- Alcohol
- Faith
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
My name is Sarah. I was born July 3, 1975. I was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. My mother is on my birth certificate. My father is not. He died exactly two months before I was ever born. His family disowned me and my mom the moment he died. He was only 21 years old. They called her a tramp and denied I was any relation to them.
My mother suffered with addiction before I was ever born. To make money she cultivated a “business”. The fact is she was a drug dealer. My mom was 19 years old, pregnant and unwed. The father of her child was dead. She was a high school drop out with no resources. How was she supposed to make money and provide for herself and me? She did what she knew. I was born. Her addiction as well as “the business” grew; thrown into grief, post-partum depression, and her internal demons. If the beginning of my life was a script, the outline and the ending didn’t look well for me.
My life was riddled with secrets. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth about anything. I hid secret bruises. Lies flew from my mouth when questioned by local agencies about abuse. No one could ever know what went on in our home, because “family business is family business” right? The lifestyle of drugs and booze around me brought shame, sexual trauma, violence, a house invasion with a gun pointed inches from my face. There were many more frightening and dark times. I have seen the evil in man. I have stared it down and I am alive to say evil did not kill me and God was there each and every time. He protected me and saved me in ways I couldn’t see for a very long time.
I lived many lies to protect others. My job became to protect my mother and my brother. I was bound in shame with a distorted reality. I also decided along the way that I was never going to be like her! I was never going to drink, drug, abuse kids, be violent, smoke cigarettes ever! And I made sure to tell her so. A little girl with a finger pointed right at her mom. I remember now the wagging finger of a little girl who really just had too many wounds inside. There were too many fears and too much pain for just a little girl to handle.
I was affected deeply by the addiction all around me and addiction is a family disease, right? I had a resolve to be better, to be different than her– but my own day was coming. The bottle found me, my fingers, my mouth and my wounds. When it found me, it became a stealer of my dreams.
By the time I was 15 and a sophomore in high school I had learned some things. I loved school and teachers loved me. I put in the effort and the rewards came. I found out I had a gift for writing. Poetry became my specialty. It became my best friend, my confidant, my most sacred place. All of the rage, shame, secrets and the trauma had a place to go. Everything that I went through became funneled and channeled into a prism of words. They became beautiful, brilliant and painful. God allowed me the blessing of creating art.
It also became apparent I could write award winning speeches. The speeches I wrote and delivered won me two National Medals in High School. I competed against the top students in the nation and my talents rose me to the top. Junior year I won the bronze medal in my competition, senior year I won gold. Best in the country! And what did I think inside of myself as I stood in front of 10,000 people receiving my “top honor?” My insides screamed, “I did not win this. They got the score card wrong. I didn’t earn this. I am a mistake. ”
Age 15 was a big year for me. It was the year I took my first drink. My best friend in high school found out I liked a senior boy she was friends with. She ran off to tell and him to my utter shock he agreed to a date, with me! It took all the courage I had to show up that night. He was a senior and really good looking. He was also an artist. His drawings had been featured in our local city newspaper. He had a reputation for being wild and dramatic. And he had agreed to see me! I showed up shaking. I was young, scared and thought I was the ugliest person on the planet.
He stood at the door, leaning to his upper body against the door frame. He was grinning wickedly. In his hand was a forty ounce of malt liquor. He stepped back and I stepped into the room. He handed me the booze and it was like a magnet to my lips. I sucked down as much as I could and the whole world changed. At some point he took the booze back from me and said, “Kid, you can’t handle your liquor!” At which time, I balled up my fist and punched him right in the face! I grabbed that bottle and we fought for it the rest of the night. Where were my convictions? My morals? My resolve? Addiction and alcoholism do not care about convictions or resolve. What matters only is that you just keep doing the drug once it’s in you.
My drinking didn’t get any prettier. I just tried to plan carefully during high school. My grades and my teacher’s opinions mattered to me. It was the only approval I felt I had. Parties where rare for me to attend but when I showed up, insanity ensued. I had won two all-expense paid scholarships to any ITT College in the country from winning those medals.
