Living in a Bubble...a story of recovery

I've lived in a bubble all my life... an illusory bubble of love...and escape.

the fantasy is, that 'love' never fails...

the reality is, love does fail...at least the kind of love I knew...

and when it does, the bubble bursts, and all that love oozes out...and there is suffering...

the highs and lows of this 'thing' called love...

the fantasy of this 'spirituality love', is the most difficult to crack.

i should know...that was me.

there was so much pain to be be dealt with...so many dark nights of the soul...
i flew higher on the fantasy of love's wings then i ever did on drugs and alcohol...

then; i hit bottom...

looking back, i can see where not only was i perpetuating my 'own' fantasy...and suffering, but i was feeding other's, as well.

i am not saying that it was not just as it was suppose to be...it was...

i could not see until i could see...

i could not hear until i could hear...

do not regret the past nor wish to slam the door on it.

in retrospect...the past is my set of tools, that may help other 'me's'.

some may be thinking here, "what good is love in a bubble?"

it is used as an 'individuals' cushion from the world and reality...
at least that was my experiencing of it...
the love, because it is dualistic, cannot flow to others now that the bubble has burst.

could only appear to flow when i was cushioned by it...
but sense this worldly concept of love is not real...it did not flow anywhere...ever.
i honestly believe that i was born a bubble person.

i never felt like i fit in the world.

when i was just a small child, i was such a loner. i spent hours playing by myself,
and i enjoyed it. i was always very sensitive. my feelings were worn on my sleeves
so-to-speak, and i did not have friends, unless of course you would consider all
the adults that were always in my life. at the age of ten i began performing on stage,
and all there ever were...were adults. i always had a show to do, so living a normal
teenage life was out of the question, and i did not date, or go out with friends,
until much later, when i began to drink and drug, and that was me just trying to 'fit in'.
 

there was a time in my life however; that i did 'feel' like i fit. there was this church that we visited when i was about 14 or 15; the spiritual high that i got from being in the middle of 'those' people, was wonderful.

later in life, i would remember that, and return to it.

first though, i embarked on 'fitting in'. i was tired of being made fun of at school, for singing country music. that was before Barbara Mandrell and her "I was Country, when Country wasn't cool" song came out, and i was determined that i was going to be cool at any cost...

guess the universe had something along the line of that too, because it wasn't long before the boundary lines for our school district changed, and i found myself at another school...and really 'cool'.

i was drinking and smoking pot, and hitchhiking down to Overton Square,where i was served whatever i wanted to drink. even got to see Billy Joel, the Piano man...i had arrived...i was cool.

my first drunk lasted 3 days. it was on PGA 180 proof. trying to impress my newly aquired 'cool' friends, i downed 3/4's of the bottle. was out of it for three days. my daddy cried, my mom beat me...and then cried, and took care of me. they were very worried, but back then, it would have been too embarassing to take me to the emergency room. so, it was hidden, and forgiven...from then on, my parents looked the other way, as not to be hurt. after all, i always had a reason for going out; singing...so that made it 'all' ok. and they just pretended that everything was FINE...(that means something other in recovery!)
 

all my 'cool' friends were shooting preludes and demerol at the time. i was in waco texas singing at a holiday inn...on my own...at 16. i had gotten so messed up the night before (on pills and booze) i was to leave for the gig that i almost drowned (we were playing in the Mississippi River). i let some guy drive my car, who was even more messed up than i was, and he busted the oil pan, and the motor locked up. my mom and dad had to come find me the next day...

hey...'the show must go on' right? and at 16, passed out in the camper part of our RV, my parents drove me from Memphis to Texas...without so much as a word about what had happened...and they left me.

i had my first 'spiritual experience' in that hotel in Waco. I saw a light...very beautiful and bright, shining on a cross. i was filled with such awe, and sorrow at the same time...i had been raised in a real strick 'church of christ', which lasted until singing and my projected career became more important...to everyone but me.

i called my mom and told her what had happened. i told her i was sorry and that i wanted to live my life according to God's will. she said something like...ok baby...the next night, i was singing in the bar; made fast friends with the waitress, and began drinking...a lot.

