My 13-year-old son walked across the stage to accept an award at his highly regarded private school’s eighth-grade graduation. I was not there. I was in rehab. I pictured the Chanel- and Burberry-clad, well-heeled parents discussing where the room parent was during this grand celebration. I imagined teachers asking my son where his normally omnipresent mother was and him responding, “Oh, she couldn’t make it. She’s in rehab.” Ugh. I just tried not to think about it.
I never in a million years thought I would end up in rehab.
Recovery, at least, frees you from worrying about what others think about you. Once we addicts fully uncover our demons, we are able to search for our most authentic selves. Sharing openly about my sobriety enabled me to help numerous women who had been grappling alone with the disease of alcoholism and the attendant shame. I wrote an article for Washingtonian magazine that caused many of my picture-perfect friends and acquaintances to ask me to take them to their first 12-step meeting.1 Before I started going to meetings, on several occasions, I sat outside in my car at a meeting site, afraid to go in. When I finally got the courage to enter a meeting, I found one of my oldest friends there. I had no idea he was in long-term recovery. Had I known, I may have asked him for help much earlier. He took me to meetings every day for my first weeks in recovery. He introduced me to many women in the program, including my sponsor. For that, I will be forever grateful and will strive to pay it forward.
I had preferred to run from my skeletons for the prior 40-plus years. They were safely tucked away. I believed no one in my former country club life would understand the darkness of my past. The “ladies who lunch,” with whom I often shared company, could not possibly relate to my tortured childhood involving sexual abuse, police arresting my father for beating my mom, half brothers, step-siblings, racial slurs, and microaggressions. We were all so adept at making our lives appear so unblemished, so Tiffany-blue designer aubergine color-coordinated, so wrapped in mansion walls or, at least, picket fences. I overcompensated for my low sense of self-worth by attempting to over-function, people-please, organize and run as many events as possible in school, church, and neighborhood communities. My next-door neighbor jokingly called me the “mayor” of the town, and remarked that she gave my house as a landmark when telling people where she lived. My house was the frequent site of neighborhood welcome coffees, book clubs, fund-raisers, and dinner parties. My daughter and son attended prestigious private schools. My then-husband was an Ivy League–educated attorney, who had been well reared in Charleston, South Carolina. He provided well for our family. I gave up my law practice to attempt to create a modern Norman Rockwellian family life and to pretend that I belonged in the well-to-do WASP-y extended family and country clubs we joined.
At least my children had the childhood I had longed for. I had not screwed that up. I gave them everything I had wanted as a child—a mom who was home for them, involved in their schools and was the Girl Scout troop leader; tennis, golf, piano, dance, swimming, and sailing lessons; cotillion to learn social graces; fashionable clothes; travel; family dinners almost every night; availability to help with homework; and a parent who attended every sporting and school event.
In some ways, I tried too hard. When my children hit their teen years, they naturally stopped needing me so much and affirmatively tried to cut the apron strings, pushing away their over-involved mom. I went from knowing everyone in their circles to being given occasional scraps of information about their personal interactions outside our home. I was overeager to meet their friends and peppered them with inquiries that elicited the opposite of the intended effect.
I did not know how to let go of my children properly and to give them their needed space. I felt untethered, having put too many of my eggs in the motherhood basket. I did everything in my power to nurture my children, but failed to give my relationship with my husband the attention it deserved. I had let him slip pretty far down the totem-pole of my attention recipients. Our Westie dog arguably received more of me on a daily basis.
My depression following my father’s death had turned me into a ghost of myself. Then, I began surreptitiously drinking by myself, until it became a two wine bottles a day habit. The antidepression medication I took magnified the effects of the alcohol.
The more I reflected on it, in some ways, the excessive drinking and attendant outrageous and self-sabotaging behavior may have been a backward cry for help. I recycled my cases of empty wine bottles, not just out of concern for Mother Earth. I probably wanted someone to notice them. The mounting pile of them. Empty, like I felt.
