Ever since I started Intense Outpatient Treatment for my substance abuse, I was really trying to figure out the root cause of my relapses. This wasn’t the first time I went to treatment or put myself through rigorous efforts to try and fix the inside of me that was broken.  

I started the first week of March and immediately I knew that this was probably the last time I had before I took myself out. A lot of people were in treatment because they had to be there to not go to jail. But I was self-referred. I was different, right? Just because I was self-referred did not exempt me from the homework that I had to complete to transition from eight hours a week to one hour a week for six months. This could be wrong, but I think it’s a total of 102 hours of treatment. So, two hours before a 10 hour mentally draining workday I had to dissect my insecurities, triggers, and reasoning for why I was sitting in a chair paying $225 a month. Was I done using? Was I truly done?  

I can tell you right now that as I’m typing this out, I tried to download an app with the intention of finding what I wanted and using it. Part of it was because I’ve gained weight and I know how to lose about 20lbs in two weeks. But I digress.  

There were three assignments I had to complete before I could go down to the one hour a week of class:  

1. Write a goodbye letter to my drug of choice – mine was meth.  

2. Create a collage of my past and present – using cutouts from magazines, words, pictures, or whatever the fuck to highlight important parts of my using. I also had to include a future and what I wanted that to look like without drugs.  

3. A timeline. A timeline of my drug use, up until the present moment. I had to highlight important events or ones that stick out to me.  

All this just to accept the first step.  

There is so much happening between the month of March and May. But the moment I hit over 72 hours of treatment hours I figured it was time for me to move on. I created my collage. There were some standouts. Like me wanting to go back to school, or the time I lived in some guy’s garage for a while. That was crazy.  

Then it was the goodbye letter. That one was honest. The way I did meth made me feel sexy and I lost all inhibitions. I felt free, submissive, powerful, seductive, and all at the same time pure and innocent. I lost myself though. I wasn’t myself. I still don’t know who I am, I think. There were parts of myself I did like though. The dark side of Eddie but right now as I look back at everything, I’ve put myself through – it’s not worth it.  

Then came the lifeline. The truth of everything and the reason why I feel the desperate need to write this out. I am not perfect. I want to use so bad. I want to be held, caressed, and kissed. I want to look in the mirror and feel like my body is beautiful, magical, wonderland. The hair on my skin, the black and colored lines of words and images on my skin, down to my strawberry thighs. Every physical aspect of myself I hate. Because I don’t look perfect, I had to try and mask it with every action. Every lie. Every belief.  

I was born imperfect. I was born with in ear deformity known as microtia. Part of me believes that because my parents already saw something wrong, they wanted to surgically fix it. Thus, ensued the years of cosmetic surgery starting at the age of five. Having six surgeries and apparently not healing very well from the surgery my parents decided to postpone until I was older. At the age of 16 I learned that even after having the cosmetic surgery I would not be able to hear. WTF. Literally the reason why I wanted the surgery was to hear from both of my ears.  

I was born imperfect.  

So, when I was told that God made me perfect, that the blood of Jesus made me perfect I dosed myself in that message. Meaning I couldn’t be gay because gay people aren’t perfect, they are perverted humans. Disgusting and sinful. Not perfect. Because I was physically imperfect already the only way for me to feel whole was to be perfect in every other aspect.  

I lied to keep you from running away from me. I lied because if I told you the truth you would look at me differently and I had already curated this perfect narrative of who this version of me.  But I want to be the perfect shade of color, the perfect time and favorite number. I want the perfect laugh and the perfect skin. The teeth that aren’t spaced out or the stomach that doesn’t fold. I hear myself breaking fast, hard and heavy. I want to be perfect but perfection doesn’t exist in recovery. Perfection is an illusion. Perfection cannot exist in recovery, no matter how hard I want try or even say to myself that that’s what I aspire to become. It’s not aspirational. It’s depleting and dehumanizing. Have I done this only to myself?

I am an addict in recovery. My life was always lived in a state of fight or fight. Even when I didn’t know I was. My default was flight. Calm down. Bring myself down. I’m okay. I’m on the ground now. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’ll be okay. Hug myself and rub my thumb along my arm as a form of self-soothing since no one is there to do it but myself. What am I saying right now?  

I’ll be okay. I think. I know. I don’t know but right now I do hope it’ll all be okay.