- Alcohol
- Drugs
I have been in recovery for 28 years and want to tell my story in honor of my sobriety birthday. I started smoking weed at 11 years old and progressed to hallucinogens and speed by age 13. Once I was old enough to drink in bars, there was a lot of drinking and finally cocaine. Down the road, I started to realize the connection between my dreams not coming true and all the using I was doing.
I was able to get my realtor license after high school but I didn’t stick with that job for very long. I moved out to San Diego where I began to work in the cable tv industry. During this time, I saw a drastic change in one of my friends after he went to treatment. I began to ask him about what happened and why he was so different after his return.
His story convinced me to set up a meeting with an admission counselor at the place where he went. We talked and decided that I would check in to treatment in the middle of April. Things started to spin out of control quickly after this meeting, and I ended up needing to check in two weeks early because things got so bad. I was admitted and did everything they suggested. I went to meetings five times a week, did service work at the facility, worked through the 12 steps and got a sponsor.
All the promises and things I had heard while receiving treatment started coming true. At 14 months sober, I met my husband. We’d been dating for about three weeks when I ended up kissing him after he drank a beer. I told him how good that tasted! Immediately, he poured it down the drain and has not had a drink since. We are now about to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We have two sons who are now in their twenties, and I am grandmother.
Three weeks into my recovery, my facility had a family week. My counselor told my family that I would not be able to stay in contact with them and live life together if they continued to drink. They immediately stopped, just to encourage me in my recovery. My parents are now in their eighties and are still sober. Eight years into my recovery, I lost a brother to an overdose. We see our recovery as a testament to the fatality of this disease.
I feel like the luckiest person in the world to do what I do. I work with teenagers at a hospital who are battling addiction. It is such a beautiful thing to share my own story with people who are in the beginning of their recovery journeys. It is such an honor.
When I talk with people who are hesitant about entering recovery or taking that next step to get help, I ask them, “How is drinking keeping you from fulfilling your dreams?” I try to offer a message of hope that change can happen. Sometimes it is hard to believe and to hope for change, but in recovery it is all about passing on the message. I have found that it is effective to tell my story because it can give them hope.
I personally could not have done it without recovery group meetings and God. The thing I am most proud of is being able to raise my sons in a sober family and change the entire dynamic of their lives. By the same way we pass on addiction, we can pass on recovery for generations to come!