Patience.....NOT

I've been feeling down for a while now, and I know some of it is stemming from my injury.  My life was starting to be slightly content after so much upheaval last year, and then bam!  Invalid.

(for anyone that doesn't know, I broke my left shoulder in March.)

I had started to rely on exercise to help keep me sane (and sober), and for the last two months I'd been unable to even take walks, because any sustained repetitive movement jostled my left arm too much and left me in pain.  Plus, feeling completely helpless in many daily routine tasks does nothing for the ego.

Thankfully, yesterday my physical therapist cleared me to start walking again.  So, there's that. But I still have many weeks, if not months, left of physical therapy before I'll have full use of my left arm again.

I find lately that old destructive thought patterns have begun seeping back into my brain and it scares me.  Back in March when I first injured my shoulder, the doctor wanted to prescribe me pain meds.  Of course my addict brain squealed in delight but I turned it down (how's that for growth?) knowing it would only end up with me spiraling out of control again.  I've relied on nothing but Advil and ice/heat to get me through this.

Going forward with physical therapy, it's going to get a lot more painful because the soft tissue around the bone and joint have become frozen and we're going to have to manipulate my arm quite forcefully to loosen things up.  So my brain has been trying to convince me that I NEED painkillers now.  Real painkillers.  Narcotic painkillers.  The kind of painkillers that I used to buy illegally and snort or inject.

This, of course, must not happen.  I know I'm not strong enough in my recovery yet to be able to take pills as prescribed.  Doesn't stop my brain from working in overdrive, though.  And the depression is intensifying those thoughts, looking for relief.

I don't think I'm in any real danger of relapse.....which means that I'm probably in trouble because it's always the times when I'm most complacent that I slip up.  So I'm reaching out to my sponsor and my support system to keep me in check (this includes you, dear readers).  I have no intention of diving back into that pit of hell, as appealing as it might be some days.

So that's what I'm dealing with at the moment.  Taking it day by day and doing everything I can to get this damn arm healed, which unfortunately involves a lot of waiting and patience!  (not things I'm good at, lol)  I want to get back into writing even if it's just word vomit.  I miss blogging.

Catch you on the flip side, as my lovely friend Tai says.