By graduation, I never even showed up to take my SAT’s. Drinking and drugging became my focus. Drunken poetry gets you nowhere; no one can read scribbles. And as for speech writing, no one understands slurred words and buckets of tears streaming down your face. At the end of it all I was in full blown psychosis. I was locked in a mental ward, drooling on myself. I had forgotten my own name for 29 of those 30 days. I fought hard to come back to the real world and part of me didn’t want to.
Upon discharge from treatment God saw fit to change my destiny. The script and the plot where about to take a drastic turn. By what I thought was an accident, I landed on the road to recovery. It was there I heard the voices of people, sharing the very same pain and dirty secrets I had hidden deeply. They talked about the very things I had tried to run from, with dignity and the light or God–without booze or drugs to numb them. I jumped in. An almost dead 19-year-old girl had found a home. I did the drill. I listened well.
It has been more of a journey and less of a road. I am 39 years old now and I still haven’t had a legal drink. I moved from that city at age 21. I met a man and we had three beautiful children. We then bought a house and then got married. The marriage dissolved, the house still stands and by God’s grace and sober parenting I have never hit or abused my kids. There are no secrets in my house.
I changed my sobriety date twice due to prescription painkillers. The doctors gave them to me for a back injury. I hadn’t fully surrendered to God. Even in recovery, I was still running. I changed my date to December 25, 2012 because I was popping the pain killers like they were candy and I wasn’t in pain. God decided I needed more work. I agreed.
Recovering has been a process. All the traumas I went through and the pain took a lot of working through. I went to many psychiatric hospitals and eating disorder units sober! I sought outside help. I utilized a support network. But life was still life. It wasn’t until I fell on my knees and surrendered everything I was to God, the good, the not so good, my failure, my success, my “self”, that He could truly begin to do the work in me that I was created to do. Faith based counseling became a vital part of healing the wounds and darker parts of my story. God began to take my story and make something brilliant from the ashes of my past.
My name is Sarah. I was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. My mother is on my birth certificate, my father is not. I am an overcomer through Christ’s power. On February 7th, I will be releasing a CD of my poetry. It is entitled, “The Unforgivable Ghetto”. It is 11 tracks of poetry I have written throughout my life. Some helped me survive and some have the new voice God has given me. It IS the real story.
A musician friend of mine, Tom, composed the most anointed music from his heart beneath each track of my spoken poetry. It adds volume and intensity. It is an audio journey. Track 12 is a song I wrote for my father a long time ago. My father may not be on my birth certificate, but I have a song just for him on this CD. The CD is also dedicated in part to my mom. God showed me the blessings of having her for a mom. Through Christ’s resurrected power and making amends and making my biggest supporter I can see now all of the amazing gifts she gave to me as my mom and not what she took away. Forgiveness and healing have occurred, and I praise God for our relationship now!
One day while sitting at home I received a call from Dale G. I had only ever talked to him online. He told me God said I needed to host an internet radio show that Dale was connected with. Imagine my surprise! What Dale didn’t know was that 24 hours previously I had cried out to God and Tom while recording the CD, “Tom! I just want God to give me a chance to share all my stories! I just want to help people!” God heard me. Dale listened to God. I now host a show on God Allows U turns Radio called Testimonies…it is aired live every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.
God gave me just what I asked for! And it works. I don’t write speeches now for awards. I write what God tells me to write– because I am not a mistake. God did not get the score card wrong. When my life started the odds were way against me and the script looked bleak. I pray every day to surrender and let God be the screen writer of my life! Why? Because the story played out way better than I could have ever dreamed! I also pray that He continue to use me in whatever way He sees fit, to help some folks along the way. We are all God’s kids. None of us is a mistake. God works all things for good and I am going to continue to let Him!
May God’s perfect love envelope you as it has me!
Sarah