- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Faith
For as far back as I can remember in my life, addiction and recovery were there in one way or another. Both of my parents are addicts/alcoholics and used around me when I was growing up. They split up when I was pretty young, and my dad, aside from a few relapses, has maintained long-term sobriety. My mother, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to find the road away from active addiction, and it’s a current state for her.
When my parents split, my dad moved back to the Midwest where he is originally from, and I stayed with my mother in Southern California. She was what I would describe as a “runner.” She used men and manipulation to get places to stay, so needless to say we moved often from one man’s home to the next. I saw more drugs and other activities than any child should have to witness. As all of us addicts do, she made decisions that put me in not-so-safe conditions which ultimately cost her custody of me. At the age of ten, I moved to the Midwest to live with my father, and this is where I was introduced to recovery for the very first time.
My dad was in his first couple years of sobriety when I came to live with him, and it was refreshing to see someone who had his life together. My dad was involved with a support group in the area and would bring me to meetings and other functions. I also attended a tween group that gave me a place to be around kids that had seen what I had seen. If only I would have remembered how great it felt to be in that environment! A few years later, I was drinking alcohol and smoking pot with my friends without a care in the world.
I can’t remember the mindset I was in when I started drinking and using, but I don’t remember it being because of pain. I definitely had a lot of pain and abandonment issues, but I can only remember drinking to fit in with my crowd of friends, and because it was fun to me. However I always had a different time than my friends. I was the one puking, blacking out, getting violent and passing out. I could never remember what happened when I came to the day after. That didn’t stop me from pursuing cocaine, crystal meth and ecstasy from the ages of 14-16. By the time I was 18, I was a full-blown heroin user and crack smoker. I was the one thing I said I’d never be, the “crackhead” people make fun of, the one that lies, cheats, steals and manipulates anyone just for the sake of another fix. That’s who I became. I frequented many rehab centers, institutions and jails due to the consequences of my addiction. I was on the verge of killing myself from either a drug overdose or from driving while under the influence and nodding out behind the wheel. I did that very often, and the last time I tried nodding out behind the wheel, I flew off of an interstate off-ramp, down a hill and into a tree! That was the insanity of my addiction. This got me about six months in the county jail and a trip to a long-term treatment facility.
I attended treatment and turned my 90-day stay into a 180-day stay because I couldn’t keep my focus on myself and not on the men in treatment with me. Why are we attracted to the people just as toxic as we are? It’s something I will never understand. I found “love” with a non-addict that got lucky and sentenced to rehab instead of prison. As “luck” would have it, I landed myself into a halfway house in the same city he lived in, a two-hour drive from the city where I was living. Within a month of moving into the halfway house, I found out that I was pregnant and decided it was a good idea to move in with the guy I met in treatment, the soon-to-be father of my child. I stayed clean throughout my entire pregnancy, and I delivered a very healthy, beautiful baby girl.
Over time I had an extremely difficult time getting along with my daughter’s dad, so I left him and moved back to my dad’s. It wasn’t long before I was meeting my friends at the bar for the “one” drink that progressed to three, to four and a shot and so on. I was introduced to narcotic painkillers at this point in my life, and the opiate lover I had been came back in full force. Before I knew it, I was hooked on opiates again. My whole life revolved around getting money to get pills, finding pills, eating the pills and repeat. I was thinking about and making calls to get more pills before I ran out of the pills I had it so that I didn’t run out and withdraw. I was back living in the insanity that I experienced while on heroin. Before long child services became involved. I failed a drug test since I was unable to go any days without taking pills or I would withdraw. I had to sign over temporary custody of my oldest daughter to her dad, and I had to go to detox.
I got way worse before I got better. I’d be lying if I said I went to detox right away. A non-addicted person would be appalled by that last sentence and think, “Why wouldn’t you go get better as soon as possible for your child?” The truth is I wanted to so badly it hurt. I just couldn’t stop my self-destructive behavior. I started bar-tending at a local tavern and even threw cocaine back into the mix again. It was a mess, I was a mess. My life was an absolute train wreck, and I hated myself for becoming, yet again, something I said I would never become. I was exactly like my mother.
I went to detox and got my life together again. After a long, hard fight and emotional roller-coaster ride, me and my ex attended family court and finally agreed to a co-parenting agreement for our daughter. In the meantime I had another daughter with the man I had been dating since my oldest daughter’s dad and I split up. I had two daughters that needed me to be the best me possible. I carried on with some more clean time but without working any kind of program. I had no meetings, sponsor or support system which also meant I didn’t have any clean friends. I started being the middleman for my old using buddies and getting pills for them because I knew where to get them, and they didn’t. I was making just enough extra from this to be able to buy a couple for myself. I was convinced I could “control” my usage even though my history had proven the exact opposite. My usage progressed. It was chronic, and I was hooked…again. Over time I was at risk of losing both of my children, my significant other and the last of my sanity. I needed a change. I needed to change!
I once read a quote by George Bernard Shaw that says, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” That is the absolute truth. I had to make a change if I wanted to progress, and I had to start with my mind. I did pay attention to some of the groups in treatment, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. I had to stop being a coward and running from my fears. I had to get clean for myself and not for the courts, my kids or my family. Enough pain makes one want to seek change, and I was on my knees begging God for a change. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life in this insane pattern of getting clean, relapsing, getting clean, relapsing. It was making me miserable, and since I was miserable, I wanted everyone around me to be miserable too. That’s the only feeling anyone around me was allowed to feel in my presence.
I sought out a change, and I found it in the 12-step fellowships. I have a solid foundation today and the tools to cope with the areas of my life that I constantly tried to control, but were always out of my control. When I found a conscious contact with the higher power of my understanding, something inside of me changed forever, and I’m certain that it was my spiritual awakening. For the first time ever, I worked the 12 steps and found out so much about myself. I finally understand that I have the disease of addiction, a compulsion and obsession that I am unable to control despite all the negative consequences I have endured. I don’t have to live that way today, and it feels so amazing to wake up in the morning rather than “come to.” I no longer have to live another day trapped in the bondage of withdrawal. People actually tell me they are proud of me today! I have a sponsor that has become one of my best friends, and I can tell her anything without fear of judgment. I haven’t had to sit in a jail cell for nearly five years now. I am a mother to both of my daughters, the mother He would have me be, the mother my girls deserve. My significant other that I mentioned previously is now my husband, and more promises come true on a daily basis. I am forever grateful to the fellowship. I just celebrated one year clean and sober!! I am not white-knuckling like I used to do. I work a program of recovery. I cleaned house, I trusted God and I helped others. I’m finally free.