- Alcohol
- Faith
Submitted by: Margaret Phillips
My alcoholism and addiction started very early for me. I remember my first drink just as if I were sitting there right now. My dad made me some homemade cough syrup with his scotch and sugar to cure my cough. There was nothing abnormal about it since store-bought cough syrup was the same thing– sugar and alcohol. The problem was that I was an alcoholic long before any alcohol ever entered my system. I can’t tell you what my first doll was or what my first bike looked like, but I can remember every vivid detail of that introduction to alcohol at age four. In my little brain I made this connection– if I don’t feel well that “cough syrup” will make it all better.
I grew up with great parents who were always looking out for my best interest. I was active in sports all through school. I had good grades and great friends. Just an all-American girl on the outside. By the time I was 16 years old I was well into my addiction and knew there was something different about the way I thought about partying. I tried to stop for a week one summer just to be sure I could. Not because I thought I had a problem though. This was just an experiment. I made it six days and was totally miserable. I had proven a point to myself that I had a lot of life to live so I didn’t need to worry about stopping anytime soon. “I’m good,” I thought.
When I reached college my drinking soared to heights I couldn’t imagine. It was screwdrivers for breakfast, liquor for lunch, and beer for dinner. Then sleep it off and head out for a night on the town with whatever was in my path. No time for food because that interfered with the buzz I was trying to achieve. No time for studying because I had parties to go to. When I finally made it to graduation day I was tired to say the least, but I had made it. If I was an alcoholic or addict I couldn’t have done that right?
I remember the first time I went into treatment about a year and a half after college and the counselor said something to the effect of “you need to accept that you’re an alcoholic. You’ve crossed that invisible line into alcoholism and once it is crossed you’ll never be able to go back.” My first reaction was to get angry with her by throwing a chair. I was very mature at 21 years old (sarcasm). Then I started to get really sad because up to that point alcohol was my life. It was what I woke up to, it was what I needed to function daily, and it was with me every single night without fail. I did not know how to live without alcohol or drugs in my life. They were truly my best friends and this person was asking me to accept that I had crossed some invisible line which meant I could lose my best friends? I knew at that moment I was in the wrong place. This lady was insane and treatment was not for me. My attitude was, I can stop anytime I want – I just don’t want to right now. I’m having fun! No Way do I accept what you are offering. See ya!
As you can imagine, things didn’t get better. The only way I ever drank was in mass quantities in an effort to reach some sort of utopia I longed for. I could never find it. No matter how much I drank, what drugs I did, or who I was with it was just never enough. I seemed to be having “fun” on the outside, but on the inside I was extremely miserable. I knew in my gut that I couldn’t stop. I knew that my brain focused on drinking or using 24 hours a day. I knew that at the rate I was going I could not live to see another birthday. I have to say that somewhere through all of the madness God sent me a wonderful man that I had actually already met in high school. We started dating toward the end of our senior year. He and I made it through the college years and married a few years after graduation. Without him in my corner there is no way I would have survived. So again I thought, I’ve got a wonderful man by my side, we have a house, careers, and if I was truly an alcoholic I wouldn’t have any of that right?
During the next 13 years from the time we were married a lot things happened. As with many of us in active addiction I made some bad decisions that lead to bad consequences. There were the car wrecks, the overdoses, the gun to the head, the health issues because of my addiction, lost jobs (or I would quit before they figure me out), filing for bankruptcy, and near death experiences. Multiple stints in numerous treatment centers from Virginia to Florida. A few stays in the psych ward because an emergency custody order was the only tool my husband and therapist had to attempt to break the cycle. It was an attempt to give me a day or two without alcohol and drugs so hopefully this time might be when I have that moment of clarity. Nothing worked for long– mainly because I wasn’t ready for it to work. My recovery was totally my responsibility and that would come when I accepted that I had a problem. I still wasn’t there yet.
