- Drugs
Sometimes, we start out getting help for others but eventually learn to love and care for ourselves. That’s the way it was for Anny. She wasn’t willing to get clean for herself but she knew her three boys deserved better. When Anny’s mom said she couldn’t watch those kids suffer anymore and threatened to file paperwork to take them away, Anny knew she had to get help. She attended her first meeting that next morning.
That was nearly nine years ago and she’s been clean ever since. “I was just so sick of using and living that life. There was nothing else for me. I used for so long. I picked up my first drug when I was nine,” she recalls. “And by 12, I was using cocaine.”
It felt like she had used all her life, relying on substances to make her happy or help her cope. She was sick of it but she just didn’t know how to get out. She didn’t know any other way to live. Looking back now, Anny knows that if she had kept going the way she was, she’d be dead. At the end, she had turned to prescription drugs. She took everything she could get her hands on, sometimes taking as many as 50 pills a day. She didn’t even know exactly what she was taking.
That doesn’t mean that sobriety was easy or felt natural right from the start. “When I first went into the program, I couldn’t relate. I don’t come from a family with a history of addiction. I come from a really nice family. Married 45 years, my parents never hit me. I went to the best private schools and I traveled. My parents gave me everything and more.”
So what led this young girl of privilege to turn to drugs as an escape? “I just never felt good enough or pretty enough. I was okay if the rest of the world around me liked me. I wanted to fit in and to be liked. It wasn’t about love. I was loved but I wanted everybody to like me and approve of me. It was very important for me and it carried over into my recovery.”
Anny says that quitting the drugs was the easy part. Once she was clean, she was left to deal with herself and get to know the person she had covered up for so long. She realized that she lied so readily because she always wanted to tell people what they wanted to hear. Her desire to be liked colored every aspect of her life. “It took a while to be okay with who I am,” she admits. “It took me about five years in recovery, but I did a lot of work.”
Today, she’s proud to say she’s a responsible, hard-working, reliable human being. She loves having her family in her life and enjoys a great relationship with them. She also wakes up at peace each morning because she knows she doesn’t have to lie or cheat or hide anything. Her life is an open book.
She’s even repaired her relationships with her boys. They saw her through her addiction. While she knows that the process left some scars, she also knows that they love her no matter what. It was hard in the beginning, but through work and consistency, she was able to rebuild those relationships. Recently, Anny watched her oldest son graduate from law school and couldn’t have been prouder. It’s a moment she would have definitely missed if she hadn’t decided to get clean.
For others who aren’t sure they can do it, she has this message: “The program works, but you have to do it. I didn’t like following suggestions and I didn’t want to listen. But I did. If you listen and keep doing the right things, everything just works out. I’ve seen miracles happen. People do come around. Your family will come around. It can happen, just don’t use.”
If you don’t believe her, just look at what it’s done for her. “I believe in the program 100 percent. It saved my life. It gave me a life that I have today that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”