In rehab we were warned that as we came off of our substances of choice our dreams could shift quite dramatically. “Using” dreams are quite common, where an individual experiences the sensations of going back to their drug of choice in an intensely visceral way.
Early mornings in rehab were quite often supplemented with the retelling of someone’s using dream from the night before, and the dream was recounted in depth. Vapors were inhaled that filled and burned lungs, needles were felt plunging into skin and the burn of alcohol in the throat was realized. Lucky for us, every single time an individual encountered a using dream in rehab it was just that, a dream. Additionally, they had individuals to talk about to calm their nerves after the harrowing experience.
I have found that I dream less after entering active recovery than before. In my time in recovery I have never had a literal using dream, where I experienced the action of consuming alcohol once again. However, I have certainly had nightmares, though few and far between. My nightmares always have had the exact same theme - that I am back in my lie and I am desperately panicked trying to escape from the lie.
Feel free to psycho-analyze this in any manner in which you please. The moments after I woke up from my latest nightmare I sat down and wrote so I didn’t forget those small, and somewhat unusual details. Like the fact that my sponsor did not even bother to remove the beer he was drinking from the plastic rings holding them together.
While I was upset witnessing him drink in my dream, turtles everywhere were shuttering at the idea of another neck ring that would be out in the wild for them soon. Or maybe not, seeing as he failed to detach any of the beers from the plastic ring so no innocent turtle could slip it’s neck through there, thinking it was a necklace.
Anyway, rambling over, here’s the dream, largely unedited, jotted down moments after waking. It’s always a powerful reminder to me that the worst part of the 12 year battle with alcoholism wasn’t the substance itself, but who it turned me into.
I was sitting in a structure that seemed to resemble a church with its pews and high ceilings. But it wasn’t a church. It seemed more like some sort of recovery meeting was going on, but it wasn’t AA. There had to be well over 200 people filling the space seated in the pews. All were attentive and looking forward.
I looked to my right across the aisle and saw my AA sponsor sitting and lifting a drink up to his mouth. I couldn’t tell what type of drink it was but I noted something. He had tremors as he poured the final drops from the can into his mouth. The tremors made me feel sick. Was he ok?
I swung my attention to whatever was occurring in front of me but suddenly, I was looking back towards my sponsor. Now it was with certainty that he was drinking. He had a four pack of Surly beer tall boys in his hands and he wasn’t even hiding the fact that he was drinking them. He wasn’t even removing them from the device that held them together, so every time he took a drink he lifted all four cans up.
What was he doing? My heart sank into my stomach as I watched someone I had so much admiration and love for drink once again. My mind raced with fearful thoughts about what the act meant for him and for me. They’re going to kick him out of this space, I won’t be able to see or talk to him again and I’m going to have to get a new sponsor.
Then there was time and space travel. Completely unsure of what happened or where I was, I took in my newest situation.
We were at my sister and brother-in-laws house, but it wasn’t their house. There was a big, grand open space that was only occupied by a refrigerator that was straight from the 1970’s. But I knew a secret about that refrigerator. I had alcohol hidden in there that nobody knew about.
Suddenly, the space came alive with my family, moving about the room. I was suddenly filled with the crippling anxiety of having a secret that I did not want others to know about. I became obsessed with keeping them away from the refrigerator, scared to death that someone would open it and find my alcohol stashed away. And then I would be exposed.
I had to get them out of the space so that I could dispose of my evidence, the proof that I was, once again, caught in a cycle of lying and manipulation. Suddenly finding the space empty of people with no real explanation as to why, I began plotting my plan to dispose of the evidence and cover everything up.
The anxiety rose. With an empty house and the full ability to dispose of any evidence, I took no action. I delayed and distracted myself from the refrigerator and the contents that lied within. The contents that I hadn’t seen with my own eyes, but I had been granted the knowledge of that they existed in there.
I continued doing nothing. Suddenly, my family filled the space once again and my window of time to dispose of the evidence without anyone else knowing had disappeared. I began sinking back, horrified to find myself here and continuing to feel my anxiety rise further and further.
The sinking feeling in my gut that I was once again back to living a life of lies settled in, and then I woke up.
It’s quite uncommon for me to have these types of dreams. Yet every once in a while I go through the terror of finding myself living in that dark world of lies and manipulation that I never want to return. If you have ever wondered why I so freely and openly share about the struggles and thoughts that go through my head, my primary motivation is to never find myself in that state of lying and deceitfulness ever again. It was the worst kind of hell that I could ever imagine, and the fear and anxiety that gripped me was all consuming.
I can be grateful that’s not the reality anymore. But I also view this as a reminder to myself that chaos and destruction still lives within me, as it does all of us. For today, I recognize that potential for destruction that is still with me, yet I aim my actions upward as best as I can. I believe that’s the greatest action that every single one of us can do each day.
That’s all I’ve got.
Kyle