- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Friends & Family
I had my first drink at age 12 while I was at a friend’s house for a slumber party. Her mother gave us a bottle of wine. I drank mine and then drank most of my friends’ share. I spent the next several months campaigning for her mother to get us another bottle. The next time I drank was probably a year later.
A friend of mine and I got on our banana seat bicycles and rode up to the local mini-mart and bought a bottle of Annie Green Springs. Again, I drank my share and most of hers. The third time I drank was within the next year and I had my first blackout – and hair-of-the dog the next morning.
This was not a ‘habit’ that got out of control. This was not learned behavior. I had that thing that happens to us when we have our first drink – I was relieved of the bondage of myself.
For the first time I was good with right here, right now, in my skin and I wanted more and more and more. What followed was years of shame and guilt, wrecked good relationships and involvement in sick relationships, lost opportunities and ever present, all consuming FEAR – always FEAR in the pit of my stomach.
At 31, after a divorce and returning back to my hometown, I woke up with a pounding headache, a black and blue face and a person who told me he thought I was an alcoholic and needed help. My older sister took me to my first 12 Step meeting and I knew I was home – with ‘my people’. They taught me how to be good with right here, right now, in my skin, sober. I was a ‘one chip wonder’ and threw myself into this wonderful program. I met the woman who would be my sponsor until her (sober) death 13 yrs later on my first night and she ‘got me in the game’ encouraging me to volunteer for coffee duty, chair meetings and take home group positions. Life was wonderful and I got everything I ever wanted – marriage, children and I was a contributing member of my community.
These things kept me busy and I slowly moved further and further away from my program and the people in it. Then life began to take a turn – undiagnosed early menopause, depression, a cheating husband and the stress of owning a business. I developed a weird chronic pain and after trying every medical treatment my doctor and I could think of, I was put on opiate pain medication. I’d never liked opiates or had a problem with them, until I did.
Under those stresses something different happened. They got me off the couch and back into my life. I felt like I was functioning again but the reality was that I was spinning in circles. There was a whole lot of action and very little result – but I couldn’t see that. When I tried to stop taking the pills I was back on the couch and the world was black. Out of guilt over my pill abuse I quit going to meetings. My sponsor died. We moved to another state. I did battle with those pills for four years before I finally decided to throw them away and go back to my 12 Step program to pick up a white chip. But I had a thought… a really, really stupid thought that shows how sick I had gotten. I thought “I’m not going to pick up a white chip in AA when I haven’t had a drink in 17 yrs” so I decided to get drunk – just 1 night – then get my chip the next day. I’d forgotten who and what I was – I’d forgotten about the obsession and compulsion that separates me from my fellows when it comes to drugs or alcohol. I was drunk for the next 3-1/2 yrs along WITH taking the pills.
There was no grace period and there was no easing back into it. There was no ‘cocktail hour’ while I watched the news and grilled steaks. There was no glass of wine with supper. I didn’t even pick up where I’d left off. My disease had progressed, just like I was told. It was ugly drinking, against my will, no ice, no mixers, no glass – straight hot liquor from the trunk of my car hiding in the bushes, behind the trash cans. I picked up a lot of white chips. I couldn’t get my seat in AA back. I stuck a gun in my mouth more than once and each morning when I woke up I was crushed that I was still alive. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid I’d continue to live.
Recovery from opiate addiction is hard. Your world stays black for a long, long time while your body remembers how to make the ‘feel good’ chemicals you need for the cloud to lift. I used the same thought process to get better that I’d used to stay sick – “I’ll drink tonight, I’ll drink tomorrow. I just won’t drink right now.” I’ve been able to do that for 3-1/2 yrs now. I went back to school and got my master’s degree so I now work as a substance abuse counselor. That’s the only thing I know to do with the mistakes I made which led to my relapse – help someone else get out of the hell of active addiction.
My relationships with my family and, especially my children, have been repaired. I’m good again with right here, right now, in my skin, sober. I’m 56 yrs old, a mother of 2, driving a ‘mom mobile’, an employee, a neighbor in a ‘nice’ neighborhood – and I am the face of today’s opiate epidemic. You can recover – Recovery does happen!