- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Friends & Family
When I was thirteen my mom became ill and all I knew was that it was her stomach and she and father didn’t seem too concerned. Over the following eleven months my mother went in and out of a few hospitals and each time she came home she looked sicker. No one talked to me about what was going on and what the “real” truth was. I was told not to worry and that everything would be okay. By November 1973 my mother looked like a skeleton, she was bed-ridden and spent most of her time either crying in pain or sleeping. I kissed my mother good bye every morning before I went to school. The day she died I did not kiss her goodbye.
My last year of active addiction was complete insanity.
I got married, found out I was pregnant and did not tell anyone because I did not want to stop drinking. My “plan” was, “I’ll get an abortion tomorrow.” Tomorrow never came and I delivered my daughter at nine months at the extreme shock to my husband and our families. God is good because my daughter was born healthy.
During that year I racked up a forty-four count embezzlement charge. I had been driving for three years with no license, registration or insurance as a result of a DWI I got four years earlier. It was November 13th, 1991 and we were living with my mother-in-law because I had been “found out.” My house of cards had blown apart. My daughter, 6 months old at the time, was in her car seat in the dining room. I was in the kitchen and my mother-in-law was in the living room. I had a pint of gin and a half a gram of coke. I drank that bottle in about 2 swigs and snorted 3/4 of the coke. My heart started to palpate. I was extremely weak and short of breath, sweating and close to passing out. My daughter was crying because she was hungry. Instead of calling for help because I knew I was about to have a heart attack or something, I snorted the last of the coke.
So many lessons, so many “light bulb” moments as I call them. First and most important, I know with 100% certainty that I can not drink or drug successfully, period, the end. I know that not knowing what was happening with my mom, having no one to talk to, having no grieving process after she died, being “expected” to just go on with my teenage years was not the way to handle the death of a parent. I had my first drink two years after my mom died and it was the answer to all my problems. I have to be clear and say that I did not put that piece of my puzzle together until a few years into recovery.
The 12 step program I am actively involved in has helped me learn everything about myself and my disease. Being sober is the greatest gift I have been given, yes it is a gift! If you think you may have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs but you think you can’t get clean and sober I am here to tell you that you can. I never thought I would make it a week out of rehab and I am sober today for 26 years…..which seems crazy considering the way I drank and drugged!!!!
Life in recovery is kind of hard to explain because, in all honesty, its life. I do know I am a bit overly sensitive, fearful and prone to feeling like I don’t quite measure up. I have had these traits since before I picked up my first drink and in early sobriety they were worse.
I have raised both my children as a sober mom. They have never seen me drink or drug!!!! I love my work, I love my family……I love my life…..when times are tough or I’m not feeling right or am down on myself I have a toolbox of things I can do to help myself and help others……I am a friggin miracle! 😉
Each and every one of us who suffers from the disease of addiction deserves one chance or a million chances to get sober. No matter what we have done in our past there is always a new day around the corner !