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I have been in recovery since March 12, 2012. Life in active addiction was literally felonies, five treatment centers, three overdoses. I started at 14 years old and I never put more than a week together clean and sober, other than during treatment. I never really thought I could get sober or get clean.
I was introduced to drinking and drugs at school. The party where everybody goes and you wanted to be accepted and liked. I still struggle with it.
I had three suicide attempts and five overdoses that put me in ICU. None of that stopped me. It wasn’t until I was 42 years old when things changed. I had a couple of felonies and my family, my morals, my values were all gone. I was full of guilt and shame. I really believed that everyone else was the problem. I truly believed that in my heart.
What changed was looking into my daughter’s eyes the last time that I overdosed. She had to resuscitate me from a suicide attempt two months earlier. This was an overdose. I came to and she had tears running down her cheeks. She was 17 years old and she was having to resuscitate me.
That was my very last high. When I went to treatment she drove me to the airport. Granted I didn’t have insurance when I arrived at the treatment center, so they sent me back. I went to a little state-funded treatment center and I begged for the bed. I had gotten a few days of clarity and I never ever wanted to see that look in my daughter’s eyes again. My other children were grown and gone. I did it all through their lives. All the guilt, the shame and the resentments escalated. I laid in the fetal position every night for the last three years asking God to make it stop. I prayed because I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t praying for Him to help me, I didn’t bargain, I just wanted to make it stop. I didn’t want to live like this anymore. I didn’t want it to kill me, because it was hell on earth.
Honestly going to the state-funded treatment center with no bells and whistles and having to do chores is what worked. I had been to some really nice treatment centers before and this was my fifth. I guess when the pain of staying the same is more than the pain of changing, I changed because was in so much pain and my only other option was to change.
The woman at the recovery center really supported the 12 Steps and told me to go to a meeting, go to a meeting, go to a meeting. Don’t go to just one or two. Just keep going.
The group I was going to just loved me and acted like they like me anyway and told me to keep coming back until the miracle happens. I tell everyone now that the key word in that phrase is “until.” Because the miracle happened for me and it’s probably the third step. “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
I was on my knees and we were praying the third step prayer and I told my sponsor “Stop. You mean all these churches, preachers, revivals and me have been praying to remove drugs and alcohol and the whole time I was the problem? That was a diagnosis, because I’d been to psych hospitals, taking all kinds of medication to make this stop. I even had electric shock therapy to make it stop. Little did I know that all I had to do was admit that I was the problem. That was the solution to the diagnosis and you’re telling me there is a solution to my diagnosis? Tell me what I have to do! I got clarity and hope. There’s hope! I was so hopeless…below hopeless. I just wanted to die every day. Today I want to live and I want to help other people who want to live.
A big thing was the stigma. I come from a good family and was an embarrassment to my family. It was the South and the good churches were just done because to them I was a drug addict and a worthless piece of nothing who deserved to die anyway. I had run everything into the ground.
Today, my family is right beside me posting about the stigma. My sister especially is right beside me if not ahead of me in sharing and telling everyone I’m in recovery and I work at a treatment center and I am trying to do interventions and sober coach. Only because of recovery and God am I here in California for the first time.
Today I have a consultant who has me traveling to meet people at different treatment centers. It allowing me to do what I love the best and I can grow. Yes, I am a drug addict and yes, I might relapse but if I keep doing what I’m doing and do what I did yesterday then I’m probably not going to and I need to stay grateful. Someone once told me that grateful drug addicts don’t relapse. I am beyond grateful. Every day something new happens. I’m in a relationship, we have a brand new, nice home and nice car. Before, I used to have car that I hit a bridge with three times on both sides and was beat up. I have an appreciation for things because of where I’ve been.
My relationship with my kids is amazing. I can’t put words on it. They are my world and I am theirs. I talk to them every day and they are in my life some way or another every day. Recently my family came from all over to celebrate my sober birthday. This is the first time I had all of my kids together. I think it’s going to get better every year and each year seems to be more intense as I grow in my recovery.
I have been told to never forget and to never shut the door to the past. When I first came in that was the first thing I would do and I would relapse. One thing I do today that I was never able to do before is look in the mirror and say that I am the problem, no matter what it is; fear, anger, irritation or discontent. It’s never about anybody else and that was the biggest thing I had to learn. I also had to learn how to set boundaries. I know my worth.
Recognizing that I am the problem, I navigate these moments by working the steps. What is it about me that is making me feel this way and what did I do to put certain situations in motion? After just 5 years in recovery, I can do all of that in my head.
My self-care is staying real involved with people in recovery, I call my sponsor a lot and I go to a lot of meeting still and I sponsor young women. I work on breaking the stigma. We are good people who have made some bad choices in our lives. We’re sick and we have a disease, but we can get better! We do recover!
Today, I hope God is as proud of me and what He has done for me in my life. I strive to make God happy. None of the stuff I have done needs to be in vain. What happened did happen and there is hope. For someone who is struggling, I want them to know that if you do what I did, you’ll get what I got. I thank God for people who humbled themselves before me, which helped me to be where I am today.