Ruins & Rehabs to Recovery & Redemption

Alcohol, to some it's liquid courage,in more recent history it has become society's cure-all and for a select group of us.....it's a down right nightmare. It may run in your family or you might know or work with someone that has this tricky disease of the brain, my brain is still clearing out the aftermath almost 5 years into sobriety and it's been a wild ride!

Let's start with the ruins and rehabs; childhood wasn't perfect but who's is? Dad drank and mom did her best to make everything look good from the outside looking in. A chip off my old man's block created quite the rebellious teenager when the hormones unleashed their furious anger and self-righteousness upon the world. My mother didn't stand a chance. Also around 8 y.o. my parents had my sister, and so adds another spice to the dish of life. Complete opposites from birth we never saw eye to eye, literally and figuratively, as Sarah is taller than me! So high school was a tumultuous time for our family as dad was contracting for work and traveling at length, leaving mom to deal with myself and my sister. Without giving away too much I moved out of the house at the ripe age of 17-ish, I was grounded from prom and come hell or high water I was GOING to prom. Needless to say I was ill equipped for the big wide world regarding the basics; lease reading, budgeting household finances (paper towels, body soap, groceries), getting to and from school on time, and behaving like the "Adult" I so desperately claimed I was. No parental supervision + lack of personal accountability + service industry lifestyle + diseased brain = life in ruins by 20.....

Which leads to my first rehab, somewhere in Maryland. Not even old to buy my own booze and there I was trying to get my parents off my back and get me a ticket back to California. I had been in the emergency room before entering treatment and was horribly offended to find out they would not be letting me keep my Vicodin prescription because I was there for alcohol abuse not pills! Looking back there was an obvious sense of entitlement that makes my skin crawl nowadays, for this I am grateful. After my short sentence in rehab I found myself in halfway house in York, Pa. ever been? Not that great. Back then, it was NOT a recovery oriented place, despite the fact it felt half the people living there were in sober/recovery residences, while the other half was looped up or knocked out. Guess what? I didn't follow the rules, I didn't think they applied to me, and besides there were women I lived with who had sold themselves for heroin, how could I ever consider us to be the same? I spent good money on my sauce and made sure everyone around me had a good time. I thought I could stop whenever I wanted at that time. My parents saw my failings in York and took pity, one more chance. My bridges were wearing thin and flimsy with any and everyone. I decided to convince my bf we needed to move to San Diego and then our life could "really begin". Unbeknownst to him, he was more of the vessel than the final destination. I needed to get home, things would be better if I was were I was familiar.

21 going on 22....and expecting. WTF? Even the birth of my son couldn't stop my drinking, I used to wish it had. More on that later, but the Jack Daniels took priority and so my son caught in the crossfire, lost his mother. It wasn't until age 32 I surrendered and my son was 10 years old. My dad was 32 when he went into treatment, I had been part of his intervention at 10 years old, patterns do repeat until someone has the courage to change them. Cycles are circles are loops and so onto rehab number 2; January 7th, 2018 I donated myself to The Salvation Army A.R.C. (Adult Rehabilitation Center) in Downtown San Diego and that path led to me writing this story today. Recovery is not linear, just like healing. So much of what we do and don't remember has profound affects on our lives, especially during developmental years. Because of daily practice, I get to handle intense emotional responses to things that produce an uncomfortable feeling temporarily, while also being able to trace the origin and "re-parent" my inner child from a loving, accepting, tolerant heart space.

Redemption: my favorite by-product of recovery! Doing the work on self has opened a world beyond my wildest imagination and each morning I wake up I am grateful. Grateful? Why? What for? Because complaining made me feel like shit so why not try the opposite and see what happens? Because growing up people made it out to be something "I must be" since I had all my limbs, or had food to eat, adults treated gratitude like a punishment and certainly weren't practicing it. Which, yes I am grateful I have my extremities and healthy food to eat, but to a child it seemed more like a chore rather than an appreciative thank you to the wondrous beauty life beholds and that took some unlearning, but I'm so glad I did!

Let me share with you some big, little and in between things I get to be grateful for:

Sunrises/Sunsets, wind blowing through the trees in Big Bear, seeing Joshua Trees (Native to only 2 locations in the whole world!!!!!), hiking beautiful peaks and trying to capture the majesty with an iPhone, not wanting the newest gizmo, spending my time doing things that make me happy, gardening, exploring new hobbies, rekindling interests in old projects, warm blanket +cup of coffee + a good book, pedicures and massages, meditation and studying religions of the world, supporting the arts and creating my own, bike rides along the beach, and most importantly about the list of gratitude is that I make sure to add to it daily! I write 3 things each day or at least try to, not everyday is the same so neither is my list! Thank you taking the time to read this and being part of my recovery today.