Original Posting At https://beguineagain.com/the-prodigal-beloved-comes-home/
Hello everyone! It has been so very long since I’ve actually sat down to write on Beguine Again that as I sit down in my hotel room on my brand new laptop that it feels weird and almost foreign to be writing.
As I have shared with all you wonderful folxs and our beloved readers – I struggle on an everyday basis with two very powerful demons.. several different mental health disorders and substance use disorder. Recently I suffered a setback in my substance use disorder recovery journey and I ended up in rehab yet again. The night I came home I fell into the cunning, baffling, and powerful grips of addiction again. I wish I could say I fought it as hard as I could. But quite honestly I didn’t use any of the coping skills I had learned from the rooms of the 12 step fellowships, various mental health and substance use specialist/professionals, or my rehab stays. It was like I had set myself up to fail from the very start.
Addiction is a beast of demons to have to learn to deal with, manage, and arrest on a daily basis. Then add into the mix other co-occurring mental health disorders and the cards are pretty much stacked against you from the start. It can be a very trying to say the least to just get up and get moving on most days. See I suffer with substance use disorder (which actually falls under the mental illness category – did any of you folxs know that?) and I suffer with Bipolar Type 2, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD from several different types of trauma from my past going back as far as my childhood, and lastly Borderline Personality Disorder. So as you can see I’ve been dealt a very difficult deck of cards in life to have to somehow make the very best I can each and every day that the Divine and Sacred blesses me with.
Even with all these various demons as I like to call them I battle on the daily, I have been shown some major gifts of grace and mercy both. Especially with this most recent setback in my substance abuse recovery journey. See I shouldn’t even be able to be sitting here in this hotel room on my brand new laptop typing this blog right now. I should, in all reality, be sitting in a county jail cell. But because of the gift of grace that the Divine and Sacred blessed me with because of the prayers of many might warriors of faith, my probation officer and the agency in charge of my substance use treatment program gave me just one last chance to get this thing called recovery right. See I met with my probation officer this past Monday and she drug tested me and I passed. She also told me that because of some things that my rehab told her I would have to go in front of a judge for a violation hearing on my probation. The ironic thing though was that she told me exactly what I needed to do between now and the time of that future hearing in order to gain favor with the judge.
I would be required to be in an agency that could handle both my mental health disorders and also my substance use disorder at the same time. The agency I used before leaving for rehab was giving me difficulties due to my probation officer initially sticking by the lie that the rehab recommended me going to a halfway house before returning to outpatient treatment. But she talked to the agency and then let me know via a text message that the agency was willing to give me one last shot! Shortly after receiving that message from my probation officer, a supervisor from the agency gave me a call and went through the requirements/recommendations they had set up in order for me to come back there for their program. I would have to do what is called Partial Drug and Alcohol Treatment which consists of attending 3 hours of class 4 days a week and having two sessions with a drug and alcohol therapist. I was also told I would be required to submit to a mental health evaluation and attend weekly therapy sessions. I would also be required to meet with a certified recovery specialist as often as possible. A certified recovery specialist is basically a fellow recovering addict with at least two years clean who has attended extensive trainings and passed a certification test.
I was told by my probation officer if I followed all of my agencies recommendations and didn’t miss any treatment days other than for my every three-month check up with my primary care doctor that when it came time for my violation hearing things would turn out just fine and nothing would happen to me.
So you see I have been very blessed lately and I truly have a lot to be grateful for! I am so grateful for the gift of grace and mercy even though I don’t understand it or feel like I deserve any of it. I guess that is the beauty of the Divine and Sacred. They lavish us with these amazing and truly wonderful gifts that yes we don’t deserve but we are given these gifts out of the love the Divine and Sacred has for us.
You see this past week I’ve begun to learn a very valuable and important lesson in my spiritual and religious life. I have a Divine and Sacred Creator who absolutely loves and adores me… ALL OF ME. Yes the messy, the pretty, the ugly, the beautiful parts of me. Because of this love, they have decided to grant me this very precious and costly gift of grace and mercy. I still have yet to figure out why or what the purpose is for being granted this gift. Maybe to be quite honest, it isn’t the time or place for me to know at this very given moment in time. But I have to begin to exercise trust in the Divine and Sacred that I believe created me.
I am so very sorry that this blog post has turned into a longer than usual post. But I had an intense burning desire to share everything I shared with you. I’m again not entirely sure why I had this desire. But as a writer and a pastor at heart – I can only hope and pray that the words I’ve typed above are able to touch the soul of at least one person who reads this.
May the Peace of Christ Be With You,
Brian Lee
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