fitscapades
I went from successful specialist doctor in rural Australia to a homeless addict selling my body for drugs and almost dead to living in full recovery in a three story house 30 meters from the beach with my amazing gorgeous partner, my son, his son, our cat and dog. I am an addict in recovery, my story is quite unique and I didn't live it all only to have it untold as the dusts pass over my grave at the eventual end of my life. I want to give hope to addicts in pain, to their families who worry that true recovery is possible even when you are as bad as I was. I want to try to shift perception in the community that addicts are not a waste of time we are capable of recovery and are not lost causes. I have learned so much and gained so much wisdom walking this pathway to recovery it seems a shame not share this. The lessons I have learned are useful to everyone not just those challenged by addiction.
fitscapades
Surrendering to Life's Flow After Addiction and Loss
Recovery isn't just about staying clean—it's about rebuilding a life that collapsed beneath you. After decimating my life as a renal medicine specialist through addiction, I found myself at ground zero, wondering how to become functional again. While a fortunate insurance payout provided temporary financial security, the question loomed: what next?
Society pushes us toward relentless productivity and clear career trajectories. For 18 months, I remained paralyzed by indecision, unable to rekindle my passion for medicine yet feeling desperate to establish a new path. This desperation morphed into consuming anxiety about failure—robbing me of present moments with my son and partner while providing no real progress toward stability.
My breakthrough came through Buddhist teachings that fundamentally shifted my perspective. The concept that we can't force success through sheer determination, that sometimes surrender is the wisest approach, provided immense relief. I'd already experienced this truth firsthand—when I stopped being judgmental, forgave others, and released resentments, my circumstances improved dramatically. Similarly, when I stopped stressing about finances and started manifesting abundance instead of scarcity, unexpected financial good fortune followed.
The journey has taught me how previous relationship trauma shapes current connections. The fear of being seen as a "liability" or financial burden—words hammered into me by a previous partner—created distance in my current relationship when I thought I was demonstrating independence. Understanding these patterns has been crucial in building healthy bonds after addiction.
Perhaps most profoundly, I've learned that purpose doesn't always arrive on schedule or follow a predetermined path. By removing desperate urgency from my search for meaning, I've created space for organic discovery and genuine connections. In documenting my journey toward enlightenment, I've found fulfillment in sharing insights that might help others navigate similar challenges.
Ready to explore more about recovery, Buddhist philosophy, and rebuilding life after addiction? Join me on Patreon where I share daily reflections on this continuing journey toward enlightenment and authentic living.
Namaste and welcome back to Fitzcapades. My name is Michelle and I'm a recovered addict, and I'm actually so. I bent my life down big time a couple of years ago, ended up homeless, losing everything, losing my family, lost my career in medicine. So I was a specialist in renal medicine in a hospital staff specialist and, yeah, I fucked up. I was an addict and I lost my career through this. It's not really I'm not sad about that, though, because, like I was not happy in that life and doing that job, you know, and I just felt like a rat on a wheel.
Speaker 1:So, you know, looking back on all of this is not something that I'm regretful of, to be honest with you, yeah, I'm not. If I had to go back and do it all again, I'd probably do it all the same, but maybe just being less of an asshole. But anyway, I guess, having decimated my life right, burned it down to the ground, being once a high income earning sort of professional, you know, one stands at the base of ground zero, looking at your life going well, how the fuck do I put this all back together again and become a functional adult once more, you know? And so for the first 18 months in recovery, like you know, I was pretty just shell-shocked and paralyzed, like just not able, just I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. Everyone wanted me to go back into medicine, so I kind of made a half-assed sort of you know attempt to get my ARPA registration back again, but my heart really wasn't in it and I really lost the drive or passion for medicine, you know. And then I was fortunate enough to get a payout from income protection insurance and, um and uh, my super. So, like in recovery, you know, um, I engaged a lawyer, I had my shit together somewhat and um and just yeah, investigated whether I could claim on any of this and indeed I could, and and it came through. So I got a life-changing amount of money at the end of last year, which is nice. It's provided me with security, allowed me to do some things to really improve the quality of my life and my son's life as well, and then I gained custody of my son back. So I've got a lot more responsibility with him now and I guess the bottom line is I don't have enough to retire on and I'll have to start making an income at some point or another and I'd fucking love to be able to just do all of this and nothing else and generate an income off that. But you know, that may not be, yeah, that may not be realistic. So, in any case, I've got this trade under my belt in medicine, you know. Although I've lost my passion for medicine, it's something that I've got under my belt and I'm probably going to have to use that to, yeah, earn a living, you know, just support myself and my son, which is fine I've come to like.
