The recovered drug addict/alcoholic such as myself, is apt to find that even without drugs and alcohol, he is still quite capable of obsessing over certain things. With 4.5 years of real sobriety now, I’ve obsessed over everything from WW2 strategy games, to my book Hippopotamus Sea which took three years to write and finish. The most dangerous of all obsessions, the female human being, is another matter indeed. The latter is by far the most thrilling and exciting chase, but also as it turns out the one with the highest stakes.

Recently I’ve been receiving odd mail, not hate mail, but definitely negatively barbed emails from a variety of sources, and one of them I found particularly amusing. Supposedly from a lady in NC, she said I “lose credibility” while writing about getting  over the girl I obsessed over recently and wrote about in the blog. Credibility to who? Who am I trying to be credible too exactly? I’m a recovered junkie for fucks sake. I quite openly admit I’m an ex addict, opiate, cocaine, alcoholic survivor with qualities of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which I honestly believe MOST if  not ALL of us in recovery suffer from, so exactly how would writing about those symptoms make me less credible? Hmmm… it’s kind of like being written to in broken English and spelling errors in which the message says, “Your dum,” instead of the way it should be written: “You’re dumb.” Miss spellings and grammar issues aside, if you don’t understand why an addict would write about his obsessions, and how he intended on getting over them, go fuck yourself, or better yet, don’t read my blog.

Progress not perfection, and though yes, getting over the last was a challenge, I do believe I’ve learned many valuable lessons, and I assure you, the lessons being recorded, and timeless as the internet is, are more valuable than the so called credibility of one  naysayer who would prefer I bottle it all up, and or write it in a journal. Lol, the funny thing about that journal comment that was mentioned to me though, is that, I do also journal, every single night, in what is basically my tenth step work on a nightly basis. I began writing in this particular journal the day after me and said obsession split up the first time, so August of 2010. 2/3rds of that book is about the pain of loving someone who doesn’t love you back. Now to go from August to December beating your head against a wall is a long fucking time, but having that written history privately, and yeah, that shit is unpublishable is good, but writing about overcoming it here, is just as valuable. What I’ve written here, is humbling, humiliating, embarrassing even, but also good for me to have written, processed and published.

For one thing, in 20 some odd years of dating women, having only fallen for three or so in my life, this is the very first time I cut the cord, told the person to leave me alone, and to never contact me again no matter what and then actually stuck with it. That is progress not perfection. I did that in early January and I was right to do it. I could tell she was lying to me, and my gut instinct was right. Within a couple of months that would be proven right beyond a shadow of a doubt. Valuable lesson: always trust your gut.

Secondly, though it wasn’t all at once, the obsession did slowly begin to lift. Rob an obsession of it’s fuel, IE speaking to them, seeing them, etc. and just like with alcohol, drugs and nicotine that obsession will slowly lift, and you will slowly see through the obsession and into the truth of the matter. I wasn’t being loved, I was being used. My perception allowed me to see any relative act of kindness as love, but the reality, which all too many people in my network told  me, was that I was being played, and though I didn’t want to believe that, as I put time and space between me and the situation I slowly but surely began to see that.

Thirdly, praying and following my intuition about finding a Godly woman of the same faith as mine, opened up doors I could have never imagined. I began attending a good church and met a ton of good new people, and though it is different and not anything like my expectations, it is good, and it is where God wants me to be, just for today, which I can accept. The whole process has taught me a lot. The last woman I loved before this, Gwen Evere in the book, took my soul to a new depth of depravity and hell I thought would I never reach, and I feel like at 4.5 years sober this was another lesson, or even a test, and had I not cut the cord in January, I would have set myself up for even more pain and suffering than I had to go through anyway.

Removing the fire, or stopping seeing her, avoiding her, not talking to her, being disconnected from her in every way, really helped out. She added the final nails in the coffin in February when her ex came back on the scene, who was never far removed no matter what she had told the world, her friends or her family, and with finality she removed me from facebook. Funny that it stung, irritating to the pride and ego, I hadn’t spoken to her once, emailed, called or texted, but she felt it necessary to remove my facebook connection. That was a blessing too though. Her face had continued to pop up on that upper left hand corner, facebook prodding and laughing at me, it was good that she ended even that subtle communication. Good for me anyway. Valuable lesson: Cut ALL ties, including facebook, texting, email, EVERYTHING.

I continued praying for her, for her happiness, for her sobriety, and praying for the obsession to be removed, but it was still pretty intense.

“I do not think that obsession is funny or that not being able to stop one’s intensity is funny.” ~ Jim Dine

There were times in early to mid February that I was hurting pretty bad. God put some other things in my life that kept me sane. Church, work, and I dove into step-work to get out of myself, but I was still pretty angry.

Time takes times as we say though, and by early April, I finally felt like myself again.

Just like with sobriety, my serenity came piece meal, in waves, not all at once or all encompassing, but in bits and parts. I remember early on in sobriety I would get like one day of relief and then have a week of obsessing over drinking and drugging. Then I’d get two days and feel relieved, amazed even, but then experience a week or two even of obsession, but I would cling to that day or two of serenity, of peace, because it would be like proof, like the example of what I was striving for. And ultimately that is how getting over this woman was, it was the same process, I had to do it, no matter what, because just like active addiction, of alcohol or heroin, this emotional pain and distress was killing me, and I couldn’t go on with it, it hurt too fucking much. So I would take what little peace I had, cling to the idea that it was just a sample of the future peace and serenity I would get if I stuck to the path, and continued on my way, and sure enough, just like with drugs, alcohol and nicotine, my obsession slowly lifted.