There would be moments of not drinking or using, and a few glimpses of brief recovery through all of this, but there was something keeping me from giving up to the fact that I was an addict and alcoholic. It could have involved accepting what that counselor mentioned to me so many years ago. Then I’d have to admit she was right and knew better. I wasn’t going to do that just yet! With all of the internal misery and struggle came a lot of outlets including self-mutilation. Though it may sound crazy I felt the most at peace when I would cut. It gave me a sense of power and control over my body and mind that I didn’t have at any other time. It was the one moment of my day I was 100% in control physically and mentally which gave me great relief.
There were three pivotal moments in my life that would later be revealed to be true turning points for me. With each one of these events, my drug use increased significantly and the alcohol fell to the wayside because it just wasn’t working for me anymore. I needed stronger drugs and lots of them.
The first event was losing my father at age 28. Because I was a daddy’s girl, his death was devastating to me. Whenever he had any sort of health scare, my mom and I were there. When he died we were not. I just felt that if I had I been there I could have saved him. Why wasn’t I with him? Try carrying those unresolved emotions around without drinking or drugging. I couldn’t do it.
Second, my husband and I desperately wanted children. We tried everything imaginable multiple times to no avail. Trying to swallow that “pill” was really tough so I burned through a lot of other “pills”, so to speak. To want something so badly and not be able to have it left me with emotions I didn’t know how to deal with.
The third event was having my mom die in my arms. It was just about all I could take. I had never felt so helpless, hopeless, and alone as I did in that moment. Here I was with mom when she died and I couldn’t save her. I was certain that I could have saved dad, but wasn’t given the chance. Now I fe;t that I had the chance with mom and there is absolutely nothing I could do. As an only child I was now without the two most important people in my life. My family was just going to be me and my husband whom I loved dearly. However, I wanted all of my family with me. I had a great extended family but I wanted my parents, my three kids, my white picket fence – you know, the fairy tale. The one I saw finally disappear that day with mom and I had no idea how to handle any of it.
You see, I never really learned how to feel, or what to do with certain emotions. That’s no one’s fault it was just the way it was. I was scared of feeling because I never had felt before. Since I started drinking so young I always had a crutch with me in good times and bad. It’s a birthday, so let’s drink. It’s a funeral, we definitely need to drink. It’s a wedding, so of course we have to drink. It’s time to go to work and you were out all night so you need a drink to make it through the day. Oh, and the sun came up let’s drink. It’s an ugly cycle that never got better only worse.
The final six months of my addiction was insane. I was using opiates and benzodiazepines all day every day at 5-6 times the lethal dose. The more I took, the more I needed. Everyone was fearful for my life except me. I thought death would be how all of this would go away. My husband had succumb to the fact he was about to lose his wife. He reached out to a friend of his to help learn how and think about a funeral. I couldn’t stop using, and thought I had tried everything. What was left? Ah yes, the acceptance piece.
A call was made to La Paloma in early April 2008 that changed the course of my life forever. My husband was told to just let me use for the next few days until I could get on a plane to Memphis, and to keep a close eye on me to be sure I didn’t stop breathing. I’m sure those last few days were the longest of my husband’s life. I can’t imagine what he felt.
The first affirmation I was given by one of my counselors while in treatment at La Paloma was “I am a worthwhile child of God.” At that particular time I thought there’s no way I could be of worthwhile value to anyone, especially God. Today, I know this affirmation to be true. That’s a long way from where I began my journey. Each morning in treatment we had to identify two feelings. I always looked at the chart and asked myself “what the hell do these mean?” I could intellectualize them, but not identify what was actually going on inside me. I missed that part of growing up as I tried to keep myself sane and escape reality through alcohol and drugs.
The one thing I was sure of this time in treatment was that if I wanted to live, and live sober, I had to deal with some old baggage I was avoiding. From the time I was eight years old until age 11 I had a teenage neighbor that was molesting me. When I got the courage to tell my mom, she made it go away. Don’t know what she did or said and I don’t care. I just knew she made it stop and I was grateful. However, I had a ton of stuff on the inside that I had never dealt with because I never talked about it. It was just something that happened and I thought I had moved on.
