The workbook opens:
The “decision to heal” refers to the decision to face your fears and to change your life. The moment you say “I’m a survivor and I want to make the pain go away,” you begin shaping your commitment to heal. Yet the decision to heal is not a decision you make once; it’s one you have to make over and over again. Each stage of the healing process presents new challenges, risks, fears, and opportunities; each requires you to renew your commitment. Every time you pay attention to your emotional needs and make healing activities a priority, you strengthen your commitment to the healing process.
So that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to share with you my answers and then reflect on how I felt back then and compare it to how I would answer it now. My life has progressed and changed so much since I did this worksheet in mid-October 2018, and as the book says “the decision to heal is not a decision you make once; it’s one you have to make over and over again” so I’m sure I’ll be doing work like this and digging into myself for years to come. I have to keep choosing to heal by admitting my faults.
The worksheet starts:
Although healing ultimately brings a better life, healing also threatens to permanently alter your life as you’ve known it. Your relationships, your position in the world, even your sense of identity may change. Coping patterns that have served you for a lifetime will be called into question. When you make the commitment to heal, your risk losing much of what is familiar.
As a result, one part of you may want to heal while another resists change.Quicky, Without thinking too much about what you’re going to write, fill in the following sentence:
If I healed I’d have to give up drug use
If I healed I’d have to give up using past trauma as an excuse for my bad behavior
If I healed I’d have to give up denying myself the ability to be creative
If I healed I’d have to give up isolation
If I healed I’d have to give up being self-centeredLook back over your answers, and then complete the following:
What surprised me most about my responses? The fact that I tell myself that I’m not good enough to create because I feel so damaged by my drug use.
What am I most afraid to give up? Why? Isolation. I like being alone and fear leaving my house. I feel like a burden on everyone even when being positive.
What seemed easiest to give up? Why? Drug use. I’m getting treatment for my drug use and I’m out of the situation that made using easy.
What specific fears are holding me back at this time? Isolation. Everyone says you need to have a support system and to reach out to get better.
How are my fears affecting my commitment to the healing process? I don’t want to be rejected and I feel like a burden on everyone. [I fear admitting] weakness and failure.
Looking back now in mid-January 2019 these “flaws” and fears seem so light; they are merely surface scratches. I hadn’t come far enough to admit the hard stuff to myself. When I did this in rehab, this was supposed to be a speedy worksheet so you only put down your immediate answers as opposed to thinking about it deeply. After initially doing this worksheet I would come back to it and think deeper about what issues I really have and redo the exercise in my head.
As you can see on the worksheet some of the falts I admit to in the first part I barely even acknowledge in the second part. This is partly because of how quickly we were doing this, but also because I couldn’t truly admit these things to myself. I gave cookie cutter answers that I had given doctors and therapists that where somewhat lies, or me bending the truth, or me telling them what they wanted to hear. I didn’t really believe them. While I do agree with some of my answers, what I would say today would be very different. The things I would say today I was too scared to say back then, I hadn’t learned enough about my disease or life yet to even realize some of the things I’d say today. I found a worksheet that I did a few weeks after I did this one where I’m far more honest, and I may share that if people are interested. Let me know!
At the time I did this worksheet I hadn’t publically come clean about either of my relapses (and while I have mentioned them, I guess I haven’t gone into them) I felt so much guilt and shame, both from relapsing and from hiding it from everybody. I bet a lot of people were confused when I went to rehab or why my mental state deteriorated so quickly. I hadn’t told my fiance about the opioid and benzodiazepine relapse I had yet, so I couldn’t talk about it on the internet. I was so scared people wouldn’t want to be supportive of me anymore because I relapsed, I thought I had to be firmly in recovery for them to keep cheering me on. My relapse felt like a failure; I didn’t want to show that weakness to the world, I didn’t want anyone to know how I felt the night it happened, I didn’t want anyone to know how far I fell. In my mind, I had failed, and everyone would leave me, disappointed and label me a “worthless junkie” for the rest of my life.
The night I relapsed I tried talking to a friend, she avoided the topic of how dangerous the situation was, I don’t blame her, it’s scary to know your friend has something that could kill them in their pocket. What hurt was how I was meant to feel like I was getting in the way of her life, that I was burdening her with my problems, she had better and more fun things to do. She didn’t tell me not to use. Nobody I texted told me not to use or gave me any reasons why I shouldn’t. I felt like I was dragging down their life and was just another chore to deal with. I felt rejected and unloved.
One thing that did hit me hard while doing this worksheet was admitting that I stifle my own creativity. I never thought too much about how much drug use killed my creativity, and therefore also killed a huge part of my personality. While using I was in such a robotic mode I just cranked out stuff that was “good enough” but had completely stopped being creative and making what I really consider art. I stopped because I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore, I felt that I had intentionally fried that part of my brain and couldn’t bring myself to try to create. Being a creative person there would always be moments where I had such a strong urge to create something, but I stopped myself because I didn’t feel good enough, I didn’t want to see how bad it would be. While using I also knew I would never finish any big projects anyway, so what’s the point? Mere hours later I wouldn’t even remember what I was trying to create or express. My mood would have swung 45 different ways and the message would have been lost.
