Merideth, before and after starting her recovery journey.
I found recovery when I was 19 years old. I experimented with many substances including alcohol, benzodiazepines, and pain killers for five years. My battle with drugs and alcohol landed me in jail, hospitals, and a long-term treatment facility. For the first couple of years of my sober journey, I believed there was one way to recover: Go to meetings, get a sponsor, and work the steps. While this works for many people, we must remember that Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, created these solutions before the plague of opioid addiction.
For example, I am sure that Bill W. could not foresee Purdue Pharma’s introduction of Oxycontin in 1995 as a “less-addictive opioid pill.” This lie has led us to a public health crisis with an estimated death toll of 100,306 people annually, as reported by the CDC. I have seen hundreds go into the same meetings as me who did not make it back because they died later that day. I have witnessed far more of my friends dying in the “solution” (a term often used in 12 Step groups) than I did in my days of getting high. That is when I became open to different pathways to recovery.
These problems aren’t just about opiates, either. According to Mental Health America, alcoholism and co-occurring disorders have increased significantly in the last five years, with 95,000 people dying from alcohol-related causes annually and 132 people committing suicide each day. These are real numbers that include our family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. So, what do we do?
I am no expert, but I know that I can no longer sit back and watch your son, daughter, mother, or father die from another overdose. I share my story as much as I can, and I recover out loud in hopes that I may change the way America sees recovery. I hope that we can eliminate the stigma surrounding harm reduction, medically assisted treatment, and drug liberalization. We need to make resources accessible and affordable. People should receive quality treatment regardless of their age, gender, race, or economic status. I dream of a day when substance use disorder and its co-occurring conditions are no longer the leading cause of death in America.
Achieving this reality takes ACTION.
We can start by having conversations in our homes, communities, and workplaces to bring about awareness. I encourage everyone to always carry Narcan, utilize your local needle exchange, and never use substances alone; we are in the business of saving lives.
Then we can discuss decriminalization. The decriminalization of substance use disorder is imperative because the “war on drugs” has not worked and will not work. Almost 90% of our prison population has the chronic disease of addiction and should be participating in treatment or re-entry programs rather than being punished. We need funding for local communities to grow substance use disorder services rather than financing “locking them up.” We need to accept people where they are because nobody can attend a meeting if they are dead. This means welcoming people into the recovery community regardless of what stage of their recovery they are in or what pathway they have chosen.
Merideth in her current role.
There are many ways to tackle this public health crisis, but I believe it is essential to focus on our communities and the part we play. We need to go to the polls to vote, share our stories often, and speak out about drug policy. Your voice is more powerful than you think, and you can make an impact! An old-timer in a meeting once said, “What you can’t do alone, we can accomplish together.”
If you have any questions about what you can do in your community or want to learn more about any topics discussed, please feel free to reach out to me.
Meredith Booth is located in Louisville, Kentucky. She has been in recovery for over five years and currently works as a treatment advocate in a rehabilitation facility. To contact her directly or for any inquiries, please email her at merideth.booth714@gmail.com.
Looking at different recovery options? Check out Getting Help.
Oxford defines recovery as “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.” It also offers a second meaning, “the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.” For me, my recovery consists of moving to a functional state of good health and regaining control of myself. This has required complete abstinence from both drinking and teaching.
I’m Jessica. I was Kentucky’s State Teacher of the Year in 2019, and I’m also a recovering alcoholic. I’ve been sober since November 28th, 2020, and free from teaching since December 4th, 2020. I couldn’t tell you exactly when I lost myself. However, I can tell you my habit of avoiding feelings began when I was fat-shamed as a child. I learned to steal and hide the food I wanted to eat to avoid embarrassment. I ate like this for many years and dedicated myself to excelling as a student to feel better about being an overweight child and later a teen.
Eventually, my escapism transferred to alcohol and my career. After being called out at a happy hour for drinking too much, I decided to hide my alcohol consumption from others. “Whoa, you’re moving a little fast there, aren’t you?” I remember a fellow teacher said to me. My face was hot with shame, and from that day forward, unless I accidentally over-drank in front of others, I tried my best to not be caught drunker than the group I was with. I did well at work, so when I did slip and drink too much, no one could say I had a problem with alcohol because “look at how great Jessica is as an educator.”
Teacher of the Year Head Shot, 2019.
I hid my love for alcohol in many ways. A classic example is that I monitored how others drank at events to make sure that I matched everyone else drink for drink. If others had one glass, I had one. If they had four, I had four. I always knew something was wrong with me, but I gaslit myself. I convinced myself that there couldn’t be anything wrong with me because I went to college and then graduate school, twice. Alcoholics don’t get graduate degrees. They don’t successfully build relationships with kids and win awards for their work. There is no way that you can be named the top teacher in a state and be an alcoholic. But I was.
I lived a painful double life where every day I suffered and every day I chose to not tell anyone and drank instead. I eventually was physically dependent on alcohol, so I felt even worse about myself. How did I cope? I threw myself into teaching. I couldn’t be a bad person if I was a good educator, right?
My days were a non-stop Groundhog Day. I came home from whichever school I worked at and breathed a sigh of relief because I could be unbothered. I could drink without fear of judgment. Over the years, the amount of liquor I needed to escape and avoid withdrawal symptoms increased. I consumed a bit more than a fifth of liquor a day at the end of my drinking career. I ignored a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease in 2019 and continued to drink. I allowed my health to decline as I drank more. I always had to lie as to why I felt sick. My students asked, “Why are you always going to the bathroom? Why are you always going to throw up?” I told them my stomach was just sensitive. However, no matter what, Ms. Dueñas was always doing her best.
My persona had two sides, and neither one was truly me. My teacher self took turns with my addicted self for years until April 28th of 2020, when my then-boyfriend relapsed and died from an overdose. That day between alcohol and teaching, the alcohol took over and controlled me fully until my current sobriety date.
Rehab, 2020.
For months, I barely worked as I was in and out of hospitals, staying in treatment facilities, and putting together a few weeks of fragile sobriety at a time before violently crashing. The day I left a five-week-long treatment program, I ordered alcohol delivery and faded away by myself. I wrecked my car, blew nearly a .5 blood alcohol level, and tried to purchase a gun to shoot myself with. I was hospitalized for the last time in November of 2020, which is when this recovery process truly started.
A psychiatrist at the hospital asked to evaluate me, and upon digging into my history, he diagnosed me with bipolar 2. The Mayo Clinic defines bipolar disorder as “a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows.” With bipolar 2, “you’ve had at least one major depressive episode and at least one hypomanic (somewhat energized/euphoric) episode, but you’ve never had a manic episode (which is more severe).” So, for individuals with bipolar 2, there is never a psychotic episode, for example.
The doctor informed me of how frequently substance abuse went hand in hand with mental health conditions. He recommended that I try medication with a recovery program and therapy as part of my wellness plan. I accepted the recommendation. By then, things had gone too far. I wanted to die, but I was not dying, and my everyday existence had become unbearable. Something had to change. I needed to gain control of myself. I needed to get healthy. I needed to recover.
