Sobriety.

Hello All,

I wanted to share a story of my journey towards sobriety, uncovering truths and exploring my mind around addiction. This is my story of addiction and work towards sobriatey.

I have always been a weird person. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why or what and that led me to feel very isolated and detached from other people. Every time I expressed myself fully, I was met with backlash or negativity from my peers sometimes my family. I’m very sensitive to rejection and criticism. I didn’t understand how not to take things personally. I would come up with these interesting ideas, and when I shared them, it felt as if people thought I was crazy or completely idiotic.

My self-esteem has pretty much been in the toilet for most of my life. I just wanted people to like me and accept me for who I am. Apparently no matter how many times my mom told me not to take things personally or put any weight into what people say, it’s really hard to be the independent outlier. I felt like no one understood me. Which is why I tried to understand myself. I was subjected to quite frequent bullying from my peers throughout elementary school and high school. Now I realize that I’m neurodivergent and my way of seeing the world and operating in it doesn’t follow the social norm. And this would often invoke ire from people who benefited off the social hierarchy or my confusion of “how the normal world works”. Or probably just insecure themselves.

So, to help me become better and assimilating appropriating and joining I drink. It started at a football game in high school and even though I didn’t fully commit or continue until I was twenty-one, I started using drugs and other things to be a part of social groups where I was mostly used as support. Never really receiving the same reciprocal support. I was the strong friend, the one nobody needed to check on because apparently, it looked like I could handle things. Even though I was dying inside. I longed and yearned for someone who could understand me. I always have known I’m a good friend and supportive person that people liked to have in their life but didn’t always appreciate me for what I did.

That’s when I met my ex-boyfriend. He said everything I wanted to hear he made me feel seen and wanted and loved. But he became very abusive after time, after the mask slipped and I believe most likely narcissistic. He would get jealous and controlling if I didn’t do what he wanted: he cheated on me multiple times and would blame and gaslight me to believing it was my fault or that I had done something to him that I deserved it. When I found out, I was pregnant at 18 (while on birth control) I knew that I had to do something. I was very scared and my ex-boyfriend used religious dogma and shame of telling his whole friend group and coercion to try to get me to have his family adopt the baby. He was spineless didn’t want to step up and take responsibility for his part, to be the father take care of it. He even accused me of cheating on him and stated the baby wasn’t his. I knew I had a choice at that moment that would’ve impact my entire life and I made it. I’m still proud of that decision today. He shamed me and his friends called me a baby murderer. This comes up to trigger me with current events that continue to make me feel disheartened, the judging mocking women who want to have bodily autonomy and choice over their reproductive health. Women I see myself in. This is an ongoing trigger I use meditation the process and impermanence to help me through

After this incident, we did stay together for a few more years, but the abuse got worse. I just didn’t know how to disengage, and my postpartum depression was crushing. I couldn’t eat or function well. Then the physical abuse started. The emotional abuse had already begun and it had escalated. I honestly didn’t really care if I lived or died because at that point, I was so numb and I started using alcohol and drugs to just feel like I could function.

When I finally was able to leave that relationship, I struggled to fully heal after what had happened and found myself preyed upon multiple times by different men who used my low self-esteem as a way to manipulate and harm me further. I take accountability for just wanting to feel loved and cared for. But at this point that was such a low bar that it just perpetuated the trauma.

At this time, I was hanging out with friends who would regularly do cocaine, ecstasy, getting blackout drunk; we would do acid and mushrooms at any time of the day it didn’t even matter. I was finally single after all further relationships fell apart, and I couldn’t possibly people please, or pretend to not be completely mentally unstable. But I had a group of friends who I thought at least gave a shit about me and we would have a great time partying.

All throughout this, I was still very functional. I was able to go to work hung over hold jobs for a significant amount of time. However, because I felt so lonely and low about myself. I accepted bottom base treatment and low wages, which continually drove me into debt further because I didn’t have enough money to actually live. I also would abuse my credit card in the process of trying to feed myself and function. But still, I could get up and go to work.

When everything crumbled in that friend group, and I decided to move on, I sought out the dancing scene and creativity. By then I had injured myself from overworking and under sleeping. And it all came to bite me in the ass. But I couldn’t draw the connection between that and using. Now that I was unable to work from my injuries, I had time to actually think. And I didn’t wanna see. I couldn’t sleep very well because of my injuries, so I continued to drink more heavily to fall asleep at night. But there my dreams started coming alive and I began to have a very deep dark night of the soul moment. Images and painting started appearing to me in dream state.

