Quoc’s Web Journal

Hey folks… I am happy to announce to you that as of this evening, Tuesday, April 22, 2008 that I AM BACK!!! I’ve been battling with extreme fatigue and seemingly lack of will to get out of bed for the past few days… It may have something to do with coming down off yet another relapse; hopefully my last relapse!

I have been just absolutely feeling completely paralyzed to getting up to do anything whether it be dishes, paperwork, vacuuming to even the most simple tasks such as showering, brushing my teeth, putting away my clothes, and making phone calls to reach out for help… I couldn’t be more grateful for today…

I had the same amount of fear, fatigue, and just lack of willingness to get up to shower, brush and do some very overdue dishes before getting ready to go to an appointment with a therapist to take care of my EAP with work. It was a 2.5 hour long affair between seeing the LCSW to do some initial exploration of the underlying issues behind why I made that decision to put self in a position to get loaded. It was somewhat productive… I heard some good things… Then I was referred to the “Addiction Medicine” program where I spent another hour or so going through an intake process to assess how much “treatment” I need for my problem.

I was so annoyed by the whole process. While being annoyed by this process, I checked myself and reminded myself of something my Sponsor told me… “Quoc, these are the consequences of your actions you get to live with.”  I moved into some more acceptance by reminding myself that I am not a victim of these circumstances and that FACT OF THE MATTER is that I created this mess that I am in and I get to go through it and perhaps be annoyed enough to not want to repeat the actions I took that brought me to this place that I am in, which includes: the fatigue and acute depression and withdrawal that I have experienced; the money being spent to be assessed and placed into “treatment” for my problem; feeling distanced and humiliated from going to meetings and identifying as a newcomer.

How lucky am I that I didn’t lose my job; that I have the loving support of all my co-workers!  How lucky am I that instead of HIV numbers looking worse that my cd4 count (immune system) actually went up and is at it’s highest ever despite what I’ve done all month long.  How lucky am I that I didn’t lose my home, my car and lose more money than I did with the using I did.  How lucky am I that I didn’t lose my mind and that my mind and body recovered as quickly as it has… Thank God for having such a resilient body…   Thank God for the rooms of recovery just embracing me with love and support; I have received text messages and phone calls from people I know and moreover complete strangers that I don’t remember who reminded me and let me know that they “know me” and that I helped them when they were new in recovery and made the rooms safe for them to be in to get sober and clean and all they are doing is just returning the favor and passing forward the love and support that I so generously gave to them…

I am so grateful for this sudden boost of energy and zeal and desire for recovery and sobriety that God wants for me…  This couldn’t have come at a more perfect and much needed time as I felt sooo desperately hopeless that I would ever recapture and reclaim any sense of serenity, happiness and desire for sober life that I have today.  I am going to take advantage of this right now to do my dishes, shower, brush and do some writing before going to sleep in preparation for my commitment to going to two meetings per day until I have enough sobriety to really feel grounded!!!

Thank you for your continued support, prayers, phone calls, e-mails, text messages and love love love!!!  I am back for a moment and hoping that this feeling is here to stay!

Hugs,

Quoc