When I decided to accept help, I also realized that alcohol was not the only external factor controlling my life. It was not the only thing keeping me from being healthy. I allowed my teaching career to be just as much of an escape from myself as alcohol. No matter what chaos happened in my personal life, I was an excellent actor, and the classroom was my stage. I could only feel better about who I was if I helped others, but I never once helped myself. The teaching had to go as much as the alcohol needed to. I was reborn.
16 Months Sober, 2022.
Since November 2020, I’ve embarked on this lifelong journey of becoming authentically me. My medications allow me to feel enough stability to use my recovery program and therapy to address my mental and spiritual needs. I now can face past traumas that I avoided. I journal daily, pray, meditate, and lean on my support group. I don’t isolate myself. I connect with others both in person and through social media. I try new things. I care less about other people’s opinions of me, and when I do care, because I’m a human, I have ways to check myself and my fears. I don’t worry about constantly meeting others’ needs. I have identified MY needs, and I ask myself if people and situations meet them, and when they don’t, I remove myself.
Today, my success is not measured by academic standards, standardized test results, or a score on an administrator’s observation rubric. My success is measured by the intangible, my ability to create a life I no longer need to escape. Not everyone is allowed to do so and I am incredibly grateful for my daily gifts. Happy Resurrection Day.
I’ve been doing the “right” things, engaging in support groups, therapy, exercise, eating healthier, using medication, and yet I’ve still been waking up this week with the sensation of a weight on my diaphragm. I spoke to my therapist about it, crying as I pleaded for an answer, for some guidance.
“What’s still wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be feeling better by now?”
He said, “Well, Jessica, you’re someone who has always lived in a state of chaos. Even when you were incredibly successful in your career and looked good to others, something was always happening in secret that was bringing you down. Now that you’ve been sober for almost seven months and things are calm, you’re feeling everything you never felt before because you were numb. You’re doubting things. Maybe you feel you don’t deserve the good in your life, so you’re waiting for it to disappear. Trauma has been the norm for your mind, and now that it is peaceful, your brain is going to look for other ways to stir the pot.”
My therapist was precisely right. Everything IS going well in my life. I’m living in a safe space with my family, I have been able to stay sober, I have healthy relationships with people who love and support me, I have solid employment, I’m healthy, and I have no drama in my life. I have everything to be grateful for, and my mind still finds things to worry about. My irrational thoughts become real to me. They feel valid. They make me feel a sick, sinking feeling at the bottom of my rib cage that I used to try to escape.
A few days ago, someone who took the time to travel for hundreds of miles to see me accidentally said something that was triggering. I didn’t need to, but I brought so much pain onto myself with my reaction because I jumped to interpreting it as a personal attack on me; I assumed that this person had an agenda when they had none. My brain literally created a whole scenario in my head where I was suddenly a victim again, except today, I’m NOT a victim. I don’t have to fear this relationship; this connection is not my past.
I hyper-focused on this trigger and blinded myself to the bigger picture. I didn’t stop to consider facts, to look at reality. I didn’t try to clear any assumptions I was making by asking questions. I took the whole statement personally. The truth was that there was no ill intention, only a word in a conversation.
Had I stopped to consider the facts, I would have stressed myself a lot less.
The fears that rise up don’t limit themselves just to relationships. For instance, a recent thing is when my mind takes stock of my appearance and tells me what I don’t have, it tells me what others have better than me.
I looked in the mirror today, and it hit me that I have become ungrateful for the temple I have. I lost sight of facts about my body. This is the same body that has sustained deadly alcohol levels, car wrecks, and assaults. These are the same bones that have never broken, the legs that carry me, and work hard despite multiple surgeries. My face still radiates my father’s smile. I could have completely destroyed it in numerous accidents and falls that I don’t remember, but instead, it carries only fading scars. In seven months of sobriety, this is the same body with a healed liver that no longer has alcoholic liver disease. My body is an amazing one. These are the actual facts.
This body carries the resilient spirit I have, and yet I still turn around and can be ungrateful for it. I can still falsely trick myself into thinking that others don’t appreciate me either. I can continue to believe one irrational thought after another until everything spirals down to eventually me drinking.
But. I. Can’t. Drink.
So what AM I doing about this to not stay stuck in these recent fears that are coming at me full force?
I know healing isn’t a “me” project, so I spoke to my therapist and to my mentor. My therapist suggested that every time I write about my painful thoughts that may be irrational, I need to write down the facts. For example, if I made a mistake at work and believe that I’m going to get fired, sure I can write that, “I have fear that I’ll get fired,” but I ALSO need to acknowledge, “I regularly do well, so I won’t actually get fired.” Is it an extra step in journaling? Yes, is it worth it to pause and “zoom-out” to see the facts? Also, yes.
I asked my mentor (sober 14 years) about her experience, and she let me know that even at HER length of sobriety, she still gets fears and has to work daily to not succumb to the negative voices in her head. Understanding that reminds me why I need to speak with her more often and share the fears that come up in my head. She’s been where I am at, makes me feel less isolated, and if she’s been sober for 14 years, I can get long-term sobriety, too. If I can get it, anyone reading this can get it, too.
So I don’t feel “good” right now, but I know that there are solutions to my mental health concerns. I know that these painful feelings I have are temporary. I don’t have to go through these feelings alone, and I can do things to process them. I’m not going to let my mental health get the best of me and get me to drink today, but I’m learning this really is a daily fight. Daily.
So I veered away from sharing another person’s story for this entry simply because I feel that it’s essential to highlight the hard times. I believe that when we share stories, we connect, and as I’ve heard many say before, connection is the opposite of addiction.
“I can’t post about my dating life! My dating life has nothing to do with my recovery,” I said.
My friend Chris very quickly responded, “But your recovery is more than just you recovering from being an alcoholic. Your message of recovery is the life that you live now, so even if that includes a boyfriend, or whatever that is, that is your message of recovery. You’ve recovered from where you were. From the heartache, from the death of Ian…and you’re moving on with your life. That’s the testimony and that’s the recovery that you’re in. So you’re still portraying the same message. The message of wholeness, the message of happiness, the message of joy, the message of love, like all that’s prevalent. Everything that you post as far as your recovery does not have to be directly about alcohol or the stuff that you’ve dealt with. Having a new relationship is just as much recovery as well.”
I never thought about it that way.
I got anxious thinking about my fear of judgment because I’m “breaking” yet another one of the invisible “rules” of early sobriety. You know, “don’t do this…,” and, “don’t do that…,” and everything in between. esp
Suddenly it dawned on me that when I tried to follow invisible rules, attempting to didn’t get me sober. Accepting help from above and those around me, cutting myself loose from my secret, THAT is what helped me get and stay sober a day at a time to this point.
My mentor often says, “you can do ANYTHING you want, as long as you’re sober. ANYTHING.” She’s definitely an admirable “rule-breaker” who has been sober for many years, so what she says is always something to really process.
Anything, right?
Well to that list of doing “anything” I want, I’ve added allowing my heart to mend.
My heart has been touched by someone, actually. My hope is restored and crazy enough, I’m feeling again. I don’t know where this journey will take me, or what it may mean for my future, but what it does mean is that today I’m healing.
We do recover from alcohol. We do recover from drugs.
Please note that Bottomless to Sober does not endorse any specific recovery program or path to recovery. Neither does it endorse meeting or not meeting in person during the pandemic.