when i did make it back to Memphis (my mom and dad had made one trip, to drop off my car after getting it fixed), i began running with my 'cool' friends again, and began shooting preludes. BI62's...it was a diet pill.

there was a recording contract in the works, but i was too fucked up to notice or care. i was esacping...what i did best...first as a little girl through paragoric that was given for all the stomach pains i always had...but that stopped when i started singing...and i began escaping on stage.
 

when that stopped working...drugs and alcohol...baby...i was right in the middle of it...was a hippy and was a happy hippy...thought i had arrived...thought i would follow in Janis Joplins footsteps...she was my heroess...how ironic is that? i had changed my music, and was singing anything but country...out the window my contract went; i stopped showing up, or when i did, i was fucked up...

ok...enough of the drunk-a-log...

you might say that my second spiritual awakening was when i had my son.

i stopped everything cold turkey...even cigerettes...and started reading the bible, trying to prove the church of christ wrong, but with my conditioning and frame of reference, i could only prove it right...

back to church i went, child in tow...trying to be perfect...and once again, escaping into that spirituality that so many of us do, called organized religion.

I WAS INSANE!  lol.

how could i not be? but i functioned; going to church every time the doors opened...my husband whom i had drank and drugged with, what must he have thought...

he was not a healthy choice, but then neither was i...he had just gotten out of prison and i fell into bed with him while i was still married to one of his best friends.

it did not matter that my first husband did not love me...he did not...but i was on a path of destruction and i did not care...all this would come back to torture me later...because of my beliefs of marriage and adultry and remarriage at the time...

i literally 'suffered' tragically for my so-called sins...and most of it was psychological.

anyways...here i was in church...trying to live a perfect life...and crazy as a betsy bug...or crazier! a small son and a daughter on the way.

intermission...haha

what can wash away my sins...
nothing but the blood of jesus.
what can make me whole again...
nothing but the blood of jesus...

how precious is the flow,
that makes me white as snow...
no other fount i know,
nothing but the blood of jesus.
 

oh how i believed!

jesus was going to set me free...

luckily for me...the universe had it covered...

a lady came up to me in church...my sweet joycee...and took pregnant me and my son under her wing...she kept talking about this shirley woman that had helped her, and so many others, and she couldn't wait for me to meet her.

i had begun having flash backs of sexual abuse...from many sources, and she wanted me to go visit this lady that had helped her and many others. at the time i did not know that i was mentally and emotionally ill...needless to say spiritually conditioned. and they were very gentle with me. it was sooooooooo painful finding out that i did not behave normally. i had always sworn i would not end  like 'others' in my family who were terribly mentally ill...but i had.

anyways, this lady turned out to be the one that i had met at that church where i had felt 'a part of' in my early teens...so, i went to see her, and she began counseling me.

after i had my daughter, Charlie Riches manager came to my house with his wife, and offered me a recording contract. he wanted to get me a nanny and a psychiatrist...haha...everyone knew i was nuts but me...i could not see myself as others saw me...and it would be many years before i even could begin to.

i turned the contract down because 'i knew' that it was not gods will for me...and apparently, i was correct, and the universe once again, took me in its arms...and cared for me, when i did not have a clue as how to care for myself.

a single mother...nuts as could be, trying to be perfect and raise two perfect children in the church of christ.

eventually, we moved in with shirley, as it turned out, her husband was mentally ill, along with her son, and so she had had a lot of experience dealing with nuttiness...and she believed it to be her path to help others, and she always did. she was like a female guru...the sick and crazy and those that the church paid no attention to...the throw aways, were always at her house...we all loved her...she was amazing...and loved truth...and of course, it was even a stricter version of the church of christ truth than i had been raised with...if that could have been possible...and it was...it was like a cult...we did not even wear jeans, nor say shoot or darn...it was wild...but i believed...with all my heart and all my soul.

anyways, this was a very painful time mentally and emotionally, and before i knew it, it became painful physically.

