- Alcohol
- Friends & Family
How long have you been on your recovery journey?
15 years in recovery with continuous sobriety since June 24, 2007.
What is the biggest positive change in your life since then?
Finding myself. I was so lost out there. My life was so about my drug of choice, but there was still a whole world out there. Now that I can think clearly, see more clearly, and feel for the first time, I’m discovering the world, and I am a part of it.
What led to your need for recovery?
I’m primarily an alcoholic. Thank God, because it could have been many, many other things with many other outcomes. That thought apparently scared me enough to reach out.
What was the turning point for you?
There was a divine intervention. I absolutely collapsed one day. I often say that I’m one of those who need’s a brick over my head to get the message. I literally felt a heavy blow and fell to the floor. I could not go on with the rest of the day, and all I really remember clearly about that morning is that I opened up the phone book and found the first treatment center I could. I got a bed that day, and my employer paid for it. I don’t know how I got there. It wasn’t me that made any of it happen. All I remember is that I collapsed and that I absolutely could not go on.
What is one important truth you’ve learned through the process?
That I matter, that I am a part of this whole web of things, and that the things I do and say have an effect on all of you. I just went so long thinking that I didn’t affect anyone, that my using wasn’t harming anyone, that I was somehow a nonentity. Now I know that I have an effect, and I want to make it a positive effect. Now I feel like a part of all of you, and I know that I am a drop that ripples out in the ocean, and all of our rings touch.
What are you most proud of about your life today?
My son, Jacob. He’s thirty years old, autistic and nonverbal. The challenge of raising him alone, really alone, was quite something, and for so long my disease was my crutch. While it worked it worked, I guess. I thought it got me through, and I leaned on that a lot. Now without it I have to know that I did the very best I could. There are aspects of myself as a mom that are hard to look at, but when I look at my son today, I believe he understands that I have always been the common denominator in his life. When he was 18, I finally realized that he wasn’t just mine. He is a gift to the world, and the world is his gift. For him to be able to explore that to its fullest, I had to let him go. When I made the decision to put him in assisted living, I became the hole in the doughnut. It was like, “What am I now?” Once he was gone, I didn’t know what I was going to be, and that’s when my disease got really bad. I went off the deep end. It was the hardest decision I ever made. I’m still his guardian, still his mom, but now he lives in a house with four other young men with similar needs, and they’ve done tremendous things.
It took ten years for me to be able to start making some of the movements that I’ve finally made in my life. Jacob flew down with a caregiver to visit me for a few days, and that helped me become more grounded. He had never been on an airplane before. It was just awesome. When he left the caretaker called from the airport and told me that Jacob had tears in his eyes. While that was hard for me, it was still so good to hear. It meant that he understood; that he knew I was here and that I didn’t just disappear. You really have to be with him and learn to read him because there is no verbal communication. I don’t think anyone will ever fully understand the depths of autism, but just having him in my life has taken me to some tremendous spiritual places and to an understanding that there is communication beyond words. I’m so proud that he’s healthy, he seems happy and he seems to know who I am and that I love him. I would definitely have to say I am most proud of my boy.
What is one of your biggest struggles in ongoing recovery? How do you overcome that?
You overcome the struggles by jumping into the middle of the stream. The day I got out of treatment, I walked into my little apartment and looked around, and everything was the same. I wondered how this different person was going to live with this same stuff. I dropped my suitcase and walked to the closest meeting I could find, sat in the front row and said, “Hi my name is Cheryl. I’m an alcoholic, and I’m scared to death. I just got of treatment.” They all started laughing, and I went to that group for a long time. The same thing happened when I first moved here. I was going to three meetings a day. I knew right where to go. It’s like I already had family here. I have such a community now. It’s unbelievable. I know that I never would have had the backbone or the clarity to do all of this without it. I found out about recovery yoga, and that got me involved with a studio and with hot yoga, which I had never done before. Who comes to the desert to start doing hot yoga?! But even when I was in my disease, I did yoga. I was always trying to find something that would somehow fill the need. Initially in sobriety you need another thing, at least for a while, to fill that space, start to blend and get out into the world again. I had to do the things that were good for me. I knew that meetings and yoga would bring me comfort and strength.
