The Reckoning

I am now over 7 years into my opioid use disorder recovery journey. This is my new life.

Just when I thought I had processed everything, learned all the lessons that could be learned, and held myself fully accountable for it all, I am bulldozed by the reality that there is more reckoning to come. This is an ongoing learning and unlearning experience for me.

It’s easy to say, “I hold myself accountable,” but to genuinely hold yourself accountable is an entirely different action. It’s easier to accept that you’ve missed out on so much in your life from OUD than it is to do the inventory of what you’ve actually missed out on and the feelings associated with that.

Let me preface this with a reminder: beating yourself up is counter-productive, so choose acknowledgment. Choosing continued accountability and changing the way you’re looking at things is the way. Growth can be painful, but I have experienced first-hand that the pain can also be quite transformative.

The role of accountability

I have found that accountability both bred my recovery and has continued to protect it along the way. During active addiction I stayed in a perpetual victim mindset. I blamed everybody for the cause and blamed them also for the effect, my substance abuse. There was such little accountability available in me while in those basements of rock bottom all those years.

Holding myself accountable has changed my life. It helped me recognize the role I played in my own suffering and the heartaches of my loved ones. After 7 years of accountability, I just did not expect that another season of healing, a reckoning, was even possible or necessary.

My evolving opioid use disorder recovery

The further I get into my recovery journey, the less I identify with being somebody who once suffered with opioid use disorder. I have learned that I am so much more than just somebody that has stopped using substances.

When this new wave of realizations arrived, I came to understand that no matter how much distance I put between substances and myself, it’s still a part of who I am. I am still an addict and the woman I am today was built from the struggles of who I once was. Holding myself accountable was just the first phase of my healing. Next, the reckoning.

Facing my past in Ohio

This month, I made a trip with my mother and grandmother to Ohio where we have such ancestral history. I met relatives I had only heard of, cousins that instantly felt like family, uncles that changed my faith, and others that I will have in my life from this point on. I kept returning to this bittersweet feeling because my entire addiction history transpired about 2 hours from these wonderful people.

Admittedly, I couldn’t stop but wonder what my life could have been like had I known them back then. I found myself considering how different my life could have been if my family had stronger bonds with them. Ultimately, I realized that my journey with opioid use disorder was my choice alone, a choice I made regardless of who I knew, who was in my family, or who had been in my life along the way.

Reclaiming my narrative

The timing of this trip felt divine, really. I kept trying to combat those bittersweet feelings until I realized that I wasn’t looking at it correctly. Instead of feeling such heartache for having missed out on these people because of my substance abuse, I made the conscious choice to reckon with the truth that my life in recovery is what blessed me with having them now.

Had I not entered recovery and stayed the course, I wouldn’t have had these phenomenal experiences. I wouldn’t have been present for my grandma to show me her old houses or the schools she attended. Nor would I have gotten to hear her and my mom's stories or go to parks where they used to play. I wouldn't have gotten to pray with my great-great Uncle Roy or to pay respects at the cemetery where many generations of our family are resting.

The transformative power of opioid use disorder recovery

I deeply appreciate how much recovery has altered my ability to reframe feelings. In Ohio, I felt myself getting sad and regretful. I felt the disdain for myself growing. The reckoning that I speak of includes facing the feelings and training my brain to look at things with the mind that recovery continues to bless me with.

I didn’t anticipate that this many years in I could find myself having inner battles like Ohio brought to the surface. But I am beyond thankful that I was more equipped to reckon with it all. Using those feelings to transform my perspectives and improve the overall experiences that I am having is something I wouldn’t have been capable of doing without the lessons that recovery has given me.

Recovery is the gift that keeps on giving. The way that I continue to evolve in the aftermath is just extraordinary. Being able to catch myself before drowning in those counter-productive feelings is wonderful because lacking coping skills once upon a time is what made my opioid use disorder possible.

Again, growth can be painful but transformative.

What are you still reckoning with in your opioid use disorder recovery journey?