EDITOR’S NOTE: September is National Recovery Month. Sponsored by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the month is aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of substance use disorders and to celebrate the people who recover. The following was submitted by a recovering alcoholic on behalf of Link for Hope and Recovery Aroostook. Her name has been omitted to protect her privacy.
I skulked my way into the rooms of twelve step recovery meetings, hopeless and filled with shame and guilt, at the end of my rope. There, in rooms that I had previously shunned and ridiculed, I found home and a way of life I could never have dreamed possible.
Let me start at the beginning though. Alcohol worked like a charm for me from a very early age. It made me feel at ease in a world where I felt like an outsider. When I was a teen, I drank as much and as often as I could get my hands on it. I hid it from my friends so I would have a sufficient reserve if we all ran out. I needed enough to get and stay numb.
As time progressed, I couldn’t do anything social without it. Things got worse. I had blackouts, I drove, I hurt the people I loved; yet I couldn’t give it up. Anytime I put alcohol in my body, I could never be sure when I would stop or where I would land. If I wasn’t drinking, I was thinking about my next drink. I would be a ball of anxiety, but as soon as I pulled into the liquor store, I felt relief … even before I drank the liquor. Just the knowing that I was about to have it made me feel okay.
Strangely, at the end of my drinking, alcohol quit working. I was drinking more and more and unable to feel the numbness and the all-is-okay feeling. My body would get drunk but my head couldn’t get there. And worse, on the days that I woke up saying that I wouldn’t drink, I always ended up drinking anyway. To have to drink and not be able to get the desired effect, day after day, is a hell unto itself.
I don’t know what changed on the night of my last drink in 2003 but I came to knowing that I couldn’t live that way anymore. I knew about 12 step recovery groups and even though I had negative preconceived notions, I was out of options. The day of my first recovery meeting, I sat, I listened and I knew I belonged. Not everyone has that initial response, but I was lucky. I had had enough pain for my mind and heart to be open to a solution. I got a sponsor, worked the 12 steps, went to meetings and life became really OK without anesthesia … eventually great without anesthesia.
Today I can be present with my husband, family, coworkers and friends without obsessing about the next drink. I can show up for people. Recovery is amazing, this life is beyond anything I thought was possible. Once upon a time, I would have swapped my life with anyone; thinking of myself as weak, a loser, a waste. Today, I wouldn’t trade what I have been given for anything. As long as I keep myself in meetings and continue to work the steps of recovery and help others to achieve sobriety, I believe I get to keep this peaceful life I have today and I am so very grateful.
