A Second Step Forward

Part of my recovery, aside from going to therapy and attending meetings of a 12-step orientation, is to find all the people I’ve hurt with my behavior in addiction and make right, where and if possible. This task has been looming above me for almost 8 months, the possibility I’d see the men from my life I’d run from almost entirely consuming my thoughts, my heart. I’ve had dreams of them since I ran, each one returning to me in the night when my ego is asleep, or perhaps wide awake, and reminding me of just how much I hurt them, or the terrible ways I left. Because that’s what I do. I run.

Every time I go to therapy, I have to check in with Beans. Hi my name is Jennie, I’m a sex addict and an alcoholic. I use drugs, men, women, places and things to numb the feelings inside. I run from anything resembling intimacy. I masturbate compulsively as well as cheat. This check in is something I’ve been doing since May, and the cheating thing is something I just added on. It never occurred to me that cheating would be part of the addictive behavior. My attempt at distancing myself from intimacy. My feeble effort to sabotage any true connection. The nature of my addictive and offending behavior is always followed with someone I’ve hurt through my life as an addict. Because I’ve been going to therapy for over 8 months, at first twice a week and now down to once, I felt as though I was running out of people I’d hurt~ which felt nice. Truth of the matter surfaced the other day in a conversation with one of the few x-boyfriends still in my life.

He reminded me of something I did, and it’s not that he even really reminded me. It’s that he told me. And I had no recollection of the incident. At all.

I spent the afternoon trying to piece back together the blips of memory I have from this time in my life, but between my black out drinking and ability to misfile memories, found it hard to even remember how long I was out for, how long the vacation in Vegas lasted (shoulda known I’d do fucked up shit in Vegas), who all was there and who all I fucked. I remember Him getting a bloody nose in Mandalay Bay. I remember Cedric the coke dealing limo driver. I have nothing else. Blegh. So today in therapy I got to revisit two men I’d hurt, but with newly remembered reasons of why they’d been hurt. And the session reminded me I must track these men down and speak with them. Face to face. I gotta tell em.

I gotta tell him I did wrong. That it was wrong of me to treat him as I did. To take advantage of him, to lie, cheat and steal. It was wrong of me to use him as if his feelings didn’t matter. Wrong to throw aside his humanity for my desires. My ego and pride got in the way of my usefulness, of me being a good person, and I want him to know that I’m willing to do whatever he needs to make it right. Even if it means never talking to him again. I just have to clean up my side of the street, and I won’t be able to deal with these addictions until I take that action.

I also had a big realization about my mother today, and because I’m not sure whether she reads this or not, I’m going to refrain from discussing it here. But some things became very clear this afternoon, and I felt a little lost, a bit confused. I came home and made snickerdoodles, cookies she always made for me as a child. I ate the dough until my stomach hurt, ate almost every cookie I baked. I also asked my Dad to buy me a plane ticket up to see him for Christmas, and thankfully he had enough miles he could make it happen. So, this year, my first year of sobriety, I’m spending the holiday with my father. The first time since I was 13. Which is exactly how old I feel right now.

I’m going to bed. My tummy hurts, and Saucy and kitty are already warming up the bed for me. My little lovebugs.

Tagged: awake, coke, face to face, fucked, hurt, recovery, therapy, wrong, x-boyfriends

Posted in: Good Days