- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Mental Health
submitted by: Susanne Johnson
Being completely different from everyone else changed my life. It’s a problem people think I’m crazy to blame my issues on. I share that I have an IQ that has tested as high as 176 and as low as 165 for the sake of the story, but these tests are complete garbage. I was horribly bullied and struggled to relate to anyone. I was terrified to leave my house. I cut myself when I was as young as eight years old, and nobody noticed or cared. My parents were amazing but lacked any ability to deal with me. They were mostly hands-off because doctors and schools were telling them I could do great things one day.
At around nine years old, I stole a bottle of booze from my parents. We always had tons of booze in our house. I was terrified I would get caught so I hid it. I waited a few days, and after I saw my parents hadn’t noticed, I was ready to plan my night. I was born in ’78 so my parents though it was cute to give me alcohol in sips and even puffs off cigarettes. They thought I would hate it and never try it on my own. I got a buzz from the cigarettes, but I had never been drunk. I took a coffee mug from the kitchen, went to my room and filled it to the top with straight whiskey. I sat there gulping glass after glass of whiskey stopping only to smoke a cigarette. The feeling was amazing. The pain and anxiety were numbed. I thought, “This is it: my solution.” I would never go a day without a drink again until the day I had my last. That time spanned 17 years.
The turning point came slowly for me. I knew the drinking and drugs were no longer working to stem the tide of my crippling depression and anxiety. But what to do? I tried many things but nothing proper. I tied the usual stuff like telling myself, “I’ll just have this one drink, and that’s it,” or, “I’ll buy just one small bag of coke and I’ll be fine.” As anyone who has drug or alcohol problems knows, those are very famous last words.
I was arrested regularly for being drunk or for fighting. My depression turned into acute anger in the last few years. I met a girl who drank like I did, and I fell in love. We co-dependently drank daily, and I thought everything was great until the day I asked her if she would like to be my girl. I was ready to change my life for her, but she did the smart thing and said NO. What happens to an addict’s brain when it’s told no? I’m not a neuroscientist, but I can tell you it just made me want her more. At the time we were both lost in addiction and thought there was no way out, but now we can look back and laugh. She will be celebrating five years clean and sober next month.
I’ve omitted many of the details as they aren’t really important, but in the end I lost it all as you would suspect. I thought ending my life was the only way out. Enter the cliche handful of pills and bottle of vodka. The last ounce in that bottle would be the last I ever drank even until this day. I awoke in the hospital extremely confused and feeling like I had been hit over and over with a baseball bat. The doctors informed me I had been in a coma for over six days and that I was healing well. I asked, “Healing from what?” Even after a bottle of 10mg Valium and a 26-ounce bottle of vodka, I managed to leave my house and go to the local pub. I started a fight with someone and got jumped. They cracked four ribs, my orbital bone in my left eye and my nose and gave me several other nasty injuries. I don’t know exactly what happened. I never returned to that bar I had called home for over a decade. I really didn’t care. Something was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew this was it for me. Change now, or die.
After a few days of sitting in silence, I got up the courage to tell my attending doctor the whole story about what had been going on. He said, “I’m well aware of your situation. Your family has been here every day, and we have talked at length about what your options are.” I almost cried. I thought they had giving up on me years earlier and that our relationship was damaged beyond all repair. The doctor asked if I wished to see them. I said I did, and five seconds later my mother and father were looking down at me crying. I have not used drugs or drank again to this day.
After I was out of the initial hospital, everyone was completely on edge and not sure how to proceed. There was talk of sending me here or there, but I said put me in the nearest detox center, and I will stay as long it takes to get into a longer-term care center. This is the day I went to my first support group meeting. I was so out of it and still so noticeably damaged that an old timer came up to me and said, “It will be okay, Son.” He shook my hand. I remember staring at the steps and thinking, “Here we go. It’s forcing religion on me.” I hear people say this almost every time support groups are brought up in pop culture or by non-alcoholics in general.
I felt purpose this time. I knew in the very fabric of my being this was my last chance at this. I felt somewhat energized, and at this point the drugs and alcohol were out of my system for the first time since I was a small child. I would be stuck on a six-month waiting list for the facility the doctors and nurses at detox thought was the only place around that could help me. The facility in question had several free beds, but they were reserved for people who could pay for them and not for people using the government system. I remember crying that night thinking I would be forced back into society, and I would relapse immediately. That was proof of my sick mind because by now I had people behind me, supporting me all the way. I thought I had lost everything, and to make the stress higher, everyone was walking on eggshells around me because they were just as scared for me as I was for myself.
I still don’t know the details of how this happened, but my father, who had disowned me only a month earlier, came into the lounge and said, “Don’t worry, Son, we got you a bed.” I wondered what the chances were that two people would say the same thing to me twice in a week. These synchronicities would be my constant reminders over the next ten years that there really is a higher power.
I spent nine months in a psychiatric hospital where I was diagnosed with several mental disorders. The details are not important to this story, but this got me on the path to treatment for everything, to support groups for the soul and to medicine for the body and mind. Help is everywhere you look from people you don’t expect to healthcare professionals who work tirelessly with you until you’re better. My bottom was a coma, but it didn’t have to be that way at all.
I have learned many lessons. Some lessons learned came with extreme pain and others with extreme joy. To make this short the one lesson I would pass on is never underestimate the power of human love. My parents still can’t relate to me or my illness, but I’m okay with that because I know their love is unconditional. Other advice I would pass on is to know you can’t change people’s will. Rely on fellowship from your desired program or the health professionals you will most deal with the rest of your life. Sit down, shut up and listen. Recovery is a lot to take in, but I will admit has great joys in the early days even though there is a fog over your thoughts. The first time you laugh while completely sober in a rehab center is something you will never forget!
As stated I’m clean and sober ten years, but I suffer with some pretty nasty and persistent mental disorders. I go up and down these days, but I’m alive and well with a roof over my head. I’m constantly challenging myself intellectually and physically and pushing the limits of what I can do. I find joy in helping people. I get more joy from talking to someone who is homeless downtown then I ever did by taking drugs. Be selfless in your mission, but also be yourself. It’s okay to be a jerk or just weird. There is enough room for everyone here, and just remember that as you work to better yourself, there are people in your old shoes suffering on full blast or in silence. Treat everyone the way you would like to be treated, and good things will happen!