Loriann Witte Wits Inn Recovery and Wits End Interventions
My person story of Recovery from Mental Illness and Addiction
If you are or if your loved one is caught in this vicious cycle
of Addiction feeding into to Depression, my story of recovery and
Drug Treatment Rehab may touch you can help.
Wits Inn has been helping people cope with their addiction recovery
issues while stabilizing dual diagnosis people for over 20 years.
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Remember, recovery brings hope.
Loriann’s Personal story
Gratitude and Grace
How do I feel about myself today after 23 years in recovery? I can sleep. I can go to sleep at night, right out, with out taking anything. Being able to sleep gives me the energy to get up in the morning and be a part of life. I have learned that getting up on time is an important factor in my being a productive member of society. Going to bed on time, and being able to sleep is just as important. In the early months of recovery sleep did not come easily to me for a while. I was told I wouldn’t die from losing sleep. Getting some sober time was promised as the answer to my difficulties. Thank God I hung in there and stayed clean waiting to see that staying sober would change my life for the better. We have to give clean time, time to change us.
This means a great deal to me. I never could sleep before getting clean. I laid awake and suffered, thinking of all of my insurmountable problems. I’d think and think instead of sleep. My mind played movies for me every night in living color. I’d lay in bed and re-live any embarrassment or shame from the now showing selection of my mental movie collection. The program of recovery has showed me how to clean up my act. I don’t experience embarrassment and shame on a regular basis in my new live.
My brain chemistry is balanced. I live without drugs or alcohol. No more getting high and then coming down hard. Hurt feelings are no longer the status quo.
I roll through my life suiting up and showing up. I do my part as a human being. From the time I wake up in the morning, anytime symptoms of the dis-ease start to come on me, I keep reminding myself to think, how I can be of service. The Big Book of AA says some symptoms of the disease of addiction are ‘becoming bored, restless, and dis-content.’ I know I have to watch out for these feelings.
The hours of the day when I am awake are mine to enjoy. I now feel like I lead my life, I’m at choice about what I am going to experience. In active addiction my life leads me. I just watched as things happened to me. All thinking was centered in the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. The disease of addiction talked to me all of the time. “Ok Loriann, you just stay high while we go to divorce court. While you are working on getting money to use, we are now going through eviction.” The disease told me “you drive better drunk, so now we are going to jail.”
Taking step 1 of the 12 steps made me realize I was powerless over drugs and my life had become unmanageable. Step by step this new way of thinking gave me the freedom to have power in the other parts of my life. Working the steps and going to meetings quieted down the voice of my dis-ease. I am free to choose how I act and even how I think. I’m learning to put a positive spin on most everything. I feel so much better because of positive thinking. I declare myself as happy, joyous, and free.
I have come to believe that I gave up enough of my life to fret, worry and discord. I have changed my mind and choose to walk on the path of hope, good works, and taking very special care of my precious self.
Most of my life I was shy. More than shy I was afraid of people. I could only communicate by being rough and tough, or a desperate victim. Raising my hand and sharing in meetings taught me that I do have something to say. The people in the meetings starting responding to me differently when I was able to share about the new solutions I was learning.
If you are wondering what going to all of these 12-step meetings can possible do for you, know that all of us had this same question. It’s a new way of spending our time with people. It is healthy to be around other people who are in the process of making a difference in their own lives and the lives of others. The people in the meetings are talking about what they are doing to cope. As alcoholics and addicts we know plenty about the problems of life. We know all about what we do not want. Solution is the message of the program. Meetings are a life style. I go most everyday because that is what I believe will keep me clean and sane.
Getting commitments in meetings and eventually being a part of service taught me about how to interact. In service to AA & NA we learned how to operate a business meeting according to standards but we all said the serenity prayer before we started. In service you find plenty of differing ideas about what is the best way to carry the message of recovery. The message I got out of this was to accept the things I can not change. It is better to be happy and healthy than it is to be right. I learned preserving the power of the group conscious was more important than a personal victory. The lessen I learned in all of this is humility. Humility is not to be confused with humiliation. Humility for me has been about valuing my ability to be a part of systems that benefit me and others. I am able to be an important part of the system with out it being all about me. This is a whole new attitude and out look on life.
