The professional break-up

As someone who worked within one job function for the better part of my career, getting laid off brought on change that was unexpected and not overwhelming comfortable. I've found in the last two weeks, being laid off bears many parallels to the throes of a personal relationship break-up. One where my job has essentially up and left me to deal with picking up the pieces (duly noted that this is a strange economic time, but the parallels are still similar).

Similar to the first few days of a break-up, denial followed by a sense of euphoria were the key emotions. I was in shock. Suddenly, it was over. Regardless of how happy or unhappy I was about the five hour commute or the inner workings of corporate politics, life as I knew it was over. I lamented about what I could have done differently (I don't think it would have mattered in the slightest). I questioned my part of the "break-up". I had difficulty fathoming what I would do next without my job, my security and, parallel to a relationship, professional identity. All of it was beyond my control, as with someone being left in a relationship, and everything scared me desperately.

After this brief period (again, these are strange economic times), I began the euphoric process of change. Suddenly, I was not tied to the commute. My blackberry stopped incessantly beeping with e-mails. My calendar went from overloaded with meetings to completely clear. I realized that I could do whatever I wanted, my independence was back and I was free of stress. I felt very similar to the days after my marriage broke up. I spent two days walking around my property thinking about my next steps. I smelled the air. I felt the wind. I was free of my own expectations and responsibility of another. Anything was now possible.

And then, like any break-up, reality and grief began to set in. Panic, due to the financial constraints I now faced. Euphoria was great, but brief. What the hell was I going to do now? I spent two days on the couch depressed and anxious.

Fast forward a few days, as it is now coming up to three weeks. I'm in a new routine. I'm not thrilled to not be working, but opportunities that were unexpected have been presenting themselves to me. Sort of like the dating after a marriage, not familiar but refreshing.

I'm adjusting to no blackberry. I've taken up pilates again. The book WILL be finished by the end of the summer. The boxes with all my belongings came, I cried for a few hours and then wrote my own personal "dear work" letter. And let it go.

It's about reinvention. Staying in the moment and knowing that things will improve at some point. In the meantime, I no longer have to worry about the metro north increase or what my client may or may not say. I'm re-energized for life, sans the paycheck.

So, good-bye to my job, it was special and I learned a great deal. But, it's over and the time has come to move on.

Movement

Finally, here in the NorthEast...the thaw of a long winter has begun. Regardless of any more snow, cold days, ice, etc....winter has ended and the renewal of spring has arrived.

With this, I find movement.

Hitting Bottom...Sober

Some people say that an addict hits bottom before he pulls himself up and begins the arduous and thrilling road of recovery. To some extent, I believe this to be true. Moments before I decided to become sober, I had essential hit what I knew to be my bottom. I lost a husband, friends, and most of my personal dignity. I was forlorn and lost, love was absent and all respect for myself had washed down the drain faster than I had would have ever imagined.

Hence, the road to my own recovery began and seven years later I've blogged and given speeches and taken pictures showing the world what sobriety can do for someone. I've had the pink cloud of euphoria following me and dissipate as quickly over the years, knowing the personal work I was responsible for creating thunderstorms while figuring out how truly life changing being sober was.

I've been walking, running and stumbling through my sobriety over the years, never questioning my choice not to drink but certainly questioning the the choices that I make in my everyday and emotional life.

So, here I have been: Sober and relatively happy but not altogether satisfied with where I am. Moving forward at a slower pace than the first two years. Not completely comfortable being me sober and definitely not comfortable being me in my former skin. And months ago, I realized that I am starting to slide towards the bottom again. I'm not talking about picking up a bottle, that would be entirely too easy. It's so much more subtle than that: I have been living in fear. Fear of love. Fear of life. Fear of taking all the tools I've learned in my sobriety and applying them to my life. It was like living in limbo for the last few years, not making wrong decisions but staying very clear of the right ones.

And yesterday, I truly truly hit my sober bottom. It was unexpected in a sense. I was having a bad day, playing emotional tug of war with my past, realizing my present wasn't what I wanted it to be and just suddenly realizing that I have been hiding in the shadows of my own recovery. Outwardly, I have been rock solid. Inwardly, I have been so scared that allowing myself to love again, to live again would cause the same pain I've felt so many times in my life. And I'd grown accustom to just hiding from the life I could very well be living.

