- Alcohol
My name is Chris, and I am an alcoholic. I have been sober since July 9, 2013. That date is important for two reasons. It is my sobriety date, and it is truly a “rebirthing” date for me. I entered a medical detox facility on July 9, 2013. I had lost all hope and just could not stop drinking. I had been drinking more and more, and the results were getting worse and worse. The booze wasn’t helping numb the pain, and my health was getting worse by the day. I was 40 years old and a professional, homeowner, son, brother, uncle and friend. Things looked great on the outside, but the inside was a dark place that I did not like living in. I was drinking more than a fifth of vodka a night. I was drinking to blackout and never truly waking up, just coming to. I had made many “foxhole” prayers to God asking him to get me through the weekend and promising things would change, but I would start right back up on Monday. I finally asked God to just let me go to sleep and never wake up so that He would not have to worry about me and neither would anyone else. I was heading for an alcoholic death in the near future, and I really didn’t care.
Something in me changed, and I decided maybe death was not the best outcome and maybe, just maybe, I could get help. I mean things could not get any worse, right? I decided to get help, but there was one small, or rather large, problem: my health. I had ballooned to over 500 pounds and had a hard time getting around and sometimes even getting out of bed. Finding a treatment center that would care for someone in my condition became more of a chore than deciding to get help. I felt hopeless, worthless and like maybe I had waited too long to get help and it just was not going to happen.
I finally found a place that could take me, and I asked for medical detox because I was afraid of what would happen if I completely removed alcohol from my body. I entered the hospital, got settled in and met my case manager and nurses. During the night my oxygen level dropped to under 40%, and my heart stopped. I was unaware of all of this, and when I came to, the room was filled with staff and everyone was looking at me and nobody was talking. That was my rebirthing experience. My new life had begun.
Eight days in the hospital and many tests and exams later, I had lost 83 pounds (mainly fluid) and felt ready to tackle treatment, but there was one problem. I had to go to physical and occupational therapy to gain enough strength to make the trip to treatment, and the original location I chose would no longer take me due to my health. After 12 more days of therapy and another 20 pounds lost, I was finally ready to begin the journey that started 22 days earlier. A 30-day stint in treatment taught me about the disease of alcoholism and that I wasn’t the horrible person I first thought I was.
I learned a lot while in treatment, and when I got out, I made my next big decision. I walked away from everything I had: my job, my family, friends, house and hometown. I moved to a place close to the treatment location. As I write this on March 16, 2014, I am over eight months sober, a very active member in the recovery community, the co-founder of a nonprofit that works in recovery and over 175 pounds down and losing more daily. I have never felt better. I attend meetings almost daily, I am back in school studying to be a counselor in the field of addiction, and I take time to speak to those in the recovery community as well as those that are not so they can understand what the community is about. You never know who you may be talking to. They may seem to have it all together on the outside, but on the inside they may be in that deep dark place.