My story is your story, and your story is mine. I see the value in sharing them. Actually, that’s an understatement; telling our stories, that’s the lifeblood of the recovery community. When we share our stories, we are participating in mutuality. Kertz Ketcham once discussed how we give by getting and we get by giving. Not a single part of my story has NOT already been told by the women who have gone before me. Like them, I too felt insecure and uncomfortable in my skin and used my drinking and drug use to cope. Like them, I, too, have trauma and relied on perfectionism to feel some semblance of control and appear put together. Like them, I, too, ultimately engaged in behavior that is morally reprehensible.
On and on.
I regularly engaged in swaps, giving a piece of myself, of dignity, trust, or consent away to others when I was in no position to give these things away. I would give anything in exchange for whatever was going to give me that sweet, sweet buzz. People who don’t feel whole ought not to go about giving bits of themselves away. Alas, that is what we all do. What alcoholic/addict would know NOT to do this? We do not know what we do not know.
We can describe the myriad of chaos and endless examples of the insanity of the disease through our stories. Of all that we did to get that freeing feeling. Frankly, thank God for that relief. That reprieve is how I got to feel better, sometimes, back then. How could I progressively move through MYlife feeling the way Idid without the respite from the chaos and the insanity that being glazed provided?! Using became the only thing that provided me relief. And it did…until it didn’t.
That anyone gets and stays sober is an absolute miracle. People do it. I did it. I’ve been clean and sober as of writing this for twelve years. That is a miracle.
I needed drugs and alcohol to live. So when I stopped using them, I thought to myself, “I had better replace them with something that works, and it better feel good!” To both of these proposals, I say they do!
If sharing our stories is the lifeblood of recovery, then living recovery is spiritual oxygen. This oxygen can only be inhaled by the community.
Saint Francis, the 12th-century mystic, taught that the antidote to confusion and paralysis is always a return to simplicity, to what is right in front of us, to the nakedly obvious (Rohr, 2020).
It’s simple. We need to stop using, but we need others to help us. In turn, we need to help others so that we stay “stopped.” As trite as this sounds, we must go to meetings, get into the literature of recovery, and not drink or use in between meetings. Only then can we hear what we need to learn. We will hear what we need to do when we are ready for it. But we won’t if we are not at meetings or in recovery literature.
We live in an extraordinarily technologically advanced times. Options are infinite in terms of the recovery spaces and resources that exist today. I am not suggesting that the sheer magnitude of the amount of these offerings is a bad thing, hardly at all. Someone could get overwhelmed though looking for help.
Psychological theories and self-Help books abound. Have you noticed how large that section of the book store is? It’s huge. There are many talking heads and experts. Treatment centers are everywhere. Podcasts and Youtube channels. However, these offerings would not exist without what has been called “the most significant phenomenon in the history of ideas in the 20th century” (Kurtz & Ketcham, 1992). This, of course, is the Twelve Step recovery program outlined in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore, as St Francis encouraged, let us get back to simplicity and back to basics. Let’s get back to The Big Book.
While returning to simplicity sounds just as it is, simple, it is in no way easy. What The Big Book offers takes time and work. This is difficult to accept in this instant gratification world we inhabit. The Big Book unequivocally emphasizes the absolute importance of community. Within the community of recovery, we become acquainted with ourselves by getting acquainted with others.
Cosette, provided by author
Thank God we live in this technologically advanced age where we can connect with others online. That said, I would be remiss if I did not pointedly suggest that our online community must be supplemented with actual in-person connection and regular study of the literature. It is in this space where that spiritual oxygen can be exchanged. If the space is not physically shared by individuals, how then can this essence be transmitted? It can’t. It is not lost on me that as I write this, the global community has been rocked by an airborne pandemic. We have been prohibited, by law in some cases, to come together in our fellowship. All the more important that we come together again when we can as soon as we can.
One may very successfully stay dry or clean solely utilizing what is available at their fingertips and without crossing the threshold of their home. However, one might be denying themselves the opportunity of a type of quality of sobriety which creates the ultimate motivation to no longer use drugs and alcohol. That is the development of emotional sobriety. And it is thisemotional sobriety that feels good. It takes time to obtain, but it is possible, and it is there for the taking for anyone who has the capacity to be honest, and works for it.
**Please consult with a medical provider when seeking treatment for drug addiction.*
Audio
Life in active addiction is difficult. Getting sober can be nearly impossible for some, and a sober life does not necessarily equal an easy life. Ana’s story is full of countless challenges, lots of falls, and even more comebacks.
“Sobriety’s been a challenge, but I wouldn’t trade my life today for anything.”
Raised by her abusive mother. Ana’s childhood only increased in chaos as she grew. She described her mother as, “The older she got, the crazier she got. I mean, she caught herself on fire.” Yes, Ana meant this literally. “What about your dad, Ana?” Ana’s dad was primarily absent from her childhood. “My dad, I saw him a handful of times growing up. I always wanted to be with him, especially because my mother was constantly hurting us. She hurt us a lot. My dad had a wreck drinking and driving. He actually killed someone, so he went to prison.” Ana’s a fast talker and can get a lot out in a single breath, so she paused then continued, “There was always something that was causing me trauma, and I didn’t even know, I didn’t understand that it was happening to me. I didn’t understand any of it. I wasn’t allowed to kiss my mother, hug my mother, tell her I loved her. I just couldn’t find the love. I was a good kid. I wasn’t a bad kid.”
“When I was 16, that’s when I found alcohol and drugs. My first drink felt like I could breathe. I felt that people cared about me. The people that did drugs and alcohol didn’t judge me. They didn’t make fun of how I looked. I fit right in.” Ana described how drugs and alcohol brought her the peace and comfort she yearned for since early childhood. Her life was really chaotic and confusing, so for her to escape was bliss. I assumed that since her mother had been so abusive, that her doing drugs would have only brought on more chaos at home.
“How was your relationship with your mother now that you were older and she found out that you were doing drugs?” Ana chuckled, “At that time we started using together, it brought the relationship to a different level. I finally had something she wanted, she started to be nice to me, it was good. She started liking my friends, too. She just was easier to be around.”
This new bond didn’t last long. One day her mother had Ana drive up to her mother’s boyfriend’s house. As she got out of the car, she turned to Ana and said in a harsh yet hushed tone, “don’t get out of the car, don’t say anything, and shut your mouth,” Ana recalled. Her mother went into the house and rushed out shortly after, taking Ana straight home. Ana’s mom had just robbed her own boyfriend. As they heard a call pull up, the boyfriend’s car, they went and hid in the back. Ana recalled watching the car slowly pull into the driveway and pausing. They held still, watching him. Steadily, he put the car in reverse and backed away, driving off as he had come in. Had he gone a “hair further,” he would have seen them.
Once he was gone, her mother went through the house, ransacking it, searching for all the drugs in the home, including what she stole, making sure not to leave a fraction of an ounce of weed, and balancing the beer that remained in the fridge. She walked out. They didn’t see her again for about four months,
“So you must have been devastated, right?” I asked.
Wrong.
