***TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, addiction***
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Goddess as we understood Her.
Yes, I changed the wording slightly to fit my own beliefs. I don’t LOVE how the big book is really Christian-based but that’s just me. Regardless, this has always been one of my favorite steps. Once you believe that there is some higher power that will scoop you up with tender hands, the rest is much easier. As I said before, some people believe that AA itself is their higher power, and I applaud them for that. For me, however, after I felt that spiritual and nurtured touch in the moonlight, I felt changed. To a 21 year old me, this felt easier than anything so far. My life was so far out of control that turning it over to someone else seemed to make the most sense. I don’t know that I’ve gone into great detail about all the things that led me to sobriety, at long last. The first time alcohol touched my lips, burned through my stomach, and hazed my mind, I was already a goner. I went from the pitiful, ugly girl who was bullied, to a teenager praised for her beauty and drunk (haha: pun intended) on power. Of course, learning how to use makeup and how to dress well didn’t mean I was suddenly an extrovert with charm and people skills. That was as far from the truth as you could go, actually. I was so shy in school that I barely spoke, usually staring at everyone with large eyes and then blushing, gaze trained on the letters in my hand, embarrassed at how awkward I was. That is, until I was drunk. In my mind I became this fun party girl, the life of the festivities. I was cool (or so I thought)! I could talk to people (more like slur at people, but sure)! I could make friends (that would forget me in the light of day, when the hangover wore off)! Regardless, I thought that was my reality.
Beyond the ability to fling off my Cloak of Shyness, alcohol also numbed a lot of my internal pain. I’d been diagnosed with chronic depression as a pre-teen but the meds made me feel like a fucking zombie, so I said, “no thanks!” and stopped taking them. I was always trying to claw my way to the next high, trying to get out of that pit in the shadows. I dabbled in self harm and suicidal ideation for years, trying to find some sort of anesthesia.
Even now I have these dreams I call Grey Dreams, and when I wake up I am shaking with fear. Those dreams wrench away all the color and light in my world, leaving only hopeless depression and the knowledge that this time, it won’t go away. I’m stuck there, forever, screaming and crying and begging to get out. That’s how depression feels to me. I remember this one time I was with my first love at the Fort, smiling and eating ice cream, when that Grey Dream feeling suddenly shot into me like a lightning bolt. I fell onto the ground and started sobbing. That memory is so clear and vivid even all these years later. The littlest thing could make me spiral into the Grey Dream feeling. Of course, teenagers are completely rational beings who think things through, right?
Yea. Right.
So alcohol and weed? I mean, to me they felt like a fucking godsend. I started smoking and / or drinking every single day, if I could. I don’t think anyone saw a problem with it at first. I was just a teenager, just a normal girl experimenting with things, right? RIGHT?
Obviously not.
Here’s a montage of That Time: having my wallet stolen so so so many times, waking up and not knowing where I was, shouting at my friends, running off god knows where, my friends looking for me, throwing bottles, getting fired from multiple jobs, losing loves, losing family and friends, spiraling into the Grey Dream reality, driving over a bridge and wondering how long it would take to die if I drove off of it, drinking Jack Daniels and sobbing, chain smoking because a part of me didn’t care if I lived or died, dabbling with pain and danger, imagining how I’d take my life – pills, carbon monoxide, slashing my wrists, driving off the bridge and into the river? Even after I was finally diagnosed with bipolar 1, at the age of 19, it felt too late. My psychiatrist would stare at me with dark, burning eyes, and tell me that the way I was using my prescriptions and alcohol was slowly killing me. “Do you want to be like Amy Winehouse?” She asked that. I think I kind of shrugged and thought, well, maybe? It all came to a head one night when I decided to take all of my sleeping pills. My friend Julie sensed something was wrong, based on my texts, and alerted my family. There was screaming and weeping and accusations. I called off of work the next day and my mother stayed home to be my personal “suicide watch.” My psychiatrist, Dr. Jammu, told me that unless I got into AA and turned my life around, she wouldn’t see me anymore. This might not seem like much of a threat to anyone else but I felt like I owed this woman my whole life. She’s the one who listened to me, like no one else had, and said: “Oh yes, you’re absolutely bipolar 1.” I felt so seen. I also had a deep fear of abandonment, so it hit hard. I promised I’d try. And that’s how my mother and I ended up at my first AA meeting on a chilly, sunny Saturday.
So, turning your life over to a higher power sounded pretty freaking great, because I obviously wasn’t doing too great of a job with running my own life. I didn’t really have a sense as to who this She was beyond Mother and Goddess. Still, I gave it all over to Her, and let Her lead me. She, my family, my friends, my sponsor J and Dr.Jammu all helped me to carve a new path. I didn’t have a face for Her, until 2012, when the Venus transit occurred and I finally put a face to the name (or one of the faces, as I’d find out later). She was Love. She laughed and twirled with me in a shower of rose petals.
That is how it all came to pass. All of my 12 years of sobriety.
I think it was easier to turn things over when I was such a mess and when I was so out of control. It’s harder, now. We are so sure that we know what’s best for us, that our plan which we’ve worked so hard for is the correct one. How are we to know what the Universe has in store for us? If we cling so tightly to our own fading ideals and to-do, what might we miss out on? I have to remind myself of this, often. And still, it’s hard, “Letting go and letting Goddess.” I’m trying though. She hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Even the most difficult and frustrating roads led me to beautiful discoveries of self. It might not have felt like it at the time, when I saw my own faults mirrored at me, when I ran away from loves that didn’t quite feel right, when my grief left me so broken that I didn’t feel like I’d ever be whole again. Now, though, sitting outside on this breezy and sunny Monday, I’m so happy. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I never would have gotten here without some truly divine intervention.
So step 3? Bring it.
Elisabeth Writing 