Author Archives: dymondsam

Well, it happened. With all the shame radiating from my heart, through my arms, and shooting through my fingers onto this keyboard, I am sitting here sweating, pissed, and hollow. My ego has definitely gotten the best of me. It’s just one day. Does it really count?

A.A. is an honest program. I know what I did, regardless of whether I think that it’s fair or not, I know that I have not been sober since October 17. I have to restart my date and restart my steps. Hearing that really sent me into a spiral. My mind was suddenly in full effect. I woke up and told my sponsor that if I have to restart everything, then “I may as well drink”. Looking back, I wish I would have had the sense to replay the tape. Instead, I lived it.

This disease is so powerful. It was like all the chips and tears and hard work meant nothing. Being sober again (for a week now) I know that none of that was lost. I wanted to keep my date soo bad. And they say that the only shame in relapsing is not coming back to the rooms. So I did. And as the chairman asked for everyone to state their name and claim and their sobriety dates, I felt like someone had pulled the string that tied my entire life together and unraveled me in front of everyone. I suddenly felt a spotlight on me, burning into my forehead. I was vulnerable, I was ashamed, I was… oh my God I can’t stop crying.

It took a lot for me to take that 24 hour chip. I hadn’t shown up to do my commitment Three weeks in a row, and I’d come in many times before, an obvious wreck. My home-group was proud. They clapped and welcomed me back and hugged me so hard. I guess they were sending prayers up every time I announced “I’m Dymond. I’m an alcoholic. I’m sober today” for the past week, and rushing out the door as fast as I’d come in to meet my “friends” at the bar.

Addiction is so scary. It wants me dead. It told me I wasn’t worth shit. It had me thinking of reasons and ways I should off myself after I downed a bottle of rum. It doesn’t want anything good for me. It’s not helping me escape anything, all of my problems multiply after I give in. This time I am blessed. I stopped before I went out for years. I returned to my sober family before I pushed the “Fuck it” button. I’m grateful that I can always come back no matter how ashamed I am. A.A. is going to love me when I can’t love myself.

It took me so long to get the balls to finish writing this. I really didn’t want to share this. I started it the day I relapsed and kept putting it off. But today is a really emotional day. I think it calls for a double post.

For this one, I just want for anyone who is struggling to know:

“THERE IS A SOLUTION. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.”

Sometimes I wanna wallow in self pity and stomp my feet and cry about how far I would have and could have been. That everyone who doubted my sobriety was right and I can shame myself for “screwing up”. That is so easy to do. I didn’t lose anything. I have learned so much from my treatments. Going to treatment and meeting people in recovery and talking about my past has lead me to the amazing program of A.A. and I’m not gonna lie. I hated it at first but damn I want what these people have so bad I can’t give up. I am all in. This is life or death for me. Addiction can’t win this time.

Being back in my hometown is officially wearing itself out. at first, I was excited to attend meetings of my own, make friends in the program, sleep in, drive my own car, and enjoy Whataburger every second I get. I wasn’t sure where the mundane, vomitty feeling was rising from or whether it was PMS or malnourishment. But then I started realizing that I’ve been focusing a great deal on my home life. So much so that I let go of focusing on my goals. I find that I get irritated when my dad gets on my ass about having a five year plan, but why? Why don’t I have a single clue about where I want to be in five years? I was planning on getting in shape, digging into my program, and enlisting in the Army, but I know there is a possible barrier when it comes to ex-rehab clients’ desire to serve the country. However, the answer is always no when I don’t try. My dad says I should finish college first, and I refuse to go back to San Marcos around all my old connections and relapse. Even if I transfer closer to home, the anxiety that arises from anticipated school-related stress should not stop me from pursuing any viable dreams.

Change is coming. I have made many attempts to make my old ways and my will work, and it’s really time that I do the exact opposite. I know I can’t stay in this plateau much longer without wanting to keel over and die. What I can’t do is stop relying on my higher power to guide me in His will, nor should I stop relying on my libra qualities of balancing both sides of every situation and being honest about how I feel without without covering my desires for what they truly are. Ambivalence has no place in my life right now. I want to stay focused, determined, and move forward. I am letting people into my life, I am opening my options for employment, and someone very dear to me told me that my heart is expanding and that I will spread more good in this world, and frankly, that’s what I intend to do. I just have to learn to let go of reservations, and be more willing to make myself as useful as possible to God and my fellows.

Staying in the present moment has helped me take action in directions that bring me joy. Should change come extremely fast and leave me breathless, It is time that I roll my sleeves up and take care of my shit.

Tinder strikes again. This guy was just too good to be true. Healthy, sober, fit, bilingual… he was the whole package. After a night chatting on the phone and making plans I thought I may have hit the jackpot.
I added him on Snapchat and sent snaps back and forth just to be sure he wasn’t a modern day Bundy. I’d even double checked if we were still on earlier in the day and last I checked, we were. So when I wasn’t getting the text replies as 8pm drew closer I began to panic. However, my face was beat and my eyebrows were on fleek. I couldn’t waste the precious time I had spent wanting to impress him, so I headed to our meeting spot in hopes that he was busy getting ready just as I was.

But there I was, an empty chair on the other side of my vanilla latte, feeling extra flat. I retreated to the good ol’ days and made an old-fashioned phone call. He didn’t answer. The list of possible excuses for his absence were slowly being crossed off. I daydreamed about a sweet somebody asking if the chair was taken, and when I answered no, we would have intriguing conversation and we would hit it off and ditch this place to catch a vibe.

And behold! A beautiful lady asked if the chair was taken! I told her it wasn’t, and my heart fluttered a bit and I knew God had answered my wishes. Then, she slowly pulled back the chair with a puzzled look and joined her three friends and a table for two. Shit, was I thought obvious?