The demons would not stay away. I snapped and couldn’t run anymore. My husband gave me an ultimatum and I went to 12-step meetings and then to rehab, one of five I checked into in 2012.
Each one taught me something different and had slightly different approaches. The first one, Caron Treatment Center in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, convinced me through medical studies and presentations that alcoholism is a disease, as diabetes is a disease, and that it has a strong genetic component.
My father and grandfather were both alcoholics. I would frequently arrive home during my teen years to find my father alone in a darkened living room, listening to Barbra Streisand on the record player and crying into his beer. He would look up and moan, “Angeline (my mother’s name), why did you leave me?” I would respond, “I am not Angeline! I am your daughter!” as I ran up the stairs and locked myself into my bedroom.
My grandfather died of the disease of alcoholism. He was a proud colonel, who had served in World War II. His wife, my namesake, lived with us and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. His martini glass seemed rarely empty. I can still picture the amber bottles with the four roses label. The numbing liquid corroded his liver and took his life.
Caron showed us studies that the brains of alcoholics metabolize alcohol differently from those of nonalcoholics. As a lifelong Catholic, hatched during the days of pre–Vatican II brimstone, I had thought alcoholism was a matter of free will and a moral failing. I now know it is a cunning and baffling disease. It ruined my marriage and other relationships. I lied to my doctor about my excessive alcohol intake when she presented medical tests evidencing my liver’s destruction.
My rehab group therapist practiced a tough love approach. My first day, I attempted to defend a patient who was being yelled at by the therapist for violating a rule. He turned on me and shouted, “Maria! Take off your fucking nurse’s hat and get the hell out of this room!” Stunned, I pinched my bottom cheeks together to keep from crying—a tactic a rehab friend had suggested that actually works. The therapist had my number. He knew I would rather focus on anyone else’s problems but my own. Deflection would no longer prevent introspection by this alcoholic.
My counselor at Caron thought I needed trauma counseling and recommended I go to The Ranch outside Nashville for intensive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for some sexual assault and abuse issues I had avoided for many years. I decided it was about time. I never wanted to leave my family for rehab again. I cried every day in rehab. One fellow patient nicknamed me “the human water sprinkler.”
My greatest flow of tears followed the Sunday chapel services, which elicited a roller coaster of emotions. I listened to families giving testimony about how their loved ones were saved by rehab. I saw fellow alcoholics and drug addicts break down in despair and drag themselves back up. I saw musicians sing or play instruments, performing for the first time sober. Witnessing this was so moving to me that I later started open mic nights at my recovery club.
I sought out the priest, Father Bill, after one of the services. I asked if he would hear my confession. He replied, with his hand touching my head, “You are forgiven for everything you did while in the clutches of this disease. Go out and sin no more.” I felt healing in this encounter.
From the PTSD rehab, I learned that not dealing with one’s issues is like holding a beach ball under water. One can do it, but it takes a tremendous amount of energy. And whatever it is that one is not dealing with unwittingly pops up in unexpected ways. This explained a lot of the sideways behavior in which I had engaged in my life. Learning to forgive ourselves is a necessary part of recovery.
Those in recovery often beat ourselves up over our mistakes. My sponsor encouraged me to question my interior dialogue when railing against myself. Sometimes it helps for me to ask if I would allow someone to speak to my children or a close friend in this way. Then I am more often able to choose compassion for myself.
I benefited from equine therapy at this PTSD rehab. I had been fearful of horses. I learned that horses are ultrasensitive to the emotions of those around them. They tend not to cooperate, for example, if they sense fear from the one giving them commands. We cared for the horses and learned how to build mutual trust. Overcoming fear gave me confidence I needed as I rebuilt my life.
The biggest lesson I learned at this rehab was the necessity of asking for help with addiction. The counselors engaged us in a powerful exercise. We were blindfolded and put into a maze. We were told that there was only one way out of the maze. I was nearly the last one out. As I heard others making their way out, my determination to find the exit doubled. The counselors shared with me later that it was often those, like me, with advanced degrees who were the last out of the maze. They thought they could think their way out of the maze. But the only way out of this maze was to ask for help—not something I will ever easily forget after this frustrating, yet compelling reminder.