had already ruptured my jaw discs in a swimming pool accident, and had fallen from a tree about 20 feet when i was 5 or 6.

now i was carrying mail and fell to my low back herniating a disc.

then i got hit by a drunk driver.

then i fell again...

i think it was a number of things that took me back out after 4 and half years of not using drugs and alcohol...

when i fell to my back, here came the perscription drugs...they made me even crazier than i was...but in a different way...plus, i had just really been torn apart divorcing my second husband and going back to my first husband because that is what the church taught...turned out to be a trick between the husbands...joke was on me...remember they were friends, well, my second husband wanted me back, so he put my first husband up to getting back together with me, and yes i slept with him and was so happy; he was going to church with me, i believed we were still married in gods eyes, and my divorce from my second husband was had...confused yet? it gets better...then...one morning...think it was the day before my birthday...

he was gone.

enters the kids daddy...wanting me to come back to him...of course i wouldn't...he was not a very nice man...he had raped me, and cheated on me...anyways...how crazy is all of that?

what was even crazier is that i thought that i could have this normal life, when later the elders son and i fell in love...haha...daddy elder and mama church a christers were not going for that...i was a marked woman...two small children...two husbands...

think that is when and where the church of christ and i finally parted.

i had done everything according to their teachings...and yet...i did not live up to their standards...finally i began to see the hypocracy, and of course i was crushed...and wham...the accident...in the hospital...and here we go...

i was in a lot of physical, mental, and emotional pain...

shirley was having problems of her own...and i think she saw that i was going in another direction...we all were...there was a teaching going around that blew most of what the church of christ taught anyways out of the water...and we had all been studying it...i loved truth...and i always had an opened mind...searched the scriptures...and was looking for it the only place i knew too...

anyways, out of the hospital, and the post office was trying to fire me because they did not want to have to pay me...i was injured on the job...and they just had another girl that had an accident that they were paying, and they did everything they could not to have to pay me...it eventually worked, and they forced me to resign...and i was left with two small children, a fucked up mind, body, and spirit! haha...so...i decided to start drinking again...to prove i could do it in moderation...NOT...

between the pills and the booze i was soon landed in the hospital...had a good doctor...lots of thorazine and then xanax...OMG...

well...soon my friend joycee came to the rescue...and i moved back to Memphis...stopped drinking, but hey...kept getting those pills.

can remember one night inparticular, my children and i were forced to sleep in this very small run down trailer...it was burning up hot...and i stayed up all night brushing the bugs off my babies...

i eventually returned to alcohol...and illegal drugs...moved here...moved there...

don't know how we made it...except by the grace God...

everytime i got sober...the physical pain and the emotional pain of memories would come flooding back, and i was just unable to...or unwilling...to face them...

there were periods of sobriety...but most of my life i ran...i ran to alabama...back to memphis...then to texas...back to memphis...on to california...back to memphis...illinois...yep...memphis...then to nashville...

ok...we are up to 1990 now...this is when i moved to nashville and got introduced to AA.

everything that they say about AA is true...if your drinking is not fucked up by the time you get there...IT WILL BE!

i had spent the last year and a half in Memphis drinking and smoking crack...

prior to that i had done 'some' cocaine...snorted some a few times, and shot some a few times...just a few...but it could have been a lot worse...

during this time...the drug use was off and on, but i got a dui...i was not drunk...i was high on cocaine and speeding...flying in the car with my drunk friends...now they were drunk!  lol.

anyways...i wrote a lot of my anti drug songs then...

Judgment

Have you ever been out in the streets,
No where to sleep,
And the only thing to eat comes from a garbage can?
I sold my guitar,
My keyboards too,
Being destitute will make you do,
Some real strange things,
Lord it's time for a change.

Who are you to be judging me,
Smoke another cigarette ,
Have some caffeine with your tea.

Have you ever been out in the rain,
You did all the drugs you could to ease the pain,
But it wont go away,
No it wont go away.
Now you're strung out,
You don't know what to do,
Can you do what they're telling you to?
They've got you where they want you,
There's no place to turn.