Another struggle that I don’t hear people talk about as often as I would think is feeling unable to function without the drug. I had been a waitress at an exclusive golf club. I had trained myself to work very efficiently under the influence. There was a lot to remember, and it was pretty high pressure, but I had learned to function and do amazing things with my drug. I got sober, and suddenly I couldn’t do my job. I felt like I had lost my memory, and I thought I had certainly lost my sense of humor. Without my drug I felt like I couldn’t pour a cup of coffee. It scared me enough to ask myself what I would do if I didn’t get paid. I got into plants, studied herbal medicine and became a master gardener with a dream job working as the indoor garden manager ordering tropical plants at a private garden shop. That job was one thing that was hard to leave, but I also believe my love of plants was one of those things that pulled me here where they grow outside. I get to see them come to fruition in their natural climate. These are all things that wouldn’t have happened without jumping in to face the challenges and believing that this was my time to fly.
Are there goals you’ve met or dreams you’ve pursued that you are particularly proud of?
Twenty years ago my parents walked out of my life primarily because of the disease I think, and I haven’t seen them since. My father died during that time, about seven years ago. I didn’t even know where they were. I thought they might be in Arizona somewhere, but I wasn’t sure until I got a call from my cousin saying that my dad had passed and giving me my mom’s phone number if I wanted to call her. From that point my mom and I had some tenuous phone calls about once a year, and I realized that she was going to be a big part of my amends list. With the help of my sponsor and some women in the program, I was able to both phone her and send her a written amends.
Just one year ago my mom died and left me her house here in Arizona. I knew that my son was okay where he was, and I just felt like I needed to be where my parents had been. I needed to feel the connection with them, and that’s how I ended up moving. The day I got here, I walked into my mom’s house and saw my amends sitting on her desk. Without the structure of this program, I wouldn’t have known how to do that. I wouldn’t have known how to say it or how to love her as a woman without feeling like victim or blaming her for anything. I wouldn’t have known that as a mother she too did the best she could with what she had. I know that she went through a lot of pain and suffering too. I couldn’t have seen that. I just couldn’t have done it without the people I met in recovery. They helped me put all the tools together so that I could do this. I got to come here and see that. I got to find my dad’s wallet and see that it was full of pictures of me and see that there was love there. We just didn’t know how to say it or show it. It was so huge to find that. I had to come here to find that.
I had always made a life living on as little as I could. That was still part of my crutch and my safety, so it wasn’t so hard to leave stuff behind. I did have friends and family in and out of the program that I just couldn’t stand to leave. I know I can’t recreate that, but to be able to come here and make new friends and a new life is bringing me to the realization of expansion. All those people are still there. They might be a few miles further away, but my world has just gotten bigger. That was a little uncomfortable at first because I was used to my safety net being so tight. Now I’m learning that it’s safe to expand and breathe big and have people I care about in more than one place. People are people everywhere you go. There are people in recovery everywhere you go. Honestly, I was scared to death, but that same thing, that same voice, that same feeling inside that took over and knocked me down to get me into treatment was telling me I had to do this even if I was afraid. It pulled me here, and I went with it. I knew I needed to be here. I knew that there were a lot of things I needed to do that I couldn’t do from there.
There’s no way I would have done this without recovery. I wouldn’t have moved here. I wouldn’t have had the courage to make such a big life change. I would have solved this family dilemma on a bar stool somewhere. It would have been poor me, pity me, and nothing would have happened. I wouldn’t have been able to get out of that whole victim role and say that I deserve a try at this. I wouldn’t have had the courage or the strength before, but now I believed that there were people who would help me. I knew I wouldn’t be alone. I’m grateful every morning, and even though life’s not perfect and I’m not perfect, I feel like I’m okay. Even though Seattle is my forever home, my feet are here now, and my home has got to be where my feet are. I finally stopped comparing everything, and I did what they taught me in the program. Instead of comparing I found the similarities. The more I did that the more I realized everything could just be bigger. Now every day is so full, is beyond anything I could have dreamed of.
Is there a truth or piece of advice someone shared with you that has helped you on this road?
Take the suggestions they give you in the program. I wouldn’t have known what to do, and none of this would have happened. I couldn’t have imagined any of this, but miracles happen. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and letting myself know that it’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay not to know what to do, and it’s okay to say all of those things out loud. You just get up in the morning and be thankful, and then you go out there and be the best that you can be.
What would you tell someone who is at the beginning of his/her recovery journey and is afraid he/she can’t do it?
Love yourself. Love yourself enough to give yourself a chance.