Ana and her sister, ages 16 and 14, respectively, were alone for a week. The “wicked witch was gone.” So they partied, had friends over, they were distracting themselves. Yes, they thought about their mother, they wondered where she went, but they also felt relief. No one was in the house who could hurt them. Shortly after her mother’s departure, the family got involved. It happened to be that her father was wrapping up his prison sentence. As soon as he got out, he pulled the girls out of school to live with him and his girlfriend, her two kids, plus the additional two kids who would come over every other weekend. Eight people in a one-bedroom apartment. It was tight, but her father eventually got them into a house where they had room to stretch. With her mother gone and her father back in the picture, Ana looked forward to having a dad around. The time lost while he was away now could be made up. Hope filled Ana’s heart as she started this new life with her father.
She said, “I wanted my dad my entire life. But when I finally got my dad, I didn’t have my dad at all. He was focused on his girlfriend and her sons. All the strangers were getting the affection. So one day, I came home high on weed. Then he called the police on me! They didn’t do anything, so I did it again. I was so angry. All these years, you abandoned me, and you hadn’t been around. And now I’m still not good enough.” Things weren’t any better at her new high school either. “I had been to ten schools, and that was the worst school I had ever been in.” As a teacher, I’ve seen my fair share of parents who would come to school and raise hell if they suspected their daughter was being bullied. Instead, her father pulled her out of school senior year. “I didn’t get to go to prom, walk at graduation, participate in any senior trips. Instead, I spent my senior year in a treatment facility.”
Like Sara, despite being the youngest in the facility, Ana adjusted fairly well, but she was furious and felt betrayed. “I didn’t need to be around strangers; I needed someone to show me that they cared, but he just sent me there. I didn’t get a yearbook when I was 17. I got a Big Book. I got a Big Book with everyone’s signatures.” When her time in treatment was up at age 18, Ana prepared to go back home only to find that her stepmother was sending her to another facility instead of letting her come back into the home. At this point, Ana’s mother had reappeared. She also had gone to treatment herself. When Ana was getting transferred to the new facility, she escaped and hid from the police dispatched to find her. “I walked in the snow, knocking door to door, hoping someone would let me in so I could avoid the cops.” No one let her in, but Ana did eventually get a hold of her mother. Her mom had a place to stay, so she let Ana stay with her. Though they each had just completed treatment programs, they didn’t stay clean. Ana didn’t live with her mother for long either.
The next years of her life were a blur. “I don’t remember what happened, I just know that shit happened, and it was all bad.” Her drug use got worse, crack, homelessness, moving around to different cities hoping to get her life together.
She lucked out when her aunt gave her a chance, and she moved into an apartment with her cousin in a new city. She was grateful. Her drug use slowed down as a result, which was positive, but her drinking continued and along with it, so did her depression. One day, on her birthday, she hit a low point.
Ana attempted suicide.
In the hours leading to the attempt, Ana went out drinking for her birthday, hoping to find someone to spend the night with. She had the apartment to herself as her cousin was away on a camping trip. When she didn’t connect with anyone, she came home drunk, upset, rejected. Two dozen bright red roses were sitting still, waiting for her when she arrived. They were a gift from her sister.
Ana snapped. She scrambled around the apartment, looking for anything with a sharp edge. Razors, knives, whatever she thought would cut her flesh. She laid in bed preparing to rip at her wrists when the doorknob rattled. She heard the door squeak and then a shriek. Her cousin had walked in. Seeing Ana lying with the blade against her wrist, her cousin leaped onto the bed. When she landed, her cousin felt a poke and ripped the sheet up off of Ana, revealing every sharp tool in the apartment laid around her. She called 911, and Ana went straight to the hospital again.
“I was pissed. I always wanted to D-I-E,” she spelled out the word die, being mindful of her son possibly being within earshot as she spoke. “I felt horrible, I wanted to die, and no one even let me try. I would pray to God, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be here anymore. I have always asked God since I was a kid. I never had any love, no kindness. I couldn’t take it. I just didn’t want to keep going through life. It was too overwhelming and hard.”
After her suicide attempt in the apartment, Ana’s aunt didn’t allow her to return. Ana eventually ended up back home and moved in with a friend. She did find her way back to drugs, but this time not for long.
When she moved in, she met John, “the boy next door.” He later became her husband. Ana had a habit of attracting younger men, so throughout our conversation, she occasionally referred to them as “boys.” Her connection with John filled a void for Ana, and she found herself willing to give up everything for him. The drugs, the alcohol, even cigarettes. “Those were the rules that I wanted him to live by, and I was willing to do the same. He was okay with it! He chose me! He gave up all of his comforts with his family for the sake of being with me; I felt loved.”
For the duration of her marriage, about six years, Ana didn’t touch alcohol or drugs. Toward the end of their relationship, she started stealing his grandmother’s prescriptions. Though the pill use appeared minor at the time, this was a slip that would lead to an eventual landslide. When they divorced, Ana was happy to move on. In her married years, she did well for herself and was ready to be an independent single woman. Outside of those few pills she was sneaking, everything was great.
Ana was recently divorced and 30 when she met up with some friends at a festival. She hadn’t had a drink in seven years, and her friends were excited to taste wine. Ana said, “I thought to myself, I’m grown, I’m a woman now. I know right from wrong. I mean, I drive a Mercedes. Certainly, I’m not going to drink and drive in a Mercedes! I had become sophisticated!”
On day one of drinking after seven dry years, she went straight from tasting wine to pounding drinks at a bar past 2 in the morning. Shortly after, drugs came right back into the picture.
So much of what Ana gained in those seven years that she was sober, vanished, or was at risk of being ruined. Nothing in Ana’s life was steady except for the hold of drugs and alcohol on her.
During an attempt to get sober in 2015, Ana moved into a halfway house and met a “boy.” He was eleven years younger than her and was barely a few months sober. Things moved quickly. It was August, they met. October came, and they moved in together. Come November Ana’s pregnant. By the end of the year, Eddie relapsed and left town after he robbed a local heroin dealer.
Ana was alone briefly, but she followed after Eddie because “I wanted my baby hell or high water to have a mom AND a dad there.” Eddie couldn’t stay out of jail, nor could he stay sober. Once Bryson was born, Ana couldn’t stay sober either. In the years that followed, there were attempts at getting clean. They tried to get it together. They moved cities, looked for different environments, but no matter where they went, they couldn’t escape their addiction.
The following years consisted of breakups, attempts to get sober, broken promises, and increasingly worse drug use. Then things took a turn for the worse.
They pulled in from having bought some spice. They looked at their money. In front of them were only five one-dollar bills. They looked at each other. They knew what to do. Sure they had just come from buying the drugs, but why not be efficient and get the five dollars’ worth NOW so that they wouldn’t have to turn around and worry about it later?
The last thing that Ana remembered was putting the car in reverse.
She opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by white smoke. It was choking her. Her entire body was throbbing. She didn’t realize where she was until she looked up, and as she focused her eyes, a tree came into view as the smoke cleared. Ana had swerved into oncoming traffic, crossed four lanes, and crashed into a tree on the side of the road. Eddie was in the car with her.
So was their son.
