Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
For many years, I loved to run. By middle school, I already loved running. I kept running on through high school. Then drugs entered my life. My drugs were alcohol, cocaine, and amphetamines. I started down the path of addiction with alcohol when I was around 16 years old.
My friends had older brothers and they were always partying and drinking—at that time it seemed like the fun thing to do. It was fun until it wasn’t fun anymore. Drugs came into the picture not long after I completed high school. I was about 18 or 19 years old when I first used drugs. After that, I completely stopped running and no longer engaged in any other healthy exercise or behaviors.
I signed up for college, but did not attend classes very often. I had the lowest GPA in my entire class and as a result of that, I got kicked out of college. Even then, I loved cocaine, but alcohol was always the main thing for me. I always had to have a drink in my hand.
(The habit of drinking liquids is still with me today. Fortunately, my drinks are no longer alcoholic—I usually only drink coffee now. I still usually carry some type of non-alcoholic drink around with me at all times if possible.)
One day (in a blackout), I put coolant in my gas tank. It wasn’t the best choice for my car and I have no idea what made me do it, but after that I had no car because I didn’t have the money to get it fixed. My car wasn’t running anymore and my friends were slowly leaving me. They kept telling me that I was too crazy and I only thought, “they can’t keep up, I need new friends.”
Eventually, it was just me using alone. it was depressing and I felt miserable. I wanted to change something, but didn’t know what to change or how to do it.
One of my friends was starting to get sober and asked me to come and support him. He asked me to go with him to meetings and I thought, “why not,” and went along. I was not sober at that time and had no desire to be sober. I went to meetings with him in the afternoon and partied in the evening.
Suddenly, my friend overdosed on heroin. When that happened, I finally realized that this was not a joke. My entire life, I simply imagined that I was invincible and that nothing would ever happen to either me or any of my friends. It was an eye-opening experience to see him pass away. It brought me to my turning point. I was 20 years old at the time– I had already stopped doing meth, but I was still using alcohol and cocaine.
Before age 21, I always kept a fake identification so I could buy alcohol. I got sober before the age of 20 and never had a legal drink in my life. I’m 26 today and know that I got lucky. I never had the opportunity to go to treatment; I only went to 12-step meetings. I had to change my phone number, delete my Facebook account and completely separate myself from the world as I knew it. At first, I kept relapsing. I got sober in the same small town where I was using. I wasn’t willing to give up all my friends. But as I asked myself what I could have been doing wrong, I found the answer easily and took it seriously from there on.
I was hired by a treatment center as a tech. I’m very self-motivated and love working with other addicts and alcoholics. I became sober living manager at the facility and worked my way up into the admissions department. I love my job and career, but going back to school and getting a higher education is still one of the top priorities in my life right now. I have a huge fellowship of friends in the sober community and I am an active runner again. I finished a marathon a while ago and love exercise again—it is my relaxation away from work.