I was embarrassed about how numb I made my mind, but while using my desire to be numb and sedated overpowered my desire to create. I didn’t need a creative outlet; my substances were my outlet. I no longer needed to create to cope with life or to celebrate life, I had my substances for that. When I did want to be creative, or when I had to be creative, I had my substances to essentially do it for me. I was so detached from reality I don’t think I saw, heard or felt anything I created for a while. I felt surreal, and that felt great, I felt like I was making or expressing the best thing ever. While using I would feel on top of the world, like I was the best damn thing ever and every thought I had was unique, insightful, intelligent groundbreaking, world-changing, and so on and everything I did was amazing. I felt like I was floating, almost as if I were watching myself do these things without getting to feel them for myself. Not truly expressing my creativity left a massive hole in my heart and personality, but of course, I had my substances to fill that hole. This is hard for me to talk about right now because I’m afraid of romanticizing my substance abuse, I’m not quite out of that phase yet, but I’m trying to express how miserable my “good” feelings actually were.
The post I was going to make before this one has more of a deep dive into accepting things about myself and rediscovering my creativity, but you guys voted for digging into my personality flaws first so you’ll have to wait for that one. I guess you guys are really sadistic and enjoy watching me tear into myself. Haha!
Now I’m going to try to see what I would say on that worksheet in mid-January 2019. I’m going to do it quickly just like the first time.
Quicky, Without thinking too much about what you’re going to write, fill in the following sentence:
If I healed I’d have to give up my dependency on other people to give me a reason to not use.
If I healed I’d have to give up my narcissism and feeling like I’m special.
If I healed I’d have to give up my secretiveness.
If I healed I’d have to give up my need for quick resolutions to uncomfortable feelings.
If I healed I’d have to give up my way of rewarding myself and relaxing.
If I healed I’d have to give up my self-destructive behavior.
If I healed I’d have to give up my attention seeking behavior.
If I healed I’d have to give up my avoidant behavior.
If I healed I’d have to give up my excuses and self-forgiveness for my abusive, hurtful, and erratic behavior.
If I healed I’d have to give up my excuses and self-forgiveness for my capriciousness and irresponsibility.
If I healed I’d have to give up my denial of my reality and the reality of the world.
If I healed I’d have to give up my dishonesty about my desires in life.Look back over your answers, and then complete the following:
What surprised me most about my responses? That I’m slowly coming to terms with my flaw about how I feel special, how I feel important, and how I feel like I deserve special treatment and attention. I also am surprised about how much I altered how I viewed my future around continuing to use. I am surprised at how many hopes and dreams I let go of because I knew I couldn’t achieve them while using and I never thought I could stop using.
What am I most afraid to give up? Why? My dependency on others. I don’t feel strong enough to cope on my own; I need someone there to help me. I’m terrified. I have abandonment issues, I do dangerous and erratic things to try and keep people close. I’m afraid I haven’t built the strength yet to tackle my problems on my own. When I’m struggling I look to others for validation and propose.
What seemed easiest to give up? Why? My secretiveness. I found telling the raw truth to be cathartic and helpful.
What specific fears are holding me back at this time? Giving up my quick fix and rewards. I’m afraid to face life and deal with tough emotions and the reality of the world without something that quickly helps me turn it all off when it becomes too much. I find it hard to function without knowing I have a little “prize” at the end of whatever begrudging thing I’m going through; I have begun to feel like weeks and tasks have no end because there was no “reward” at the end. I have no exciting thing to look forward to, so what’s the point?
How are my fears affecting my commitment to the healing process? I’m just scared. I don’t know what kind of person I would be without these traits; I’m scared I won’t like the person I am if I healed. Who will I become after this transitional and healing phase? I’m getting nothing done because I have no synthetic motivator and nothing to look forward to, at least nothing that measures up to using. I have found it hard to accept that when something bad or stressful happens, there will no longer be an “off button” for that reality.
I rambled all of these off really quickly as the instructions say, I know I have deeper personality flaws that I need to reflect on. I think a lot of the ones I listed may need their own post to elaborate on because they are too significant to add on to an already long post or summarize under a short question. But there you have it; this is how much my thinking and ability to accept my flaws has grown in 3 months. Maybe I’ll do this again at 6 or 12 months.
Along the side of the worksheet I wrote down this quote: “feel your fear and do it anyway, be brave enough to be uncomfortable.”
One of the clinicians said that to me while I was working on this and I wanted to save it as a reminder. At the time I felt very brave and uncomfortable for what I shared, but I feel like I’ve come so much further since that day because I’ve felt fear so many times, but I did it anyway. I think that’s what I’m doing with this writing and sharing my battle and journey of change. I used to be very closed off, and now, well, I’m posting this personal analysis for anyone to see.
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