Power

Just home from a 12-step meeting about the first step - powerlessness.


I've always liked the feeling of being in control and have prided myself in (the delusion) that I have done a spectacular job of being quite powerful.  


As a kid, I was always pretty astute in being able to figure people out and spit out what they wanted.  Pretty much a survival tool when I was younger because my parents my mom had such specific expectations for me and my brother.  You didn't need any special sensitivity to figure her out though - she was very LOUD in letting you know what she wanted.  The upshot of being in that environment, and in the effort not to step on the frequent perceived landmines, you learned to be ultra-sensitive to others' needs/desires/expectations.  In fear of the bomb going off when I least expected it, I perceived so many potential blasts.  Being proactive about it, I'd take action ahead of time: sidestep it by doing something extra-good or more than expected, or.......lie....and do what you want.  I was good at both.  Good at showing my ultra good, I-can-do-anything-for-you side, as well as the stubborn lying, ask-what-you-want-but-I'm-doing-my-own-thing side.   


As a teen, I learned about beauty (and later, sex) and the power that had over boys/men.  I felt very powerful in being able to get the guy I wanted if I pursued him enough - and then would break up with him before he had the opportunity to break my heart first.  I lacked any conscience in my choices -- there were a few guys that were good friends with an ex-boyfriend or my brother, or a love interest of a good friend of my own.  Sadly, if I had the interest, I went after it.  And generally got what I wanted.  Until I tired of him.  I used to sing the song "And another one bites the dust...." with amusement in my head.  


Writing that is hard to admit, because I certainly didn't feel so arrogant, smug or confident at the time.  While I did feel that the world was my oyster and I was capable of anything, I needed that constant reassurance of my power.


As an adult, I learned to be all for everyone.  Be the ultra good mom, wife, Christian, friend.  If you didn't have a problem, I'd make sure to show you how I could be helpful to you.  But I more often tried to find the needy people in my neck of the woods.  "I neeeed someone to neeeeed me."  Let me be your all.  


And then I'd be pissed when you used me.


Competition...it was my measuring field.  I felt that if I tried hard at anything, I can do/be anything I wanted.  Not a bad message to embrace - but terrible if you have no sense of yourself, of what YOU really want.  Whatever was defined as "successful" at my age level - I was there, I was going to be the best at it.   Dependent on an exterior framework of accomplishment, my delusion of power was bound to crash.  Further, that exterior framework was never very firm - needing that sense of power through attaining it at any cost..... paradoxically........ was only feeding a very insecure feeling of powerlessness within.


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Still clueless to my motivation for using - nor really wanting or caring to stop and take a look at it, I hit two bottoms.


The first still brings tears to my eyes.  In 2004, 6 months into my addiction, our family left on Christmas Day to Orlando for the holidays.  We had two dogs and a cat at the time - and that was always the dilemma...who's going to take care of the menagerie.  And who's going to do an exchange on *Christmas Day*.  Who can you ask to leave their family gathering to take care of your burdens - treasured as they were - but burden, all the same.  Well, of course.  You can ask your sick friends.  You can ask your supplier.


Not only did she happen to break our doorknob in getting into our house on Christmas Day, but she allowed our puppy to get run over by a car outside her house on New Year's Eve - just 12 hours before we arrived home.  


I remember thinking acidically, at the time - "Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad."  We got a dog, a cat, and a wood box back for the New Year.


And I spent the next 2 weeks in bed, beside myself in pain.  I knew without a doubt that this was a giant, neon message to me to quit doing what I was doing before something really terrible happened to a *human* person I loved.  I never imagined it might be me - nor did I care; I'd be dead and that really didn't have much importance to me - but it could be one of my kids.  So I scared the living bejeezus out of my family - the "rock", as my husband calls me, the one my kids saw as so "together" and in control - lay in bed for two weeks, cried and wished for my fuzzy little Kirby back.


We buried him in the backyard with his Christmas bone on an uncharacteristically warmish day that January while a soft rain fell from above.  And I knew I was done.  No more.


I was back within two weeks.  The pain was too great.  The guilt was too great.  I just needed to feel JOY again.  No matter if that joy had the strings of shame attached.


Seven months later, I crossed the last line.  I traveled with it.  On a plane.  With my family.


I took a large chunk of the stuff and taped it securely to the inside top cover of one of my makeup jars.  Put it in the checked baggage.


And I sweat with uncontrollable fear the entire trip.  I thought for sure my bag would be sniffed out by some drug trained canine. As I sat on the plane, the pillow clouds shining bright beneath the afternoon sun, my kids chattering away excitedly beside me, I was drowning in the vision of what would happen in the baggage claim area when we landed.  The police officials would be waiting until I claimed my baggage and then they'd come out of the woodwork.  It'd be a great big scene - worst of all, in front of my kids.  They'd question me, handcuff me, and carry me away.  I could see the question, the confusion, the fear on my kids' faces. And the utter disgust in my husband's.  There was no doubt in my mind that this would be waiting for me once we got to our destination.  Why in the world did I do that, I cried to myself?  If I'd just brought it on the plane *with* me, I could at least throw it out in the bathroom (after I had a bump).  No other option, I sat and I sweat....and dreaded going to baggage claim.  Walking there, my legs were like stone.


And nothing happened.  No scene.  No shame.  No embarrassment.


I was all-powerful again.


It was not until I was into recovery that I could look back and see this was a bottom for me.  I'd sacrifice all - the ability to be with my children and husband, my dignity, and literally my freedom - my real power - in order to have this drug with me on vacation.


I had no clue.  Funny, I still remember worrying at the time if I was a drug addict.