I figured this is the part of the story where the arrest happens. “So, did you get arrested there?” I asked. “No, I woke up real quick. I made up this whole story about how I had to swerve to avoid someone who looked like they were on the phone, and so to avoid hitting that driver, I said that I lost control of my car. They believed me: no ticket, no arrest, nothing. I didn’t even have insurance or any papers for the car. Nobody was even hurt, but I took that as a sign, and I left Eddie again.”
Though she was briefly clean, Ana connected with another “boy” with who she had gone to elementary school, Jason. She obsessed over him for a year, and after much anticipation, upon meeting, she immediately felt something. She said, “Something was not right, I thought, ‘Jason’s probably not sober.’” She continued to describe the moment, “It was something about the way his head was cocked to the side, oh, and he asked me for money, too. I knew I shouldn’t have talked to him, Jessica. The problem with me is that it never matters. If I want something, I’m gonna get something. I just don’t care.”
“He was a heroin user, and at this point, I was no longer scared of the high. I wanted to know exactly what everyone was talking about. He didn’t want me to try it, so I told him that either he get me heroin and would help me use it, or I was going to go out there, find it myself and probably die trying because I wouldn’t do it right. I told him, ‘I’ll die, and it’ll be on your conscience.’ That was enough to have him get me the heroin.” From then on, they used heroin together, always in secret. It was fun at first, she said. “I was high all the time. I pretended to be a mom, I pretended to be present, but I was high all the time.” The one thing she didn’t do was put a needle in her arm. She only snorted it. “I was almost at the point of shooting up, but then my mom died, and that changed everything.”
Ana was going to her mother’s house one day with her son, she was heading to work, and her mother was going to babysit. “I don’t know what happened to her, I walked in with my kid, and she was dead on the floor. I think when my momma went to Heaven, she found out what I was doing and shifted things, so I had to stop heroin.”
Ana had not experienced “dope sickness” because she never ran out of heroin. Then one day, the “jump out boys” got her and Jason. She started to explain, “The police officer came to my car.” At that moment, I thought, “Oh, okay, so THIS is the part of her story where she gets arrested.”
I was still wrong. She got off with a warning, but she had to give all of the drugs she had over to the police officer. She described the moment saying, “I said, ‘Here you go sir, I’m sorry.’ And he let me go. Then, as soon as he walked away, it hit me that not once in my life did I ever have to go get drugs.” Finding heroin was practically impossible, it seemed. People would sell her fake drugs. It got bad enough that she had to find a former sponsee who had also relapsed to get her drugs. Eventually, Ana grew tired of the struggle. She decided that she needed to get off of heroin, and she left Jason.
“Did you go to treatment to get off heroin?” I asked.
“No, I smoked meth for four days.” She responded.
For four days, she stayed in the bathroom, using meth to help her get through the dope sickness that heroin withdrawal brought on. All the while, her son was home. “I made sure to check on him, feed him, leave him, and go retreat into the bathroom to stay high in there. I made sure he ate, he had a toy, the TV on, anything to keep him entertained while I hid in the bathroom.”
When she learned what long-term meth use does, she freaked out and got sober. Again.
Then Eddie called.
Just like before, he came with promises, waving the white flag of so-called sobriety, that he was “just” using CBD. Curious, Ana tried some when he offered. As soon as she hit the pipe, she felt the smoke flow into her lungs, and suddenly her heart sank. It wasn’t CBD. It was THC.
They were driving, and when Eddie saw her face overcome with worry, laughing, he said, “Let’s make a stopover at this house. We need to pick up something.” Angrily, she cried as they picked up drugs. She cried as she watched him go mad in her house, taking things apart, being obsessive, being compulsive. He had to leave.
Eddie finally left, and Ana felt she needed to take the edge off and drink, so she picked up two wine bottles. She uncorked one, sipped some, and as she felt the buzz start, she realized, “I don’t want to do this.” She opened the other wine bottle, and she poured all she had left down the sink. This was on July 18, 2019. “I pray to God that was the last time I picked up a white chip.”
So, how has Ana stayed sober ever since?
“I have stayed away from men. My thinker doesn’t work when I’m around them. I only have made bad decisions. I decided to focus only on my recovery.” Then she paused. “But things changed recently,” she said.
“Mark, a family friend who was going through a divorce, started reaching out. For months I refused each invite to dinner, to a movie, to a walk.” Then one day, after a long work week, she agreed to go to a movie. “From there, it was perfect. We connected on a deeper level than any I felt before. He told me he would take care of me, of my son, that he wanted to have a baby with me. He even told my father. I thought to myself, ‘I’ve been patient, I’m finally gonna get something good!’” As Ana spoke, her voice picked up an enthusiastic note. I even got excited for her. I thought, “Yes! She’s been so patient, now she’s getting the love she’s been waiting for!”
Her tone changed. “Then one day, I get a call at work.” I cringed and immediately braced myself, “Oh God,” I thought.
“He told me to come and get my things, that his wife was coming back. That he didn’t love me anymore, that he loves his wife. I didn’t have anywhere safe to go, my roommate had relapsed, and I couldn’t go back there with my son. So I stayed with a friend in the program.”
This all happened three weeks before we met. Thankfully Ana did just find a home recently, so she now has a safe space for her son. “It’s the most beautiful home I’ve ever lived in. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
Despite this heartbreak, Ana stayed sober. She maintained optimism and was ready to move on and not let this set her back. Yes, she was hurt and reeling from the shock, but she was grateful to have a home and be safe.
Then she started to feel sick.
She felt different, so she took a pregnancy test.
It was positive. She took more. Each one was positive.
“Mark called me, telling me to meet him at the clinic to get rid of it. I’ve done too much in my life to go get an abortion. I told him to get fucked and hung up.” For days he persisted, calling her phone, calling her at work. “I told him not to worry, I don’t want him. This isn’t a trap. I’m a grown woman. I made my bed, I’m going to lie in it and take care of my kid. So that’s where I’m at.” Ana spoke firmly with strong resolve.
“So, how are you feeling now?” I asked her. “Well, I’ve never made it to two years while trying to be in recovery on my own. The fact that I have a baby inside me makes me feel hopeful that I will make it. So far, I have a good history of not doing drugs while pregnant, so I think I’ll make it.” She laughed. “This baby is a blessing. This baby has saved my life.”
The baby is due in October of 2021. “Mark’s tried to deny that it’s his, but he’s just in denial. He begged for this baby for two months, and now he’s trying to deny it. I can’t WAIT to meet my baby. I have all the love to give this baby that I didn’t get.”
So a few wrap-up questions. “Where’s Eddie?” I asked. He’s in prison. Though Ana knows they won’t have the family she once dreamed of, she prays for him. She wants her son to have his father. “I’m scared for Eddie. He’s not using when he’s in there. When people sober up for a while, and then they go shooting up, it’s too strong for them, and they’re dying. I want my son to have his father. I don’t want Eddie to die when he gets out.” Ana’s right. That is too often a common story in recent years.
What’s next for Ana? “Well, I never got to finish music school when I was younger, but one thing that I will be doing is offering voice lessons. I can’t wait. I’m really excited to do that here in the next few months. I’m working on a book. I have a lot of goals. I’m really taking care of myself this time. I’m not letting my sorrow, my emotions, or my pain get the best of me. I cope differently today. I don’t cope with a bottle, a pill, or heroin. I cope with serenity, with God, with my support group, with music, with walking. Anything and everything, without putting some shit in my body. I refuse it. I’m definitely not above it though, when this break-up first happened, I was really close to getting myself a bottle, but thank God. Today, I think everything through. I think, think, think. I think about my life and how I will go right back to where I was if I put anything in my body. I just can’t. I’ve got two kids to think about now. I’ve got a future that I want to have.”
