A Hunger

One of the most difficult things for me, as one who has a bit of recovery, is trying to clean up every area of my life that was affected by my addiction. In other words, it is coming to grips with the fact that I have an addictive personality. While my main substance was alcohol, I discovered that it was helping me hide the shame I felt from a tendency to develop "love" relationships that weren't healthy. In sorting through my addictive past and in my recovery, I am learning that love isn't anything what I thought it was. But that doesn't mean the desirous part of me doesn't want to give in and "possess" another to comfort myself at times. When some time is acquired without the drug of choice, at least for me, it becomes less of a focus. Yet, my personality still has a tendency to want to get a "high" off something or someone.

I was also a dual relationship person. I always had one serious relationship and one "boyfriend" on the side. And that was true when I got sober. I had been seeing someone on and off "on the side" for two years before I got sober. And it remained true until I got through the really tough initial phases of sobriety. Then, my world came crashing down because I knew I couldn't have this new life of so much promise and keep living a lie.

So, ultimately, I am where I am today, with one person. And happy...but happy in a different way. A stable happy and a peaceful happy, not a temporary happy or a "high" happy. They are different, and I prefer the peace and serenity. But some days, I do long for the elation. Some days, I want to do what is wrong because it feels so right "for the moment". But I don't because I know my relationship with my higher power is developed and strengthened in resisting, and that has given me peace.

But I miss him. I miss him, and I hunger for this man I had to give up. Sometimes the grief almost overwhelms me. If true love is honest, which I believe it is, then I couldn't have loved him because this was not an honest relationship. But sometimes what seems like love masquerades as true love, and it is all so complex and painful. Why do we have the tendency to long for what we cannot have? Why does he seem so perfect for me? Why can' t I seem to let his memory go even though it has been awhile?

Such is the life of an addict still trying to come to terms with life.