Week 12: Lack of Communication

Here is a shocker.  I was listening to a song and got an idea....

Lack of Communication

So when I was growing up I loved listening to what is now affectionately known as the hair bands.  80's Heavy Metal was the anthem of some of my generation.  The sang of rebellion, girls, excess.  And some even had messages.  One of those bands was a band named RATT.  Their biggest song was Round and Round on the Out of the Cellar album, their first album.  However, my favorite song off that album was a song titled Lack of Communication.  And with that song came the idea to this picture.

In addiction, pick your poison this week ( mine is alcohol/drugs, what is yours? ), there is something called denial.  It keeps many addicts in their addictions because they refuse to face the fact that something is controlling their life, that they are on a path to self destruction.  Just watch Intervention on A&E.  Sometimes you see people ready to hear and get help.  Other times people are just not ready.  I have told my story to many an addict or loved ones of an addict.  While most listen, sadly fewer actually act on what they hear that I am saying.  If I had a dollar for every time I hear "I got this...".  No, it has you.

But a lack of communication can happen in recovery as well.  Listen, communication is very important when you are in recovery.  You have to talk about your feelings.  I have talked about it before how Ginger and I have a dynamic ability to communicate.  She shares about the terrifying thoughts that her mental disorder produces.  I tell her about the crazy thoughts that I have.  What communication does is it gets you out of your head.  Because frankly, at least for me, I try not to be in my head alone for too long.

An example of a crazy thought.  There are times I get a craving for pizza and a beer.  Yep, summer time it gets hot and the thought of having a pizza and a cold beer comes into my mind.  What do I do?  I tell Ginger (or those in my support group) hey I had a crazy thought.  We laugh or talk about crazy thoughts others have had, and we move on in our recovery.  Some people are shocked.  You still have cravings they ask?  Of course I do.  I am tempted.  But I have learned, through countless relapses until I found long term recovery, that if I kept in my head I began planning my relapse, if I voiced the thought I stayed sober.  I could give you countless stories of if I would have just said to someone, I am craving, I would not have used.  But now I can give you countless stories of successfully averting relapse, all just because I said something.

Ginger had a rather rough weekend.  She is doing good tonight.  She had an anxiety bout that, while not the worse she has had, was still one of the rougher one's she has had to endure.  So how did she turn the corner?  Besides medicine it was communicating.  Talking about the anxiety and what it was telling her.  And me talking as well, being a guide through a maze of terrifying lies to get to truth.  Let me tell you something.  Ginger is a trooper, a shining star.  She leads a relatively normal life considering she deals with Bipolar and anxiety.  She manages her mood admirably and in those times she has trouble I step in to help.  

So I was out in Lindale this weekend and King decided to give me a good shot while I was cleaning up the pasture:

Can you believe I can move around these horses with ease?  Want to know my secret?  How did I get over my fear?  I talk to them.  Rebecca taught me that.

Baa