What about work? Actually, Ana’s been a nurse for 12 years. She completed college and nursing school during those different periods of sobriety she’s had throughout the years. Did I intentionally leave out the fact that she’s a nurse? Maybe, but to be honest, her line of work never came up in the conversation until the end. Ana is and has always been a professional. A mother. Addiction doesn’t target any specific group of people. A disease is a disease, and it manifests in the same way regardless of the host. So be mindful in your daily interactions with others because you don’t know what you don’t see.
I’m now two months sober. But I’ve been through this too many times to say with even a shred of believable confidence that I won’t slip up again. Don’t get me wrong. I want this sobriety. I wanted it with equal sincerity every time in the past, too.
What did my last day of drinking look like? It was January 6, the day of the insurrection in the US. My quitting on that date was merely a coincidence. Rather handy, though, as I’ve never previously taken note of my last day.
My quitting didn’t come on the heels of a big epiphany. You see, I couldn’t go cold turkey. I was so interminably dependent upon alcohol that even after I knew to my bones that I could no longer drink, I had to continue to do so to prevent myself from dying from the withdrawal. I had to agonizingly cut back for weeks before I could cease entirely, which felt like sharing a bed with someone I knew wanted to kill me.
What My Alcoholism Looked Like Before I Quit
In a nutshell, I drank around the clock. I no longer drank for pleasure. I drank for relief from the agony of withdrawal, which would rear its head after barely more than an hour or two without alcohol.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night with what felt every bit like a panic attack – heart racing, an inability to catch my breath, sweating so much that my sheets adhered to my skin. I’d reach for the bottle I kept next to my bed and swallow and swallow until I’d get pulled under.
Middle of the night drinking would only last until 6am at best, when it was time to take another drag. If I didn’t drink in the wee hours, by the time the morning was to start, I’d be shaking so hard that I could no longer hold a glass at all, not even be able to use a straw, could barely walk for the shaking. Even after a drink, when the liquid heat would steady my tremor, I still needed two hands to hold a drink to my mouth. And so, when most people are listening for the first birds of the day, I was filling up on liquor.
Repeat at around 9am, before noon, middle of the afternoon, before dinnertime, after dinnertime, around 11pm, again closer to 1am until one day bleeds into the next.
I could maintain short bouts of consciousness when work needed my attention, cooking for my family, most of all for my trips to resupply. Other than that, my eyes would slide shut with the force of iron doors. I was horizontal for most hours of most days.
I was going through 3 handles of hard alcohol about every 4-4.5 days, no fewer than 24 units of alcohol per day, sometimes as much as 30.
Physical Symptoms that Were New During This Period of Extreme Dependence
Not only did I no longer have any quality of life, I could absolutely feel my body shutting down. Even when fully dosed, I still shook enough that it was hard to conceal. If I started to withdraw, the shaking was so out of control that you couldn’t put a drink in my hands without the entirety of its contents flying out of the glass like a volcano erupting. My hands weren’t the only thing shaking. I shook from my core, my whole body, out of control. The feeling was miserable and felt like it arose from a place of anxious compulsion, not like the neutral shivers of being too cold. My tremors were tinged with a metallic unease.
Both malnutrition and problems within my brain led to terrible problems with balance and walking, a problem much deeper and more complex than the drunken stumbling depicted in movies. The shaking met with muscle weakness and brain distortions to make me completely unsure on my own legs. I could no longer safely manage stairs. I couldn’t walk for any distance without support. Additionally, my depth perception was impaired, and my eyesight was blurred.
Standing for more than a few minutes at a time was impossible. Before long, I’d grow so tired that I’d have to lean over for support, gasping for breath. More times than I could count, I ended up sinking to the floor in a puddle of tears, unable to stand. Even sitting was out of the question, for the most part.
I’d started having tingling in my hands leading partway up to my elbows. My lips were also fuzzy with the prickles of tingling. My tongue was so raw from the alcohol that it burned 24 hours every day.
The drinking stole away my eyesight quickly. I could no longer see or read at all without my glasses, and words were often out of reach even with them. Between my eyes and my shaking, it was hard to communicate with anyone via messages. Even the simplest sentence would take a ridiculous effort to type.
The alcohol had left my nervous system too tightly wound. Even the smallest movement or sound, from the ding of a new message to a reflection in my glasses, would make me jump.
The swelling above my beltline had become painfully obvious as even my elastic-banded pants became too tight. When standing, I could feel my liver pressing up on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
My sense of smell became perverted. Most everything smelled horrible. Especially food, but my clothing and bed sheets were not excluded. I also experienced phantom smells. The trouble with my sense of smell combined with a lack of appetite meant that I’d go days at a time without eating. Even when I tried, my throat would reject food. It would also reject water. My desire to drink enough alcohol to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay and my constantly passing out meant that there were some days when I’d not even drink a whole glass of water.
It was entirely and abundantly clear that I’d succeeded in poisoning myself, and my body was disintegrating.
How I Quit On My Own
Both because of my mother’s alcoholism and my own experience, I knew that a person dependent upon alcohol cannot safely go cold turkey (and I know of no professional who would advise doing this without medical supervision). Withdrawing from alcohol is incredibly dangerous, and potentially deadly.
Even though I knew it was explicitly killing me, I was equally well aware that I couldn’t just pour my supply down the drain and count my first day. I had to taper slowly and gently, all while enduring the grinding symptoms of withdrawal.
At first, I drank on the same schedule, as often as needed, but I’d only allow myself enough to ease the withdrawal symptoms. Instead of gulping until I’d pass out, I’d take deliberate drinks, then observe, drink and observe. This meant experiencing more shakes than I was comfortable with, and also more time awake with symptoms. This period lasted about a week.
The next step was to start to increase the length of the intervals between drinks. At first, only a little bit. Then, I’d stretch it an hour beyond comfort before allowing myself enough alcohol to relieve my symptoms.
I can remember how it felt like I’d made a big step when I “only” drank six times per day, and still in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning. Eventually, I moved down to four times per day.
The first time I went a whole overnight without drinking was another milestone.
Nearer to the end, I’d only drink after 5pm. And finally, only at bedtime. The last night, January 6th, I had just one drink before bed.
I felt no joy. I felt no pride. There were no balloons. I may have starved it of energy and attention, but my alcoholism, my monster, is still waiting quietly for me in the shadows. It is as patient as time.
Reading the article, then listening to my voice back from April 2020, full of almost innocent-like hope, was so incredibly painful.
Flashbacks are real.
Anyway, I decided to expound on the experience of having had alcoholic liver disease. Statistics and numbers are great for envisioning the number of incidents, but they don’t paint a picture of what it’s like. My intention with this piece is to capture a sliver of how terrible ALD is. I also want to clarify that though I felt horrible, I had it fairly “easy” because I stopped drinking. My liver healed.
