Let's Get Physical

... or getting intimate with the addiction as well as the recovery

“I am not defined by my relapses, but my decision to remain in recovery despite them.” ~ Unknown

Protagonist of Physical, Sheila Rubin, 2023.

I have been binging on a show these days. It’s on Apple TV and it’s called “Physical”. This is a dark comedy following the main character - a quietly tortured, seemingly compliant and dedicated housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband’s bid for state assembly. Behind the closed doors, Sheila has her own ironic take on life she rarely lets the world see. She’s battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image, to say the least. Until she finds release through the world of aerobics - which saves her from herself and the disordered eating, but also becomes her next obsession. In case you are in active addiction or even early recovery, at the moment, you may want to consider if the show would be appropriate for you or not.

I have no idea how I got so absorbed into this show. Well … actually, that’s not true. I know exactly how it happened. I may be in recovery but I still have tendency to overdo things, to dissociate from my reality and travel someplace else in my own imagination, to disconnect from my own difficult feelings and look for a comfort somewhere else, to binge on things, be it a food item or a TV show … A friend told me about the show initially, but she somehow left out a few important details about the main character - such as that she has been struggling with a disordered eating behavior. For me personally, the show triggers every single thing around addiction, in general. And I am not writing this in order to give my personal thoughts and a review of the show, not at all. It’s more about what the show brought up for me. Me being triggered with it - at the moment - is a good thing (for me). It makes me revisit my own old wounds and all the dark places I used to go (and sometimes still do), as well as those places that have been changing me, helping me get healthier. It stirred up a lot of shit, and created some context and content for my therapy sessions, and, in a strange way, it helped me understand myself better, see where I have more work to do, and, most importantly, see where I can have a lot more understanding and compassion for the things I have done in the past as well as my (still existing) unhealthy patterns. This offering is simply me getting vulnerable and opening up about things around my recovery, as well as my addiction, that still haunt me at times.

The show really sheds a light on my personal intimacy and very close relationship - the visceral bodily response and remembrance - with alcohol, drugs, sex and food, coffee and TV binges, dating apps and obsessive negative thoughts. Although I have been sober for many years from most of these substances - the objects of compulsion - there is still a certain physical intimacy that these relationships bring about for me. Some days more than other.

How it began for me when I just started watching the show is worth exploring. Right away, I heard my inner, critical, ego voice judging the main character. At this point in life, I have enough self-awareness to recognize that it isn’t about her at all - it is always and only about me. Seeing her patterns brought me back to my own, some that I still encounter on certain days. Although I know that these are defense mechanisms that were working for a while in the past and had their useful place in my life as safeguards and protections, I still let them play out from time to time. They still show up and take over. And what this does for me is - bring about all that familiar feeling of being fake in my recovery, of being phony and dishonest and flawed - just because I am not perfect every single day of my life, just because I slip, just because I still struggle sometimes. I (and I am sure I am not the only one to feel this way) often forget that I am only a human. Self-loathing is so prevalent in our culture that it seems to be a default setting in most of us. Hardly ever do we stop to question whether it is natural to be living within such a judging and attacking consciousness and whether it is how we are really wired and supposed to be as human beings.

Regardless, there is often a struggle in this process of evaluation and analysis, for me. At times, I end up pretending to be better, to be well, just to - soon again - forget all about it and repeat some of the patterns all over again. I know that without going deep and really seeing my own shadows, there is no real work done here, there is no authentic showing up, no progress, no real hard core honesty. It becomes delusions, instead … On the flip side, when I push too strongly, too hard, for discipline, for repetition of the healthier, more skillful, options, behaviors and habits, I often feel rigid. I feel rigid in my mind, rigid in my heart, and certainly rigid in my body. I feel as if a light breeze can knock me off my feet and stir me towards the relapse unless I am pristine in my words and actions.