Another difficult lesson for me was physically letting go by jumping off a high cliff (while harnessed). I am afraid of heights. I cried atop that cliff but moved through the fear, while putting my fate in God’s hands. We were told that courage is moving through fear. Powerful exercise. I am still afraid of heights, though.
The counselors made us say daily affirmations while looking in a mirror. We were required to say three positive things about ourselves before every group session. After saying each one, the rest of the group would robustly respond, “Yes you are!” In the beginning, I thought saying affirmations was a silly ritual. Over time, I came to believe my affirmations and truly felt a boost in confidence when I said them. I now have affirmations posted on my mirror at home and they do serve as personal buttresses. A few of my favorites:
“I am patient and serene, for I have the rest of my life in which to grow.”
“Every experience I have in life (even unpleasant ones) contributes to my learning and growth.”
“I am a worthwhile and lovable human being.”
“I have a Higher Power who loves me unconditionally.”
“I create my reality.”
“I am a child of God.”
Everyone I met in rehab was, like me, broken. Some of their stories made me involuntarily recoil. I did not know our brand of desperation could lead someone to chug mouthwash or vanilla extract for the temporary escapism its alcohol content provided. I met a young woman who, while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, had attempted to peel off all of the skin on her arms, and had the gruesome scars to show for it. I got to know a middle-aged woman who downed laundry bleach because she could no longer stand her pain.
When a heavily made-up 20-year-old with red dyed locks and four-inch heels, showing too much leg and cleavage joined our therapy group, I winced listening to her harrowing stories of living in a crack house and turning tricks for sick middle-aged men—the straight, white, married men asking for the most deviant of services—just to get her hands on another rock of cocaine. One client paid her to beat him with her fists. Others paid her to violate them with strap-on instruments or to watch her do twisted things with other people.
I had no idea simply by looking at her that she may have been a prostitute. One of the hard-core addicts laughed at my surprise and joked, “Maria! Do you live under a rock? I took one look at her and said, ‘please, God, may there be an ATM here!’” (so that he could get cash to avail himself of sexual services from her). A sick joke.
I became protective of this woman, especially since she was close to my daughter’s age. She was passionate about animals and hoped to work in a zoo someday. She even claimed that the rats in her former crack house did not bother her. I looked up programs during the 20-minute Internet allotment I was given occasionally, to give her a few leads. Her father wanted her to come back and work in the family’s business. She had her misgivings. “I can make a thousand bucks an hour with one old white guy who just wants me to beat him up,” the Lolita shared. “I don’t really want to sit in an office.” I never found out what happened to her, but continue to pray that she found a better life.
We both shared a friendship with a gorgeous, former Ford model with a crystal meth addiction. She was bashful and doelike. I visited her after our rehab stay to meet her baby, who seemed to give her a reason for living a clean life. A year later, she died from an overdose.
Another friend at this rehab had abused his liver so badly due to drinking that it visibly protruded from his abdomen. He almost had to carry it sometimes, supporting it with his arms. His wife pleaded with him to stop killing himself. He could not.
One of my rehab roommates told me she had been placed there for “violence against others.” I looked at her and asked, “Are you going to hurt me?” She slowly looked me up and down before responding, “No.” I did not sleep well the one night we shared a room together.
Another roommate committed suicide a few years after leaving the rehab. It is unlikely that I will ever know why she took her life. I do know that there is more to sobriety than not taking a drink or a drug, and that my battle to achieve emotional sobriety will take even longer than it took for me to stop seeking solace in a bottle. I pray that I never will stop working my 12-step program. There are many more layers of this onion to peel.
I saw several well-known celebrities during my rehab stays. Like me, they put their pants on one leg at a time. And, like me, they were working on self-discovery and healing. Rehab is a shared journey of raw humanity, and no one is above or below another on the journey.
