Processing

Here are some things I’ve been thinking about recently.

Using dreams

For the last year, when I had using dreams, they would be about how I really wanted to use, but I never could. These are similar to other dreams I’ve had where I was assigned a task and couldn’t do it. One time I had a dream that my family was at church and at the end of the service, Dad asks me to go get the van, so I do, but when I get in and start driving, it’s like I’m on ice, can’t go anywhere, and I’m slipping all over the place and then there’s an old woman and her grandson in front of me and I plough over the old woman and Dad’s running up to the car and screaming at me to get outta the car and let him drive and I’m feeling so anxious it’s crazy.

That dream was at least four years ago, and no, I don’t want to hear your analyses.

So these using dreams. I’ve had more in the last couple weeks than I’ve had for the past nine months. I mean, every night. Not so much anymore, but it was terrible waking up every morning and thinking I’d ruined everything. And these recent ones were different, too. The way they used to be was I’d either have the drugs with me but no rig, or I’d have it all with me but people would keep walking in and I’d have to shove it in the drawer til they left. I couldn’t ever get high. Now, the dreams are about me having the opportunity – different from having the drugs – and, praise God because this is a new development, I’m praying and asking for God’s help! I don’t want to use in these recent dreams, which is huge, because that means my subconscious is falling into line with my conscious. But it still feels like I’m on one of those moving sidewalks, being pulled to this unavoidable destination at which I’ll get high and fuck everything up. The one redeeming aspect: waking up in the morning and realizing I didn’t.

Reflections on this last year

It’s been a year. Sometimes I hear people, after a long amount of time doing something, say things along these lines: “It feels like just yesterday, I was blah blah blah…” That’s not how it feels for me. Well, wait a second. If I think about the details of coming in – driving with Alex and Caroline, walking in to Wayside’s front office and staff telling us we can come back in a little while after we’ve eaten lunch, the elated feeling I had when they said this because it felt so different from Teen Challenge – it seems a little closer, but not much. It definitely doesn’t feel like yesterday. It feels like a long time.

Those feelings I had

Things were hazy for me at the beginning. I mean, the longer you’re at a place, the more definition it has. Think about the first time you sat down behind the desk at which you now sit, at your work or whatever. Things were hazy, right? You didn’t know the place yet, or the people. That’s what it was like. I wasn’t high or anything, it just felt weird. I remember odd little details, like this Native American-looking-guy with long black hair behind the desk, whom I now know to be Tom, telling me, “Yeah, no problem, go get some lunch, come back whenever,” and me in my head, thinking, “This place is different and not militaristic,” and Alex and Caroline and me going to eat at this Mexican joint up the hill that was very oddly decorated, me folding and refolding the paper wrapper from my straw and moving my wet-with-condensation glass to and fro on the wooden table, wiping the water trail I’d just made, repeating this ad infinitum, Caroline saying, “OK, well, we should get you checked in,” me feeling reluctant but knowing I had to, driving back to Wayside, Ray and me going back to his office so we could interview, me asking him, “So what is the staff like around here,” him responding, bless him, “Well to be honest wich you Ian, I don’t know that they’re all saved, but I buhleive God is sovereign and there’s a reason they’re here,” and me just thinking, “Wow, I love this place and this man Ray.” It was so different from Teen Challenge, where that question was answered thusly: “Oh, you’ll really like it here! All of the staff have been through the program! They know what you’re going through and they’re really helpful!”

You know someone’s full of shit when they use italics and exclamation points in conjunction and unreservedly.

Ray wasn’t like that. And soon we’re talking about how I’m reformed and he’s telling me the director of the program is reformed, that I can choose where I go to church, and man, that was really something. The rest is kind of a blur, except for this feeling: there’s grace here.

I was staring off into space for a good while, there. Processing is strange and good.