Who are you to be judging me,
Take another Prozac ,
Or have yourself a triple martini.

Somebody somewhere
Is crying right now,
They want to quit the bottle but they don't know how,
This world is insane,
Tell me who's to blame.

Who are you to be judging me,
Eat yourself to death,
Or pass the Valium please.
tlcoriginals...
 

From The Cradle To The Grave...(Rock a Bye Baby)

rock a bye bye baby in the tree top
take a bullit through the head or just smoke you some ready rock
the bough's gonna break, the cradle will fall...
from the cradle to the grave...what's the point of it all?

they're full of hate and anger, they grow up mean
they don't give a damn about another human being
there was a little girl, running playing in the yard.
it was her 5th or 6th birthday, she didn't run far
a drive by shooting and there she lay, with a bullit in her brain,
from the cradle to the grave...

rock a bye bye baby in the tree top,
take a bullit through the head or just smoke you some ready rock
the bough's gonna break, the cradle will fall
from the cradle to the grave, what's the point of it all?

another kid is strappin' poppin caps for fun,
can't be more than ten or twelve, and wont see twentyone
it's war out there, no time to be afraid, they know sooner or later
they'll be laying in a grave...
a mother's somewhere cryin' and thru her tears she'll pray...
for the soul of her child, from the cradle to the grave...

there's drugs on every corner, no one is really safe,
bullits fly thru windows, and life's a risk you take...
no matter where you live, no matter what you do
there's a loaded gun somewhere with a pop for you
no one is really safe, from the cradle to the grave...
no one is really safe, from the cradle to the grave...

rock a bye bye baby, in the tree top
take a bullit thru the head or just smoke you some ready rock
the bough's gonna break, and the cradle will fall,
from the cradle to the grave, what's the point of it all?

tlcoriginals...

Lady

She use to be a lady, now she walks the streets alone,
She's given up on finding love, she only crys cause the crack is gone;
She sells her body for a little piece of poisen,
Lord I wonder will she sell her soul?
Her eyes are wild and hollow,
Her face is thin and her heart's turned cold,

Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Only God knows.

She had a true love once upon a time,
But he had a main lady on the side,
White powder all rocked up...
Smoke your lights out smoke it all up.
She can still remember her first taste,
Oh baby oh what a waste,
Now her man has left her alone,
She only cries cause the rocks are gone

Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Only God knows.

Tears are on her pillow, she cries herself to sleep,
No one's left to listen, no more promises that she can't keep,
She lies to herself says it'll be different this time,
Out of all the ones she's loved and hurt and lost...
It's herself she left behind.

Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Who's gonna save her? Only God knows.

tlcoriginals.

Painted Lady...

Painted Lady dresses up every night,
She paints her face up,
Stays out with the lights,
She's in your memory,
Baby she'll be in your dreams,
She's just a fantasy,
When reality can't be...

Painted Lady,
Lonely child...
Painted Lady,
Running wild...
Painted Lady,
Such a lonely, such a lonely, lonely child...
She's still running wild....

Painted Lady's got some time on her hands,
And when she wants too, she can understand,
Just where you're coming from, baby where you been?
She's gonna be your lover; gonna be your friend,

Painted Lady,
Lonely child...
Painted Lady,
Running wild...
Painted Lady,
Such a lonely, such a lonely, lonely child...
She's still running wild.

Painted Lady, likes to drink her booze,
And once she gets high, the rest is up to you,
Gonna be in her memory, baby you'll be in her dream,
Gonna be her fantasy, when reality can't be...

Painted Lady,
Lonely child...
Painted Lady,
Running wild...
Painted Lady,
Such a lonely, such a lonely, lonely child...
She's still running wild.

