My Junk

I haven’t blogged in a while.  My dad is in the final stages of mesothelioma and it’s been a rough week.  He was rushed to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe.  Stayed a week.  Transferred to a rehab facility–which I’m pretty sure he thinks is a nursing home.  He’ll only be there a few weeks and then we will take him home.  I wish he believed that.

Thankfully, I was present for most of the scary moments.  The moments he thought he was done.  We talked about fear–he said he had none.  He said he wished he could somehow report back.  It was heart-wrenching.  I stayed with him overnight that night.  We were both shocked that he was still here in the morning.

The weekend this happened I was taking the Y12SR program (Yoga for 12 step recovery).  I managed to stay and take the entire program so now I am able to hold space for meetings/practices in my community.  Nikki Meyers is a goddess.  She got me through this hellacious weekend of torture.  I battled myself every moment wondering if I should leave or stay.  Ultimately, I stayed.  I needed to learn what she was teaching because deep down I knew I’d be able to use it for my father’s benefit.  And I did.

Since then, I found a sponsor.  A lovely woman with decades of sobriety.  Our first conversation was an hour by phone on my way to the hospital.  It was like we knew each other and I knew I was safe.  I met with her yesterday for the first time.  We sat in her backyard among the trees and flowers and blistering 95 degree sun.  Both of us worship the sun so it was ok.  We talked for three hours.  I told her some of my story, she told me some of hers.  I read my step one homework to her, and she showed me hers from way back when.  I began to see things in my past that I hadn’t seen as alcohol-driven before.  Things from when I was 15.  Things I hadn’t given much thought to.  Connections.  “Ah-ha!” things.

Then I looked at my phone.  My sister had texted and said my dad was at the rehab center and my mom was asking when I would be there.  My heart started to race.  I wasn’t sure.  When I’m done with this?  I don’t know.  My car was in the shop as well being worked on.  Then I see the message from my mechanic, “Call me.”  I asked my sponsor if she’d mind if I called him quickly. She didn’t.

$900.  NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Fuck.

Oh well, I’d figure it out.  The most important thing right then was that I was with my sponsor and I was working on my sobriety so screw everything else for the moment.  Get back to it.  We talked for another 1/2 hour or so and suddenly my stomach started to gurgle.  Was it the heat?  I didn’t feel good.  I asked to use her bathroom and barely made it.  That afternoon everything that was inside of me came out.  Literally and figuratively.

The drive to the rehab center is one I won’t forget.  I was shaky, scattered, weak. Like something was seriously happening to me.   Something horrible.  I felt like a junkie.  Like I was detoxing.  I had all the symptoms.  I wanted to pull over and call an ambulance.  Check in to a rehab center myself.  But I kept driving.  I focused my eyes and drove.

I was detoxing.  I am detoxing.  My life will never be the same.  I am purging. I am stopping the drug.  The drug of ego.  The drug of masks.  The drug of justification.  The drug of lies.  The drug of comfort.  The drug of junk.

Here we go.

Author: soberyoginow

I am a 56 year old yoga instructor who chooses not to drink alcohol any more. View all posts by soberyoginow