Cool cool chilly morning. I awoke as dawn was breaking and was awed by a massive full moon low on the horizon. The frost has arrived, and I can feel my body transitioning with this cold fall weather. Friday we finished our last full week of radiation treatments. We have one more radiation treatment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off, then our last day of chemo on Thursday. I have been allowing myself to rest this weekend. Thursday, after our long day of chemo, I was feeling pretty off. Exhausted and overwhelmed, I had to take some medication. Friday, Steve had a rough day, but was feeling better Saturday. All in all both of us have done swimmingly with this whole experience. Steve has been handling the treatments considerably well, just slight nausea, and no diarrhea or vomiting. Some fatigue but not debilitatingly so. And my mental health has also hung in there. I have kept up on recovery meetings, and been allowing myself to nap. Life is good for the most part. Hopefully the cancer will also respond well, and we will be checking in with those results in about a month.

I am in recovery from both mental illness and addiction. I have an addictive personality. I saw this first when I was 14 years old when I developed an eating disorder. Luckily, at 16 I was eager to come out about this disorder and do all I could to recover from it. It took a few years, but since I was 16, I actively pursued the healing and awareness one needs to overcome a hurdle such as this. Eating disorders are addictions. I learned this in my research as I attempted recovery. It is what we call a psychological addiction. So, I have been in active recovery from this my entire adult life. But because of my addictive personality, and my family history of alcoholism, I developed habits around drinking and smoking that I am now dealing with. I quit drinking successfully just over two years ago after many attempts at abstaining. A twelve step recovery program has suited me well in my early forties. I am abstaining from alcohol and caffeine now, and working to quit smoking and to eat better. I also must practice body positivity when it comes to body image. Acceptance is key in all of my addictions. I must practice this in order to put one step in front of the other and to add positive change to my life.

At seventeen I suffered with major depression, and at eighteen had my first psychotic break. Unfortunately, having chronic mental illness added to my difficulty with addiction. I drank to deal with the trauma and pain that my mental illness bestowed upon my life. I managed it okay, and only drank heavily intermittently, but in my late thirties had developed a habit that proved to be hard enough to break. Now that I am sober, and the fact that I have been in active recovery and in a twelve step program for over four years, I can say that I am finally dealing with my pain, anger and trauma. I have chosen to stay close to my recovery by attending meetings every day. Currently, I only attend one program, but am curious about another program that I may consider adding to my routine.

As a mental health patient, the twelve steps are a dream come true. For years I was attempting to start a mental health support group in my small rural community, but the task felt hard to manage. When I found AA again, and began attending meetings online, I realized that I need not reinvent the wheel. There is so much good to take away from these meetings. And I am always free to take what I like and to leave the rest. I am sober, and now both of us in my partnership are sober from alcohol. This is a great move for my life and my mental health. There is so much wisdom to be gained from other people in the program and from the abundant twelve step literature that is out there. As I said, I have needed recovery since I was fourteen, as many have who are in active addiction in their adult lives. I yearned for healing early on. I wrote poetry in my teens, began painting in my twenties, wrote a memoir when I was twenty three, dabbled in yoga and chanting in my twenties and extensively so in my thirties. Walking has proven a type of meditation that I have also done extensively. Living on a beautiful island surrounded by nature, silence, and community has allowed me to feel connected to nature, people and myself. I am so grateful for my family who all live here. And my blogging too, has been a journey through writing that has helped me immensely. Whatever your story, I hope you pursue acceptance, validation, and healing recovery wherever you are in your life. It is never too late to reach out, or in, to find the connection you need and deserve.