Addiction

Been a long time since I've written ... here or my own journals. Guess it was good in a way because I've had no choice but to learn how to communicate about things that I think about in verbal ways rather than just writing. (Kind of necessary in a marriage!)

Still ... I missed writing.

Feeling very introspective today ... taking a break with this addiction thing. From what I learned about the whole addiction process ... you can call it a detour. A time when I'm just saying "TIME OUT!" I need a break from this very difficult battle.

I feel like I've been climbing up this mountain for a long time ... and while I definitely see that I'm closer to the top than I am to the bottom ... I'm still not there. But I have learned to redefine how I view success and more importantly how God views success. Success isn't necessarily where your journey ends ... as in the end result. Success IS the journey ... that you continue to travel and not quit.

I've learned a lot along the way ... probably the biggest lesson was to trust God a little bit more. Wish I could say that I read my bible every day and I prayed 3 times a day and that I fasted and employed all of the other standard disciplines for staying connected to God.

The truth is that most of the time I just held on ... held on when the storms came ... held on when the emotions threatened to overwhelm me ... held on when I finally had to face all of the pain and emotions that come along with being a human being on this earth.

Yeah, I know that sounds weird ... but God understands what I'm saying and the journey that I have taken with him on this has been like nothing else that I have experienced with him.

Bottom line is that throughout my lifetime ... I learned how to mask my pain (my sadness, my disappointment, my fear, my inadequacy, etc). I learned ... through various addictive behaviors ... to not feel pain. I learned to turn to cigarettes or drugs ... and not to turn to God. That will take me a lifetime to understand the process of how I got where I got ...

But the places that I've been on this journey ... are destinations and events that happen internally ... inside my heart. I've been facing my fears ... or maybe I should say that I've been facing my heart and actually experiencing the hurt and the pain that I have shut out for so many years.

It has surprised me ... for so long I thought I was ruled by my emotions and my feelings ... but as I learn to REALLY experience those emotions ... I find myself constantly saying "Wow, I haven't felt that in YEARS." All of those times have been painful. But when I really FELT the pain ... and allowed God to lead me THROUGH the pain ... it triggered memories from childhood of a similar feeling.

I learned that I've been running and hiding from feelings and emotions for a very long time ... refusing to feel it.

I was reading back at some of my really early blogs when I first started this journey ... it was October 2007 ... and I was listing my blogs like this: Death of an Addiction -- Day 1.

I would make it a few days without a cigarette ... and then I would "fail" ... and the next time that I wrote ... I would have to write Day 1 again.

You know what? I was trying so hard to achieve the "end result" (which means not to smoke) ... that for the longest time ... I didn't understand that the real journey ... was not the days that I did not smoke ... but more importantly ... the days that I did smoke ... because it was those days that held the secret to the root reasons and causes for the addiction.

Jesus is so backwards ... I'm still getting used to it. If you find me smoking in the parking lot of the church ... your very human reaction would be ... she has failed ... she is still addicted.

But the work that has been done ... has been done internally ... in my heart and in my spirit ... and does not yet show on the outside.

One day it will show on the outside ... but until then ... I will just keep climbing that mountain (with an occasional detour here and there ... just to take a break and get refreshed).