Promoted to the front page — submitted by our friend Erin at What Winners Do
Up until now I have had a very easy time looking on the bright side of things when it came to my new life in recovery. I say up until now because today it seems to have ended.
I have heard the expression used "walking around in a pink cloud". I think this best describes what I have been doing up until now. It's like I have been discovering everything for the first time again in my newly sober brain and loving every minute of it.
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I was convinced that because I am not actively using drugs anymore that I was somehow going to automatically be a better person. All of my flaws must have been the effects of drug use and not actual character defects right? Wrong.
I have now stepped out of my pink cloud directly into the gray zone. I am realizing that just because I'm sober it doesn't mean that my life is going to be perfect. I THOUGHT I realized that before now, but I didn't. I SAID I did…but I didn't.
I didn't automatically stop procrastinating, I wasn't automatically cured of my depression or my social phobias and I'm definitely not waking up everyday with a spring in my step whistling a happy tune. I'm kind of blah right now with moments of happiness and a new understanding that it is possible for me to have fun without being messed up.
With all of that said…I am happy to be where I am in recovery. I think it is something that everyone must go through, at least I'm hoping that it is something that everyone must go through. I now know the definition of "working your recovery". Obviously I have issues that fed into my addiction that need to be dealt with if I want to succeed at staying clean.
Now the real work begins. Hopefully down the line I will be able to write a post that is titled, Out of the gray and into the…
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it is peace within the storm.
old AA saying that seems appropriate.
to even figure out that during the times I thought I was having “fun” in my drinking days were nothing more than episodes where I just lost control. I remember during my first year or two of sobriety in a downtown seedy and fleabitten apartment (oh yes, the fleas were a nightmare) I would stay at home on the weekends kind of feeling sorry for myself. I eventually started reading books, building a music collection, and working on computers. It took a while, but about the time I concluded that I had become a nerd I also had to admit to myself that I was enjoying life.
As my means grew I found that not only was I a nerd, but I had become a uber-nerd. Bed and breakfasts, art shows, my wonderful cats…
Wait a sec- I think I’ll turn this into a blog.
The pink cloud is lifting and the grayness seems to be setling in. Each day is not as euphoric, it is now more work and effort, and I will keep doing it. I think now is the time that the real work begins on learning how to trully live a sober life.
addicts and alcoholics, please tell us more.
When I had first written the above post I was kind of in a place of despair. Now I know that those were necessary feelings and were the beginning steps of me working on the issues that helped shape my addiction in the first place.
So much has changed for the better since writing this post. I can happily report that my diligence and hard work has begun to pay off and I am truly realizing what it means to be happy and have peace of mind.
So to anyone that is just being dumped off the pink cloud…hang in there. If you continue to do what needs to be done the only way you will go is UP.
erin,
you dont happen to be from the austin, tx area are you?