Carolyn, Susan’s daughter, also had alcoholic liver disease, and she passed away in January. (See, “In Memory of Carolyn.”)
The summer leading up to my decision to start my recovery process was dreadful. In August of 2019 I drank at least a fifth of alcohol a day, around 17-20 drinks, in ONE day. I was POISONING MYSELF because I hated everything about existing. I perceived having no purpose because it was summer and I wasn’t accountable to anything or anyone. It was the perfect opportunity for me to isolate myself in my then-apartment. I had no commitments except to the bottles I nursed from when I woke up, until the moment I passed out, over and over and over again. I woke up, felt sick, drank, fell asleep to forget how sick I was feeling, rinse, cycle, repeat.
Then one day, I had a doctor’s appointment.
I remember being at the doctor’s office shaking, sweating, hoping I didn’t smell like liquor from drinking the night before. I tried drinking as much water as I could stomach that morning, knowing that it felt horrible to drink, well horrible to drink water, let me clarify. I hid my hands in my pockets to hide tremors. Then I felt the tremors in my neck and my head, my brain twitched, “Am I about to have a seizure?” Every single part of my body was aching or shaking. I just wanted to go home to snuggle up under the covers with my bottle in hand. While in the waiting room, I looked down at my feet. My sandal straps were cutting into them they were so swollen. I looked up instead. My eyes hurt. I remembered they were starting to get a very slight hint of yellow, so I grabbed my glasses from my purse and put them on to distract the doctor and nurse from looking right into my eyes.
Signs of ALD in 2019
On that morning like many others, I couldn’t stop hacking. The fits were uncontrollable, and my ribs were so bruised that the few moments I could laugh in those times, I wouldn’t. I coughed up slimy green acidic bile, retching over whatever sink or toilet was near me until I could get to a drink. When I was off, I soothed my violent nausea in the mornings with whatever splashes of cheap bourbon remained in bottles I picked up off the floor around my bed or bathroom. When I gripped a bottle, I braced myself, anticipating the horrible taste and burn. It was fire down my throat, I burned while waiting for the temporary relief. The nausea stopped. The shaking subsided. Gasping, gripping the vanity in fear of falling over, I would look up in the mirror with liquor dripping out of the side of my mouth. I would look at and not recognize the woman looking back at me. I saw the unusual weight loss, random bruises, the dark circles. Cracked lips. A plump aching belly with no baby in it. I was transforming. I was imploding.
I was fearful of getting on my phone to check my lab results. I didn’t want to think that I would be like my cousin, who died after bleeding out from a simple procedure because she could no longer heal. When I got the blood results back, however, I accepted my dark fate. I got a note from the doctor saying that I had alcoholic hepatitis. If what you see in the screenshot is something you would even want to consider a note. With no explanation from my doctor as to what numbers meant what, I spent quite a bit of time doing research.
2019 Lab Results
My AST/SGOT was 429, a standard range is 15-46 U/L. What did this mean? According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “AST/SGOT is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, AST leaks out into the bloodstream and the level of AST in the blood becomes elevated. AST is different from ALT because AST is found in parts of the body other than the liver–including the heart, kidneys, muscles, and brain. When cells in any of those parts of the body are damaged, AST can be elevated.” And my ALT? It was 9 times the normal range. It was 160. That normal range was supposed to be 13-69. “ALT, is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, ALT leaks out into the bloodstream, and the level of ALT in the blood is elevated.” My bilirubin was 1.8 when normal ranges are 0.2-1.3, so that was another indicator of my poor liver function.
2019 Lab Result “Interpretation”
At that point, I was terrified because I understood that I had to stop, but I was afraid to ask for help without letting my secret out. I knew I needed alcohol to not feel ill but the idea of putting the bottle down terrified me. In my previous experience with getting sober in 2013, I simply stopped drinking, that shit wasn’t going to wrok this time. This time, it was different. I had been alone for what had been almost two months, and I just wanted to stay hidden in my apartment and forget this was even a problem. I wanted to disappear silently. Maybe one day I would fall asleep and not wake up, no one would notice, right?
The physical symptoms very quickly turned into psychological ones. I started to feel crippling anxiety and minor hallucinations. I noticed I would hear and see flashes of things that no one else saw. It got worse when I had to go back to work. Going back to school, I was forced to modify my drinking because I had to make it to the school building alive and barely sober. The daily withdrawal symptoms led to the worst school days. My only safe space, my classroom, riddled me with fear and panic. The sound of a notebook falling, a chair squeaking too hard, a child’s laughter, all those sounds terrorized me. They made my stomach drop each time. My coughing fits got so bad the kids thought I was having an asthma attack. I carried an asthma pump to “explain” the coughing. I knew what was going on. When your liver stops working, the fluids that should be leaving your body don’t, so they find other places to settle. In my case, it was my feet, ankles, and my lungs. It’s a miracle I didn’t get pneumonia.
It wasn’t long before the panic, anxiety, and illness brought me to my knees.
One morning in September of 2019, I couldn’t get out of bed to drive to work. I was terrified of walking out the door. I couldn’t go to work. I knew something had to give when I couldn’t go to the one place I loved the most. The only people I told that I was going to a hospital to were my principal and my sister. Neither knew I went in for my drinking. I blamed it on depression and anxiety. The rest is history, but I don’t know how I functioned when reflecting on those times.
I don’t know how I functioned so SUCCESSFULLY.
I stop sometimes and think, “What the hell?!” The only explanation I can think of is the power of the mind and its determination. A mind fueled by shame and guilt is profoundly capable of massive feats to put up appearances. I was killing myself, and yet I was showing up.
So yes, all these conversations about women and their dangerous relationships with alcohol need to happen, and I’m SO grateful that they are. I can only speak from my experience, but I will say a million times, it can’t just be me. The more we have these conversations, the more people we’ll have come forward saying, “You know what, I’ve got that problem, too.”
My daughter died on Jan 3 this year at age 50 from alcoholic liver disease. She had been struggling with alcoholism for many years, and finally, she succumbed. She was loved and had lots of encouragement to stop drinking. And she did make it to 90 days a few times, but it did not last.
She was staying with another alcoholic for the past year and caring for her, so she had lots of opportunities to keep drinking. One of her many lies was that her liver was fine.
Two months before she died, I noticed her jaundice. We went right to the hospital, where she had gone many times for help drying out, and she stayed for 3 days (all of this during COVID). Those who cared for her gave her good advice and hope, but she got worse and worse in the next 2 months with a swollen abdomen and legs and feet. She never lost her yellow coloring.
She went back to the hospital a few times but was not admitted. She came to stay with me a few times but could not get up the stairs, and lived on my couch. It was horrible to watch.
The last time she came was 4 days before Christmas since the hospital would not admit her. She was not eating, and I tried my best to take care of her. Her son, age 19, came to my house on Christmas Day, so she did have some time with him. The other son, age 21, did not come. They had not seen her for months, so he was shocked and scared. She told him, “I’m not going to die,” but the day after, I called an ambulance since she was very, very sick. The EMT hugged her dad and me and said we might want to consider hospice, which I had thought about.
She gradually declined over the next 7 days, was on a feeding tube and developed pneumonia. The hospital took good care of her and even let us have 2 people visit as she got worse, and they allowed the closest family to be with her the night she died. It was horrible and not at all like the movies.