Speaker 1:When I started out in medicine, I really wanted to save the world. I wanted to save every patient. I had this really naive sort of left-wing view of the world, you know, and that was quite quickly crushed and I became quite jaded and cynical by a broken hospital system. And now I realise that you can't save the world and you can't be this bleeding heart. It's particularly not in the hospital system, but in this life. You have to save yourself and look after your family. So, yeah, that's where I'm up to basically.
Speaker 1:So, you know, over the last six months I've done what I could. I can do, you know. Well, probably a little bit less, to be honest with you, I've been a bit lazy, but lately I've been starting to, yeah, like, get anxious and worry. You know, like, am I doing enough? I'm not doing enough, I'm not getting anywhere. You know, there's a sense of not that I'm banging my head against a brick wall. I don't feel like that. It's more like, yeah, I'm not doing enough, you know, to not fail. I've been quite anxious and concerned and worried that I'm going to fail. I'm going to fuck up, I'm going to end up, you know, poor again. I'm going to end up in the gutter. I've got a fantastic partner. I don't doubt he's going to kick me out on the street.
Speaker 1:You know I still have, yeah, amassed a degree of anxiety around this, you know, and wondering what I'm going to do with the rest of my life because there's no clear pathway ahead, whereas I guess earlier on in life, when I was doing medicine, there was a clear pathway, a very well-defined pathway, and I knew what hurdles I had to jump and what I had to do. And so this mounting frustration and feeling that I'm really fear of failure has started to encroach on me on a daily basis and really affect how I am. And you know, like I feel that if my partner asks me to go somewhere or something, I'm reluctant to go and engage in that activity because, you know, I feel that I need to be like just working at becoming something or getting somewhere every hour of the day, you know, and I get to the end of the day and I feel this real frustration and I realize I haven't been as good a mother as I could have been because I've been so preoccupied in getting somewhere that it's just starting to absorb me and take me away from the people that I love. That's one of the most important things in my life. So I've been soul-searching and reading a lot of Buddhism and watching a lot of Buddhist content because it really resonates with me in terms of looking back on my life up till now and things, and I watched something actually last night that really resonated with me, you know, and what they're essentially saying is that you know we have a predetermined pathway in life ahead of you and there's a lot of things that you can't control. You know you can't force, you can't force success, you can't force things to happen through working hard and really what needs to be done is that you let go of a lot of this and just surrender and say, like you do what you can do, but above and beyond that, just get rid of that angst and trust in the universe and if you're putting the right energy out, then good things shall come to you. And I guess to some extent you know that's true I've lived that experience in the last six months because, by significantly changing my energy between then and now, only good things have come to me, you know. And so maybe if I can really change my energy by like buying into some of this stuff and giving it a go, then you know, yeah, I guess I can expect or I can look forward to, um, happiness, probably.
Speaker 1:I guess the thing is that this sort of pressure and this feeling, the need to sort of have this, you know definite sort of, uh, career pathway, you know, paved out in front of me, you know, all that angst around, that is actually not helpful and it's probably going to be detrimental to where I am going. And I think the thing that I like about this as well is that it's in line with, you know, like the NA teachings and stuff that you can't control other people, places and things, and it's an extension on that, and I really am a firm believer of that. And so, yeah, it's like, why would I want to be like trying so hard, banging my head against a brick wall when it's not really going to get me anywhere. So, like the whole thing about buddhism, uh, like, so I, I believe that we do put our energy and, um, you know, I I do truly believe in karma, I do. And if you start to be a more positive person and, like for me, I stopped being so judgmental, I forgave people, I let go of a lot of resentments and, from that point on again, my life improved a lot, like I stopped bad things stopped happening and I started to, yeah, just good things started to happen in my life. And so, you know, I guess we don't know what's beyond, here and now, when we die.
Speaker 1:And, to be honest with you, the thing that terrifies me the most about Buddhism is reincarnation. Right, like, I am terrified, but so much of what they have to say just makes sense in terms of the frame of my life. In terms of the frame of my life, like, looking back, certain things just seem to have happened for a reason, and that's why I'm here today. Like my last relationship was definitely a karmic relationship, for sure, you know. And so there's this idea that before you are born, right, like your soul has all of these agreements or sort of the agreement to learn certain lessons. And you know, before you're born, you are aware of all of this and you make certain decisions on where you're going to, you know the people you're going to be born to and you know who you're going to meet during your life and things like that. And the idea is to get to the end of the life and have learned certain lessons. So everyone's got a specific goal to learn throughout life.
