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Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
My name is Laura. I love to give back freely what was given to me– help and encouragement to others. I started drinking when I was in high school. As I got older, the drinking became more and more prevalent in my life. When I was in my 20s, I was going to the bars every night or every other night and sometimes it was just a couple drinks other times I left totally wasted. My drink of choice was Jager bombs and I’m not just saying one, it would be sometimes as many as I could consume before I would get sick.
As I got older, I started hanging out with different crowds of people One night I was at a party and there was cocaine all around me and at that point in my life all I had tried was alcohol and smoked weed, which I hated weed but loved drinking. So at that party that night I got pretty drunk and decided what the heck, I was going to try cocaine. I later thought that was the start of the downhill spiral in my life, but in all reality when I first picked up my first drink in high school was when my life started going downhill.
I had a mother who loved her children unconditionally and a father who was never really there. My parents got a divorce when I was six. When I was 12, I left California and my whole family was moving to Chicago because my mom had a better job opportunity. At first I was the all-American girl in Chicago hanging out with the right crowd and was involved in school and extra activities like Peep Club, cheerleading and softball.
I realized I was still unhappy. So that’s when I started hanging out with the wrong crowd– I was a junior in high school. I always felt like I was the outcast because I went to a snobby high school where people had money. Don’t get me wrong, I lived a good life, but I always felt like others looked down on me. So that’s when drinking came into play. I started using cocaine maybe once every couple weeks and as anything else it progressively got worse.
I had a very good job as a paralegal with a great law firm in Chicago, and as my disease grew, I started missing work and eventually lost my job. So that was fine at the time because, of course, the addict in me said, “woo-hoo I can party more”.
I was using cocaine for about six years then I came home from a night of drinking at a bar and my boyfriend and a friend were doing crack in my kitchen. I was wasted, so once again I decided to try it and that’s all it took and I was hooked. Once again it progressively got worse and worse until I was totally out of control. I didn’t care who I hurt or lied to, as long as I got the money to get my next high.
I would sit in my room for days and get high sometimes with friends, or sometimes by myself, while my habit was just increasing and increasing. I started stealing money, jewelry anything to get the money to feed my addiction. I stole my mom’s credit card and she finally had enough and pressed charges against me. I ended up with three years of probation for spending $17,000 on my mom’s credit card, and they also mandated me to outpatient counseling.
The addict in me was still not done. I fought the program. For years, I would go to outpatient and then go get high, go to a meeting and go get high– nothing was stopping me. I was also living at a hotel and working at Wendy’s. I would call out of work over and over again because getting high was way more important.
Then one day the guy I was living with got totally wasted in front of me. I looked at myself in the mirror and said “I don’t want this anymore,” so I got sober for nine months. I got a good job at Ulta and was living a happier life until my boyfriend at the time broke up with me and left me. Once again that’s all it took and an hour later I was getting high again. It always went through stages of being sober then relapsing again.
On April 23rd of 2014, I was high and completely miserable and looked in the mirror and started bawling my eyes out. That was when I finally decided it was time to throw myself into the program and let God do for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I am so grateful for my 12-step program, my Higher Power, my sponsor and for this wonderful group of people I have in my life which I met once I opened a Facebook group “Serenity in Numbers”. My message to you is, “please don’t ever give up. It works if you work it.”
I’m living proof with over 20 months of sobriety now. I’ve been off probation for almost two years and engaged to the most wonderful caring man. Today I’m living in a state where I always wanted to live. So please stay strong and do what you have to do, to live the life you want and deserve.
Sending all my love,
Laura