The Devil You Know

There are days. Oh, there are days. When I’m in pain of some kind and I start wishing for something—anything—to make it go away. I have my moments where I think back to when all I had to do was drink or use to make the pain go away. I can get so turned around in my thinking that I actually idealize those dark days; I wish I could go back and just not have to deal with what I’m feeling right now. But then I pull myself back and remember what my sponsor once told me:  When you’re having that thought, think it through.  All the way.  What if you did drink or use? What would happen?

There’s a song that’s been out for a while called “Chandelier.”  These are some of the lyrics:

“One, two, three, one, two, three, drink
One, two, three, one, two, three, drink
Throw ‘em back, till I lose count

I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier
I’m gonna live like tomorrow doesn’t exist
Like it doesn’t exist
I’m gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry
And I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down won’t open my eyes
Keep my glass full until morning light, ’cause I’m just holding on for tonight. . .”

This is exactly how I used to think—“keep my glass full until morning light, cause I’m just holding on for tonight.”  But now, I think about the rest of it—the pattern, the relapse, the heartbreak of everyone who loves me.  And I think about the other lyrics to “Chandelier:”

“Sun is up, I’m a mess
Gotta get out now, gotta run from this
Here comes the shame, here comes the shame. . .”

And there it is. If, as my sponsor suggested, I follow the thought all the way through, from the impulse of the night to the stark morning light— the result will be shame.  Because even if I “live like tomorrow doesn’t exist,” it does.  And when it comes, I will be ashamed, sick, heartbroken and so, so sorry.

It’s hard to say goodbye to something that was your constant companion for years—even if you knew it was killing you.  As the old saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”  I was in a very committed relationship with a devil I knew—addiction.  And as bad as I knew that devil was, I was convinced that the devil I didn’t know—a future without substances to soften the pain of life—would be so much worse.  It wasn’t until I got to the point that I couldn’t live with that devil but I didn’t know how to live without it that I realized how far and how deep I had fallen.  And I needed a way out.  So I went to a meeting, and my recovery began.

I know that in rehab, you’re often asked to write a letter to your drug of choice—to say a final goodbye to it—to break up.  My breakup letter was surprisingly short, given my love of words:  “Dear drugs and alcohol, I’m done. You’ve been abusive and in your abuse, you nearly killed me. You hurt me again and again and I kept coming back for more. Not anymore. I’m finished with your abuse. Done letting you control me. This is the last time I’ll come crawling back to you. It’s over between us.”

You probably don’t have a substance abuse problem.  But I’m betting that there’s something you need to break up with.  Do you have thought patterns that hold you captive?  Behaviors that draw you back in again and again even though you know they’re hurting you?  An unhealthy relationship that breaks your spirit more and more every day until you’re a shadow of who you used to be?  Breaking up is hard to do.  It requires a massive amount of courage and prayer and willpower, sometimes minute by minute.  Imagine, though, if you put the same effort into your breakup that you put into your relationship with that “devil you knew.”  What if you decided that you would stop at nothing to say goodbye to whatever or whoever is hurting you?  What if you spent the same amount of time that you wasted on that old behavior working towards a healthy new life?

I’ve been with the same man since I was old enough to date, so I don’t have exes.  But I’ve heard about getting your “revenge body” after a breakup—where you lose weight and look your best to make your ex rue the day he left you.  Well, how about a revenge life?  Whether your ex is a person who hurt you, a substance that robbed you, a behavior that caught you and dragged you into your own kind of prison—get your revenge.  Don’t settle for just surviving once you’ve broken up.  Thrive.  Drugs and alcohol are inanimate objects, but in my twisted little brain, I still really like saying to them, “You thought you would break me? You thought I’d come crawling back? I said I was done, and I meant it.  Since you’ve been gone, I have never been happier.  And I’ll be darned if I’m going to let you slither your way back into my life just to ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to rebuild.  In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, we are never EVER getting back together. “  I get enormous satisfaction out of proving them wrong—the drugs, the alcohol, the doubters.

Yes, breaking up is hard to do.  But you know what’s harder?  Spending one more day living a life that you know, in your heart of hearts, isn’t the life God wants for you.  Take some time alone with God and decide where you’ll go from here. Write your goodbye letter.  And remember that the best revenge is living well.  So live well and leave the garbage behind.  If someone as weak as I was can do it, so can you.  As we say at the end of every recovery meeting, “You’re worth it.”  And you are. So, so worth it.

My breakup song: