We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. Every person I meet In These Rooms has a Cast of Characters (C of C’s) and every character is a potential leader with In Spite of Dreams and a Heroic BadAss. The people might not see themselves that way but I do because the wound is where the light enters.
This is in the front of my mind today as I enter the room. I’m confronted with the sharing of a young lady I will call Paula. Paula is a 34-year-old white woman. Widowed mother of 4 children between ages 7 and 14, she lost her husband 5 years ago to a mine blast in Iraq. Currently in counseling for severe depression. Paula’s had 4 DWI in the last 3 years, lost a six-figure job due to alcohol and drugs. She says she hung out with people at clubs while she tried to fake it and make the pain go away. Her brother killed her other brother in a drunken rage. As she speaks, she has a look on her face of loss and lostness. She seems lonely even in this room full of people.
Paula says of herself, “…You could say the wreckage of alcohol runs in my family. I am suicidal so if this shit doesn’t work, I’m doing it…Working these steps of recovery is religion for me…I had to deal with physical abuse, emotional abuse homelessness with a child… I’m a drug addict that must go work and be a mom even if I’ve been diagnosed with a rare bone disease and loss of some of my essential bodily functions and ended up reducing myself to drunken coma as the way out… I’m passed the moment of asking for help… There are times when I find myself yelling at God while running around in my slip high on crack. I just knew God was my enemy…”
Paula says she needs this 12 Step Recovery Program to be the best thing that has happened for her in a long time. She has used alcohol to numb the pain. She is ashamed of losing her job, mistakes she has made, not being a better mother to her children, the joy of her life, but this is just where she is right now in life. “…I feel my life is like a frog in boiling water; its slow but it just keeps getting hotter…Where I am right now, I gotta get sober, get clean or die...” More to come on Paula next time. The Struggle Continues…
