Author: nmrecoveryhope

I miss so many things today.  I am trying to stay in the moment; stay mindful of the present, but I miss all the HOPE I was feeling went I first began my recovery.  It’s NOT EASY.  Here I am nine months clean, aside from two dental issues and 3 ER visits forced on me.  I still get a serious Jones occasionally, or have a using dream, but for the most part, I have an anxiety that I have been sidetracked from my Step work due to medical issues with no answers.  So I keep going, paid off seven credit cards and closed the accounts, and now just working my way through the medical bills.

I once went to the Mayo clinic in Phoenix and am still paying that off.  Now my employers are forcing me to have a “neuropsychological evaluation.”  I looked up some of the tests and it will be an all day event.  So I guess I feel like I need to redefine HOPE now.

I hope for  positive results from all of my upcoming tests this week.  I hope to keep my job and my employers satisfied.  I hope for a better future professionally.  I hope to continue my debt management and see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I hope to lose my fear of getting involved with someone again.  I hope my family stays safe and healthy.  Most of all, I hope to take a step back toward my 12-step journey of recovery with NA.  I hope to keep my promise to try to do a  minimum of 15 minutes of Step work today on my Step 4.  I hope more than anything that I can help someone else who is struggling with the disease of addiction and be of loving service to him/her.  I hope to blog more about what recovery feels like, rather than feeling like my blogging is just whining words –lip service.  There is so much help out there and it continues to grow, just as the problem of opioid addiction continues to grow.

Do you know that I heard on the radio that there is now some kind of “shot” you can take once a month to keep you from using?  There are many alternative methods.  I miss acupuncture and massage – those were great, but cost me $300.  It shouldn’t cost anything to get well in this life, but we all know that’s not the case, and the industry is designed to make its big bucks off of all the pills being pushed at us.  I know that my tolerance to pain medication is so high that nothing would work if I got into serious pain.  So I hope that my faith in my Higher Power is strong enough to see me through these trials so I can get on to a better life and back to trying to be a better person each day.  I hope that anyone who reads this knows there is help available, and that a life free of drugs and alcohol is still a fun life.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and loved disco music.  Recently, KC and the Sunshine Band came to play about 120 miles from where I live.  I wanted to go SOOOOO BAD!!!  But I was afraid to go alone.  Well, guess what?  I went and was at the stage and shook his hand and he even said something to me and I just rocked out and danced and had a blast!  Physically, I was feeling a little unsteady, but the music uplifted me and changed my attitude!  I have my 3-circle chart posted above my computer where I can see it all the time.  The first circle contains a list of all the things I do or could enjoy doing instead of using.  MUSIC AND DANCING was right at the top of the list!  I hope you have a list like this and can deliberately make the effort to do things.  I got bubble baths on that list too; just enjoyed a long one of those!  (The middle circle is a list of things thata could cause me to relapse; the final circle contains a list of behaviors indicating I HAVE relapsed.  I pay attention to this chart a lot.)

I hope this coming week is GOOD…for ALL OF US.  I am going to meetings this week too.  Because in the end, I get that connection with others in the rooms which gives me the reminder I need, Just for Today.

Peace, love and blessings to all who read here….

But NOT ME.  I’m melting, I’m melting!  Maybe that’s it –maybe my brain is melting and my memories all around it are melting too…IT’S TOO DAMN HOT!  I am trying to gather the funds to purchase an additional portable air conditioner from Wal-Mart or somewhere, but with all the medical bills, it goes slowly.

So I am spending most of my time in as few clothes as possible and the coolest things I own which isn’t much.  I will say that I am learning to accept and love my naked body for just what it is at this age; still curvy and packaged in sexy underthings.  I wear my coolest nightgowns or sleep in the buff with the air conditioner on all night.

I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time sleeping when I am hot!  I try to watch movies that have the ocean in them -or even a nice hotel pool.  My idea of a vacation now is an air-conditioned  hotel room that has a huge luscious swimming pool and a bar in the center (even though I don’t drink).

I’d settle for a free trip to Alaska like the Travel Channel sweepstakes is giving away.  Anywhere there is snow or it’s cool would be fine with me.

