- Alcohol
- Friends & Family
It was Christmas of 2009 and my drinking had really gotten worse. The last six months had been one big blackout. It was nonstop. In August, I asked a friend for help and she said, “Oh you’re not an alcoholic, you’re fine.” But I wasn’t; it was really bad. I had a lot of black out drinking. I would look at my cell phone and see phone calls that I had made that I had absolutely no recall of making.
On Christmas Day, we had gone to a friend’s house in the neighborhood and I was in a drunken blackout. We got home and I told my ex-husband (who was still my husband at the time), “I’m an alcoholic. I need help.” I know he had enough of my drinking and I did need the help.
I made an effort to try and save my marriage but my marriage was over at that point– it was already long gone and done. I always say I came in for the wrong reasons, but stayed for the right reasons because I am an alcoholic. I mean, if you have to control your drinking, then you have a problem.
For so long, I didn’t think I had a real problem. I was even trying to prove that I didn’t have a problem and that everything was fine. I actually got into running to prove that I wasn’t an alcoholic.
I would be out drinking on a Saturday night and get up at 5 or 6 o’clock on Sunday morning and go for a ten-mile run. I’d be sick as a dog, but I felt like an alcoholic couldn’t possibly do that– so I was proving something if I could get up and do it. If you’ve got to prove that you’re not an alcoholic, then you probably are; normal people don’t have to prove that.
My defining moment actually began two years before that Christmas Day incident. I knew I needed to make a change two years before that blackout Christmas. Two years before, I was a member of a church. A married couple who attended the church shared their phone number in the weekly bulletin, offering help to people who thought they may have a problem with drinking. An advertisement for something for the youth group was below their number, so I cut it out and stuck it on the bulletin board in my kitchen, you know, just in case my son wanted to go to that youth group thing. It stayed up there for about two years.
I did end up calling that married couple on December 26th. The woman from the church bulletin was the first person that I called. That number had stayed on my fridge for two years before I finally used it.
My life is so much different since I entered recovery. Everything is so much different in so many ways. I have a new husband who is so supportive. He’s is in a group for family members of those in recovery, so he has his own 12-step program.
I think anybody, whether they drink or not, needs a 12-step program for life. Just to get through life. You have to deal with things. You have to deal with emotions, you have to deal with family; there are so many things that you have to deal with in work and every area of your life. I think anybody can use a 12-step program even if it’s not for any kind of addiction. I am such a firm believer in the 12 steps that I believe those same basic principles work for everyone.
It’s still just amazes me to look at the difference in my life today. I have a 16-year-old and a 21-year-old that I gave birth to and I have two bonus children, a 25-year-old and a 21-year-old– all four of them are boys. Two of those boys have never seen me drink and the relationship I have with two that have seen me drink is so much better today. I’m able to show up and be present. I’m the photographer for my son’s football team, I volunteer, I have a job. Even the state of Arizona trusts me with millions of dollars. I’m a financial business analyst… and they trust me, someone out there trusts me to do the right thing.
I remember one day in January of 2010 clearly. I was driving down the street with my son. I was only a couple of weeks sober. I remember him looking at me. I can still picture exactly where we were in the neighborhood, the exact spot on the road, what the temperature was outside, I remember it clear as day and I remember him saying, “Mom, I’m so glad you’re not drinking anymore.” I’ll never forget that.
Everything is different now. Every Friday night, my home group goes out for dinner, just to this little hole in the wall, prior to our meeting. You know, the meeting before the meeting. Last night, we were just saying that we can’t imagine our lives without recovery, that we can’t imagine it without this strong core group of people that we have.
A gentleman came to our meeting last night and I remembered him from when I first came in. He left the area for the last three and a half years and I just figured that our schedules had changed and that’s why I hadn’t seen him. When I saw him last night I said, “Hey how are you doing?” and he said, “Well I’m back in.” He said that he had moved back to New York and that he had been out of the program. I said, “That’s the awesome thing about the program, you’re always welcome. There is no shutting the door on anybody.” I have a stronger relationship with the people that I’ve met in recovery than I do with people that I know from my church. There is such a strong connection there.
For me that means staying in my meditation, especially this time of year with the holidays and also with my sober anniversary right after Christmas. It’s easy to get stuck in my head around this time, so I make sure that I keep up with my readings and stay focused.
There’s a quote that says “People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I believe that. You set your own destiny every day. You can wake up with a positive attitude. You can make up your mind to stay positive. You can let five minutes of your day ruin your entire day or you can deal with the fact that five minutes might be ruined but it doesn’t have to ruin the whole day, you can move on anytime and be positive and focused. Stay focused on what works. We have that symbolic triangle for a reason– you’ve got to be of service, you’ve got to be in the big book, and you’ve got to work with a sponsor.
I always try to remember my first six months of sobriety. Everything that I did during those first six months to stay sober are the things I try and do now. The minute I stop doing that one thing, I may find myself in trouble. (I might not know what that one thing is, but that could be the thing that would bring me back out.) My sponsor always says, “Keep doing what you’re doing, don’t cut anything out and you will stay on the path.”