If You Don't Heal, You Will Use...

This has been my experience.  If I don’t work very hard to heal the things that have devastated me in this life, the things that I absolutely do not want to admit, own, process, deal with, accept, those things will drive me absolutely to the brink of self annihilation, and take down everyone I love along the way.

This is just the way it is for me.  And I think also for everyone.

We have a choice about what we do with the things that rip us apart.  We have a choice about what to do with trauma, grief, loss, pain, insecurity, violence.  We all have a choice.  And it is not an easy choice.  Please, understand, I do not blame any of us who choose using over healing.  It is a very hard choice followed by an unremitting challenge and responsibility to make the same choice over and over again, day after day, month after month, year after year.  And we falter.

I am not saying to heal is good and to use is bad.  I am saying that one decision begets another.  If we choose not to heal, then we are likely going to use, something or someone to make ourselves feel better.  What we use is less important than the fact that we use.  Money, sex, things, people, drugs, alcohol, gambling, exercise, food.  I believe we all use something, it is the pervasive consciousness of our world.  We are all seeking to take the edge off, just a little.  The world coming at us in hard brilliancy that feels like way too much to handle.  Often, in fact, it is way too much to handle.  So we use.  Which seems like the easier decision at the time.  

However, in my own experience, it is not the easier decision.  Healing is the easier task, perhaps a lot less fun in the beginning, but better over the long haul.  Using is immediately gratifying.  Healing not so much.  I think we all must make the decision:  do we want to pay now and ride easier later, or do we want to ride easier now and pay for the rest of our lives?  When asked like this, it seems to suggest the former is the only choice that makes any sense at all.  But if you take a quick look around, we all know that is NOT what we all are actually doing.  Why?

Because of all the lies we tell ourselves.  We are masters at telling ourselves the healing is too hard, too painful, we will not survive it.  Our best option is to numb out and try to out run it.  And we also believe that our using will not ever get out of hand.  Isn’t that how all addiction starts?  I have never met one single addict that said, “you know, I am going to start this KNOWING that I am going to become a drug addled fiend that will burn my life to the ground.”  No, no we all start like this, “well, I guess, ok, sure, I will try this just this one time.”  Followed always by that great sweeping relief that the using provides.  A peace we did not know was possible in this life washes over us and then, and then, we all know what comes next...we use again, and again and again.  Lying to ourselves repeatedly so that healing is no longer a choice, because we very blindly decided to use that one time, and now it is all we can do.  Over and over again until we either hear the voice of God, quietly, and make another choice.  Or we go on in a futile attempt to blot out the miserableness of our existence, one substance, one person at a time.

I believe if you don’t heal, you will use is law.  It is one of the operative laws of the universe and living.  If we do not heal, we will use something, someone and that will fuck up our chances to actually live this life.  Our goals are misguided.  We are all attempting to avoid pain and seek pleasure.  When in reality, what life seems to require is this minute by minute acceptance that whatever comes our way in this world is happening to evolve us into our most highest being.  But instead, we take what happens so personally, that we decide our lot to be unfair and unjust and so we seek to even the playing field by using to dull the aches of living.  And the great irony for all of us is that living is always going to have blinding pain and anguish.  We cannot live without it.  And it too, while hard and difficult and painful, is part of the whole process that cannot be avoided or curtailed.  We aren’t meant to avoid, we are destined to accept.

Today I want to heal, all of it.  All the messy broken parts of me.  All the terrible ways that I destroy myself over and over again, I want to heal those places and evolve.  I do not want to use anymore. I do not want to stave off the pain of living because I know the secret...that every time I blunt the pain of life, I know I am also curtailing and limiting the joy and happiness I can feel.  There is a delicate balance to this whole living thing. And I have been fucking it up for a long time.

I am at a place in my life where even though I gave up the drink and drugs a long time ago, I see very clearly now that I just replaced those things with other things:  dating, sex, shopping, food, relationships, love, codependency, money, exercise.  I just changed my addictions.  And that change from one thing to another only delayed my healing.  I didn’t want to heal so I just found other things to use...

Again, still...