Out of respect for their privacy, I shall not reveal by name the famous guests I met in rehab. They are, however, household names and people of immense talent. I helped one internationally successful musician work on a song, though I doubt she ever used it commercially. I do smile, though, when I see her in the media, and silently cheer her on in her recovery.
The smorgasbord of people in rehab and in the recovery rooms never ceases to amaze me. And that we share so truthfully on a human level without judgment in rehab and recovery rooms is something I have not experienced elsewhere.
I had not fully surrendered and relapsed after the first two rehab stays. I took dangerous drugs in an effort to hurt myself. I do not even enjoy drugs. I have seen these drugs kill others, but when a fellow sufferer gave them to me, I did not decline the offer. At that time, I was considering running my car into trees I passed, or jumping off bridges to end my pain. One of the benefits of not anaesthetizing with alcohol is that I can fully feel my feelings; this benefit also can be tough to bear, especially in early sobriety before learning how to use the tools of the program.
I was filled with self-loathing and could not believe how low I had fallen. Part of me did not truly believe I was an alcoholic or addict. Part of me believed I could tackle my alcohol abuse without examining the pain that has plagued me throughout my life. Part of me believed I could control myself and my life, and that prior lapses were moral failings. Part of me did not believe I deserved the life I had.
There is something called the “pink cloud” that many recovering alcoholics and addicts experience. It is a floating, heady feeling when one becomes newly sober. It is temporary, however, and has led many an alcoholic to let their guard down against this cunning, powerful and baffling foe.
I became complacent, at a time that I should have remained vigilant. My disease took me to horrifying places. So I returned to rehabs three through five.
I got kicked out of rehab number three. I was angry at myself and struggling with shame over the additional mistakes I had made. I fought with the counselors, demanding reasons for their excessive rules. The rules were in place in an attempt to keep us safe, but also to force us to give up control. Surrendering to a power greater than ourselves, whom I choose to call God, is an integral part of recovery. The approach at this particular rehab, however, was exactly opposite of what would have been effective for me at this point. I was in a chaotic, rebellious phase and their punitive measures only fueled my desire to act out. The more they prohibited me from doing something, the more attractive that something appeared to me. I had regressed into my former teenage behavior. It disgusts me now to think about how I behaved then.
One of my character defects had been the inclination to do the opposite of what a given person wanted me to do, if I felt he or she were trying to control me. This was often to my detriment. I berated myself for all the things I should or should not have done in my past. But I have learned to stop “shoulding” all over myself. I look for the lesson and focus on the precious present.
Getting kicked out turned out to be somewhat of a blessing. I moved on to rehab number four, which led me to much self-discovery and healing. I spent most of my time there uncovering and examining the root causes for my sick behavior. The counselors there were excellent, and they treated a panoply of issues. I stopped fighting so hard.
Rehab number five was my finishing school. It was a transitional program for women. It provided periods of freedom in which we could put the tools we learned there to work. I had no car, but learned to love bike riding again. I got myself to recovery meetings “off-campus.” I learned self-regulation, using cognitive behavioral therapy.
I also learned during my stay at number five that I was no longer welcome at my house and that my husband of almost 25 years wanted a divorce. I was stunned. I thought he would take me back after I returned to sane behavior. But the irreparable damage had been done, and he needed to protect his heart.
My alcoholism and reckless behavior was linked inextricably to my PTSD, my feeling of being less-than, my inability to deal with life on life’s terms. It was a form of flight. It crept into my affairs like ivy, slowly invading every aspect. I am convinced, as were some of my rehab therapists, that I would be dead now if I had not gotten help.