Speaker 1:You know, and um, and as you go throughout your life, if you're you, you can, you have free will and you don't. You don't remember any of this um, that happened before you were born. And so you know you're like, you can influence your pathway and you can either, you know, enlighten more than what you were meant to or actually digress and go back towards you know being less evolved, you know, and so one of the pathways towards enlightenment is if you can get in tune with who you are like, your soul, who you are at your core, who your soul is. You know, and because, as a human being, being unconscious to everything that happens beyond, you've got this ego that sort of gets in the way of things, really, and that's where the free will can fuck everything up, you know. And so, yeah, if you can get in touch with who you are, your soul, and work out what your lessons are, that you need to learn during life, then that you know that's one step towards further enlightenment.
Speaker 1:And you know, in terms of what happens, uh, beyond here, well, like michelle bertram will never know anything of what happens to her soul after she dies, and that when you start to sort of consider all of that, that just fucking scares the shit out of me because I am terrified of my own mortality. You know I really am, um, but I at my heart of hearts that I want to do good. I see, as I say, so much badness in humanity out there and I'd like to think that I am on the way towards enlightenment, and so, of course, I want to do the best I can in the life that I have left remaining. I've learnt so many tremendous life lessons, and the hard way too. It must be, because my ego is very stubborn, but you know that can't be it. There's got to be more. You know, like came on. There's more for me to learn, for sure, and I guess I'd like to continue my life evolving, you know.
Speaker 1:So for me, this idea that you know you could just surrender and get rid of the angst and that real feeling of pressure to be going somewhere, that's a massive relief to me and what that means is that I can relax a little bit and trust in the process and feel free to, um, yeah, devote time to my son and my partner and people that I love, um, and not be all consumed with this feeling of agitation and frustration, just trusting in the process. You know going. You know I've got some abilities and I've learned some lessons and you know I'm hopefully less shitty person than what I was at the start of my life. So you know I can trust a little bit that, if I'm putting out the right energy, that good things are going to come. And just have faith in that. And, yeah, not feel, have this pervasive fear all the time of failure, because I think for so much of my life I've been ruled by this fear fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of you know bad things continuing to happen and to be motivated by that is an awful feeling. We are only on this earth for a certain amount of time. We should enjoy it while we're here, enjoy the journey, not feel pressured and having to meet deadlines and having to have this plan paved out ahead of you.
Speaker 1:It was fine for me earlier on in life, when I had a real passion and a drive to do medicine, and there was a pathway ahead that was clear, that hurdles I had to jump were clear, and you know so it was an easier way to be, I guess, is to be ambitious and driven. But see where I stand now. There is no predetermined pathway. There's no easy pathway. I don't even know what I want or what my life, what I'd like it to look like. The only things that I'm sure of is that I don't want to be lonely, I want my loved ones around me and I want to be happy. And, above and beyond that, really I have no concept of what my life, my ideal life, would look like, and I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing, you know, um, I'm certain perhaps that one, one of my life lessons I had to learn was learning to respect others and and uh, that your connections and bonds to other humans are really important, and to start respecting them. That was one thing I needed to learn and learned that lesson well. And the other thing that I have to learn yet I've had, like, yeah, before all of this period of my life where I've had incredibly good financial luck, I seem to have been before this stuck in a cycle of of bad finances and you know, just not being able to get my shit together and, you know, shopping too much and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So that's another lesson that I have to learn. But a lot of what drives that is like this fear of becoming like poor, but fear of becoming homeless, fear of becoming destitute again, and then if you're consumed by that fear, putting that out into the universe, then that's only going to beget more financial ill fate, you know. And so what I've been able to do is just sit back and go okay, I'm okay, you know I'm going to be okay, and even if I see, like my bank balance going down a bit, I go okay, but I'm going, I'm going to be okay, I'm, you know, I'm manifesting abundance now and like, as I say, that seems to have worked for me, like I've had incredibly good financial fortune for someone who's actually unemployed. You know, I can't really explain it, you know, it just seems that the cogs and the wheels have turned in my favor, and yeah, it must be, because I'm not stressed about it. So, in terms of what is for me coming for me, like what, you know what I'm going to spend the rest of my life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm at a juncture at the moment. I know there's things that are less attractive to me in terms of medicine. Like, as I say, it's unfathomable for me to go and work in a hospital, you know. But you know saying that maybe I just need to not be so closed-minded as well and just maintain an open mind, you know, and hopefully will find myself at some point doing something that's really meaningful to me and gives me a lot of fulfillment, you know, because that's important having purpose in your life. You know, yeah, we need that. Because that's important, having purpose in your life. You know that's yeah, we need that. But, as I say, at the moment I really get a lot out of doing content and things, and I hope you guys are getting a lot from my content too. So, yeah, let's just see where that takes us as well. You know, just take the urgency and hesitancy out and do the things that are important In terms of my current partner now it's like it's kind of fitting that, um, yeah, you know even that my lessons that need to be learned are probably financial.