I was left with no option but to call my friend and head that way to share my embarrassment over Hobo Johnson & The LoveMakers, cheese sticks, and a game of Gin.

As the night went on I began to think.. Am I ready for this anyway? Dating can be loads of fun, but it can also hurt just as it did tonight. If getting stood up by a stranger bums me out this bad, then maybe I need to slow my roll. But then again, it has been a very long time since my last encounter. I have no idea what my next move is going to be. I do know that, in this case, it wasn’t me. It was him.

P.S. I finally created a widget on the home page that allows y’all to follow the blog 😉

You know when you’re at a bar, fairly plastered, and you run into an old friend and suddenly the two of you are calling each other sisters, slurring “I love you’s” and making extravagant plans? That’s basically how I feel coming back. When I get invited somewhere I immediately tell myself that no matter what my intentions are in the moment, I will inevitably wake up and decide to waste the hours watching One Piece and stuffing my face with- well in this case- dried fruits and nuts (seriously, where are the good snacks in this house?!)

Today, I had to remind myself that I am not that person anymore. Today, I woke up with a clear head and decided to follow through with plans because I’m not hungover or sleep deprived. Today, I did everything I said I would do. Today, I attended the baby shower of an old, close friend. Today, I can tell the story of the awkwardness of… well, being me.

I approached the steps of Michelle’s* house, and pretended I didn’t see the crowd of chatty soccer moms following me to our destination close behind me. My mind was overflowing with flickering thoughts. Is anyone from high school going to be here? What will I say when they ask me why I was California? Am I the only one without a gift? I knocked on the door and waited, empty-handed, with the ‘Linda’s and Peggy’s’ behind me holding bundles of thoughtful gifts and balloons. When no one answered, I let myself in, and and turned to see the ladies gawking at me as if I had just busted through the window. I was relieved to see Michelle’s familiar smile and her mom. As I pulled away from the grandma-to-be, she gave my arm a little squeeze and cheerfully asked, “Would you like a mimosa?” Damn.

I accepted a bottled water and went straight to the food as more Linda’s and Peggy’s arrived. Quickly, I realized I was the only one who didn’t know the rest of the party guests and made close friends with the fruit platters and pita chips with hummus. It wasn’t until I was on helping number three that I realized I was the only one eating, and the rest of the gals were patiently waiting on the food that was in the oven as they chatted about the next 5k they’re going to run and sipping their mimosas.

Despite my awkwardness, I was banking on the fact that I would come out of my shell when we played games. That was until I recognized that if the shower started at 2pm and we haven’t busted out the games by 3pm, there probably weren’t going to be any. So I plopped by ass on the couch and played games on my phone while Michelle answered the same questions repeatedly to each of her mom’s friends.

At some point I had to consider the fact that not only had I shown up with no gift, I was also being a total downer. Michelle and I have had our good times and our bad times, and today we can laugh about the times we got caught getting high and being confronted by police now that we’re both in recovery. She is really the only one who I’ve known who truly gets it. And if I had any real chance of maintaining a friend in this wacky transition, I needed to make myself useful. I took pictures of her opening gifts and started cracking my greatest puns at the best moments (they were actually so bad I had to bury them in my mind, but hey the momma’s love it). Really, the day wasn’t about my awkwardness. It wasn’t about the mimosas. It’s about Michelle and her baby boy. It’s about rekindling a friendship. It’s about the wonderful fellowship of AA. It’s about the fact that even though it feels like a full circle ending, being back with my old best friend, it is actually not an ending at all. We both are starting completely over. We have the unknown ahead of us. She is someone I can talk to when I’m being nagged by my parents about my program, I can discuss my steps and attend meetings with her. She understands that coming back to our hometown is stressful and that sometimes I need to pull myself out of my house and have some laughs and good conversations. And today, I realized that I am blessed and extremely grateful to have her back in my life.

P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who read and messaged me about yesterday’s blog post! Don’t hesitate to share with your friends and keep coming back! 😉

(some will understand what I did there)

Wow. Where do I even start here? The last time I posted was for a fundamentals of digital online media assignment (which I kicked ass at btw).
Thinking about Spring 2018 is overflowing my mind with sweet nostalgia and a major urge to vomit. Or maybe I’m just extremely nauseous sitting in the very back of this airplane next to a man digging into what has to be the most repulsive sandwich I’ve ever taken a whiff of. Besides that, Spring 2018 was packed with romance and heartbreak and some really shitty coping. Wait, scratch that… that romance was actually violent, controlling, and flat out psychotic. The heartbreak was extremely intense though. I guess there’s comfort in familiar pain. Stupidly enough. But I did hear that there’s no growth in the comfort zone and there’s no comfort in the growth zone. So that’s what I did, I grew away and into a hole of self medicating and rebounds and so many stupid mistakes. Long story short, that ex boyfriend knocked up a chick he hooked up with three months after the break up and now they’re engaged, and I quickly realized I was dealing with far more than I could handle on my end and was admitted into treatment. So after I tried to get everyone to hear my side of the story, the “his ex is crazy” rumors are deemed to be true. So here we are five months later and I’m on a flight back to Texas from treatment.
If I’m being completely honest, I’m terrified. I’m going back to my parents house at the age of 23 with no real direction, painfully sex deprived, unemployed, a college drop out, and in recovery. Recovery is supposed to be shiny and wonderful but I just haven’t gotten there yet. I’m blessed hands down! I’m just a mess, as well.
So considering how most of my friends now are moms, disappointed, or just simply have lives, I’ve decided that blogging my sad adventures is my best bet to have a connection to the outside world.
Sooo stay tuned. *eyeroll*