- Alcohol
- Faith
- Friends & Family
My name is Ginny and I am in recovery from alcohol, nicotine, and co-dependency. I have been in recovery for five years now.
Growing up, I was extremely co-dependent and had no idea what that meant. I knew I was trying to be everything to everybody. Life was a race and I thought I was going to drown. Every day was a struggle to keep my head above water. I turned to alcohol to numb out the pain, inadequacy, and shame that I felt of not being good enough.
I went through my days just white knuckling it before I could get home and have that first drink. All my thoughts were about when I could get that next drink, how much I could drink and get away with it, and how people would judge me if I drank too much. Then the next day I would think, “What have I done, what did I do, and how much did I embarrass myself and who did I let down?” That cycle just kept coming and coming.
Then God opened up some opportunities and I moved from New Jersey to Tennessee. I was in Tennessee for about six weeks when I received a DUI. That shattered my world because I was known as the “good” girl. I was ashamed and my identity of myself fell apart. The only thing I had left in the world was God. With my faith in God, I knew I could get through this. I thought with his help, if I could just help one person then this will be worth it. Once I decided that I was able to walk forward, I was able to say that I have a problem with alcohol.
I went to a support meeting. I knew it was the right place for me because it had Jesus right at the center of it. Through that program, I also found out that I was co-dependent. Because of that, I was able to find my boundaries, realize where my worth really was and it was in me. I found out that I was a child of God and I was put on this earth for something. If it is to love the people next to me then that is what it is.
My journey for the past five years has been one of self-discovery and that the pain you go through is useful. It is there for a reason. It lets me know that I am not broken and that we all have our own stories and we all have the same story of needing to be loved, to belong, and needing to connect to others. We all need to know that we are valuable.
Currently, I am a writer, speaker and life coach. I focus on working with women with co-dependency issues and all women in transition. My hope is that women can find their boundaries and their worth again and be able to live in freedom and what they can bring to the world.