Going to meetings and working a program has taught me so many useful skills. One way to love my job is to be responsible. The ability to respond comes along with the ability to be awake for the time I am being paid to respond to my company’s needs. Part of being responsible is to wake up on time with a good attitude about being of service. Another part of this recipe is to go to bed on time. Being able to wake up happy and get excited about my plans for the day is a skill not luck. Taking good care of my brain has become very important to me.
Life in addiction was filled with “Oh, I can take it.” I used to say “When it’s too tuff for everybody else, it’s just right for me.” That is a philosophy of the past that no longer serves me. Recovery has taught me if a gentle flow with life is what I desire, it is most reasonable to treat my self and others genteelly. We reap as we sow.
Swimming up stream all the time proved to be undesirable. I am very much my own person. When I feel I disagree with an established pattern within my scope, I change my own action. Lighting one candle, let change begin with me.
As I write this story I have been married for 28 years. My husband and I have also come a long way in learning how to be loving partners in peaceful co-existence. We have come to know through an abundance of trial and error how to support each others’ individual life experience with out one life defining the other. I walk beside my husband giving as much love and respect as I can muster. When his walk is not a part of my highest good it gives me another opportunity to individuate and have personal strength within my self. In the course of a long term marriage (or even a new relationship) people don’t always live up to who they want to be. My husband is my dear friend as often as I let him be and as often as he is able to be. I appreciate the time of love and support we have been able to share with each other over the years.
I married my drug connection whom I met in a bar at 6:00 AM. We were married 6 years before recovery. Even after we got clean we have not always been sober together. That’s the way it is and reality has to be acceptable to me if I am to know peace. All in all my marriage is the best part of my life.
I’m not afraid anymore. Fear was my number one feeling. The feelings of anger and rejection all turned out to be based in fear. I got to take a look at these old feelings and events with a sober head. While writing my steps I came to know a lot of the unrest I went through was all a bunch of fear. Some of the 12 step writing helped me like a road map. Writing the steps established a state of grace in my thinking. I went back over things and started to see that everybody does the best thing they can think of to do in each moment just like I have. I began to forgive others; I have since then forgiven myself. I feel safe and sure. I love myself. I passionately enjoy being alive.
Observing the passage of time and events with out judgment is such a gift of serenity. What happens does not have to be judged as good or bad. Very often now I can understand that what ever happens is neither good nor bad but all just part of life experience. That kind of level headed, art of just being, allows me to feel safe and happy to be me.
My journey to serenity has been about rounding off the rough edges of my personality. Somehow I took on a mistaken idea that I had to make a big production out of everything to feel alive or to be noticed. In recovery I know it is so important to be slow to anger and quick to forgive.
I like the idea of keeping my side of the street clean. The light I shine on all of my days gives me energy to create my own intentions. I take the time to formulate what I want to happen then take the action to support my intention. My big deal is to trust. Trust the process of the program of recovery.
I have learned how to love myself so much, that I can love you and carry the message of hope in recovery. I’ve come a long way, baby. I don’t know why I had to walk the crooked path. The why of the past isn’t as important to me, as it once was. What I know is true is that my way has been made clear before me. The crooked path has been made straight.
In my years as a member of the recovery community I have seen so many people come and go. It appears to be much easier to get clean than it is to stay clean. Only the diligent make it for any period of time. Meeting makers make it. The absolute joy is the miracles that have unfolded before my eyes. I also know the ones who have come and stayed in the program. We share our lives together. By sitting in meetings with these people we do the wed and the dead together. It is said NA means Never Alone.
I have young people in my life. I remember hearing about their conception. We all worried about the parents’ sobriety. Could they handle a child? Could they step up to the plate and be parents? I have seen everything that could happen has happened to the parents and the children of recovery. Some couples stayed together, some did not. In my 21 years of recovery I have seen life find a way and the next generation is here, ready or not, life goes on. Some of the children were raised by clean parents of sprit. I know program kids who are so healthy they shine brightly. I know program kids who have died all ready.