Painted Lady...

tlc...

so many songs...so much pain...so many dark nights of the souls where i begged...literally begged God to help me...and i suppose...the Universe did just that...drugs and alcohol probably saved my life...and my writing...hundreds and hundreds of songs and poems...literally...

it was not over yet...the drugs and alcohol...

i moved to Nashville...begged my mom to help me...initially i had just come for a visit, and she was going to buy me and the kids a place in Memphis, but something within me KNEW...that if i stayed in Memphis...i would die...i deeply loved Jesus and God and wanted to be what they wanted me to be and of course believed i was not...i was no good...i was addicted to drugs and alcohol and not being present in my life nor in my childrens life...so much guilt...shame...but every time i got sober i remembered all these horrible things that had happened to me as a small child...and all the mistakes i had made, so i just kept on doing what i had to do to forget...

anyways, when i moved to Nashville...i had begged my mom not to send me away, and she ended up buying me a Condo not far from her house...

and the kids and i went to AA...had them in meetings that were for small children of alcoholics...and i went back to college...all was going well...we were in family counseling...

then i made a very bad decision...i went and got my boyfriend...that i had done drugs with...and decided that i was going to 'rescue' him...moved him here...and it wasn't six months before i was drinking again... and smoking pot...thank god it was pot and not crack...but still...a drug is a drug is a drug...and alcohol was enough to make me crazy...i was a mad woman...on and off...

but i was this full of love person when i was high...lol...so giving and loving...loved God and Jesus...preached AA...to those friends of my son who were messing around with coke...but hey...they were all at my house drinking and smoking pot...my insanity decided that it was better that they do it at my house than to be doing it elsewhere...

that is just how i thought...CRAZY!

by this time i was getting sick...physically having back and bladder problems due to my back injuries...and had to withdraw from college.

i managed to stay clean for brief periods; especially after i was prescribed pain pills, i hardly ever drank. nor did i smoke pot...was back in AA...miss AA at that! popping those pills, but as directed...it is just i was having so many surgeries; the doctors were trying to fix me...that i was on very large doses...

and i was convinced that everything was ok...was back in church...trying to live right...flying high...

relapse...clean...relapse...clean...relapse...clean...relapse...clean

this went on for many more years...

during this time, i had gotten bought a copy of The Nag Hamaddi Library.

I studied it...and i was elated! I had found the answer at last!

was clean...going to a health spa, getting massages which was helping my pain, swimming, and doing water arobics...going to AA and church...

this was my pattern...and then something would happen; usually a fall; a car wreck; or I'd get thrown up against the wall...something would inevitably happen, and i would always see no other choice but to drink and drug...

eventually, kicked the boyfriend out after almost ten years...there was some sick stuff he was doing, but i was too busy drinking and drugging to notice...more guilt, anger, and shame...but of course Jesus always, always, got me through everything...if i did not believe anything else...i believed in Jesus's teachings, and by god...i followed them...i thought...at least the way i understood them...but to be that passive, i had to have drugs...i did not have a clue as to who i was...because i had never ever really been able to be honest enough to face myself...

i did have another spiritual experience...

i was having to go to AA meetings, court ordered...yet another dui...and at a candlelight meeting i found a God of my understanding and picked up a desire chip, and started getting serious about staying clean and sober. that was 1994...it lasted a year.

then the experimental surgeries...on my bladder...and kidneys...

more pills...two major surgeries on my jaws...

boyfriend gone in 1998...i broke down...moved back to Memphis for eight months...got back on crack...went down real quick...way down...weighed about 100 lbs...was dying...

came back to Nashville...

by this time, my family had given up i think...

got sober again...

started going back to church...same pattern...same thing...

July of 2004, my daughter had gotten a computer. i was over there a lot babysitting, and found a little spiritual forum on Reluctant Messenger...

this began my unconditioning...

this began my path to freedom...

it took going back out again...getting whacked out...falling in love...having my heart broken...losing everything i had...even my freedom...

haha...WHAT FREEDOM!

in AA, it is said that one should always remember their last drunk...

i do...

funny, it happened months before i got sober...

it is important to know, that alcohol was my love; my best friend;

but it turned on me...the last time i used alcohol, i ended up 200 miles away from home in a hospital, and i looked like someone had beat the holy shit out of me...

someone did...i did...

i had emptied the jug of wine and began hitting myself in the head with it...got out of the car i was in (thank god i was not driving), and beat my face and head further into the graveled pavement...i do not remember any of this. i was in a black out. full of not only wine but drugs of all kinds...

