Thursday, December 2, 2010

Hitting Bottom

There is an old, old saying that "When you hit bottom, there is only one way to go: Up" However, I challenge this idea! I know for a fact from long, hard experience, that there is another direction; sideways!
I have many times hit bottom, and before any upward movement happens, there is the veritable skimming along the bottom. Sure, there may be a little rise involved, but invariably, the virtual lead weight pulls me back down. Now, I freely admit, that now days, my bottom is not as far down as they were when I actively pursued a career in alcoholism, but they are bottoms nonetheless. Case in point: For the last four months or so, I have been on Worker's Comp, getting weekly checks from the Insurance Company while going to various doctors trying to get my back problem fixed. They recommended me for surgery, since the shot they gave me did not work for very long, but I needed to go to a Neurologist to make sure I did not have nerve damage. He said I did not need the surgery, and all the sudden I am being told to go back to work. I still have the problem, albeit not as severe as when it started, but I am still, in my opinion, susceptible to aggravating it and being right back where I started.
The problem with this is; I will go a week without income, because the insurance pays at the end of the week finished, and work holds the check for a week. I have not only bills due, but bills being taken directly out of my bank account. They gave me no fore warning that I would be sent back to work at this point in time, so I did not have an opportunity to arrange the bills so they would be taken care of.
I have also just started taking online college classes in an attempt to enhance my writing ability, hoping to be able to better arrange my writing to be marketable and salable. This is not a big problem because I can get the work done around my employment.
So, the fact remains, that once a person hits bottom, there IS somewhere to go other than up. There is often an undercurrent one can get caught in which just either drags one along the bottom or bounces one against it repeatedly.
I have no idea if anyone else will ever read this or not, but I am putting it out there just the same.