- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Seven years ago, on August 31, 2008, sitting in my home in Upstate New Jersey, I did two things I had never done before. First, I set out to end my life. The second happened as I prepared to end my life; I dropped to my knees and asked a God who I wasn’t even sure existed for help.
Sitting before me were two syringes filled with lethal doses of heroin and letters that I had written to my husband and children explaining that the pain I was in was too great, and they deserved much better than an addict mother and wife. I truly believed I was doing the most unselfish act at that time.
After dropping to my knees, I guess I was expecting a white light to enter the room but that didn’t happen, so I started to tie off my arm and end all the pain. At that moment the phone rang, I picked it up with the notion that it had to be my dealer and just in case I survived, I better score more drugs in case I wake up a few days down the road. But it wasn’t my dealer. It was a friend calling me from California.
I hadn’t spoken to this friend in many years and she had no idea that my life had taken such a dramatic turn, leading to first a pain med addiction then a heroin addiction. I began to tell her that it wasn’t a great time to play catch-up and that she had interrupted my killing myself. I expected to hear her say “No, please think it over.” But she didn’t. Her reply was “You selfish b—-, you’re going to leave it to me to explain to those beautiful kids and wonderful husband that I couldn’t stop you? Oh, that’s right, you’re an addict and only care about yourself.”
Those words were like a punch in the stomach and for the first time in a long time I knew I wanted to live, I just didn’t know how to go on and face all the trauma and grief that was ahead of me. At that moment however, I knew with all my heart there was a God. I had no idea what that God was, I just knew that there was one, and He answered my prayer directly.
From there, my friend made some calls, and within a half hour a man was at my house from a 12-step program, and told me, “You never have to feel this way again.” He said he was willing to stay with me and get me through this kick. He stayed, and a few days later helped me get on a plane and fly out to California where my husband had moved with the kids six months prior.
For many years I tried rehabs, therapy, and meetings, but each time I did I always put conditions on everything to do it “my way.” So, this time I went into a sober-living and really threw myself into the 12-step program. I found a sponsor who I was a bit intimated by and she was exactly what I needed, somebody who would call me out on all my bullcrap, but always let me know I wasn’t alone in any of this anymore.
I had recently lost everybody in my immediate family: my mother, my father and my brother. I had never dealt with all that loss and it was hard, but I did it and I wasn’t alone. My sponsor and the women of my group walked me through it all. I also had some deep-rooted traumas that I needed to face– one was being a rescue worker at the World Trade Center on 9-11. The horror I witnessed there, even though it was what I did professionally was just too much for me to cope with. I also was abandoned at birth by my biological mother who had her own issues with drugs and alcohol when she put me in an orphanage. Then of course was the sheer guilt of becoming a drug addict and the effect it had on my family, that was the hardest one to overcome, but with help I learned to forgive myself. I needed a lot of therapy to walk through all that but I did, again never alone.
Coming up on seven years now, I look back and have no regrets. Turning into a drug addict at age 36 wasn’t something that was planned but it was to be. If I never went through all that hell I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Recovery has made me a better person in every sense of the word.
At seven years sober, I still have bad days, although my craving for drugs has gone away. When I get really stressed out, I dream about being able to drink alcohol. Alcohol was never my drug of choice, heroin and cocaine were. But after 20 relapses, each and every one began with having a drink. So when I get that craving I usually speak to my sponsor. She tells me to run the tape and usually by the time I’m done talking the craving is gone anyway. In the few times where that didn’t work, I do what always works for me, I call a newcomer. Right there I get reminded of what I go back to if I pick up a drink. It works every time.
Even before I used drugs I was never a truly happy person. I was always living in fear. Today, my life contains no drama. I surround myself with happy, joyous and free people. My faith in God has grown too, I now know that whatever I do God is always there and to me and that is such a comfort since I now know God runs the show not me. It gets exhausting trying to control everybody and everything. The funny thing is this: at 7 years I still have no idea of what God is; to me it’s an all-powerful force that overlooks our universe, not some white bearded man who sits in judgment of us.
The relationship I have with my children has changed, too. During the years when I was stuck in my disease, I wasn’t there for them mentally. I used to make excuses that because they still had everything they could want or need that somehow I was a good mom. But what I realized is that when I was using, I was numb not only to my pain, but those around me. Today I take responsibility for all my actions, and when I am wrong I admit it right away and try to make things right.
Sobriety has made me a better person, but by no means has it made me perfect. The difference is that I always strive to do the next right action, and I think before I act out on things. I always had a great relationship with my husband, but after a few years of him trying to help me get better, he eventually started drinking again. He had stopped back in his early 20s when we were married. When I started becoming a chronic-relapser, he felt a loss of control and his disease kicked in also.
By the third year that I was going from rehab to rehab, he too had a full-blown addiction to pain meds and alcohol. Now my children had two addicts to deal with. After years of trying to get sober together, when enough was enough, we listened to all the experts that told us we had to do this separately and work on ourselves and that two sick people only make for a broken couple. Finally, we went into separate facilities, and did everything that the program told us to do. We sought therapy for ourselves, as a couple and even had each of our children go to a therapist, so as a family we had to heal.
My life today is a happy one, I have two successful businesses that were started in sobriety, I still have the same amazing sponsor, and I have many sponsees that I get to watch give the gift away to their sponsees. I still have three commitments at my meetings and try to be of service anytime I am asked (which is a lot). It’s a chain of giving that just keeps going. I wish anybody reading this the same happiness.
Getting clean and sober wasn’t easy. I had to give up my ego and all my control issues. However, I have never been happier than I am today. The one thought I would leave with any new person reading this would be this: Give it 90 days and 90 meetings. If your life isn’t better, your disease is always waiting for you, doing push-ups and becoming stronger. You can face the fear, work through it and have a better life or you can go back to the misery we all know is waiting for us.