Today May 28th, 2K17 I descended to the lowest place I have been since I began my recovery from dependency on prescription drugs.
I have wrote at length on these pages about the pain of withdrawals, the physical torture of life upended as I knew it for the last twelve years. What I left out was the emotional anguish: the embarrassment and shame I felt for my descent into the annals of addiction of one form or another.
I was Corey Britton, a parent, a student, a writer, a once successful business person. I have lived in almost complete and utter isolation from this fall from Grace and the realization that I have a problem with prescription drugs.
I can argue and refute till I am blue in the face that what I suffer from really isn't addiction: it is chemical dependence that my body has developed over the course of the last twelve years. It has mattered greatly that people believe I am not an addict, like the ones we don't want to associate with, the ones we don't trust, the ones we aren't friends with, the weak ones who can't say no to a drug or a pill. Fact is I am an addict, and today it has hit me like a concrete wall I smashed into riding my motorcycle, fullspeed without a helmet and without warning.
This secret of my medical detox from Xanax and Adderall has been shared here amongst friends and fellow addicts suffering just like me, but today I outed myself to a world I have carefully controlled and managed: my Facebook world. Sure, you think wha the fuck is Facebook right? Wrong, big wrong, for that matter. I am and was Corey Britton and I thrived on my Facebook pages with my myriad of friends and acquaintances with whom I shared the highlights and some of the lowlights over the course of three years. Now you are thinking, friends? Yes, these people were my friends, not just on the pages of Facebook, but on the phone and even sometimes in person.
My friends list was huge, as can be anybody's but I had a faithful and supportive following of people who knew my schooling was important to me, who knew about my daughter Bella, and lots of other antidotal matters that don't seem all that important but really were and are.
Since I went cold turkey off the opiates in January, I have pulled back to just about non-existent on Facebook. I shared I was in the hospital in March on a Cardiac floor, but spared them and myself the shame and humiliation of my TRUTH.
I had started a Facebook group after the elections and it was thriving before everything crashed and burned in January. Then, like the rest of my Facebook presesnce I abandoned all the things and people that mattered to me out of shame and embarrassment. Plenty of others talked about their struggles with addictions, but I was Corey Britton, I had it all together, and addiction was the LAST thing I was willing to contemplate or admit.
To this very moment I am uncomfortable with the idea of addiction in relationship to me; it is a chemical dependence of my body on drugs I took for years. Today I went to church, and as always I am inspired whenever I step foot into that welcoming and loving community of gentle souls. It was there as I was sitting in the back of the church all by myself that I decided today was the day I would tell my Facebook family my TRUTH about my addiction, however I want to look at it, and tell them I wssn't just missing because of being on a cardiac unit with stroke level blood pressure-which of course was all true as well.
I got really emotional and overwhelmed with guilt, shame, and humiliation as I started to write a shorter version of my story. I cried from a place so deep, so filled with pent up pain for all the suffering physically, emotionally, and psychologically I have endured over the months since January. Besides letting my family in, Stephanie knew and shared part of my journey, I have told nobody besides the sad souls at support groups some od my daily troubles.
Today I realized the deep seeded pain and anguish I have felt and haven't dealt with anyone except a new friend I met on Facebook that turned into a real friend via the phone thus far. He name is Stephanie too and she is amazing, a gift sent from my God who I feel comfortable talking to, and being honest. However, I didn't realize the pent up emotions that I haven't shared with anyone. I am not in therapy yet, and the support groups are not psychologically based or lend themselves to me sharing my deep seeded feelings.
I cried the entire time I wrote my story for Facebook, and my crocadile tears streaming down my face, and my heart opening up and bleeding were somewhat carthatic.
The response to my story on Facebook has been overwhelming and so amazingingly kind and compassionate. People have offered support, words of comfort, and words of encouragent, all while congratulating me on fighting the fight of addiction that I took into my own hands and tossed the opiates and imposed myself into a delirium of withdrawals that lasted for weeks.
I am relieved. Living with a secret especially one with my Facebook community was so hard because I couldn't partake in the Facebook world without coming clean with my story. I learned something new and completely inspiring: people when givern the truth are usually understanding amd willing to help in anyway they can. Facebok is a part of my life for better or worse, but for me it is for the better and today as I sit with my story on my Facebook f\eed, I am relieved and filled with warmth and comforted by the social media friendships that are so important to me at this moment and everyday thereafter.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2K17
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