During my years of active addiction, I was not honest. I wasn't cash register honest. I wasn't property honest. I wasn't any kind of honest. I lied, cheated, stole, whatever I needed to do to feed my habit. The first time I got clean and sober back in 2002, I didn't do any stepwork. There were some people I apologized to for past behaviors but I'm not sure that could be considered amends so this is the first time I've been faced with actually having to make amends for my actions. And it is fucking me up!
I spent some time with my sponsor yesterday going over my list of people to whom I owe an amends. The one thing I can say is that since I didn't act out sexually, I at least don't have to make amends for being unfaithful to my wife which is apparently a pretty common thing people need to make amends for. What I do have to do is tell people I love and respect that I stole from them. It's making me want to vomit just thinking about it.
When I was using, that little voice in the back of my head that might be called a conscience was virtually non-existent. I mean, it was there but it was weak and feeble. I could drown it out until I got high then it was silenced for a while. It always resurfaced, niggling at the back of my brain, until I got high again. It was one of the things that kept me using. The guilt, shame, regret would become too loud if I didn't shut it up.
Now, I can no longer do that. That voice in my head is large and in charge. The list of people I need to make amends to is, I suppose, relatively short. I don't really know, though, since I don't know what anyone else's list looks like. I'm just assuming. While I was making my list, it seemed like my world had become quite small. Over the last several years the number of people I interacted with became less and less because I was falling more and more into isolation. There are, however, quite a few people I'll need to talk to.
After discussing each person on my list, my sponsor and I looked at the best way for me to approach them. Because I'm a great avoider, my first inclination was to send a letter or an email to almost all of them. We talked about it and decided that the best way for me to really make amends and become a better person was to do most of them face to face. The amends aren't for the other person. The amends is for myself so I can stop beating myself up about past behavior and move into the future with a relatively clean slate. For my own wellbeing, I need to look them in the eye and tell them that I came into their personal space and violated their trust.
It's not so much telling them that I stole from them. I mean, that's not a comfortable conversation for sure but it's not the main thing giving me pause. Mostly, it's the act of opening myself up to them that I find so daunting. For the vast majority of my life, I've kept core parts of myself hidden from others. I've created versions of myself that I show to others, sometimes different versions for different people. When I was in high school, I concocted elaborate stories, lies actually, about things going on in my life. I did it for attention mostly but I also think part of it was to make myself more interesting to others. I didn't think I was worthy of their attention on my own perhaps? I certainly felt less than. In the past, when anyone found out that I was lying I ran away as fast as possible. I'd drop their friendship like it was gonna bite me.
I've certainly been honest about things with others before. I guess, though, telling a room full of addicts or my sponsor or my wife that I've done all this stupid shit is one thing but telling THAT good friend that I've known for ages that I went into her personal space and stole drugs from her is way more exposure than I've done before. I've told people that I stole but I've never told people that I stole from them specifically. Seems like I've continued to hide without even realizing it on a conscious level. What is it in me that feels this desperate need to hide? I know that right now I might not have the highest self-esteem but I certainly don't feel like I'm the scum of the Earth either.
It logically has roots in my childhood because this need to be better, more, different started back then. I remember telling my first lies as a small child at like five and six years old. Some stuff happened to me at that age that changed the trajectory of my life. That's the first time I can recall hiding something. I was led to believe that if I told I would be abandoned. As an adult now I know that wasn't the truth but as a six year old, having already had a father that left me, I had no reason to not believe him. So I began to hide. I lied and said everything was fine when it was anything but. After that is when things began to change. I knew I couldn't tell anyone but I was still desperately reaching out. When I was in junior high there was a writing competition. I wrote a fiction piece about a teenage girl who is raped by the son of a family friend. I was completely invested in that story winning the contest and when it didn't I was devastated. Not only did I not win, there was no acknowledgement about the story either. I guess I expected someone to read it and say, "This kid obviously needs some help." That didn't happen.
When I entered high school, I told my favorite teachers that I was struggling. I don't remember exactly what I told them but I know I was asking for help. Not only did they not offer any help, one of them wrote in my year back something along the lines of "Life is hard but you can tough it out." I remember going to college campuses for Speech competitions and being told to be careful walking on campus at night so we weren't attacked. I would wait until dark then walk the whole campus by myself willing something to happen. I guess I thought if something happened then I could get help? I don't know. I don't remember my reasoning. I just remember that horrible feeling of emptiness, loneliness, hopelessness. It's also during high school that I cut on myself for the first time. That wasn't to become a consistent thing until years later though. My pain was invisible because it was inside so I wanted to make it visible but still no one offered help and I had no idea how to ask for it.
After a few humiliating experiences being caught out in lies or hurting myself, I learned to hide it. I learned to manipulate people to get them to feel whatever way I wanted them to feel about me. I was 19 years old when I met the woman who made me realize I was a lesbian. She was just as damaged as I was and this led me to discover that if I could rescue someone else, I felt better about myself. After that I sought out damaged people. I may not have been able to save myself but I could save them. Yet another fallacy it took me years to work out.
My 20s are a blur of drunken nights filled with women who ran from my desperate need to be loved. I was so nervous and uncomfortable when it came to sexual attraction that I had to drink to pursue. And drink I did! The only thing that controlled my drinking was my lack of money. Given more money, there'd have been much more booze. When I finally did meet someone who wanted to be in a relationship with me, she wanted to change me. She didn't love me the way I was. She told me she didn't find me attractive because I was too fat. She said I wasn't sexually adventurous enough for her. She used my desperate need to not be alone as leverage to open up our relationship. I have a crystal clear memory of sitting in the house in Baltimore waiting for her to come home after spending the night with another woman. I drank directly out of a bottle of gin, my body feeling like it was actually being torn in half, until I passed out. Sometimes drinking actually saved my life. I seriously contemplated killing myself not especially because I wanted to die but because I didn't want to hurt anymore. Usually I got too drunk to be able to do anything.
Once I discovered opiates, I left alcohol alone. Opiates were way better at distancing myself from others. With alcohol, nerve endings become duller but so did everything else. I wasn't able to think clearly and, more importantly, I found it hard to hide that I was drunk. With opiates, it was like a lacy veil dropped between me and everything else. Nothing hurt, nothing was too bothersome, I had energy, I could get stuff done, and best yet no one knew I was high. I found myself able to keep everyone outside while I was tucked safely inside. Only it eventually stopped working. I can't remember exactly when but at some point it became less about getting high and more about not being sick. When there was a day I couldn't get drugs then I drank. I rarely did both. I didn't want to kill myself! *eye roll*
The way I've been living no longer works for me. I can't be the kind of person who lies to my wife and steals anything from people. That's not who I am. This behavior is incongruous with my true self. My sponsor tells me that if I make my amends, if I get through the steps and do the work, then my behavior will naturally line up with who I am. One of the things about AA and NA too is that everyone in the rooms earned their seat. We've all been to the same hell even if we took different roads to get there. When my sponsor says I know you can do it because I did, I trust her. That's what her sponsor told her and that's what her sponsor told her. It's worked for millions of people and I see the living proof every time I go to a meeting. So I know it's true. I can do this because Lo says I can, because Sharon says I can, because they were sitting right where I am once and they made it through to the other side. I really don't want to make these amends but I need to because I'm no longer the person who will steal your money or your drugs or anything else for that matter. The final nail in that coffin is to face those actions, tell those I hurt I'm sorry, and then never do it again. That's what the amends are really all about. Making sure this person I am now remembers the person I once was. The big book says we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it but it's certainly a room I don't want to visit anymore.
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