Alienation

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My little sister and I were commiserating on the phone last week about our shared propensity for people-pleasing. Well, actually, she was telling me how much she admires my ability to set boundaries around my time, space and energy. And listening to her, I was realizing how far I’ve come in recovery.

“Sometimes, I’m sitting in a meeting that’s running overtime, and I’ve had to pee for an hour, but I’m too scared to just leave because that’s seen as rude,” my sister said. “And then I think, ‘Jen would have been gone 20 minutes ago…’”

Damn straight, sis! We haven’t lived in the same state since the spring of 2000, when she was 12, but my rep in the family as an anxious-avoidant introvert whose signature move is the “Irish goodbye” has been firmly established over the past 20+ years. I was a black sheep long before I admitted to being an alcoholic.

“Growing up” for me has been a tug of war between a little kid who craves others’ approval and an adult woman giving herself permission to do what she’s gotta do. Being stone-cold sober in a booze-soaked world for nearly four full years has forced me to make peace with making waves.

Perhaps I took that to a bit of an extreme Wednesday night. Sitting in a plastic chair in a too-bright classroom with a splitting head/neck ache, having left the house for work that morning at 4:30AM to start seeing clients at 6, I was feeling so deliriously burned out that I used the 7PM break period in my grad school class to pack my shit, jump in the car, and hit the road — with two hours left until official dismissal. 😳

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Was channeling Peter Gibbons the best way to handle my pain in that moment? “NO F*CKING WAY!” screams the “good girl” guilt-tripping rule-follower that still lives inside my head. Even though the demands of my counseling job often drain me to the point of mental bankruptcy, and I see no point in trying to pour from an empty cup, my brain still fired off distress signals as I sped away from campus on Wednesday night.

🧠: What are you doing, you psychotic freak? What are they all gonna think? You’re gonna get a bad grade! You’re gonna get in trouble! What will Mom say?!?

I know for sure that my old AA sponsor, who lived life strictly by the (Big) book, would’ve chastised me for “acting out” like “a dry drunk.” It’s true that, at present, my emotional sobriety is coasting on fumes. But I feel like anyone working as a drug and alcohol therapist in a community agency while earning their masters while trying to stay sober and be a decent spouse might also find themselves regularly questioning — and occasionally losing — their sanity.

Or maybe it’s just me. Since choosing this career path and starting this new chapter, I sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange land, speaking a strange language no one else understands. There are moments I feel as if I don’t fit in anywhere or with anyone — not the grad school cohort, not the treatment center staff, not the extended family…not even among my fellow drunks and addicts, now that I am both help-er and help-ee.

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For whatever reason, I always loved the song “In The Meantime,” which played daily on my local alternative radio station throughout my last few years of high school. I remember owning that whole Spacehog album on cassette tape. The song came on my running playlist the other morning, and I thought, “Yep. Resident Alien. That’s how I feel, everywhere I go.” Maybe there was something soothing about the fresh air, the runner’s high, and the wave of 90s nostalgia, but acknowledging my experience of otherness in that moment made me feel better.

Feeling alienated was a large part of why I developed an addiction, and yet, alienation can be a difficult part of the recovering addict’s experience. Yes, I know that’s why you go to meetings and “work a program” and reach out to others, and tend to your spiritual and mental health, but none of that changes the fundamental fact that living sober day after day — sometimes under duress — can feel very lonely.

I tell myself that my feelings are valid, even if I can’t always name them, and even if they come from “character defects” or flow from an impure place that still holds on to unresolved grief and resentment.

My experience is real, even if my perception of events can be clouded by self-pity, pride, ego, or “pathological uniqueness,” as I’ve sometimes heard it called. I tell myself it’s normal to feel alone and isolated when you don’t know anyone else who’s in your exact same boat. It’s normal to hurt, cry, lose your shit — even flee the scene — when you’re struggling to grow and change.

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I tell myself I am not “wrong” to feel some type of way during class discussions on “how do we treat alcoholics?” when “we” are an alcoholic, or lectures on addiction developed by non-addicts for non-addicts, when those people with those problems are your people with your problems.

This is a real thing for me, whether it’s rational or not. It’s a thing I have to face and work through, but that doesn’t make it any less hard. And right now, as I near the end of a very long school year, the six-month mark of my counseling career, and my four-year sober anniversary, it’s OK if my survival strategy looks like a flaming hot, socially unacceptable mess.

A coworker who’s about to enroll in grad school said something that really hit me. She’s like, “Addicts don’t usually go on to become therapists because we show up late to life, and it takes so much time and energy to get the degree and the license and do recovery at the same time…” Hearing that felt like a warm hug. This is a road less traveled, and as I’m finding out, it gets pretty f*cking rough! I might not be doing it gracefully, but I AM DOING IT.

I just have to keep going. (And let myself go when I gotta go! 🚙💨)

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You know what helps? Self-care. Yes, I said it. I don’t care if you think it’s a cliche buzzword associated with spoiled rich chicks taking bubble baths. I don’t care if it’s something they have to preach in the mental health field, all the while knowing that working conditions don’t really support its practice. In recovery, it’s everything.

To me, it’s essential.

It’s therapy, spilling my guts to someone who gets it — or at least wants to. My therapist stopped taking our insurance (gulp), but she’s been with me since my first month of sobriety, and I need her listening ear and tough love now more than ever before. She started a support group for women in helping professions, which, like my entrée into the 12-step world, has opened me up to new possibilities. It’s helped me start dreaming about what I want to do when I graduate and (hopefully) come up for air.

It’s exercise, moving my body and communing with nature. I run about as fast as I can walk these days, but seeing the sunrise at Tyler State Park while 90s rock pumps through (and sweat rolls into) my ear buds is such a glorious mood booster that I don’t even care if I’m not actually getting in shape.

It’s music, books and podcasts. It’s HBO, Showtime and Netflix shows, both old and new. It’s art, that which you admire and that which you make yourself, and the magic of creativity. It’s forcing myself to sit down and write this post because I know how cathartic it is to tell my story, and if I continue to let this blog slip down my priority list, it’ll go dark forever.

It’s sleep, glorious sleep, at “weird” times of day when everyone else is out and about, and sometimes, when they’re still sitting in class. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It’s setting boundaries around my time, space and energy, saying “no” to expanding my work schedule or adding more clients into my caseload, even though saying “yes” would please an authority figure — not to mention that little kid inside who feels comforted by other people’s approval. It’s turning in class assignments that aren’t my best work, even though the little kid made grades her currency, and finally acknowledging reality: my clients DGAF about my GPA.

And it’s love, sharing the time and energy I do have left after work and school with the one person in the world who does really “get” me — or, even when he doesn’t, he accepts — in the one place where I can really let my freak flag fly. I’ve been joking with my husband lately that I feel like Oscar the Grouch. And that makes him Slimey the Worm, whether he likes it or not. (Seriously, though; who wouldn’t like this? 😍⬇️)

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There’s something in my eye, so I’ll finish by saying: Anyone out there who feels like an alien — or an angry Muppet — struggling to blaze your own recovery trail with no roadmap, dwindling inner resources, and what seems like a scarce support system, your experience is real. You’re not alone. Your feelings are valid.

They’re also only temporary. Things will get better, if you just keep going.

Whatever you have to do to push through this “mad season” with your sobriety intact, even if it gets you a “bad grade,” God speed. See you on the other side!