“We’re miracles. I mean, we’re the walking dead. None of us in this room should be alive, but here we are. So we’ve gotta show some gratitude,” Jennifer laughed. My eyebrows went up as I nodded slowly, side to side, in careful consideration of what I had just heard.
Jennifer is this woman in New York who gets on some Zoom meetings. I admire her. She’s blunt and always adds a perspective that I hadn’t considered before. She has this gift of sharing her gratitude in what some may consider a rough manner, but she always delivers her message with a smile. Grim as it sounds, she’s right. For people in recovery, just one day away from their poison of choice is a miracle.
So, all things considered, after 365 days of abstaining from MY vice, I definitely am a miracle.
Also, I am among the walking dead.
I am a year away from eight hospitalizations in treatment facilities after blurry ambulance rides or drop-offs I don’t remember. From having flipped my car over in a violent wreck. From lethal levels of poison that coursed through my veins (I blew nearly a .5 blood alcohol level a few times.) From almost having bought a gun to end what felt like a never-ending downward spiral of relapses. From living in shame, thinking I was an awful person because I was an alcoholic. From working SO hard to hide that all these frightening things were happening.
What can I say? I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I could not juggle my perfectionism, my career, and the secret of my addiction. I got tired of waiting to die and not dying. I was tired of holding everything in.
Something had to change, and I had a moment of inspired action. I thought, “F*ck it, I’m going to write an article, publish it somewhere and tell everybody. I don’t care anymore.”
So with only a few days sober, I published an Op-Ed in Louisville’s Courier-Journal and told everyone that I was an alcoholic. It was as if out from deep within, I summoned the courage to shatter the padlock that my alcoholism was to my recovery toolbox. Once I pulled that toolbox open, everything else came forth that I needed.
Was I nervous?
I was terrified.
That decision to step off a ledge of familiarity and dive into a world where I had to trust that I would not drown filled my stomach with knots even the deepest of breathing exercises was not loosening up. But I was determined to be done.
I can’t tell you how many times in the last twelve months I have stopped and thought, “oh, I was at a rehab facility this time last year.” Or, “I was laying in a puddle of my blood this time last year.” When I say that I never believed I could stop drinking, I mean it. I was waiting to die from alcohol poisoning or some other tragedy. Never did I envision myself being a sober woman writing this today.
This past year has been like walking on a tightrope coming out of a dark cave towards light. I’ve used faith and trust in my higher power and others to help me balance along the way. So far, so good. Sometimes hesitantly, sometimes excitedly, I’ve put one foot ahead of the other a day at a time for 365 days. I know there is no getting off this tightrope without severe consequences, so I’m grateful that I get to walk the line for another day.