My life is really good these days, and I feel truly blessed. My gratitude is overflowing. Things are going really well. I am getting over severe depression through sobriety, getting out of the old behaviors. Where we come from, and where we are, says it all.
I have been on my recovery journey since October 26, 2001, a little over 13 years. There have been so many positive changes since then. The first one would be being able to put down the alcohol and drugs because I was consumed by the addiction every day and then the changes shifted to the actual joys of living, continuing to live life constructively and not destructively, really living life sober on a daily basis and living and embracing the highs and lows of life.
I realized I needed recovery when I started blacking out in very scary places, including Jamaica. It was incomparable demoralization. I was like the walking dead, a living zombie. I got to a point where I didn’t want to drink anymore, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t imagine a life without drinking. I had a lot of truths start coming to the surface due to my using, and I realized things needed to change. I could no longer live the way I was living.
I really didn’t like sororities, and the only reason I joined one was to have more access to parties. I was living with my sorority sisters, and they confronted me one night because one was a nurse assistant while she was in school. At that point I was substituting and doing other things to excess. I could not stop anything. I had done a lot of cocaine that night. I had used the same amount many previous times, but this time my body could not handle it. My sorority sisters watched me all night because I was on the verge of overdosing. They then flushed my cocaine. I woke up the next morning, could not find it, trashed my room and was about to freak out, and they confronted me and said, “You need help, or we are kicking you out.” I was about to freak out, but I just said okay. I had that moment of clarity. It was kind of a relief because I didn’t know how to stop, and I didn’t know how to get help. At that point I knew I was going to get sober. I knew that was the end even when I left college and went back to where my parents lived.
I moved in with them and went to treatment. My parents were in denial. Even after everything that had happened in high school and college, they wanted to think that I was just “a little wild.” Even when facing their denial, I knew I couldn’t go on anymore. If I got kicked out, the next step was going to be couch-surfing, veins and needles. I would not come back from that, and I knew I could not do it by myself. I had a tiny bit of willingness, but I still had a very big attitude because I had a lot of fear.
I have learned, “To thine own self be true.” I can lie to myself in so many different ways, and in lying to myself and being in denial, I lie to others. If I just call upon God and a sponsor, sit down and be with myself and look at the truth, there is no need for that stuff. It can be painful, but God is all in there with me.
One of my biggest struggles is that at this level the road gets narrower. I can no longer get away with the behaviors I used to get away with in early sobriety. There is a fork in the road, and I change and my life gets better or I can continue to suffer and engage in behaviors that no longer work for me. A lot of people at this length of sobriety will go back out or they will commit suicide, and that is just the truth of it. I think it is because you get to the deeper layers of the onion, and it is hard stuff to look at. Lifetimes of old behaviors and patterns need to be changed. It is possible. I always have to get out of my own way, and God allows anything to happen. The other thing I have to avoid is resting on my laurels. My support group has given me such a full life, and it is easy for me to say, “I am tired, and I have done X, Y and Z, and I don’t want to go to a meeting tonight. I will rest tonight. I need to go to bed early.” That is just not the case. I drank and used around the clock. I need my support group “medicine,” it is my daily reprieve. I have to take my medicine on a daily basis whether it involves working with a sponsee, making a phone call to newcomers or getting to a meeting and also having a service position at that meeting. This keeps me present and active. This helps.
A lot of my goals have been internal goals, goals for spiritual growth. These weren’t real goals. They just happened over time. Behaviors that might have worked when I was using didn’t work in sobriety. To be able to truly do the sixth and seventh steps and give my old behaviors to God and let them be removed was a gift. It has just been amazing. Many things have hung on and caused me an immense amount of suffering in sobriety. There are so many. Recovery has not been an easy, piece-of-cake journey for me. I have struggled with a lot of things, and I really held on to some of those “defects,” but I never gave up. I always got in touch with a sponsor, kept going to meetings and worked with others. I finally hit an emotional bottom and was completely, 100% willing to give my “defects” to God, and God removed them.
I am currently working on being financially self-supportive. That is definitely a goal of mine. I am not there yet, but God has recently provided the opportunity for my income to increase and for me to be an advocate for myself and say, “This is what I deserve to earn.” I am doing that now. I am on the road to being able to financially support myself. I am proud of how far I have come and how much I have overcome in sobriety without picking up and drinking.
I got sober when I was 20, and I really feel like I grew up in sobriety. I went back to college and finished the last two years of school. I still had a lot of my old behaviors such as not going to class. It was really a problem. I tried to make it to class, and I couldn’t. I also had a lot of fear. Fear has just crippled me. I felt like I was not worthy enough for anything. I think that was the underlying old belief, and I am most proud today that I have worked with God and a sponsor to change those deep-seated old beliefs to the new positive belief that I am worthy. When there is fear, I have a fear prayer: “God please remove my fear and direct me to what you would have me…and I go from saying, ‘be or do.’” I now know I just need to walk through fear because it is not going to go away.
I am a huge people-pleaser. I had a substance use disorder counselor when I was in my first 18 months of sobriety, and I would always come to him and say, “People don’t like me.” I was consumed with these thoughts. He would say, “Sometimes it is a compliment when people don’t like you. If you are walking with integrity, grace and honesty, people that are not walking with those things may not like you.” Sometimes I don’t listen to that, and sick attracts sick. A lot of advice has come from working with the fourth and fifth steps. One particular thing your sponsor can tell you are those truths about yourself that you don’t necessarily see.
If you are just beginning your journey and are afraid you can’t do it, don’t give up before the miracle happens. Don’t drink no matter what, and you can do it! You can’t do it alone. We are all here to help you. We are all here to love you. You are not alone anymore.