want to know the insanity of this dis-ease? i still continued to use drugs!!!!!!!

sure they were perscribed...and when they stopped working...and they did...i started smoking large amounts of crack...

i think that must of been when my friend chip started praying again!

haha...i love you chip... 

on May 6th 2006...about 3 months after my last drunk...i was arrested at my mothers home...i was so high on morphine, and other drugs that i do not remember much...

that was a little over 16 months ago...

i have been clean and sober ever since...not a pill nor a drink... 

my journey sober is mostly recorded on one of my blogs...those that would like to read it, the link is on my profile page...

there are other links that have my journey of awakening also...which coincides with my sobriety...

i am grateful to all those that have loved me through it all...

my life is pretty damn wonder full today...

i still do not know to much about living life on life's terms...

even though i do go to meetings, i am not real close to anyone...

i am still maturing emotionally...and getting healthy physically and mentally...

i am growing up...and learning to live instead of escaping, which is all i have ever known and all i have ever done.

i was a true believer in the idea that 'love never fails', and if you did not...i was sure gonna try and cram it down your throat!

little did i know that i did not know the first thing about anything...

i have had to start from basically nothing...emotionally, i was maybe two when i finally was FORCED by the powers of the Universe into sobriety.

i do remember praying that last night...it was a cry of desperation really...

"God please help me, i cannot go on like this!"

the next day i was in jail; about a month latter i was in rehab...then in drug court...having to piss in a cup about three times a week for the first few months...drug classes, intensive outpatient treatment...

hey i needed every bit of it...

i will be graduating drug court on September 19...this means that my record will be wiped clean, and i will be free of all the restrictions, and there have been many...that were consequences of my own behaviour and actions.

between chip's suggesting Wei Wu Wei, back several months ago, and drug court...and the 12  steps of recovery...my ego has been bashed down pretty good...

i go to a meeting every day...not because i am court ordered, cause i only have to make two a week, but i go because i want to go...well, sometimes i go because i don't want to go...haha...

my relationships with my family are better than they ever have been...

they have forgiven me...and they are proud of me...

i cannot imagine my life any other way...

today i live in the moment as much as i am able too...

today i am happy, joyous, and free...

today i am at peace...

the first three months of my sobriety were spent in jail; i went through rehab, in jail. i had gotten out at one point, but the judge had me locked back up because he had heard that i was planning to run...i had a resentment about this for a long time, because i had no intention of running...but, looking back on it, as usual...the cosmic universe was in charge, and maybe saw something down the road that i was not able to see...

a large part of my 12 step program, speaks to this...turning over my will and my life to a power greater than myself...(third step)

to me, that just means a power greater than my ego...which has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off all its life...haha

the first step is admitting to how powerless i am...and how unmanagable my life was by me...that was obvious to you guys right? well it should be just as obvious that i did not have a clue...

this is where that living in a bubble comes in...big time.

i did not realize it, but i had been living in this bubble all my life...

see, i had convinced myself that i was doing God's will...don't laugh...i am serious.

i lived in a world of my own...fantasy land, where love conquered all, and never failed, and if i just kept on keeping on...i was going to turn out to be Cinderella and all my dreams were going to come true...magically...

i had never faced myself, nor had i ever, really believed that i was ever going to be returned to any kind of sanity...(second step...came to believe that a power greater than ourself could restore us to sanity)...see deep down, i think i knew i was nuts, and there was no hope for me...for you sure...but not for me...and that is how i lived my life...with no hope.

and yet there were times when i flew high on the wings of spiritual fantasy...protected by my 'love never fails' bubble, and of course my pills and drink to keep me sorta sane.

well, here i was without my pills...which i was addicted to; i had been getting them perscribed for over a decade now...so it took a while for my body to withdraw...

but that was nothing compared to what i felt inside...

my memory was coming back now, and i was recalling what i had actually done to get myself arrested, and how i had behaved once the handcuffs were on...OMG...it was not pretty let me tell you...

