After being out of commission for a few days, my recent experiences have prompted me to write this topic for a new blog post: “Sick”. Exactly what kind of sick am I talking about? Well, there are many kinds of SICK, physical, emotional, and spiritual, so let’s talk about them all. I remember when I was newly sober, they told me that my disease was a sickness of the mind, body and soul. That once we got rid of the alcohol and started feeling better physically, we then had to get ourselves better emotionally and spiritually. What I learned is that continuing to drink, I was being blocked from the sunlight of the spirit, but that I couldn’t work on the latter, without physically getting ourselves better first.
Something that I have been struggling with for the past couple of years is physically being sick. And its the kind of sick, that no matter how many tests are run, medicines are tried, and diets are started, somehow, we still can’t figure out exactly what is going on inside of my body. I thank God for my husband, because he has been with me every step of the way, cheering me on, and feeding me hope, strength, peace, and unconditional love. He has this way about him, that always calms me down in the most stressful situations. I also have to say that I can’t fault the doctors, they are doing their best, but as the “sick” individual, its the most frustrating thing in the world. Most recently my symptoms have been getting worse, the pain, nausea, the fatigue, and overall feeling of being unwell, just wont go away.
What I have also found is as the symptoms progress, more tests are done, and more questions are being unanswered, the emotional and spiritual parts of me are suffering too, they are “sick” if you will. I feel more of a disconnect with God, more frustrations with myself, my job, the dogs, etc, and my emotions seem to be through the roof at times. Up. Down. Up. Down. It almost reminds me of early sobriety. Just like in early sobriety, it was virtually impossible to find a connection with God, and try to work on myself, without taking the drink away and physically getting ourselves well first. Now you are trying to tell me, that even though I am physically unwell, and it seems that I won’t be feeling any better today, that emotionally I need to be of a sane mind and spiritually I need to be connected to my Higher Power. How the hell am I supposed to do that? Of course when they say the pain gets great enough, we WILL do something different.
What I have learned is that I have to work even harder at these things now. Do I do it perfectly? Absolutely not. There are days I fall short, I still get frustrated, I get down with myself, I feel anxious, and disconnected, but that doesn’t mean I quit. I just try again tomorrow. By working more persistently, I have been able to find things that I am truly passionate about, writing, painting, decorating, helping others. It all gets me out of myself, become closer to God, and makes me forget about the fact that I just don’t feel good. My husband also helps in more ways than he knows. He encourages me to seek the sunlight of the spirit even more, because I watch him do it every day. They never said that sobriety would be easy and they especially didn’t say that life would be easy, and that’s okay. What I do know is that I am truly blessed to be on this beautiful, crazy journey, that we call life. And one day at a time, we will rock at it, knowing that God and the amazing people that support and love us, will forever be by our side, walking with or carrying us, every step of the way.
