So the problem I find myself coming up against time and time again is this: how to live with these horrific images and memories which are burned into my brain? I’m clean and sober, this week it is four years.
The images remain.
If I’d hoped that getting clean and sober and working a programme would somehow magically erase that shit I’d be sorely disappointed. Sobriety enabled me to remove myself from that situation, and every day sober adds a little distance timewise from that place. But the phase I’m finding tricky is the next phase: the cleanup operation. An oiled seabird rescued from drowning won’t survive if it’s simply pulled from the sea and dumped on the beach, covered in toxins, its warmth draining away through soiled feathers. Similarly, simply being out of prostitution, even out and clean and sober, isn’t enough for me to survive in any meaningful way unless I can get the toxic crap left behind by years of abuse and being sold out of my system. I’ve spent the last 4 years trying to work out just how to do that because until I can change this, it’s always there, smothering me, threatening to engulf me at times when it’s particularly raw.
This is my Achilles’ heel.
Read more about surviving prostitution and addiction on Angel K’s Blog.
