A Vision for Me

When I first came into this program, I really appreciated the section “A Vision for You” from the Big Book. In the first 25 years of my life, I had no “I”. My acting out had begun at age of 6, and got progressively worse. I really had no idea what being an individual meant. While certain traits and interests were my own, I was extremely motivated by what I thought the world wanted from me. I believed strongly in God from the age of 14 and that was an incredible guide for me. But despite my faith the lines between me and the world eventually blurred.

Acting out certainly didn’t help my lack of self-identity. When I felt pain or happiness, (or just about anything), there was no time to process it. I was lost in my addiction almost every night, either through intense acting out, or with romance novels and movies.

Shortly before I joined the program, I read a book. I wasn’t aware that this book would talk about programs. The author wrote about this idea of getting sober just for myself. That felt like the greatest commentary on life I had ever heard. I walked out of my room and said to a friend, “maybe we don’t need to change the world, maybe the reason I want to do better and be better can just be for me”. My friend thought that was ridiculous, but it didn’t matter. Something in me had been ignited. With that flame of self-realization, I was going to go to SA, and I was going to go just for me. Back when I acted out, I had this belief that I should stop so that I could go and help other women who had similar problems. I should get sober for their sake. In recovery, I dropped that belief. From now on, helping others was going to be a side effect. I needed to find myself. I needed to do this for me. It’s that famous line from Genesis “Go to yourself”. I had to go to myself and for myself.

When I entered the rooms I heard this passage “A Vision for You”. I clung to that idea. So many things in my life fell by the wayside – people-pleasing, and my high religious standards (I didn’t leave my religion, I just got rid of the stringencies). I felt very lonely because suddenly I saw all the superficial choices I had made in my life. I had been running in circles trying to do and help and give – trying to fill this void in myself. I was sad, scared, and lost, but I knew this little flame was growing. I was learning what it meant to be a person. New feelings entered my life, and I hated them because I didn’t even know how to feel them. The word “no” flew from my lips much quicker and much easier. I went to meetings all the time, because that was the only place I could sit, and sulk and just act exactly as I felt.

I must note, if I had let myself into this pain without the Steps, I wouldn’t have made it very far. These behaviors would have probably spiraled me into a depression. But because I was working my Steps as I let myself feel this new sadness, and because I had the guidance of a sponsor, I was slowly becoming sober.

It was over a year until I felt passionate again, an entire year of sobriety. I remember waiting to feel passion again. I was so used to the intense emotions in my acting out, but at the beginning of my sobriety, they were gone. In that first year, I was also confused by the concept of service. I hated service. In my acting out, I had been very giving. But, now, how would service fit into my Vision for You? How could service truly come from my sense of self? Over time, I have learned how. When my sense of self is truly strong, when I know my own emotions, listen to my heart, and am at peace with myself, then like a river my love can flow forth to others. When I know myself and my strengths and weaknesses, I know how much time I need to rest, and how much time I need to give. “No” isn’t an anthem – it’s a protector of my internal strength.

Where does God fit in? God is still my compass. The truth is that I still want what He wants. Just now I believe that what He wants from me, is not so different than what I want. He wants me to wake up in the morning and say the prayer that is right for me. He wants me to be honest at work. He wants me to go to bed. He wants me to get out of my room and go to meetings. He wants me to love myself. And maybe there is more in store, something grander, but that too must come from a simple place and not from want of recognition or validation,

Today I am still a baby version of myself. I have so much more to learn and understand about myself. I still sometimes fall into the search for external validation. I want people to think I have “good” sobriety. I want people to want to be my sponsee. I want to be seen as a genius at work. Things like that. But that stuff mostly just brings me back down into self-pity.

So for now I’ll stand by a Vision for Me! And hopefully, on my road to self-realization, I’ll do God’s will and help some others along the way.

I’ll end with this poem I wrote in my first few days of sobriety:

Deconstruction

I was whole and now I’m not
A hole, filled up with blood and guts
I cut myself open
I let myself bleed
And what I’m about to say
It won’t come easy

I cut and cut
Blood all over the floor
I cut deeper and deeper
I had to find the core
All of my wholeness, all of my past
Was holding me back
I had to find myself
I had to bring me back

And when I made it
when I was finally there
I found a little note
“Hope lives here”.

Now I’m deconstructed ready to rebuild
Not from sickness away from pills
I’m rebuilding me the one I had a lost
Truth and honesty that’s what it costs.