well, as you may well imagine, i did plenty of ranting and raving while locked up...plenty of cursing...blamed everyone except myself of course...i had lots of anger and rage...that i had to feel...and i did...then it turned to pain...and i cried quiet a bit...i was having to face myself...at a different level than i ever had...

it was not easy...

i started realizing that i was very sick, but very selfcentered...very spoiled...and all that love i had professed to have for everyone, well, that was not holding up at this point...

i had never allowed myself to really hate...even in addiction...yeah i had blamed this one and that one for what had happened as a child, but my religion kept me from hating...or the promise of hell rather...

i had buried all these feelings within...and i had been drinking and drugging to keep them buried...

well, i started getting healthier physically...i did have some problems with my bladder; but not near the pain and problems i had on the outside...

course life was pretty simple in there...i did not have to do any lifting and all kinds of stuff that led to physical pain in the outside world...so i was eatting better...starving to death actually, because i had almost starved myself while i was using...but my blood pressure went back to normal, my pain levels went down, and my bladder even seemed to be improving.

i still was having a hard time seeing myself...

since i had been in AA before, and i really had worked the program and read the book and other literature, and could quote it...see i had it in my head, but it had never actually made its way to my heart...

i was still wanting what i wanted, when i wanted, and how i wanted.

a selfcentered, self righteous, know it all, spoiled rotten brat.

that is what i was...

when i began getting honest, and working the steps, i began getting some peace. ego would rear its head, often...but i was hitting my knees each morning...and doing the best i could to stay honest with myself...

finally, when i graduated the Alcohol & Drug program 'inhouse', my attorney petitioned the courts and i went back in front of the judge...

he is a very tough cookie...haha...

he refused to let me go, and he would not put me on parole either...or probation...so i was forced to go through his drugcourt...

but i was just so happy to be getting out of jail, i would have signed anything probably...

they let me go live with my daughter instead of a halfway house this time, but later i would stay in a halfway house for about a month before getting my own apartment...

there is nothing like losing everything you have to teach you a lesson in humility...

i lost everything...my condo...all my furniture...clothes...my car...my freedom...my family...

the best thing that was happening though...i was staying clean, and i did not have a desire to use...

i was also losing a lot of ego...which was a really good thing...

what was so painful for me, was this growing up emotionally in public...

as i had said before, it had been suggested by my drug counselor that i was about two years old emotionally...

the way they determine that is by what age you started using...

well since i was kept pretty drugged up when i was a very small child on paragoric...up until i was ten and began singing, and then began drinking at about 15...they figured i was about two emotionally...not pleasant...very painful to be treated like a child in front of everyone...

i guess that is how a small child feels...i can remember when i was a child and did not get my way, i had this thing i did...i convinced myself that i did not want what i did not get anyways...and that is how i made it ok and got back at whomever in my mind had done me wrong by not giving me what i wanted when i wanted it...

but, i usually got everything i wanted...there wasn't much that i did not get...materialistically speaking...or any other way really...

i was a great manipulater...and controller...although i did not believe it.

it was hard to accept my bad motives underneath a good one...

i had lied to myself...tricked myself...into believing that everything i did was for you...haha...that was hard to face.

not only did i use drugs and alcohol...i used people...

most of the time too, i allowed myself to be used...which would later be used as a justification to use some more!

what a nightmare...

the first sponsor i had was a mean bitch...haha

i mean how dare she say the things to me that she said?

i stopped calling her, and went without one for a minute...

that is dangerous...but, i had the courts keeping me in line, so i really was not worried about using...

i had hit my bottom and it had been jail...

over the years i had hit many emotional bottoms...but they were never enough...

it took the humiliation of jail...my family temporarily turning their backs on me, i didn't have any friends...i was a sad case, and it was very difficult not to feel sorry for myself...luckily my pride would not allow that...

yes i had plenty of pride left...and i needed it...to get me through... 

well, i finally got another sponsor...and it was good for another minute...

i worked my forth step, which is a personal inventory of all i had ever done...

then i had to take my resentments toward others, and turn them around on myself, being honest about where i was at fault...UCK...