She was angry and distant for the last few days, so we never had a “good” goodbye. One of the doctors said they had seen a big increase in the number of alcohol-related diseases in the past 6 months.
Despite all the hard, hard, worrying times as her mother and her go-to person, we had many wonderful fun times. She always tried to make it through our holidays and get-togethers somewhat sober. I will miss her terribly, forever.
We had a small ceremony. Everyone who sent cards and commented talked of her very wonderful, sparkly, and beautiful being. She was much loved.
Thank you for letting me tell this story. I needed to write, just like you did.
Sadly,
Susan
When I asked Susan for permission to share her and her daughter’s story, she also asked me to include her obituary. Susan wants to share with the world that yes, Carolyn was very sick, and more importantly, that she was incredibly loved. Please read below:
Carolyn Marie Wanner (July 14, 1970–January 3,2021)
A bright sparkly personality left us grieving when, despite her best efforts, Carolyn Marie Wanner, 50, lost her battle with alcoholism on January 3, 2021 at the Greeley Hospital. Her close family was present to say good bye and must now learn to live without her happy presence.
Carolyn was born in Eugene, Oregon, on July 14, 1970 and moved to Greeley when she was just 6 weeks old. Even as a little girl, she loved people and said hello to anyone who would catch her eye. She could also be counted on to defend her little friends from bullying or harm, a friend you could trust.
A capable student, she became an excellent writer and loved reading and all things having to do with performance and theater. After attending Cameron School, Maplewood Middle School and Heath Junior High, she graduated from Greeley Central in 1988, where she continued to participate in activities, especially theatre, choir, forensics with her group of friends who felt right at home at her house, doing their homework and just hanging around.
Photo by family
She never hesitated to help anyone, even if it meant giving away her last cigarette or $5 when she saw someone in need. Those who knew her were grateful to have had her friendship and those she briefly encountered were always graced with her welcoming smile.
She attended The University of Northern Colorado for one semester, taking a class from her dad and then went off to UC Boulder to earn a degree and had way too much fun socializing, gathering more friends into her life. When she earned her BA in English and Theatre, she was so proud.
In her own words, she said “The energy and allure of the hospitality industry and the people it attracts suit my personality perfectly. I love it!” and that is where she spent her career, working at a number of venues in various capacities, including the first Rock Bottom in Denver. She gave exceptional service at all times and earned a lot of tips with her huge smile and ability to put customers at ease, chatting to everyone, just like when she was a little girl. But, with Carolyn, it wasn’t just about the tips. She was a performer at heart. Her dreams of being an actress were played out doing improv with her customers.
On August 8, 1998, she married Dante Dunlap in Denver and they had two exceptional sons, Max, age 21 and Ethan, age 19, of Denver. She loved being a mom and was often called the “cool mom” by Max and Ethan’s friends. Her sons meant everything to her. Following her divorce, she had a variety of relationships, but never remarried.
In addition to Ethan and Max, she is survived by her saddened mother, Susan Malmstadt, and father, James Wanner, his wife Rene Oya, her loving brother, Christopher Wanner, sister-in-law Sonya PauKune, nephews Blake and Sabin Wanner along with her aunts, Patricia Malmstadt and Carol Haluska, an uncle Dick Wanner, cousins Tere and Steve Schultz, Andy May, Laurie Malone, Carissa Russell, Leslie Andrews, Jennifer and Kristin Wanner as well as extended family and a slew of friends across the state and the country.
The family would like to thank the medical staff at the Greeley Hospital 3rd Floor Acute Care Unit for the exceptional care they provided Carolyn and the family.
Contributions in Carolyn’s memory can be made by check to Greeley Central High School GCHS Thespian Troop 657, 1515 14th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80631 Attention: Brian Humphrey or to the Colorado Restaurant Association Angel Relief Fund for restaurant workers affected by COVID.
Triple-negative breast cancer stripped me of my armor: hair, uterus, and breasts. But eight months out of treatment on New Year’s Eve 2019, I was determined: 2020 would be my year!
I welcomed the New Year at home, in bed, actually. I was recovering from my final surgery. My three daughters were healthy and stable, and my 21-year-old son was finally sober. He was thriving in college.
Getting cancer both required me and inspired me to stop drowning my feelings in alcohol. Going through cancer treatment, I had to develop a new set of coping skills. I faced the trauma and the disappointments of my new reality. I acknowledged the hurt, anger, and fear I had. I learned how to live life on life’s terms.
That New Year’s Eve, I was approaching one year of solid alcohol-free living. I was getting my hair done at that point in life, wearing cute outfits. I even started a podcast. The cluster*&%$ was over.
But by March 2020, instead of looking stylish, instead of building my career, instead of traveling to see my kids, I was doing quite the opposite. I found myself in ratty sweatpants, baking banana bread, and staring at three-inch-long salt and pepper roots. COVID-19 forced the world to pause. We had to sit still, examine our relationships with others and ourselves, and cope with a new way of life. We were either suddenly all things to all people or left in absolute isolation and loneliness. If you’re reading this, you know these scenes because you lived them. Maybe you still are.
My therapist told me that her clients who had been through cancer and addiction were dealing with quarantine much better than those who had not. Perhaps it was because although everyone has experienced challenges, not everyone has had to face a life-threatening crisis head-on. Many individuals lack the tools necessary for managing financial challenges such as caring for ailing parents, one’s own illness, or career uncertainty. Experiencing hurdles like these for the first time, these uncertain and uncomfortable circumstances turned more people into maladaptive behaviors. Drinking and doing drugs became a simple solution. I noticed the marked increases in alcohol sales, domestic violence, overdoses, and suicides. The universe told me it was time to share my secret.
My drinking had been in the closet. Literally. I drank in the closet, so nobody would know I had a problem coping with this disaster. Seeing the impact of COVID-19 on society propelled me to come out of my own closet and share my story. A year ago, if you had told me I would go public with my addiction, I would have laughed in your face. However, a year ago, we would have all laughed if a psychic had told us that this, this is how life would look today.
My drinking did not land me at “rock bottom,” but it made me sick. It made me sad. It wasn’t serving me any useful purpose. Today, I run into people who I know feel the same shame I used to feel. They persist in hiding their precarious relationship with alcohol and drugs from friends, family, and frankly, even themselves. I did, too. I get it. They are not alone.
You are not alone.
Since the start of the pandemic, a growing number of people drink and use to cope. If people like me don’t come forward, the stigma and the impact of maladaptive drinking or drug use will always prevent us from living our best life.
Today, my closet? It has become my office, a safe space where I record my podcast, “After the Crisis.” I share my story, talk to people who have overcome serious life challenges, converse with experts, all while offering healthy coping strategies to others on their journeys.
Before I revealed my secret, I was a highly efficient mom of four, an active PTA member, and was deathly fearful of exposing my weaknesses. After sharing my story, people came forward to admit they were struggling just as much as I was. They confessed to having had uncomfortable relationships with alcohol and asked for help.
Now, I have unmasked the real Victoria English Martin. She has bad moments, bad days, and even bad weeks, but nothing compares to those wretched days when she sought solutions at the bottom of a wine bottle. Today’s she’s free.