I believe the kids of those who stayed clean are innately better off than the kids of those who have continued in the struggle. The best thing of all that I know is, that it’s all good. We are each on our own path. Every one of us is on an individual journey as we evolve to our ever increasing diversity. I believe we are all born perfect, whole and complete individualized expressions of love.
When I was a kid, I woke in the morning to see my family and receive my nurturing. Then I wanted to run, and jump, and play, and live my freedom in bliss. I was compelled to love and have as much fun as possible.
Somewhere along the line I decided my parents maybe were not the perfect teachers, nor the most intelligent, most loving, most beautiful people in the world.
As I had held belief in parental perfection belief as absolute truth, I was crushed to find I they may have had faults. I was so angry and hurt by the knowledge of their humanness that I decided they appeared to have more serious faults than most others. These childhood condemnations lead me to loose faith in all established systems and a rebellious spirit became my constant companion.
The first thing I heard in my recovery program was your resentments will kill you. Then in Alanon I heard “It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, and doesn’t matter.” I knew I was on to something. The fact that every little detail of life was not my business gave me a new idea that forgiveness of others was possible. These revelations lead me to begin to understand self forgiveness was recommended. As I took in these earth shaking concepts they showed me the way I had been thinking was way off. I was promised I’d find peace if I could change my mind.
A large portion of my spare time is spent maintaining my spiritual condition. I go to work and I go to meetings, or to my church. I talk on the phone to people who are not using and who want to help me in my recovery; I listen to peaceful music so I can have some meditation. Good food, the decorations in my clean house, exercise like walking my dog on trails I like, this kind of stuff keeps me together. I find my way out of continuing to do things that I don’t like. I don’t take part in actions that upset me. Taking care of business doesn’t have to include suffering. There is a solution.
My well being is of top priority. Doing what is important to me in a way that I can feel good about myself makes it possible for me to stay clean. Being mindful of other people’s feelings is a part of recovery too. Do no harm. Be polite.
Living our lives trying to make others happy is often one of the key ingredients in the addictive process. This is the selfish part of the program. While recovery is about being of service, and learning how to give; it is also about taking care of yourself so you have something to give. We must always replenish the well. We can’t give away something we haven’t got. Being of service is not about being a martyr. Stretching beyond our comfort zone is how we grow. There are many paradoxes in the program we must be willing to be a little uncomfortable and try new things, but then find a way to be comfortable in this new action. We can be of service without trying to be who other people want us to be. My adjusted attitude can make what was once impossible very doable. We must find a way to be kind to ourselves and others.
Faith is an action in that way. My thinking is powerful. Another one of the great gifts of recovery is the ability to realize that this is my life to live as I choose. I take the action to go to meetings and be at the center of the heard. I am not floating around the edges of the safety and happiness zones. I go to church and make sure people know I am there. I love relationships. That’s my favorite thing. I go to meetings and most often speak up and share, I thank the speaker, and stay after the meeting is over to talk to people.
In recovery I have been taught that my shyness was some kind of self centered fear. My life was controlled at one time by the fear of what people will think of me. As I listened in meetings I came to understand that everyone spends most of their energy thinking about them selves and not so much about me. Some of what I hear shared in meetings teaches me what to do and some of it teaches me what not to do. It’s all good. Meetings are not something I take only when I need them. What ever that means!
For me I feel that I have found my life’s meaning. Addiction was a primary part of my existence for so long even before I stated using, addiction was around me. I have replaced it with recovery being primary. My main job has been and continues to be carrying a message of hope to addicts and their families. Work is what I do in between
meetings to pay my bills.
I went from a broken lost soul to a woman of power. What a transformative journey. Maybe your addiction story is similar or very different than mine. Getting clean and sober is possible for all of us. The lie is dead, we do recover. The clean and sober part is only the beginning that opens the door to changing our thinking. What I think about myself and how I think about others has truly changed. I have learned how to live walking the path of serenity and good will. For this I am grateful.
Today I work in treatment. I love my work. I am an interventionist. I belief in my message that addicts
do recover and recovery is a much better life than active addiction gives me the confidence to get on a plane and go do this very personal work with people I have never even met.
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Loriann Witte CAC
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