I came to rehab and the 12-step rooms to quit drinking, but the Twelve Steps I learned there ended up changing my life. They provided a road map I’d always yearned for, a guide for living.2 They were crafted carefully in a specific order and have saved many people from dying from this disease of alcoholism or other addictions:
The Steps are brilliantly designed to appeal to agnostics, atheists, and those of any religious beliefs. While the word God is used in the Steps, the literature makes clear that what is being referred to is an individual’s Higher Power, whom many choose to call God. Some people I know choose to call the power they find in the fellowship to be their Higher Power. No one in the program must believe in God, though most come to believe in something bigger than themselves. The only requirement for membership in the 12-step recovery program is a desire to stop drinking.4
The 12-step program is rich with pithy slogans that seemed silly at first, but have saved many an alcoholic, including me, as they became ingrained in one’s psyche. Slogans I see in almost every recovery meeting room include: “Think, think, think,” “Easy Does It,” “One Day at a Time,” “First Things First,” “Let go and let God,” and “But for the Grace of God.” The sayings were easy to dismiss as platitudes until I surrendered and allowed them to start working in my life. Among the many gems I learned from showing up, day after day, in the rooms:
*Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems. Acceptance is not tantamount to resignation. It is saying “yes” to what is. As the most resonant part of the “Big Book” in my 12-step recovery program says:
acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place or thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.5
We thereby adopt a central tenet of Buddhism: We must either accept the truth or suffer.
Sometimes I find myself saying the Serenity Prayer6 ten times a day. Freedom from fear is more important than freedom from want. I had spent many hours in my former life worrying about things that seem insignificant now, and certainly outside of my control. Now, I have an effective check on that practice. I ask myself, can I control this? If the answer is no, I accept it. Worrying deprives me of the joy of living in the present. I have learned to Let Go and Let God, aka, Let Go or Be Dragged. Life has improved tremendously for me since I began trying to wear life like a loose garment.
There are many things over which we have no control. But there are a great many that we can control. The most life-altering for me is controlling my attitude. I used to be greatly affected, for example, by how others felt about me and behaved toward me. If someone says something bitter or mean-spirited to me, I now can pause and not allow it to affect me negatively. I can respond with compassion or disinterest, or not at all. I do not have to react. No one can make me feel a certain way. I, alone, can choose my feelings and response.
Traffic and poor drivers impeding my way used to irritate me a great deal. I choose now, however, not to let such potential irritants anger me. I choose instead to focus on my breathing, make a mental gratitude list (remembering, for instance, that I am fortunate enough to have a car and the ability to drive it) or listen to a book on tape. I subscribe to audible.com and always have books available in the queue. I have CDs in my car of recovery speakers I admire, that help keep me on the beam and pass the time on long drives. I protect my serenity as much as possible. It took me five decades to find it.
Anger is a luxury not afforded to alcoholics. The deleterious effects of anger are illuminated in the Dalai Lama’s writings.7 Anger destroys our peace of mind. It can cause ulcers and high blood pressure. It makes us ugly inside and out, as our facial and other muscles tense. Our feelings of anger do nothing to the object of our negative sentiment. The Buddha says that “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” In a similar vein, my anger used to spur me to drink at my problems or the person I perceived to be causing me problems. How crazy is that logic?
Similar effects can occur from worry. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life span?” is a biblical admonition that is especially important to me at this stage in my life, when there are more years behind me than in front of me.8 So when I feel worry bubbling up, I first ask myself if I can control anything about which I am anxious. If not, I need to let go of it, because it will help no one, and will affect the quality of my present life negatively. For example, even though I would like to keep my children in a protective bubble, I cannot. I must have faith that now, as adults, they will make the right choices. They must live their own lives and make their own mistakes. I am learning to accept that I can no longer helicopter-parent them.
Sometimes, for a particularly vexing issue, I go through the act of writing it down and putting it in something I call my God Box. The act of physically putting something away for God to handle underscores how the problem is out of my control. It is, for me, a symbolic surrender, a laying down of my sword.
*Bless them; change me. When I am pointing my finger at someone, there are four other fingers pointing back at me. In recovery, I have learned to pray for difficult people.