Tonight’s recovery is focused on CONNECTIONS.  I connect best to people when I am not sweltering I admit, but as long as I can reach out and hug someone it really doesn’t matter.  The program says the best way to build connections is through service.  I disagree and find that a tad misogynistic.  Women are born into service and taught and raised to take care of and wait on others their whole lives.  I want to help someone by making them laugh or smile or hugging them when they need it; if I can help them another way, like giving them a ride to an NA meeting, a card, or making them food, then so I shall.  But I have found out the hard way that too many service commitments robs us of the precious energy and love we contain within ourselves for those exact moments.  Don’t get me wrong, I will always help a newcomer as I was helped, but connection means many different things to many different people.

It’s a spark or a flame, it’s a desire to reach out and touch someone physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually or whatever. To help someone in pain, and as I have said for thirteen years, to NOT take ANYONE for granted!

I am STILL defining it while working on my 4th step.  What does connection mean to YOU???

Let me know and peace, love and very cool blessings!

As I have said before, I believe the NA program works – if you work it, and keep coming back!  I recently read in the “Living Clean” book (I am studying with another woman in a meeting we call the Monday Night Women’s meeting, but it’s almost always just the two of us).  Sorry, I digress (easily and frequently).

The book said, (and I am paraphrasing a little) that we should create relationships outside the program that are the same as the ones we share in the rooms.  I couldn’t disagree more and am struggling with this.  It also says our whole life should be NA.  Again, I disagree.  There are people that I know at work or with whom I socialize with whom it would not be prudent or possible to cultivate an NA-type relationship.  There is supposed to be unconditional trust, love and acceptance in the program.  That is a much more difficult thing to find and establish with others who are not in the program; especially in this town.

As far as NA being my whole life, NO!  I want to travel and do exciting things and explore new ventures and have adventures and that may not include people in the program nor does it mean I commit to going to 3 meetings a day every day for the rest of my life.

The Step work is helping me to discover who I truly am and what my responsibilities to others are in this world.  And what, of my many traumatic experiences, I brought on myself or played a role in; same with all y resentments -and there are pages and pages of them.  That’s great.  But not everyone I know believes in, knows about or supports the NA program.

Right now due to all my memory loss issues (seeing a neuropsychologist for an exam, conditional to my Fitness for Duty for my job).  I don’t want to lose blocks of time or ANY MEMORIES.  I am truly frightened that I have a brain damage injury from neurotoxicity (Google it), or early Alzheimer’s or something.  Whatever it is, I will handle and SURVIVE it!

Today i am making the memories of getting my hair blonded, paying bills and closing credit card accounts, doing housework and preparing for my new renter who is supposed to move in Sunday night.  He seems like a nice man.  Reliable hopefully.  Then I get to go to Santa Fe and have a Doppler scan of my legs for clots.  Medical bills suck.

Will hold on to my mindfulness and serenity as long as I can.  I tried the floating in a tnk thing, but too much salt.  I feel grateful and blessed for everything I have and am going through.  Thank God for spell check as I cannot even type as well or as fast as I used to.  Please pray for me that I get a diagnonsense that I can deal with.  Our Lab’s Occupational Medicine clinic ambulanced me against my will t te ER last Friday and the discharge papers say “recurrent migraine headaches” even though I was sent due to an altered mental state.

Maybe I am just losing m mind?  Only all these tests will tell, but I still have my libido and I guess that’s something.

Peace, love and blessings to you all….hold onto all your memories, the GOOD and the BAD.

As I tried to relax in a float tank the other day, I realized I couldn’t stop thinking about beauty, all the appointments I had to go to, the afterlife, and a million other things.

As I have said before, my memory is shot full of holes. I don’t know if this is because of getting clean, or getting older, but it sure has made my life frustrating. I wish I knew how to hold on to all those details. There are so many appointments that I have to attend that I can’t keep them all straight. Then I got to thinking about all the credit cards I wanted to close out. I decided to get out of the tank and get back to my life and once I could close those credit cards perhaps I could actually relax. And then I went back to thinking about the afterlife. What if it’s not some beautiful new existence? What if it’s just nothingness? Or, as movies might have us believe, what if it’s just a do-over of your life and all the many mistakes you’ve made. I decided to go home and have a credit card cut up party. And once I did that, I relaxed. I decided not to care about what the afterlife consists of because you simply can’t. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, all we can control is the next thing that is coming and even that we have no control over. As far as Beauty goes, I guess I need to just keep looking inward and pray that I can make my outsides match my insides. I would like to believe that everyday as I change and try harder to become a more beautiful person that my body and my face do not disintegrate.

