sponge soaking up all that’s around me. If I see something awful happen to a child, it’s all I can think about for at least 2 weeks. I don’t watch the news because of it. The only time I could ever “handle” anything like that is if I was drunk. I don’t like feeling so deeply about things. I’ve prayed to be more simple. And the fight to become what I’m not meant to be usually just leads to being cynical and sarcastic. The walls go up around my heart and I become numb and cold.

But I do believe with all my heart that God makes us how we are supposed to be, to glorify Him. I’m like a magnet to those suffering or grieving. I feel like I’m boasting when I say that but if your like me and you don’t like your sensitive nature, you need to know that it’s really a gift. Compassion for others always cost something. Suffering is the price to pay to help others who are suffering in any real way. It makes their pain almost tangible because we’ve felt it. We know what it’s like to have our hearts torn apart by a death, or a loss, or getting sober.

This is what is helping me stay this path right now. To know that it’s not meaningless. The boredom, the cravings, the having to fill the time with something else, the being way too lazy and staying in bed too much and trying to work myself out of that-it’s doing something.

As I crave and have brief thoughts about taking a break from sobriety I have to remember I’m going somewhere good. It is so painful some days but the shame I felt when I couldn’t control it anymore and it’s all I could think about is not worth it. I don’t want to go back. I want to keep going. Even though it’s only been 35 days since I’ve stopped closing the blinds on my heart and mind and I’ve got such a long way to go, it will be worth it. God says so. And I believe Him. 🙂

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.^{[a] 6} If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. ⁷ Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

⁸ For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers,^[b] of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. ⁹ Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. ¹⁰ He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. ¹¹ You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. 2 Corinthians 1:3-11