It is with awe and wonderment that I have lived without a drink or drug one day at a time for 30 years…

Last Sunday I noticed some impatience and taking a deeper look I felt a slight but familiar heaviness. Sitting with it, I realized that 30 years ago that day I had hit my lowest bottom. The bottom that gave me the honesty, open-mindedness and willingness to start changing myself, my life. 

I was distraught that day 30 years ago. Feeling shame, worthlessness, no hope, wanting to die. I felt lost and was led to a place where I had had a spiritual awakening as an early teen. It was a camp I used to attend each summer and one summer another camper and I had a vision of who we identified as Christ. I had been troubled then and the vision made me feel comforted, free from worry and peaceful. So on Sunday March 27, 1992 I decided to return to that same spot at camp that I had found that peach as a teenager. Lost as I was, somehow I thought I would find answers at camp and was not aware how my life was about to change.

I couldn’t tell you if I had been drinking that night, but if it was a typical night I was. I didn’t even remember how to get to camp, but found my way there in the dark. I parked in the field where the other camper and I had seen Christ that night. There under the stars I talked aloud to my HP, God about how I couldn’t go on, how awful I was, how I couldn’t stand myself. I wanted so badly to escape from “ME”. From my pain and anguish, my disgust and shame. 

God spoke to me that night and somewhere inside myself I knew it was an end and a beginning. That is why I wanted to die, because my belief is that it is an end and a beginning. But God had other plans for me here on earth. I suddenly left the camp and went to the nearest store with a pay phone, which was ironically a liquor store. I called someone who a few years prior, God had put in my life to interrupt their own suicide. Now as I shared what I was feeling she begged me to get some help, to talk to a professional. I said I would, then knew exactly who I would call the next day, Monday morning. He was a counselor I had seen previously. He had taught me guided meditation/visualization. It was in his office that I first met my younger self. I trusted him.

Monday March 28, 1992 I called the counselor, he squeezed me in for an appointment that afternoon. I don’t remember what I told him, but he said, “how about going to rehab”? I said, “okay” not even knowing what that meant. He was making plans and talking about me going the next day. I said, “I can’t go tomorrow, how about Friday”? I remember him sitting back in his chair and imagine him thinking, “she’s not ready after all”. I quickly reassured him that I was willing to go on Friday, but needed to talk to my boss to let him know I would be gone for 28 days, my disabled Father lived with me so I needed to put some things in place. My insurance didn’t cover rehab either so I had to come with $1000 by Friday to get in, then make a payment plan. I borrowed money from my church and got the rest from my Dad. 

From the moment I had the feeling at the camp, I had a knowing, a willingness to follow directions. For the first time in my life, I was not the one doing all the planning, scheming, controlling, dreaming, trying to make things happen, to make myself happy. I had surrendered that I did not know what I was doing and needed guidance from people outside my self, and from God/Spirit within myself.

Friday April 1, 1992 I entered rehab. I was scared to death of feeling what it was like without a drug or drink, to be with myself. I had been running away from me, from my shame since my first drink at age 7. Feeling was the thing I was most afraid of. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, way more than I even realized. Rehab was more unstructured on the weekends so I was in my head a lot. I remember that first day telling myself and someone else that I was just there to get my life straightened out so I would be able to drink again. SMH, LOL

Sunday April 3, 1992 I relented to not drinking for 1 year. I made a commitment to give the “program” 1 year, but if I was not happy by then, I was drinking again. My commitment was that I was ALL in. I dove into whatever was suggested by people who had something I wanted. The something I wanted was inner peace, contentment. If a person had that, then I was watching them and listening to what they did. In our first group on Monday April 3, 1992 I told the group the deepest, darkest secret I was aware of at that time. It was the thing I was most ashamed of. I couldn’t live with it anymore. As soon as I said it, I felt a little lighter. I could see a very small light shining within myself. My healing began. It was the first time in my life that I did not care, didn’t even think or worry what other people would think of me. I was at the point where I was drowning and had to save myself. No one else’s opinion mattered right then. It felt like life or death.

(Side note. I have to keep stopping as I write to sob as my body remembers where I came from…)

After group that day I walked away kind of with a spring in my step for the first time in my life. Walking out, another group member asked me if I was worried that people would talk about me or spread my secret. I looked at him and “no”. That was the first time I ever felt at all comfortable with me. I never even thought about that again until 3 weeks into rehab when my “big sister” graduated and left. Each new person was assigned a “big sister” to show them around and help them get acclimated to rehab. Mine was a fierce young woman from Baltimore City, MD who wore leather pants and was very “outspoken”. After she left, my remaining roommate and another woman told me how people had been gossiping about me after that first group and how my “big sister” had defended me and threatened them to leave me alone. That, that was the first time I can ever remember feeling loved. I just sobbed when they told me, as I am now. My “big sister” had protected me so that I could do the work I needed to do to recover without my even knowing she was doing it. 

Gratitude on a very deep level began with my recovery journey. From Spirit to my friend’s suggestion of getting help, to my counselor, my “big sister” and it continues to be a huge part of my recovery today. Step work began in rehab and once I left I went to at least one meeting every day for months, found a sponsor, did service work and said the serenity prayer too many times to count in a day. 

Surrendering my old way of life is the best decision I ever made and continue to make. I would not know that had I not tried, had not taken some big steps. One of my philosophies has been to give recovery at least the same energy and time I did to using. For 20 plus years I spent over half my day using or figuring out how to use or to get money to use or to hide my use…

Blindly and without reluctance I used all kinds of substances, not even knowing what they were or how they would affect me. I applied the same lack of reluctance to AA and working the 12 steps.

Today I spend over half my time gaining awareness/paying attention to the thoughts and behaviors that bring me inner peace and serenity, then I do more of those. If I am not planning or allowing myself to succeed today, then I am planning to fail. There is no standing still. It is forward or backwards and I am going to keep choosing forward.

Today I am eternally grateful for you women and this program.

Today, I am loved by me and it is enough. I am enough…

Best,

Marie