Rambling On...

Thinking about disclosure at work...

I dare someone to judge me for my past, without looking at the person I am today...which happens to be the only person my coworkers have ever met. I dare someone to look at the time clock, and see who is never late. I dare someone to challenge my work ethic and knowledge of food. I dare someone to pass a judgement on me because I was once addicted to heroin, I guarantee that today I do a better job than they do. And I am more reliable. I have been clean a long time, and I don't even drink.

I work in the restaurant industry, where a lot of people drink and go out. And I am pretty sure that I am more clean and sober than the majority of the people I work with. I bet almost every one of them has been so wasted in the last year that they did something they regret at least once. I have not done that in almost five years. I am not late for work, and I work really hard. I go to school, and I write every day...and I am a good mom...I dare someone to judge me.

Go ahead, take a good look at my life. If you are not willing to give me a chance, then you are not worth my wasted breath. My life is pretty good. I have a lot of positive things happening to me, and if you cannot see through that veil of the past...then I don't give a fuck about you.

I feel pretty damn good about myself. I feel pretty damn good about every single thing in my life. And I got nothing to hide. But, that doesn't mean I have to flaunt it either. Sometimes it is best just to keep your mouth shut, act like you don't know anything. But, I never lie.

If someone asks me directly about it, I always tell the truth. There is no point in lying about it. I have nothing to hide. I am not ashamed of anything. There are some things I may not be proud of, but I have nothing to lie about at this point in my life. Lying about my past, makes me look guilty. I am no longer guilty. For the first time in my life, I got nothing to hide.

And I volunteer the information to some. I talk about my addiction a lot in school because I write about it so much. Sometimes, when we are doing a peer edit and I first tell the other student about my memoir about my addiction and experience with the Hurricane, I see a look of partial shock on their face, like they don't really know how to react to me when I say, " I used to be a junky, and here is my story about it..."

I will say, I am glad I did not defend myself to the coworker, and I don't think I could have done that anyway. I really do not like anyone who makes prejudice statements such as this. I think it is moronic to stereotype people. But, I do not want to waste my fight and fire on a losing battle. Sometimes, no matter what you say or do, that mind set will not change. And those are the kind of motherfuckers I cannot tolerate, and I don't even want to waste my time. I would rather waste my time with the type of person who can learn something from my experiences, even if they only learn that not ALL ex junkies are not such and such...

I do wish there was as much respect for recovery as there is stigma for heroin addiction. It seems very unbalanced to me. It takes a lot of really tough work to make it in recovery. It takes a lot of soul searching, which is something most people avoid. If you do not know your demons, well, you most certainly cannot attempt to overtake them. It is a major accomplishment to stay clean and to become something in your life. It is a serious accomplishment to change your life around, and fucking do something with it. I wish more people could see how hard a road recovery really is, but then the only way more people could see this is if they had some personal experience with it because that is the only way you can know...and I do not wish more people had experience with addiction. Instead, I wish less people had this experience.

It is what it is...and its one of the things I cannot change...