We Shall Overcome

Today I did something I’m quite proud of.

As my readership knows, I am having a miserable time of it these days. I am depressed and fearful; my days are spent sorting and boxing things up, and my nights are full of disturbing dreams. I’m trying to look for the good in all of this, and failing utterly. But something happened this afternoon that made me realize that no matter how bad things may be, I’m strong enough now to get through it.

I was going through all the medicine cabinets looking for expired medications when I ran across an almost-full bottle of methadone tablets. They had belonged to a relative, although why they were still in her old bathroom a year and a half after she moved out was a mystery. For the uninitiated, methadone is a very powerful pain-killing drug that has a high potential for abuse; it’s what they give heroin addicts to get them through withdrawal. My relative was using them for chronic pain from her fibromyalgia. Thankfully she is no longer taking them, and in fact hasn’t taken them in over a year.

There must have been over a hundred of those pills in the bottle…..more than enough to put an end to my troubles. I sat down on the john and held the bottle in my hands for several minutes, pondering all the possibilities, tempted to hold onto them secretly “just in case” things got bad for me again. Then it occurred to me that what I really wanted was to be done with this awful time in my life, not with life itself. I also want it to get better, and I want to be here when it does.

And then…..I flushed them.

OK, maybe it wasn’t the environmentally correct course of action, but in this case I say screw the fish, I needed to get rid of those pills and I wasn’t about to go to the trouble of drowning them in a Baggie filled with hot soapy water. The instant they went down the toilet, relief flooded through me and I gave myself a huge hug. After all, I’d faced down temptation, and I’d overcome it.

I think this was one of those little miracles that happen when you least expect it. A little over a month ago, I more than likely would have swallowed the pills in a sufficient amount to take myself out of the picture entirely…..what’s miraculous is I didn’t even know they existed till today.

Yes, I suspect God is watching out for me, even though He’s been distressingly slow to answer my prayers. I may be down, and I’m definitely in a horrible, ugly, terrifying mess, but I’m NOT suicidal. I won’t lie, I’ve had some bad thoughts to be sure, but when you get right down to where the proverbial rubber meets the road, I’m in pretty decent shape.

What happened today was proof of that. And I’m absurdly grateful for being able to take that giant leap of faith, and trust that things will be OK in the long run.