Speaker 1:He is a jew, he's jewish and he lives up to every stereotype of that. I've never met someone so like tired, like just money, the lengths he goes to to save money. It's amazing, like and I say that with a laugh in my voice because it's one of the things that is endearing about him, whereas my style is somewhat the opposite. You know, I'm definitely not not tired, I'm too liberal a spender, know. So that's kind of apt really that I've ended up here.
Speaker 1:But in terms of my journey, you know, relationships will continue to be like a real focus for me and, yeah, it's just so funny, like the wisdom that I have now, the reflection that I have, you know, like I was with the last relationship I had was with someone who was quite commitment phobic, you know, and you know used to say that I was like a piece of shit and a liability, that I was ruining his life and that I was using him, and I've carried a lot of that over into this relationship and so, you know, for me being, I guess, carrying that with me getting somewhere and not not, not, you know, sort of taking money from my partner, not being reliant on him is a is a value that has always been a strong one throughout my life, right, like so I was always pretty determined to be independent and not dependent on anyone for anything. But that, I guess, has been even more. That part of me has been strengthened by the trauma of my last relationship, you know, and, yeah, so it's interesting. Interesting, like I've been sort of a bit reserved in terms of you know, um, uh, yeah, sorry, that's just him whistling in the background, he's got a really loud voice. But like, yeah, I'm just a bit reserved about you know, I don't know um, you telling my love him and like talking about a future and you know what future we would have together and things, because I am, I'm not, don't have a job at the moment I and I I'm so used to being told that I'm a liability and a and a financial disaster that you know I'm thinking he's not going to be, thinking that I'm good enough to you know, um, and to you know, commit to anything to mind you like I'm living here with him, so that's a pretty big commitment, but um, uh, you know I've been a bit reserved and then I think, going into like my hyper focus being absorbed with this need to be going somewhere and being a productive human so that I'm good enough for him. Well, he sees that as like me pulling back from him and maybe that, and at times there's sort of fostered insecurity and that because, from his perspective, that's what happened with him and his wife before they separated. So you know, like it's funny how you can carry bad baggage from old relationships forward into new ones and it can be quite destructive. You know, um, and yeah, maybe I need to be just a bit more open about what's going on in my head and we'll realize that you know that we both have it completely wrong in terms of what we're thinking.
Speaker 1:You know about each other something I think in like my relationship before like so, like I was a sort of fucked up one and my part who's's the father of my child was the normal one. And then, yeah, then I had this karmic relationship and now I'm normal and I'm with someone who's relatively normal and I was thinking, oh, just how pleasant it is that there's no like massive ups and downs, there's no arguments, there's just nothing of the bullshit that used to go on in all my other relationships. It's, yeah, quite pleasant really, and I guess I keep waiting for, yeah, it all to, um, yeah, not be normal, but it just keeps being normal, so it's a really lovely thing. And, yeah, I don't know, um, yeah, I reflected last night and just thought about how I had been, and you know, I just, yeah, really need to devote more time to the people that I love, and so, yeah, this whole epiphany that I had was really quite apt and timely and gave me a huge amount of relief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, you know, I just feel like I've babbled on for the last 21 minutes, and I guess a lot of this is me working through all my shit too. Actually, I just feel like I've babbled on for the last 21 minutes and I guess a lot of this is me working through all my shit too. Actually, it's quite therapeutic, but I guess, to summarize, in the bottom line of what I'm getting at, is that, you know, trust in the universe a bit more, like a lot of the time when we're so hungry and you know, for success and we feel pressured by society to be doing everything we can to be getting somewhere and that's all really quite counterproductive and will not lead to happiness. And if you just try and just control the things you can control and, yeah, surrender and let go of some things and just let the universe bring you what it's supposed to be bringing you, and you know, manifesting success and happiness in your life comes from other, more wise and insightful ways, and a lot of them I have not yet mastered, but I'm at least getting there with the theory and then putting it into practice. As the next learning curve.
Speaker 1:So I've just started a Patreon page. So, yeah, if you've found some value in my podcast, then maybe have a look and it's Fitzcapades at the Patreon site and what I'm building on there is really my ongoing journey, um, I, if you will, towards, hopefully, enlightenment and happy life. I'm just documenting that there at the moment, um, with the lessons that I've learned, um and things. It's my more of like a vlog at the moment, um, and who knows where it will evolve, it's still pretty early on, but I do post on it most days. So, um, have a look at that. And, yeah, as I say, my plight would be to um, do this day in, day out for the rest of my life. I would be happy to do that, but obviously at the moment there's not much I can monetize on because I refuse to take money from addicts in suffering. You know, that's just. I can't do that. So, um yeah, thanks for listening and I will talk at you next time, namaste.