Still, occasionally cravings would return. I hadn’t thought of her in two weeks easy and was coasting along beautifully, when she walked into my candlelight meeting to pick up her nine month candle, and fuck if that didn’t send my heart through my chest. I was mad at myself, mad at my inability to control my emotions, and mad at her, for looking at me like I was some kind of evil bastard. That glare was so powerful, I swear if looks could kill I’d have died on the spot. It was like being in early sobriety and walking into a room where everyone was smoking kind bud, drinking your favorite beer, and listening to your favorite music. All the lie was out to see, and none of the truth of your disease, that the addiction was out to kill you was hidden, just the beauty of it all, just the deception.

Time takes time though, and all I could do was be grateful that I’d had the brief reprieve I’d had, and hope that it would continue to get better and better.

It has, and finally, after five months, yesterday, I saw her best friend at a Starbucks and I could have sworn I saw her, sitting next to her, because all I could see was the top of her little blond head, and for the first time since January, my heart didn’t go through my chest. My blood pressure didn’t even change. I can honestly say I’m over the whole bullshit obsession. The funny thing too, I went to write that down in my journal last night, and it was the VERY last page of my journal, the book of pain is finally closed, completely and categorically. The emotions 100% tempered. I thought the entire time my roommate and I were in Starbucks that she was out in the parking lot with her friend and I had no desire to see her, speak to her, or even glance that direction. The funny thing is when we were leaving it turned out it wasn’t her at all but her friends kid, who is a blond, so it wasn’t even her, but regardless, the emotion was gone, cooled, controlled. Thank fucking God…finally.

Irritating that people read shit I posted months and months ago, or a poem that clearly states it was written months and months ago, and take it for my present state of mind. Or think that I give a shit what some stranger in NC thinks of my credibility, truly, I am brutally honest, I know this, I don’t seek or need or want your approval.

Getting over a woman completely and utterly in just less than five months, sure as fuck beats the 7 years or so it took for me to get over Gwen Evere. For me, it is huge progress. If I lose credibility with whomever the fuck reads the earlier postings as I was going through the obsession, oh fucking well. The idea of this blog is to be unique, original, and brutally honest. It is also supposed to help other men, not the women of AA, as I wouldn’t know the first thing about their emotions, nor do I suspect do they. My plan, though a day at a time, is to outlast my disease and die sober, and being that I’m 33 that will make for some pretty good, albeit intense, life lessons, that I will publish and make available to all those that are interested in how to face challenges and overcome them in the program. Every fucking guy I know in the program with real long term sobriety has faced woman issues, and more specifically, obsessions with them, and/or sex, so if I lose credibility by being honest, instead of acting like some fucking holier than thou guru, I really don’t give a shit. The only credibility I seek is that of being just another bozo on the bus, just another garden variety drunk, and I’m glad my writing still gets feedback and comments and all that shit, because it means people read it. In fact, we broke a record the other day with 1435 people reading the blog, so to the one jackass retard who thinks I lose creditability for being honest… blow me. Blow me enough and maybe you’ll be my new obsession, lol.

The very point of all of this is to live and learn, and if I fancy it all up and put lipstick all over the pig of my obsessions, it would have been a lie. I’m not unique in feeling obsessions over a woman in AA. Someone saying “Oh he’s obsessed” is fucking comical. If you aren’t obsessed with something in recovery at some point, you’re a sociopath, or most likely, just a fucking hypocrite. Remember, whenever you point the finger their are four coming back at you. For me, it is amazing progress for me to have first cut the cord on the obsession, and second stuck with it until it was 100% totally gone. I’ve written it in here as a record of how I did it so that someone else may learn from the experience and hopefully apply the same lessons. If you believe you are better than the VERY common symptoms of alcoholics around the globe, well good for you and God bless your little heart, I hope you stay holier than thou for as long as you can, because if you don’t have the humility to relate to what I’m writing about, you will very probably experience some of the same exact turmoil. Lets hope that you can get through them as successfully as I have, because love me or hate me, I’ve accomplished quite a bit when it comes to sobriety, including, getting over the urge to drink and drug, finishing a year of Interferon, defeating Hep C, losing 50 lbs, quitting smoking, running half marathons and more. You may not like me, but you may just find we have more in common than we do apart.

We are all sick people trying to get better, and the only reason I write this is to try and help others, just as others have helped me.

Thank you God for giving me the strength to persevere, and overcome ALL my obsessions. At 4.5 years sober, I’m still just as capable of obsessing as I was when I came in, but having gone through this last year, I now know that there is NOTHING on God’s green Earth that I can’t get over, given enough time, patience, and endurance. I truly have faith that ultimately you have a good plan worked out for me better than any that I could possibly imagine. God’s will not mine be done… And thanks for the Osama kill, we needed some good news.  ; )

-Jared Bryan Smith