- Alcohol
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submitted by: Susanne Johnson
My name is Ambre. I am 37 years old and a recovering alcoholic since June 15, 2009. I will attempt to tell you what got me where I am at today.
I didn’t have the best or the worst childhood. My parents were young, it was the late 70’s, and I came from hardworking Christian farmers. Alcoholism is in my family and drinking was something I told myself I’d never take up.
I do, however, remember my first accidental time becoming drunk. At age 11 I had a toothache and my dad gave me a big plastic tumbler of brandy wine to swish in my mouth. I drank it. To this day I remember the numbness. I didn’t worry about my parents fighting or being bullied at school when I felt like that. Alcohol also made me forget about the sexual abuse I suffered in kindergarten and at age 11.
As a teen, I was moody and began cutting myself. The night terrors I had been experiencing since age 9 got worse and I swore that demons were after me. I skipped school and dabbled in drugs but somehow maintained a job, stayed out of trouble, and graduated high school.
Becoming age 18 was all I needed to go crazy. I left home. I used LSD a lot and drank myself silly. I jumped from one abusive relationship to another until I met the monstrous man that gave me my first two children. I lived for eighteen years off and on in hell. I began binge drinking, sometimes for months.
I was downing a fifth of high proof liquor nightly to numb the beatings and the shame and guilt. When not drinking, I was working. I was powering through the morning hangovers and neglecting my children by staying at work. In 2008, my alcoholism and workaholism dropped a nuke on my life. I lost my children. I lost my career, my home, my everything.
After being locked up I found myself homeless with no one and nothing. I was suicidal. For a year as the court case wore on I drank to die. My behavior was outlandish. I put myself in dangerous situations and was raped which gave me more fuel to kill myself. On June 15, 2009 I walked out of court a felon and directly into the place that saved my life.
Sentenced to the Alternative Interventions for Women Program, I was afraid and close-minded. I hated myself and blamed everyone for where I ended up. The women who worked in the program and the women who were there probated with me, saved me. I learned to cope with life. I processed all the pain I had bottled up. I attended 12 step meetings and got a sponsor. I saw a wonderful therapist. The steps shifted my thinking from wanting to control the outside to acceptance. I rebuilt my relationship with God and became rigorously honest.
I graduated the program and a year and a half later went back to work there. Helping other addicts keeps me sober. I married a great guy and we have a two year old son. I have reconnected with my mother, who I once blamed for all of my mess.
Life still happens. In 2013, a month before our son’s birth, my husband was hit by a vehicle when he was crossing the street. He suffered a catastrophic brain injury and now resides in a nursing home. He is 32. He was also drunk, after a period of sobriety, when the accident happened. Through that whole ordeal I did what the program taught me: I prayed, I reached out, and I put recovery first.
So here I am, sober, and getting a second chance at being a mom. The hardest lesson was brutal honesty with myself but I did it. If you are new to recovery I want to tell you that it is not easy. It is work. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to stay clean. But it is also full of joy and fellowship. The greatest gift is being able to help another addict.
I would also like to recommend Dr. Stephanie Covington’s recovery material for women. Specifically A Woman’s Way Through the 12 Steps. It really helped guide me to understanding myself as a woman suffering with addiction and trauma issues. So I find myself a 37-year-old mother to a toddler, a convicted felon who made a mess of her life and her family’s life, a woman who drank herself half to death. Yet, I find myself serene and ready to help. I returned to college with aspirations to one day be a psychologist with the intent to help other women like myself see that they are worth it. You can do this. You are worth it. Keep coming back.