If things are not the way I want them and like them to be, I get upset about it. I find it difficult to be in a romantic relationship with someone because of this. If people are not perfect and flawless in their ways, I get upset and judge them - just like I judge myself when I am not perfect and flawless. I can even very easily stop loving them. And I certainly can walk out of their lives without ever turning back just as easily as one unplugs the USB device from a computer and everything is back to where it was as if the device was never inserted in the first place. And, my body … my body doesn’t flow that often, it doesn’t sway when it moves. I wish it would. Often, I wish I could be like those fairy-like women who wear flowy clothes looking like they glide on water surface when they walk, like swans. But, I can’t. That’s just not me. I stopped dancing when I got sober. This was September of 2014. I still don’t dance (unless very rarely in my own room, where no one can see me, or a few times at a conscious movement class).

Often I am not even aware that I am pretending. Pretending to be better, to be ok, pretending to be put together, pretending to be a “cool” chick, pretending to be smiling and content in the given situation, very contained and presentable, hiding behind my intellect and charm. Not exactly to the extent of how much the protagonist of “Physical” tends to overdo it, but still … Pretending … So many times I don’t say what I really think, I don’t say “no” when I mean “no”, and on so many occasions I choose to look like I have it all together. Because, what is the alternative?! Having people dislike me, having them think that I am crazy or unstable, having them not want to be with me and around me anymore? YES! Exactly! But really, if that is what happens in the end, then be it. But, most probably, this is not what would have happen. Most probably, we often see ourselves in much worse light than others will ever see us.

Recovery is difficult. Especially recovery from things we need to continue living with - like food, sex and relationships, technology/media, dating apps, or even our own stinking thinking … Someone once compared a recovery process from alcohol to a recovery from food and sex in a very creative way. If our addiction (a drug of choice) would be presented by a dangerous and hungry tiger, a recovery from alcohol would be like putting the tiger into a cage and forgetting about it. Whereas, recovery from food or sex/relationships would require us to take that tiger out of the cage and walk it a few times a day. We have to befriend the enemy, become familiar and close with something that used to be killing us, or at least affecting our lives negatively.

LACMA, Los Angeles, California, 2017.

The worst part, for me, is the thoughts in my head, the voice that sometimes is unbearably loud and obnoxious. One of the meditation teachers I was listening to recently mentioned once - what if someone could put a helmet on your head which would broadcast every single thought that comes through your mind so others in this room would hear it? Terrifying, right?! If anyone could only hear the thoughts in my head (although, I am sure you have dealt plenty with your own) … It’s interesting, and saddening in a way, that no matter what others say to us, how others sometimes treat us - nothing will ever be worse than the things that we already have said and have done to ourselves.

I am a jerk.

I am cold and I don’t care for people.

I am not really a good friend.

I am a phony.

I am fat, my belly looks terrible and my ass could be smaller.

I am embarrassing and a weirdo.

I am so clumsy.

I feel so awkward in large groups, and I am sure others can notice that.

No one can ever see the real me.

No one can ever love me.

I will never be able to commit to a relationship.

I am incapable of having a healthy relationship.

If they ever truly see me, they will leave me.

I need to be tough on myself, otherwise I will slip, I will be out of control, I will be crazy and insatiable, I will be a cold stone bitch, an emotionless monster, I will end up alone and spiritually dead.

I can’t show my anger. I have to keep on being “cool”.

I can’t show my depression, my mood swings and my irritability. I have to remain collected and cool and positive.

I will never be happy, content and joyful.

I will never be able to dance again.

I have been way harsh on myself, but most times I needed it. I deserved punishing, to be able to keep myself in order.

I need to keep on somewhat a harsh language to motivate me to do better, to be disciplined and stay on track.

Maybe this voice is useful. Who would I have become if it wasn’t for that critical, judgmental, harsh, militant voice inside of my head?

So tired of this voice, of this abusive, critical, insulting, doubting language. Oh, and I feel bad about all this waste - about wasting my time, wasting all that energy on something so hurtful, unhelpful and insensitive. Wasting my words. Wasting my life. Wasting precious life moments. Feeling shitty mostly about myself. I feel sad about all this. I know it doesn’t help to feel shitty and sad about yet another thing, but this is an honest and authentic sadness. It is not crippling, paralyzing and punishing - it just exists and at times appears in the light. And, as much as I could probably apologize to other people for my words and actions at times - apologies are firstly due to myself. I have been violating and disregarding myself most of the time.

