To know that despair and bliss are feelings and not states of being, and that my feelings won’t make me or break me. The greatest gifts have been my spiritual life and having true relationships with my wife, my daughters, and my grandchildren. I came into recovery in September 1989, and for many years it was a process of recovery and relapse.

Contingency Management in Addiction Treatment: A Comprehensive Approach

• Maybe 12-Step recovery isn’t for you, but give it your best shot for three months.
• It’s a thing where you’ll say, “I’m a month sober,” and people will be like, Congratulations!
• “Mostly my love was Jack Daniel’s and cocaine.”
• I was free to drink and use it the way I wanted to.
• I haven’t had a drink or cigarette in 23 years, and I’ve only really missed drinking three or four times—mostly when I need a way to medicate overwhelming anxiety.
• She learned coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety, and began to address the childhood trauma that had contributed to her addiction.

Still, it never occurred to me that this would be the last time I drank. They breathalyzed Review Vanderburgh House me and found that my blood alcohol content was .34. They then brought me to the local hospital, where I fell asleep.

Motivational Real-Life Addiction Stories

I’ve learned how to be an excellent daughter, a caring wife, and a nurturing mother. My sobriety means the world to me because without sobriety I wouldn’t have any of those relationships today. I am now a very grateful recovering alcoholic. I am grateful to have a program I can use to help me grow through life’s challenges. I no longer regret being an alcoholic since it is through my alcoholism that I have been able to grow and integrate a wonderful set of principles into my life.

I Was Scared to Come & Sad to Leave Level Up Recovery Centers. My huge family for Rehab Sobriety

All it takes for me today is to quit bitching about it and get on with it. The consistent surprise of learning that letting go of the reins is the key to everything. I always believed that I had to handle everything, that I had to control my life and everything in it. Sobriety has taught me that not only don’t I have to run it all, I can’t run it or run from it. Finally, after being arrested, being homeless, and experiencing complete desperation and not being able to live, I gave up. It took so long to figure out that surrender was as simple as becoming exhausted.

When I got discharged from the hospital later that morning, I still had a blood alcohol content of .16. The car ride with my parents was anything but pleasant. I was still drunk and I was mad at them, but I was mostly mad at myself for getting so carried away the night before.

For Loved Ones: How to Support a Loved One’s Mental Health

After nearly a decade of living in recovery, I can tell you that long-term sobriety is not for the faint of heart. A lot has happened in these nine and a half years. At three years of sobriety, I buried my best friend in the world. It broke my heart and healed me in innumerable ways simultaneously. I sought spirituality and a connection with my higher power with a desperation that I never had before.

Alcohol Recovery Coaching Transformed My Life

However, I had few friends, and none of the friends I had drank as I did. I began to drink at home, frequently wondering the next morning how there could be so many empty beer cans on the counter. During residency, we had the first of four children. My son, I thought, would solve our problems and bring us closer.

• I underwent a reversal of the vasectomy, and soon thereafter, my wife was pregnant with our third healthy child.
• In the early days, I felt that it was my responsibility to answer the question, “How come you aren’t drinking?
• I always believed that I had to handle everything, that I had to control my life and everything in it.
• “My therapist introduced me to my first sponsor, or the person who sent me to my first 12-step meeting.
• My relationship with my wife, both emotionally and physically, was absent.

They quickly became friends, bonding https://sober-home.org/review-vanderburgh-house/ over their shared desire for an exciting, outside-the-lines life. But they struggled with how to have that life without alcohol. Most of their friends spent their weekends living the “rose all day” lifestyle, and every first date wanted to meet at a bar. Wondering if you need a drink to live a rich, colorful life?

Lisa’s addiction affected every aspect of her life. Her work performance suffered, her marriage was on the brink of collapse, and she was barely present for her children. The wake-up call came when her youngest daughter found her unconscious after an accidental overdose. Addiction is a relentless beast, tearing apart lives, families, and communities with savage indifference.