I cried yesterday for almost six hours straight. I cried so hard I just didn't know how to stop. I started thinking about my marriage, my old relationships, old life, loves, fears, etc. And then I stopped crying. I stopped and thought about where I was. It was my bottom.....sober.

So, today, after sinking to my emotional low, I feel as if a new chapter begins. Doesn't it always? That I deserve love and life just as much as anyone, regardless of my past and those events that have put me where I am today. My voice, continues. My life, moves forward. My love, renewed.

And, today, I think that hitting bottom happens at many points and in many variations. It's a chance to pick-up and move on. A chance to find out what needs to happen to attain the life we are so entitled to and deserve.

So, bottom's up, I say....today is a good day.

Everyone has a story....

I was born with a sixth finger, a pinkie that was removed about 24 hours after I was alive. Not a big deal by medical standards, but by being born with an extra digit, I came out strange and screaming with a story from the get go.

Many decades later, I still have a story and I'm still slightly different (I don't think it has anything to do with the removed appendage) but the difference is that now I have a voice to tell the tales I live.

This week, I celebrate my seventh year of sobriety and again, I look back on my "story" to gain insight and perspective on my own life and how it relates to the overall ways of the world.

My story leading to recovery is universal. I drank, I walked down a tumultuous path in life and I hit my own proverbial bottom. Nothing hugely earth shattering, but I was starting to run down the path of serious self destruction instead of walking and I got smart, I stopped for a moment to look at where I was headed. I changed direction and used everything in my power and resource bank to ensure that the direction I was heading would lead me to the most advantageous place in life.

Seven years later, my story is now grounded in recovery instead of addiction. I have been able to take the voice I was born with (again, reference the "came out screaming") and use it both to help others and learn from the world around me. I am not an expert in recovery, but rather, an individual who has decided to share my life with anyone willing to change their own direction.

After seven years, the struggle to be sober remains as critical as ever. I fight my urges and insecurities on a daily basis. I strive to collectively take everything I am learning and win the battle against my detrimental addiction that almost cost me my life on many occasions. In today's economic meltdown, I struggle with how to make sense of what's going on and am trying to do so with those things I have learned in my recovery; Patience, acceptance and faith.

All things considered, patience consists of taking each day as it is. I can not control all the elements around me, but I can remember to be patient with myself, my job, the economy, etc. Every day has become just that, every day. I live in the moment more than ever, I try very very hard not to consume myself with the future because I just don't know what's going to happen. And I accept this inability to predict the future. I accept the things that I cannot control. But, take responsibility and pride in those things that I can.

This is where faith comes in. I have faith that no matter what, I will remain sober. I may end up in a different place on many fronts, but I will always see my sobriety as a constant source of faith that, when things were at the lowest point in my own life, I pulled myself up and recovered. And, universally, we will do the same when the time is right. The principals of recovery can be carried over into so many more elements of life than just addiction. It means having faith in oneself, having faith in the ability to persevere and believing that what one is doing is honest and true.

So, seven years later I no longer find myself focusing so much on how I got here. That was the easy part. I do focus on why I have chosen to live my life sober, reasons that are far more fulfilling than why I chose to live my life drunk. I have chosen to live each day as a gift. I am alive, I am able to interact with thousands of people who are living a similar life and I have been given a gift to be able to speak freely and candidly about my journey.

Thank you all very much for being here. You've made the journey very real and true.

The Sober Door © Book Excerpt

I've been writing a book for the last few months, it's a fictional labor of love about a woman who comes to terms with her sobriety. Since I have been getting a lot of e-mails regarding the book and am appreciative of all the support, I've decided to post the unedited first draft version of the preface to "The Sober Door".....stay tuned in the next year, it will be out there.....
Thanks,
Kim

The Sober Door ©

Preface

Locked in. Barricaded from the outside. He spared me. Saved me. Threw me with resounding force. Conflicted. I am being spared. I am being enveloped in blackness. I can hear him. Screaming outside. Ranting, ranting, ranting.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? ALL OF YOU?”

