Not all labels are bad! I don't mind being labelled "Wife" "Mother" "Grandmother" "Activist" "Teacher" etc.
(I even think that some people should come with a "warning label"! )
I am a recovered "Addict".
Now I am sure many of you will say that particular label isn't a good thing, that it is "negative", but I really don't mind the label! I don't need to go on about it, or dwell on it, but it keeps my feet firmly on the ground, and reminds me how bad it was, and could be again if I choose to go along that path! (even 40 years down the line!)
But please stop calling me, and those like me, "sick". I am not "broken" or "defective", I don't have an "illness"nor am I "emotionally immature" or "weak willed", or "weak intellect", I am simply wired in a different way!! We are each of us, after all, a sum total of our genetic blueprint and our life experience.
If I had been around a few hundred years ago, my "different" wiring would have been very valuable in our society. Because I would have been the one who was always dissatisfied, underwhelmed, have a perpetual feeling of "ennui", and would be off hunting the fattest boar, the biggest kill, always seeking and trying to get the biggest, best, most, because I simply would not have been satisfied with the apple tree in the garden! We have very often been referred to as "creatures of excess".
This isn't greed or ingratitude, it is simply a matter of having evolved a biological advantage, which in our modern society is no longer as valuable a trait! We no longer need those who would go out for the biggest kill, the best, the most, but some of us have still got that hard wiring! We are still the greatest seekers of "MORE" and unfortunately we often found that in mood altering chemicals!
We simply don't feel pleasure in the same way, or as easily as others, this is because we have less availability of particular receptor sites in the reward pathway of the brain, and need greater stimulation to feel the same reward.
BUT, we are very driven people! and when we are able to get away from the chemicals that were killing us, that incredible drive can be transformed into something really quite awesome!
It is very simple, if I take mood altering chemicals it brings out the very worst in me! If I keep away from them, and find my passions elsewhere I can be the BEST I can be.
The key words PASSION and PURPOSE, finding something that gives us the greatest pleasure and meaning without chemicals!
For some that is sport, maybe even scuba diving or belly dancing, a new career, become an activist in something we feel strongly about, rekindling an old interest, rearing a family, learning a new skill, fulfilling long held dreams, everyone will have different drives, but it has to be something meaningful that we feel passionate about, it can't be anything mediocre, otherwise pretty soon we would be off looking for something bigger, better, MORE!
I have six children! (That is quite excessive!) they have been the biggest most exciting of joys, three grandchildren too!
I feel absolutely, obsessively, passionate about the treatment of other addicts and survivors of abuse.
I want only the absolute BEST for them! Not just a "that will do" approach.
I have my work! and that is the biggest Buzz anyone could ever have, and the longer I continue, the more passionate I feel about it. I have treated thousands of people, and I have personally taught fifteen thousand healthcare workers!
So the label I like most is "Luckiest and most grateful person on the planet!"
Still driven for MORE!
This week I have been reminded almost daily about "milestones" and "watersheds" and the difference between them.
The milestones have been each small step to recovery. The first few hours, the first reduction in painkillers, the getting rid of the oxygen mask,the first wash, the first time being able to get out of bed on my own, the first bowel opening(Not to put too fine a point on it!) the first time I could walk unaided!
Lying around trying to recover from my surgery is giving me a a lot of time to think! I don't usually like too much "thinking time, one of my survival techniques has always been to keep busy!and to avoid ruminating at all costs!
But this is different somehow, I am dwelling on what I love about my life, how fortunate I am to be so well looked after, and how very much I am missing my work!
I sometimes have to pinch myself when I realise how many people I have taught, (15,000!!!) and how precious they all have been, how many have become close friends, and how much I miss going out and meeting new ones.
So I think this spinal surgery experience has been a "watershed" a time of change, reviewing what is important and determining to give fresh impetus to those things, and disregard the trivia!
When I was a little girl, I was in the dreadful 1953 flood on the East coast. It was a very tragic event, many people died, and we were all of us traumatised in one way or another. I was six at the time, and we had six feet of sea water in our house, resulting in the pneumonia which almost killed me.
That flood was a big turning point in our town, in fact ever since that time everything was defined as either being "before the flood" or "after the flood"!
Over the years there have been many more defining moments," before I was married", "after the kids", "after Nick died", after this before that , etc etc.
But the single most defining moment was when I stopped drinking and using mind altering chemicals! "Before and after" getting clean and sober was THE real "flood" measurement! There could be nothing to compare to the two eras.The thirty years before, have no bearing on the forty years after! The kind of watershed moment that I should and could never forget or underestimate.
This recovery phase won't be long I know, and this enforced restriction has not been as bad as I thought it would be, because I am able to think about the next phase of my life. It does feel though that it might be another "flood" moment!
I will be seventy next week! "Before sobriety" , and abusing my body the way I did, I would never have believed that it was possible to live that long! "After" I cannot believe how quickly it has gone and how much I have been able to do! I also can't believe how much more I want to do and how having this operation will make it all more possible!
I have been talking about having this surgery for so long that I perhaps have forgotten why I was having it! The idea that after it I would be so much better! more able to walk and in so much less pain, making everything I do more possible! So bring on the next few milestones, get to the other side of this particular real watershed!
What an exciting time ahead!
This is a quick scribble due to my feeling like I have been kicked by a very large and very pissed off donkey!
The spinal surgery all went well, I had an eminent neurosurgeon and his team working on my back for 5 and a half hours! (He said "it was very difficult, it was extremely tight in there")
Then I was taken to a special unit because of my sleep apnoea and asthma, where over three days, I was not left alone for one minute! I was given a cocktail of pain killers, (I can't have morphine also because of the sleep apnoea) and I didn't have to ask for one thing, the nurses anticipated my every need , and made me so comfortable. I even had three of them around my bed, holding my hand because I had witnessed someone die in the opposite bed to mine, and they telephoned my husband to come and visit earlier in case I was upset.
I was looked after by nurses and doctors from all over the world, The Philippines, The Gambia, India, Ireland, England Malaysia, Eastern Europe. They all had one thing in common-- They were wonderful! Caring, Compassionate, professional.
I left hospital in a wheelchair with a bag full of medication, lots of instructions and even several pairs of those awful DVT stockings!
And all of this, cost me NOTHING! Of course I have made National Insurance contributions over the years, but even if I hadn't , my care would have been the same -and cost me NOTHING!
We HAVE to cherish and preserve our NHS it is second to none in the World.
Feeling very sore, but extremely grateful.
This isn't greed or ingratitude, it is simply a matter of having evolved a biological advantage, which in our modern society is no longer as valuable a trait! We no longer need those who would go out for the biggest kill, the best, the most, but some of us have still got that hard wiring! We are still the greatest seekers of "MORE" and unfortunately we often found that in mood altering chemicals!
For some that is sport, maybe even scuba diving or belly dancing, a new career, become an activist in something we feel strongly about, rekindling an old interest, rearing a family, learning a new skill, fulfilling long held dreams, everyone will have different drives, but it has to be something meaningful that we feel passionate about, it can't be anything mediocre, otherwise pretty soon we would be off looking for something bigger, better, MORE!
I have six children! (That is quite excessive!) they have been the biggest most exciting of joys, three grandchildren too! 