One of my counselors in treatment guided me through the hardest thing I had ever done. Face that part of my past so it doesn’t hold me prisoner any longer. Using EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) I was able to resolve a lifelong demon that dictated everything about me. I left that particular session physically drained because I had finally been able to release all of the anger stored in every part of my body. Today, I have compassion for the individual that assaulted me. No sane person would do that to a child. I’d rather help him than hurt him, and that’s a place I never imagined being.
The anxiety that sat in the pit of my stomach since childhood, which constantly ate away at me, was put to rest. On that day, May 3, 2008, my true recovery began. The self-sabotaging was now gone. I knew this time really was going to be different. My counselor asked me about my fear of failure and what it looked like now versus when I arrived there. After going through that experience, how could I fail? The failure would have been if I had not tried and continued keeping secrets. The perfectionism doesn’t rule me today. I’m not damaged goods as I had always believed.
In the first few months after leaving La Paloma I returned to school and completed my MBA. My grades were more representative of what I was capable of this time around, that’s for sure. Funny how that works when you aren’t drinking and using. Through that graduate program I created a business plan to start my own treatment center so that I could help those that struggled for so many years just like I had. I ran into a problem when the economy tanked so I redirected my energy. I wanted to make a difference for those that couldn’t fight for themselves. For all of the alcoholics and addicts that didn’t know where to turn or have the resources to fight.
While in recovery, I ran into legal trouble because of the inadequacies in our system to treat those with addiction. I spent almost two years fighting for something I shouldn’t have had to simply because lawmakers don’t understand addiction and families have no alternatives to stop their loved ones from themselves while actively using. After that hard-fought battle with the law and the healthcare system it finally occurred to me that in order to enact change in a very broken system I need to get to the policy makers who are making laws and policies without understanding addiction at all.
Problem was, the court system uses data from researchers who only know addicts at a statistical level. My career had already shifted into the financial side of medical research before I got into recovery. As God usually does, He put a career opportunity in my path at another university medical school to oversee the financial and business operations of the premier research institute focused on psychiatric and behavioral genetics. I had the opportunity to work for a researcher that was on working groups which created the diagnostic codes for substance use disorders. What I found to be true was that researchers really don’t know what makes us tick. They know what our DNA does, but not our brain and heart. Here is where I found my passion to hopefully make a difference. No one needs to suffer with their illness and they certainly don’t need to be forever stigmatized because they sought help.
I had a co-worker recently ask me “what do you do for fun if you don’t drink?” I laughed so hard and said, “anything I want!!” What a blessing to have been afforded so many opportunities in my recovery. Whether they are personal or professional, I have more than I deserve and thus am eternally grateful every single day for those that helped me along the way, including a God that never left my side.
The alcohol and drugs took me to places I didn’t want to go, with people I didn’t need to be with, and to places no one should ever go. But I had no choice. The drugs made the choices for me. Today I am free from the bondage of self and have choices.
A book titled Until Today, by Iyanla Vanzant was recommended to me by my counselor while at La Paloma. After returning home from Memphis that summer in 2008 I read this: “Until you are willing to remember the things you have learned to forget, you cannot participate in or benefit from the joys of healing in your life.” Amen!
I live every moment to the fullest and take nothing for granted. I try to be the best I can be to those I hurt along the way by living clean and sober today. When I say I’m grateful I mean it. I don’t offer lip service. It is what is true to me in my heart today.
I love to help others and give out hugs. Why? Because for a very long time I didn’t want anyone to hug me. I didn’t need support. I was strong enough to handle anything on my own. I’m so glad I was shown by many people in my recovery journey that I do need support and how to receive it. Life is hard at times but I don’t have to trudge through the downtimes alone. I have been healed physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
It didn’t happen overnight. As one of my first sponsors told me – keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing one day at a time and you’ll be just fine. (Thanks, Jack! I’ll see you in the big meeting in the sky one day.)