- Alcohol
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Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Sam’s first birthday in sobriety was on 1/1/16. She just picked up a coin at a 12-step meeting for one year of being continuously clean and sober from drugs and alcohol. It is not her first time around— she had a longer period of sobriety some years ago, but a relapse got her back into the life of problems and unmanageability. Not only today, but during the last several months, I have seen Sam as a personification of happiness, an outburst of joy. She is incredibly happy that she made it back into recovery.
One year ago at this day she walked around in a hospital gown on the freeway. She forced her ex-husband to slow down and jumped out of the car. She wanted a hit and knew he couldn’t do it in front of him, so the only way was to get out of the car, even in a gown and on a busy freeway. She had no memory how she even got into this gown and how she came into a hospital or how she left it.
Later some people told her the story: She started celebrating New Years Eve in the early morning just as the liquor stores opened and her ex-husband left for work. When he came home, he could not wake her up, found her totally unresponsive at home and brought her to the ER, seeking help. She had a blood alcohol level of 0.48 and it was a miracle that she was still breathing. At some point, she decided to leave the hospital and walked out as she was and he picked her up.
As Sam was now standing on the freeway, he called her mother and she convinced Sam over the phone to get back into the car and her ex-husband dropped her off at her mother’s home. Coming to in the morning she had no memory of what happened, but knew that something needed to change. She called her former sponsor, who helped her stay clean years ago for several years from methamphetamine. Her sponsor told her that she knew what she needed to do, which is go to a meeting and reach out for help. Sam said that she had no clothes to wear, but her sponsor told her “If you can run around in a gown on a freeway, you can go like this to a meeting.” Sam’s son brought her something to wear and a couple hours later, Sam entered a meeting place, ready to give it all up again. This was the first day of her sobriety.
In her past, Sam had used methamphetamine for about a decade and legal problems brought her about five years to prison, where she stayed sober. At this time she was not drinking, just doing the meth. After prison, she came to a halfway house and met her sponsor and stayed off the meth until she relapsed, but this time on alcohol, not the drugs.
During her sobriety, she started school as a dental assistant and even once the drinking started during her college time, she finished top of her class. She graduated as she was sober and got a job at a dental office, which she truly loves. The dental office offered to help her attend more schooling on their cost on weekends and she will start this now to improve her knowledge and career. Sam truly loves her job and the second chance she got in sobriety. Her relationships to her teenage children and her mother have improved. Her mother legally adopted Sam’s two children, while Sam was in prison, but today they are close together again and trust has been built.
Sam loves to care for her health today, watches her diet and, five days a week she wakes up at 5 am to go to the gym, and meets with a personal trainer twice a week to keep her motivation up. She has a sponsor and goes to meetings every time her work schedule allows.k. If “ happy, joyous and free” has a face, it would be Sam’s. In her spare time, she loves to take her pontoon boat to the lake and is happy when she is on the water with friends. There is no need to be drunk for her to enjoy life. She is an inspiration to many and a great example that you can turn your life completely around.