then to top that off...couldn't just share them with God...had to share them with my sponsor...i had had some experience with this though...i had worked the steps twice before...so i had gotten out a lot of garbage then...just never really completely turned it in on me...

then it was time to make my amends...and i did to the best of my ability...

at about 7 months sober i began my recovery website...

so i have had it for almost a year now...i could not have shared this back then...

still had lots of pride left...haha...

well, it has all been leveled...not sure what i have of ego left...

now i have to begin working on my fears...

sometimes i just become overwhelmed...my mind cannot to well handle arguing and negativity still...never did like it when i was drunk or drugged up, unless of course i guess i dished it out...but i wasn't into all that...i was a feel good junkie...

i seem to do very well alone...haha...even though i do go to meetings and i interact with my family...i still like to be alone...i have pretty much always been like that...remember...even as a child...it is just today, i don't care whether i fit in or not...haha...

today i KNOW what i am...and what i am not...this makes a big difference in life...

what i have made it through...i can survive truth...

and truth is what i have always wanted...always sought it...just was looking always, like most do, in the wrong direction.

i have ceased seeking truth...and am ceasing cherishing illusions instead...

everything i ever learned and believed was an illusion...

i have had to let go of ALL my old ideas absolutely...

it is ironic, but recovery and awakening go hand in hand, and today i am so grateful for both...

this is why i am convinced...beyond a shadow of a doubt that sobriety chose me...

like many have said that enlightenment is a process...and it just happens...

well, that is how sobriety has happened in my life...

i still have days when my body hurts and i would love to be able to take a pain pill...but i play that tape...and i don't have to get very far...if i could have just taken one pill...i would not be here today telling this story...

there are also times when i have wondered about drinking a glass of wine with dinner...this is called romaticizing alcohol...

i quickly...very quickly remember...that i am not one of those people that can do that.

this is where that rigorous honesty comes in...

I NEVER WANTED TO DRINK JUST ONE GLASS OF WINE OR ANYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE! 

this is one the gifts of sobriety...

rigorous self honesty...

there are so many others...

many that have recovered have compared their lives to Utopia...this is true for me...

also, they claim to have been rocketed into a fouth dimension of existence...i also find this to be my experiencing...

I have had an experiencing also of the deep ocean consciousness, or conscious being...

i got frightened and all it took was that one fear thought, and i felt self being sucked out of the all, right back into...me...haha...

most of the time i am not bothered by ego...nor am i concerned or am aware of time...i do not hang out in the past, nor do i entertain the future...

on september 19th i gave some mental and emotional energy to 911...but was able to honor those that passed with some writings...and not allow myself to stay attached to that suffering...in my mind...

pysical pain is felt sometimes it is worse than other times, but i am not attached to it...nor do i own it, or go around enforcing it by complaining about it...usually, i don't focus on it...and just do what is indicated...what the universe puts in front of me to do...
 

there was a time a while back when i became very frustrated...it was when i had the bottom fall out of myself and my beliefs...and i felt nothing...

well...who the hell was i praying too, and who the hell was i?...when there is no one to pray...and no one to pray too?

i was a little confused...who was i surrendering my i too?

well all that has worked itself out...and yes i still hit my knees every morning...and i surrender my ego to a power greater than it...which sometimes i choose to call god...but more than not...i call it conscious being...
 

i still do not have a car, but i have my own place. don't know how my life is going to be recreated and i don't care... 

i have everything i need...the universe has always seen to that.

today i have no desire...even my ego...i know today it serves whatever purpose the universe wants it too...and will until the universe deems otherwize...

when ever i feel uncomfortable...i KNOW it is ego...selfcenteredness...mostly in the form of fears today...fear of the unknown...and being one with that...at a deeper level.

and today, i feel it, whatever it is...and i walk through it...

i love my life today...and accept everything the way IT IS...

it is in this acceptance that gratitude can be...

grace is the very essence of being...and star's being has been blessed...with grace...

i am still a bubble person...it is just that today...

i bubble from the inside out...and hopefully with grace of being...

always, star...