Is it possible that what will make me relax is a beautiful credit score?

It has been hotter than hell literally here, and to make matters worse, the air conditioning has stopped on my vehicle. I have the car in the shop, and a friend has loaned me his truck. I just pray that to fix it will not cost a fortune. I have learned that I cannot function well when I am roasting away in the car, in the house, or at my office. I had planned to purchase an additional portable air conditioner for my home, but Walmart cut my credit limit down to less than what it would take to buy another unit. This is the driving force behind my cutting up all my credit cards and closing out all my credit accounts. I just want things to cool off. I can no longer continue to lay around the house naked in order to keep cool, just in case I finally get a renter.

I need to get my hair cut and colored, but will have to wait until next pay day and in the meantime wear it up to keep cool.

I heard a share in one of the rooms the other night from someone that we should try to make our relationships outside the program match those we have inside the program. That we should try to have a life that is all about NA, but I don’t want all my relationships to be the same, nor do I want to have my relationships outside program be the same as the ones I have inside the program. There is a very specific reason for that. I can trust people inside the program but I don’t know that I have that same level of trust with people I know or have met on the outside. They don’t understand necessarily about 12 step programs and I don’t think they should have to. I have met someone else that I work with that I really like. I don’t expect to have a relationship with him at all as that will be up to him. However, I do like this man a lot and would like to have a trusting loving relationship with him as a friend at the very least. I can be myself around him and that means the world to me. I have learned to accept myself and I believe that this man has accepted me for who I am as well.

As far as the afterlife goes, I still am fascinated by all the different possibilities. I watched a movie recently that had a spin of alternate realities combined with reincarnation as a theme and I found that interesting. It isn’t the same as some cookie cutter movies who replayed the same idea like “What Dreams May Come” or one of my all-time favorites “Made in Heaven” (available on Vu-du).

Recently I was able to visit with my mom and my aunt in a dream and although I don’t remember what was said between us it was just as if she were alive. We had tea in a fancy little cafe / shop that had knickknacks everywhere for purchase kind of like Cracker Barrel but not. I wish I could remember what they were trying to say to me. All I know is that I woke up feeling very happy and grateful to have seen them and a little tearful because I miss them. if the afterlife is another type of existence let’s hope it’s one we can travel between this life and the next checking in on those we love.

I will get through all my doctor’s appointments. And they probably won’t find anything wrong with me. So I will continue to do the best I can one day at a time. I hope you find your Center, get to all your appointments, and get rid of all your credit card accounts. Beauty is inside us.

Peace love and blessings to all.

Well it’s official. I have had my car, whom I lovingly call “Cherry” –vandalized. Someone deliberately keyed my driver’s side door! Don’t know who, when or why.

Meaney-while, went to see my primary for my physical, and my blood pressure and pulse tanked right there in front of him. After an EKG, he took it again and again in different positions and it stayed low low. He now wants me to go to the heart hospital in Albuquerque and get tested for some condition of my heart that he’s concerned about. He also wants a test of my adrenal gland and finally, is pushing me to get the sleep study for apnea done….Does he think I’ve got gold coins coming out of my ass?

All this medical sh*t is prohibitively expensive!

So I took Cherry to get clean at the car wash… and that got me to thinking about my recovery. Is there a car wash for all my bad decisions, choices and sins? Does it all really get washed away by my belief in a higher power???

What if I had to face my mortality soon? …Am I clean enough?

And what about those medical bills? I wouldn’t want to saddle my kids with the burden of using all my life insurance policy money to pay for my death.

Why can’t they have an automatic car wash for your soul? or a button on one that automatically pays for all costs of your demise?

Just wishing and hoping – like the song says.

Peace out

Will let you know when I figure it out…or invent it.