Escaping or Finding Freedom

Escaping or Finding Freedom?

From the very first time, I fell in love with the euphoria of running away. That chains are off, feet are moving, heart is pounding breaking out into the cool night air was like a hit of some new drug. What’s not to love about that? The problem was, I was bringing just as much trouble with me than I was leaving behind. It took years for me to get tired enough to do something different.

In 2002, I picked up the phone and said to the woman on the other end “I’m DONE!!” and then I waited. They showed up and explained to him I was leaving and he needed to let me do what I need to do. They stood between myself and his violence and escorted me out the door with my ½ packed bag into an unknown future, but that was ok. Within a couple of hours I was picking up a newcomer chip from a woman that whispered in my ear, “The war is over” and I nearly crumpled in tears. I had finally run TO something not just away from something. That something was recovery.

I have since realized why it did no good to outrun the last “him” or “them” that had become part of my prison because I always brought the source of my problems with me; myself and mu addict mind that could only make decisions driven by compulsion and obsession. A mind that cared more about changing feelings than changing the problem. As long as that was who was driving the getaway car, my destination would remain the same, unmanageability and degradation.

This program, created by addicts for addicts, showed me why I can leave in the middle of a million nights, hitchhike hundreds of miles and take a million drugs but I cannot outrun myself or addiction. My impulses, defects, selfishness, obsessions, compulsions, short-comings and deficiencies are hard-wired into who I am and there is no escape. Recovery through 12 steps gave me a better offer than mere escape, it offered me freedom. Escape was about what’s “out there, freedom is about what’s in here ♥. I needed more than a change of address, a different boyfriend or a different chemical. I needed a new me. Luckily recovery is in the business of creating new people.

I’m a messy human. I used to be messier. I’d go from the frying pan into the fire, jump back into the same pan and back into the same fire. I’d look for rescue thinking it was the answer only to have to find the fire exit. I was unequipped to live a real life, handle real responsibilities or even sane enough to want them. I was easy pickings for the predator and the sick rescuer whose price tags were always eventually more than I wanted to pay. I kept trying to fix the problems with the same brain that made them and then cried about my poor misunderstood life. A vicious cycle of self-destruction and pain, driven by the madness inside that only cared about “one more”. Escape cannot fix such mess. What I needed what a personality change.

I now know escape is but an event but freedom is a process. Through the 12 steps I discovered I could finally admit I’m an addict and open the door to the fresh air of truth and peace. I could lay down the burdens of denial, justification and rationalization. I could turn around and face the wreckage and defects I had tried to outrun and instead DO something about them. As I changed, so did my surroundings and the people in them. My life slowly became something I wanted to live and less something I wanted to avoid. And choices, beautiful choices bloomed like flowers in a field waiting to be picked. GOOD choices, new choices each with endless possibilities. The monster has gone to sleep.

Possibly you are tired of the “one more” and the “this time it will be different” hustle that is dragging your poor exhausted soul over the rocks. (Is that why they call them “drugs”, because they drag our asses over every painful thing imaginable?) Or you might be someone with some clean time but addiction craziness has morphed into some other display of insanity and self-destruction that has left you just as exhausted as the day you came in. That’s ok, we get clean, not perfect. Take off your running shoes and meet me at the meeting tonight. I’ll save you a seat, give you a hug and whisper in your ear “the war is over” and we can get on with the business of recovery and the gift of true freedom, together.

NW