I now pray for the people who have hurt me deeply, taken advantage of me, or betrayed me. It does not mean I have to keep company with them, of course. It helps alleviate any negative feelings I have toward them by picturing them as hurt children, or adults continuing to carry childhood scars. We never fully know what is going on in another person’s life and what challenge or sadness they face. So I choose to practice compassion for myself and for others by not reacting to the behavior of others, but rather responding with love.
We learn in recovery that it is important to clean up our side of the street. We must acknowledge our part in any issues and make amends for our mistakes, in order to heal from our “dis-ease.” Now I can also see more clearly the role I played in any perceived wrongs done unto me and quickly do what I can to fix whatever problem to which I have contributed.
I can live my amends to my children by staying sober and doing the next right thing. I cannot change the past, but I can write a new ending. I can look for the lessons in what happened. As the poet Rumi says, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.”9
I went to my father’s and grandfather’s graves at Arlington National Cemetery to apologize to them. My loud sobbing startled some tourists who had come to pay their respects to other veterans. But saying I was sorry to both of these men was cathartic for me.
I attempted to make amends to all I had harmed in the past. With one exception, they appreciated my gestures and apologies. The one former friend who declined my invitation to meet with me to receive my amends is no longer in my life. But I am able to let any sorrow involving her go now.
*Pleasure and happiness are not the same thing. Pleasure is fleeting. Happiness or serenity is of longer duration. It sometimes is the ability to live peacefully with the inevitable discomfort that comes our way. It is a feeling of contentment and the knowledge that everything is as it should be. It is not yearning for things one does not have, but relishing what one does have.
I chased pleasure in my youth. I fed off of thrills.
What I seek now is a sense of calm well-being. I get that most readily via meditation, especially coupled with being near water.
I have learned how to have fun without alcohol. I thought, when I became sober, that life without the social lubricant of alcohol could not possibly be as fun. But it is. In fact, it is better.
Part of recovery involves fellowship. I have made deep friendships in my recovery groups and we frequently socialize. There are sober softball leagues. One of my rehabs has offices in several cities and organizes outings to sports events, concerts, and other fun opportunities. My recovery club sponsors parties, cookouts, dances, dinners, and open mic nights. And we each can remember the next day what happened at these events.
*When the student is ready, the teacher will come. The amount of denial most alcoholics and addicts like me practiced is astounding. The acronym “DENIAL” reminds me that, as a drunk, I “Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying.” For many of us, the pattern of lying or denial during active alcoholism became so ingrained that we even lied for no reason at times. Recovery reveals to us such patterns. We become aware and then ready to change.
No one in the recovery rooms cares what your profession is or how much or little wealth you may have. I have heard people there say, “We don’t care if you came from Yale or jail; if you want sobriety, you are welcome.” No one comes to the rooms because their lives are going swimmingly well. We are all just “bozos on the bus.” We surrendered to the program and will of our Higher Power because we had hit our own personal bottoms. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired. We know that continuing on the addictive path we were on would lead to death, jail, or institutions. We became ready for a better way of living.
I have learned great wisdom from homeless sober fellows, as well as from learned doctors in the recovery rooms. I used to surround myself with beautiful, financially successful people. Now I surround myself with people who help me be the best version of myself that I can be. There is something for me to learn from all of those trudging the road to happy destiny. There is something for me to learn from pain and difficult people. The famous poet Rumi10 says that each guest in our lives is sent to teach us something, and that we can learn if we greet such opportunities with an open heart.
*The opposite of addiction is connection. We alcoholics cannot recover by ourselves. It is nothing short of a miracle that so many have gained relief from the disease of alcoholism and other addictions by being in rooms with fellow sufferers. There is power in the “We.”
Those in the program who do not believe in God sometimes made their recovery group their “Higher Power.” Human community most certainly can act as a protective wall. I personally believe that the recovery group is one manifestation of my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, and that these worldwide recovery programs wisely chose to appeal to all people, including those who do not believe in God.
