- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Faith
submitted by Susanne Johnson
I’m just going to jump right in….
I experimented with drugs and alcohol around age 16 and continued for a few years. I got married and started a family. I was able to just lay everything down at that point in my life; little did I know I had major defects of character. I was selfish and self-centered. I had the “all about me syndrome.” Even though I played the drugs down, I still suffered from the disease that at that point I didn’t even know existed.
So flash forward three years and I was a stay at home mom of three beautiful children. One weekend the children went to stay with their grandparents and I decided I needed a reward for being such a good mom. So I decided to do some cocaine. First of all, normal people don’t reward themselves with cocaine, but I did. That’s when it happened…I crossed the invisible line.
Long story short my husband of nine years left me and took my children and for the next five years I was in and out of rehabs. This brings me to almost three years ago on my last relapse. By that time I had remarried. I had it to where my kids would stay with me three to four nights a week. I had a home, two cars even the dog of my dreams, an English bulldog! So I should have happy. But, nope…I was miserable…so once again my disease told me, “you can just smoke a little dope and shoot up a little and escape and be happy.”
Wrong! Over the next four months I lost my children, who were devastated, and sold all my belongings in my home, even the stove! I did whatever it took to obtain my dope, even if it meant stealing, lying, whatever…it did not matter.
I ended up homeless again, with no car again, no possessions again, no children again, and no hope again. I thought I was a hopeless case. I could not grasp why, just why, I kept going back to something that takes everything I love and leaves me hopeless and empty.
But wait, here comes the great part. I had been in and out of 12-step groups and rehabs for years, but wasn’t willing. I wouldn’t listen to direction. I would always get sober and would think I knew what was best for me. How crazy is that? Obviously my thinker was big time broken.
Anyway, God opened a door for me at a halfway house that told me I never had to use again if I was willing to go to any length. They taught me about the three part illness that is outlined in the Big Book. They told me about the spiritual solution…and for the first time ever I shut up and listened. I worked the steps and did them quick because, see, I was sick.
Those steps and a higher power which I call God was the answer. So here I am over two and a half years sober by the grace of God, the steps and my sponsor. The program promised I would recover from a hopeless state of mind and today I have! I still work steps 10, 11 and 12 daily. As long as I do that and help others and keep spiritually fit, I don’t have to use again. Today it is my choice whether I work this simple program or not. I will never be fully cured…I am only promised today!