I threw myself into a creative artistic career and finally started to get physical therapy on myself. But yet, I was still drinking, going out spending time and experiences with people that didn’t really care about me. But that was part of the course, because I just didn’t realize that I could have people who would reciprocate or give a shit about me. Even friends that I thought I could rely on, I always kept it arm’s length because I didn’t trust them. I didn’t trust anybody for a very long time. Why would you trust people who continually come in and hurt you and then don’t make any kind of amends or repair.

I still feel this way a lot of times around people that try to get close to me because I don’t trust that people have the capacity to repair, or something that they’ve broken or take accountability for their unskillfulness. I don’t know how self-aware of people can be or how compassionate they can be. But I am much better at setting appropriate boundaries now that I have been in this practice, fighting the shame I would feel in asserting myself was so strong, perpetuating behaviors of people pleasing and codependency.

The breaking point came through losing somebody that I thought was a deep connection. They rejected me and immediately started dating and got engaged to someone else. I thought I was going to die. Actually, I wanted to die. So throughout Covid, I tried to eat and drink myself to death. And I don’t think it was necessarily just because of this person, but the combination of all the experiences that I had in my life where I felt that I was rejected harmed uncared for and unloved.

It wasn’t until May 26, 2021 that I hit bottom, I decided I wanted to change. That’s when the real struggles hit and I realize the people that I had surrounded myself with were content with me, trying to kill myself and didn’t really care about who I was. But why would they? I didn’t care about myself. So I went through a very painful unburdening process of realizing who were my allies. Where was I in this addiction and how could I get myself out of it?

I started in AA and I knew that I had a problem, but I didn’t really like the powerlessness and the submission because it felt like the patriarchal trauma and abuse that I had experienced my whole life. I already believed that I was nothing and powerless and awful and that I didn’t deserve good things. Why did I need a program to tell me that?

But I was committed to not using anymore, and so I pushed through got myself a sponsor went to meetings and really tried. I got to about a year and then I relapsed and I realized that there was something really not working here. I had to find a bigger purpose. Which is funny to think because I was already in grad school for my masters. But that’s mostly because I was inspired to go because of other people’s behavior of telling me other problems and never taking any of my advice to help solve them.

I knew that I had a gift for understanding people and dynamics for a long time since kindergarten when I match made one of my friends with a boy and in college I would match make people I always felt like I would fall for somebody and then they would go reconnect back with the person they were meant to be. Kind of like a curse, but now I know differently.

I left AA after I was assaulted by another AA member who tried to 13th step me and I felt completely violated yet again, but I said I was determined not to let this destroy me. I still carry anger around how cavalier and flippant many people are around women being assaulted. Being judged harshly by the public opinion. By this point, I have been around two years sober and I knew there was no turning back. I did not want to go back to drinking, I credit my personal strength for this. I knew I just had to find the right people.

After I hurt my lower back I spent many days in agony one week in February, The only thing I could tolerate were Refuge Recovery online meetings; meeting after meeting after meeting. I started meeting people sharing my story, making friends. It took a while to make friends. I still struggle with connecting because of my trust issues and trauma around who really actually supports me. But being in this program has given me so much more self-esteem, completing my masters has given me a perspective of understanding people and being less reactive to projection and rejection.

The longer that I don’t drink, which has been about four years two months and 17 days. I can understand my mind better. I can see where my strength fit into my life. And I see the pathway that it took me to get here. I realize that, though I had to go through some deeply disturbing and abusive situations with men that it gave me the perspective I needed to help other women through my new career.  And not only that, but it gave me a profound belief that there was nothing wrong with me. And I was able to love myself fully. Treat myself with the compassion in the kindness that I deserved. That I didn’t actually have to fear and feel shameful of speaking up and putting boundaries down. That even though my anger was frightening to people it was the part of me that was protecting me and signifying that something was wrong.

And that I could make decision decisions by removing myself and no longer fighting against people that didn’t give a shit about me or would leave me in the road to die. I feel as if I have the most support I’ve had so far and I have been able to let go of a lot of old wounds that have kept me from expressing myself fully for years.

That I don’t have to take abuse from people just because their family or because I feel like I owe them something or that it’s just expected. I have a new job that I love and that I’m super excited about because it offers me to flexibility and the comforts that I was hoping to have to help other people. I have now time to express myself creatively, I have the confidence to show my artwork in several different art shows this month. I’ve gotten to a point where I no longer care what a lot of people have to say or think about me. And I understand that my experience and presence in this world is to change peoples minds and to be somebody who might rub them the wrong way to get them to change.

Because my superpower is my words it’s how I carry myself. It’s how I show up every single day. It’s the thoughts in my head that I’m learning how to disengage and not react to. It’s the compassion and care that I showed other people. I see myself as a very powerful being and I know that nobody could take that away from me because it’s inside now and not a reflection of how other people think of me and my self-confidence and self-esteem is not based off of what other people think. So thank you.