I know that I am safe for the moment. I know he is hurting everyone outside the door. I am shut in, shut out from him. They are outside. I am safe. I am spared. The noise of the punches. Each slap stings. Screams. Cries. It rings in my ears. I hear my brother screaming. My mother screaming. I am eneveloped in blackness. The vibration of each hit comes through the floor. I cannot see beyond the door in front of me.

“I NOT THE MAN YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE.”

I know I want him. I want him to open the door. I want him to bring me out, beat me and take me out of this dark place he has sequestered me to. I want to feel the pain. EACH and EVERY lash that is being inflicted.I have been in here for hours, this I know. Cramped and cowering, only wishing that he would love me enough to hit me too. I can smell his breathe, even from inside the tomb I am in. Acid. Fire. Sweetness. His nose, white like Christmas. His eyes wild as he had pushed my thrashing limbs. I was left out of the carnage. .I hear everything but cannot see. I am so desperate not to be forgotten in the massacre.

“YOU ARE ALL F**** NUTS”

For a moment, I hear his hand on the door knob. I think, “he’s going to bring me out.” I am not scared. I am ready to handle his wrath as it is inherently mine. I tremble. For once, I am not forgotten. I will be his daughter. I will wipe his tears away with my hand. He will know that I want him.

And quickly, his hand is gone.

All goes silent. I hear whimpering. It is my own. I know he is gone. Left me here in the closet. Darkness. I am alone. I don’t know where he is going or how long but he won’t be back. He went too far. He left me.

He forgot to leave my present. He forgot to sing, to blow out the candles. He forgot to tell Mom that I only eat chocolate frosting. Today is my sixth birthday. I am locked in the closet.

After the Holidays

Years ago, I used to find that the most depressing time of the year happened right after the holidays. The celebrations were over, the list of resolutions that I had made was already lost in the post-holiday shuffle and the coldness of winter was finally becoming reality. It was a time of looking back at the year prior and wondering if the regrets of my actions would follow me into the new year.

When I became sober, the post holiday period was more of a sigh of relief....I had made it through the social maze of skipped invitations and constant reminders of what I was missing out on (or so I thought at the time).

The last few years, however, I look at the post holiday period as a great time of self reflection. I no longer make lists of resolutions I know I will not keep. I have only one real and true resolution that I live every day of my life. Everything else, because of my constant resolve, is falling into place with the work that I put into being sober.

One thing I do around this time is take inventory of my goals and objectives. Where am I within my sober life? Where do I want to be this year? This month? This day? Resolutions, post holiday periods are more about asserting what we are living with and reflecting on how we can achieve even more balance in the months to come.

Today, my personal inventory looks a lot more like an orderly pantry than cluttered attic desperate for reorganizing. Sure, the cans on the shelves may still be stacked in slight disarray, but it's accessible and ready for cold winter days of reflection.

Happy New Year

So, New Years Day 2009. 530am. I'm on my way from getting coffee since I went to bed on New Year's Eve at 8pm thanks to my resolve not to go out on NYE anymore. Car dies (thanks to my 90,000 mile BMW that neither Healey Brothers nor BMW corporate would help at all). I walk home in 2 degree weather with pajamas on. Three miles into it I am picked up by the local newspaper delivery guy making his far too early rounds. I am freezing, he knows me from another lifetime. I am so grateful.

Get home, news is not good. No car. I'm likely paying for it for the next two years. Instead of the complete panic that normally envelopes me, I start thinking of my options (having it stolen, though it crossed my mind, is not one of them)......

I realize that, no matter what, I still have options. Was it a mistake to buy the car? Yes. Am I completely humbled? Absolutely. Do I still have my health and happiness? Most definitely.

As much of an inconvenience as it is, I am still here and alive. I still have family that was able to lend me another car for the time being (humbled once more driving a truck with 237,000 miles that actually runs!). I was freezing walking home but survived. I have seen great kindness from strangers, friends and family. Everyone is chipping in when years ago, they may not have been so apt to help.

In all, I am pretty lucky. I finally got back to my car four hours later (and again, kindness from the tow truck guy who picked me up at home), there was a yellow flower and a newspaper with a note written: "Hope your 2009 gets better. Smile". I actually smiled. In the wake of such shallow disparity, I still have the things that mean the most. And then some.

Happy New Year!