It’s certainly not all unicorns, rainbows, pink clouds and blowjobs on the other side of recovery - just like they say in the rooms. But it’s not too late to change the reality. It’s never too late. Do I consider backsliding when I binge on a TV show for days, weeks, months … when I sleep with someone without any deeper connection … when I stuff my face with a bag of cookies or pizza … when I drink a copious amount of coffee till I become so jittery that my whole body is shaking and I can’t calm down for hours … The truth is, I don’t feel good about it. But, whenever it happens, I know it’s not my first time and it probably won’t be the last. I also know that there are million excuses I can give you (or myself) for this. The only truth, however, is that I still get pulled deep under into those dark places sometimes. The truth is that the recovery is a long, most often than not - a lifelong - path. Sure, I get disappointed when this happens. I get very disappointed - in me and my recovery. And, for a moment, I get hopeless too. Almost to the point where I start yet another binge only to then punish myself for being disappointed (sounds familiar?). But, then again, I have to remember that tomorrow is a new day. I get to do it all over again. And I can do it differently. As long as I am in recovery, every effort counts, and I am never going backwards, only forward. Even if I relapse, as long as I am back in recovery, I am learning something; the past time spent in recovery is not lost, it’s not forgotten. It counts. It all counts.

“Once, I ran from difficult feelings.

Now, they are my advisors, confidants, friends,

and they all have a home in me,

and they all belong and have dignity.

I am sensitive, soft, fragile,

my arms wrapped around all my inner children.

And in my sensitivity, power.

In my fragility, an unshakeable Presence.” ~ From “How I Became a Worrier” by Jeff Foster

Often (or most of the time, for some of us) - recovery can suck. It can be so uncomfortable. Getting familiar with ourselves, with who we truly are, without the substances and crutches, can be very difficult and overwhelming, as if your whole skin is peeled off and you can feel every single stimulus that touches you. I have heard somewhere a saying that “self-knowledge is not necessarily good news”. Absolutely! Not in a sense that it is not good and wise to get to know your real self, but rather that when you do, it might be a totally different person from who you knew all your life, a person who you might not like and one that might take some time accepting. I don’t think I ever said this (or wrote it) due to my concern for those who look up at me, or find inspiration in me and my recovery, for their own recovery - but it can suck here. Often, it does. It is not glorious and it is not easy, and almost always it’s messy. It is most probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But, I will say it over and over again - I would not change it for anything. I would do exactly the same thing over again. I would always choose recovery.

Following the protagonist of the TV show, some questions still remain for me. Can I be a healer, mentor, teacher, and an inspiration for those in need, those who are struggling, those in recovery or in the middle of the vicious cycle of addiction, and even those who are simply curios - can I be all that even if I am still battling some of my old patterns, if I slip from time to time, if I get challenged and triggered … if I am just an imperfect human being after all? Can I be an expert, a wise intuitive person, when I still have so much to figure out for myself? If I stayed devoted and committed to my work, to learning, to growing, to my own recovery - where could I be in the future? What does my work look like now? What can it look like in the future? What do I want to accomplish, to offer, to focus on? What do I want my recovery to look like, to feel like?

P.S. I just realized that this piece might seem to be a bit confusing for some of you. I am aware of that and, if that is the case with you, I apologize. The thing is, the show impacted me in so many different and unexpected ways that I had so much inside of me that wanted to be seen, expressed and acknowledged, that I didn't really think so much about its form, but rather of the content and what it means to me. If you have any comments and/or questions, please reach out. I would love to hear from you. And, remember, no matter what you are going through, you don’t have to do it alone.

Somewhere in Los Angeles, circa 2014.

“The wounds that we don’t know about or don’t remember are the deepest. It is through the wormhole of those wounds that we travel to arrive at the peace that surpasses all understanding. Healing is possible because we have the ability to spiritually veer from disaster, and to allow crises to make rather than break us.”

~ Barbara Holmes, Crisis Contemplation