As I come out of the fog of this eight-year relapse, I’m starting to remember the first time I acquired and maintained successful clean time. The first time I walked into a 12 step meeting was in 2014. I knew I needed help, but didn’t really know how to ask. I called a relative who had significant success with his drinking. He insisted I call a local halfway house to see about staying for a short time until I got it under control. So I did. There were so many others who were just like me. We even had the same reason for why we got addicted (grieving the death of a loved one). My drug of choice was just alcohol, but I preferred Narcotics Anonymous due to how they simply say “DOC.”
I moved in and ended up staying for six months. It’s such a beautiful feeling to be surrounded by love and hope. Honestly, I would have stayed longer, had one of my other relatives not interfered. But they did, and thus began the second iceberg of financial and emotional abuse at the hands of family members that sent me into the relapse I just ended a week ago.
My current sponsor is temporary, but we’re connecting well, so he may become permanent. One thing he said that alleviated a lot of my layers of guilt is that I was overcounting my relapses. I was unable to make my meetings, I fell out of the program, and I fell back into alcohol. That was when the relapse began. It ended when I was desperate enough to seek help. It was one relapse, not a thousand.
I’m still really proud of myself for going in despite my fears last Monday. When comparing this time to last time, I see very clearly how what happened between then and now has has skewed the way I view myself. Being aware of this, I’m slowly starting the process of unlearning this negative point of view. I could almost kick myself for letting someone do that to me. But I also understand that nobody should ever need to brace themselves from attacks by their own family members. I was blindsided. It was not my fault. I have no reason to feel guilty about it, nor do I need to be ashamed.
Walking into that meeting saved me. It’s changing me. I’m not just collecting phone numbers, I’m meeting people in and out of the rooms and spending time with them, and I’ve plans to hang out with them away from the official places. The sheer number of connections I’ve made has given me a new purpose. I’ve gone from near complete isolation and fear to being surrounded by people — not just in real life, but around the world, thanks to gaming — who either understand first-hand what I’m dealing with or just want to watch me get better, because they see the good in me that I’m still struggling to accept. One day at a time.
Opening up about it, daring to be unabashedly honest with people outside the program about my addiction has been instrumental in quelling the deep-rooted shame I had developed (I say had, but it still presides in places). As a matter of fact, allowing myself to be vulnerable led to conversations with friends who I had no idea were in the same boat. My network grows even stronger. It takes a village to recover, and I am so blessed to have found mine.