Some of my nonalcoholic friends have said, “You are cured now, so you can have a drink with us.” They do not understand that recovery is a lifelong process. I have met many alcoholics with decades of sobriety who relapse when they let their guard down and become complacent with their program. We addicts must remain vigilant because the disease is a cunning foe. Our culture is infused with alcohol references. Happy hours abound. “Let’s meet for drinks” is a common refrain. Jokes about wine making things better emblazon cards, plaques, towels, and signs. Drinking is the norm in American culture.
We call those who can control their drinking “normies.” We marvel that normies can walk away from a drink without finishing it. If I start drinking again, I am likely to take a bottle from behind the bar and gulp it down in a bathroom stall. Or worse.
I plan to go to recovery meetings for the rest of my life. Meetings keep me centered, aware, and safe from my disease. I instantly connect with people in the meetings and feel welcome in any room I visit. And part of giving back is being there for other alcoholics.
Twelve-step meetings exist in most countries and all over the United States. They are online and available by phone. The program and meetings are not secret, but are not publicized. They often take place in churches. I chose a regular home group based on the meetings in which I found I could relate more closely to the attendants. Women’s meetings remain my favorite.
Women in the program said to me, “We will love you until you can love yourself.” I believed it. That feeling propelled me forward. When I went through my painful divorce, the words of my sponsor were at the forefront of my mind: “You will be protected.” And I was, by these wonderful sobriety sisters.
We celebrate each other’s successes and share our pain. Pain shared is halved. Joy shared is doubled. In fact, I initially was shocked and even annoyed by all the laughter I heard in the rooms. “How can these people be laughing when I am so miserable?” I wondered. Now I understand and can find the humor in life—even in the tough parts of it.
Sometimes, “If I don’t throw it up, I’ll drink it down” (i.e., if I do not share something weighing on me, I am one step closer to relapsing on alcohol). I scrutinize every decision to evaluate whether it brings me closer to or further from recovery. We take care not to isolate and watch to ensure none of our sobriety sisters is so doing.
*We are responsible for our own happiness. We will experience the consequences of our own self-love or self-hate. I believe more now in the power of attraction and manifesting our own abundance.
There are so many pearls of wisdom to be gleaned from those in sobriety, and I continue to learn something new every day. I had to change so much about myself. I have to stay away from the people, places, and things that are triggers to me. “Don’t go into a ‘barbershop’ unless you want a ‘haircut,’” my recovery sponsor warned.
The winds of life continue to affect me, but now I have tools to deal with them without seeking temporary refuge in the bottle. I learned that I did not have a drinking problem; I had a living problem.
No one can make me happy or sad. I choose my own responses to life. I experience my emotions and no longer stuff them away. If I am upset, I allow the emotion to wash over me like a wave. Then I let it go. I take solace in the belief that if I do not experience the depths, I cannot experience the heights.
It is important to acknowledge that change can be scary for those around you. Sobriety demands that we alcoholics change a great deal about ourselves. If we return to the conditions that led us to drink, we are likely to continue to imbibe. We are embarking in recovery on a new way of living.
My atheist sister-in-law felt threatened when her husband got into 12-step recovery because it felt cultish and full of God-talk. My heavy drinker friends did not like the mirror of sobriety held up to them. My ex-husband felt resentful of all of the time I was spending with my sponsor in my early days of sobriety. Some relationships died natural deaths after I chose a new path for myself. The instant kinship I felt with fellow people in recovery was more comfortable for me than my previously exciting, whirling social life. My previous world shattered as I became more fully whole.
I believe that the miracles of the 12-step program are the best-kept secret in the world. Everyone would benefit by following the Twelve Steps. It could accurately be called the 12 steps to being a good human.
Twelve-step meetings provide spiritual showers for me. Every meeting I attend is like putting spiritual capital in the bank. They keep me centered and committed to recovery. Newcomers remind me where I was and how far I have come, and long-timers inspire me with their experience, strength, and hope. Recovery conferences typically draw the most gifted speakers among us, and often end with hundreds or even thousands of people holding hands around the convention center room as we recite the Serenity Prayer together.
The Promises come true to those who stay in the program: