Year 11

I am so far past due on a blog entry. I shutter a bit to think it's been over 2 months. Alas, I have a good reason to actually move on my desire to write instead of just thinking about it day after day. Today is my 11th sober anniversary. I have always loved birthdays and, in a weird way, I get two of them. My actual birth date and the date I got my life back. The past eleven years have been amazing and challenging at the same time. I had a few times when my recovery started to wobble. I was put to the test to protect my sobriety at all costs. I made it through and still standing. It's fair to say I wanted to give up on recovery at some points. I start to glorify and minimize the damage alcohol caused in my life. In the summertime, a renewed sense of commitment tends to surface. "I am so close to....X year of recovery. Gotta keep going." Over the winter months, I tend to have a lot of stuff going on that keeps me pretty content - holidays with the family, crafting retreats, and usually some planned traveling. For some reason, the summer months are more my challenge. I guess I am a born and bred Minnesotan.

I posted my anniversary on a group I belong to that posts jokes and funny things. It became kind of this support group for all of us when the pandemic started. Most people were at home doing absolutely nothing. People began posting memes and pictures of their pets with this joyous response by others who needed to smile in rather dark times. I post about my anniversary today. Five hours after posting, I have something like 1,000 likes and 100 comments to read through. Not to mention the posts on my own page raking in over 200 likes! It makes me feel very special and like people understand why this day is a big deal to me. It remains as special as it was when I hit my first year. I remember those struggles very clearly. It wasn't easy to get here, and it hasn't always been the easiest to stay here. Anyway, a few of the members of that group ask me to share my experience for others who are struggling. Hmmm......where do I begin?

Well, I can tell you that I know that super dark and ugly space within addiction resides. I know how addiction tells me that I need something I no longer want. I know what it is like to plan an entire day around obtaining, drinking, and recovering from heavy alcohol use. I used to hate almost every minute of my life except for the first 15 minutes of taking a drink. I felt relieved and less anxious. Because my addiction was so advanced, that feeling lasted for 15 minutes. That's it. Then the massive depression, suicidal thinking, pain, and sheer self-hatred flourished. In hindsight, I am pretty lucky I made it out alive. Honestly, I almost didn't. And more honestly, I didn't want to make out. I just wanted to stop existing. That is dark, sad, lonely, heavy place to be. I lived there for about 10 years.

So, when I think about others experiencing this, my heart becomes heavy. I want them to know what I didn't know. People care. People would have been willing to help. Sadly, that is not how addiction plays out for most of us. Something catastrophic comes about and we are presented with a fork in the road. Continue to do what you have been doing or change. I went down that road of change a couple of times and ran back to the fork, telling myself this new path was way too scary. I opened the door in February of 2010, letting my mom know what was up. Part of me knew that once my mom knew, the gig was up. My mom wasn't going to let this happen without some serious intervention and changes to my life. She prayed for years that I would not follow in the family tradition of alcohol abuse. Not only did I ignore pretty much every warning she ever gave about the potential for complications, I dove in headfirst and became a master manipulator to keep that secret hidden. 

Part of what motivated me to seek some change on my own was that I was having more and more difficulties with staying sober for more than 24 hours. Just a few months prior to this, I was able to stay sober between 12 hour shifts for about 3 days. I couldn't do that anymore. I had struggled to find a job after being laid off in 2009. It was a chaotic process, but I was working a cool job in a cool area of medicine and wanting to have the time of my life. I just could not stop drinking. So, I did what I swore I would never do, which was open the door to my family to get help. The significant relationships I had during my 20s and 30s (one marriage, one long-term) were no match for alcohol in my life. I kept these individuals at a distance to ensure my secret would remain my/our secret. I was pretty crafty too.

So, I did the treatment thing. I was going to try to be sober. I hated it. I thought it was boring. I didn't have any friends that I was aware of in that moment (this was more of a self-pity thing--I didn't want my friends to know I went to treatment). I didn't know how to live a life without alcohol. I felt depressed and anxious with basically no tangible way of managing that. I was put on an anti-depressant, but that was no match for the "happy 15 minutes per day" of alcohol. I stopped going to my aftercare group after I got into it with another group member. I was looking for any reason to bolt. That was good enough for me! I limped along for a few months, hit 60 days and then hit the bottle again. What I can tell you is that treatment was extremely effective in ruining my drinking experience. Now I felt bad about drinking. I knew I could do some things like go to a meeting or call my sponsor. Hell, I could get back to treatment. (Say this with a big whine....) But that's so hard and not fun and making me take responsibility for my life. I don't want to!

My early recovery felt kind of lonely. Getting sober will really show a person about true friendships. The minute I got sober, I lost 5 people I can think of that I would have done anything for. I tried to stay connected and was shunned. I was uninvited to things because I was sober. Some people thought they were making my life easier by rescinding the invite. "Then you don't have to worry about not drinking." Well, it actually validated my concerns about being sober. People were not going to like me anymore, and I was going to have no life. That all seems pretty trivial right now, but it was a huge deal to me back then. I was lonely and scared. I was meeting people in recovery. It was a really slow process. I was desperate for people to understand me at a time when I barely even understood myself. I wanted to apologize to people I hurt. I was too scared most of these relationships were far too gone to make peace. I wanted to be OK. but I wasn't. I didn't know what to do, so I went back to one of the few things I believed was consistent in my life - alcohol.

August 8th, 2010: From leaving treatment until this date, I made at least 4 trips to the ED for alcohol related issues. On this date, KG was talking to me after I did some really embarrassing things. My mom was given the head's up and the rescue crew descended into my home. I was taken back to the hospital and admitted into detox once again. I earned myself a private room because I was hearing voices. That was really very scary. I nearly scratched off my ear wanting it to stop. Dr. A (my favorite detox Dr. ever!) stopped in my room. "Julie, what happened?" I could barely talk. I was still puking and starting to detox. "MRI, Ativan per protocol, fall precautions." "Dr. A? Did I break myself permanently now?" "I don't think so. We will make sure. You and I will talk more when we get you weaned from protocol, ok? Rest now." 

August 9th, 2010: I woke up that day, still a little groggy from all the Ativan. I required pretty hefty doses for my tolerance level. I wandered around most of the day, remembering that Dr. A wanted to talk with me. I met with a psychiatrist who told me my MRI of the head was normal. Talked to me about the voices. Suggested a medication. Sure, why not. I will probably stop taking it the minute I am out of here anyway. That was day #1 of the last 4,017 days.

August 10th, 2010: Dr. A sits down with me. "You are an impaired practitioner." Huh? "There are two ways out of detox for you. One, you enroll in HPSP. You were given this information in treatment and managed to wiggle your way around it. It's the law. You are required to report yourself if you are compromised to practice as a nurse. Two, you don't do this, I will call the board of nursing directly and ask for immediate suspension of your license. They will open an investigation and probably refer you back to HPSP if you want to practice." Honestly, for a few minutes, I tried to convince myself that I didn't want to be a nurse anymore. That's addiction in a nutshell for me. Fine, I said, give me the phone before I change my mind.

Over the past eleven years, I have been angry, I have been hurt, I have had relationships end. I have cried. I have laughed. I made new traditions. I made leaps of faith. I followed my dreams. I crashed and burned with certain jobs. I made friends. I made a life. I made rules and set boundaries. I write 2 letters every year - one to Dr. A and one to my case manager at HPSP letting them know I am still sober. The good and the bad in these years are no comparison to the previous 15 years. The worse of the worse days in sobriety are no where near the moderate to sucky days of active addiction.

So, I have a broken brain. My brain is easily hijacked by chemicals. My brain misunderstands that experience. If I drink alcohol, my brain says "go" until I am passed out. The compulsion is so strong that I did some pretty dumb stuff to get alcohol back in the day. My brain started to understand alcohol as something I needed to survive from day today. That is how I treated and related to alcohol. I really don't want you, but I need you. I am dying without you. My brain told me that I was dying. I would have panic attacks if I thought I was going to miss getting to the liquor store. There was no enjoyment in drinking, it was what I had to do to keep those feelings at bay. I started to drink for fun. I can remember the first sensation I felt. When people have the "love at first sight" feeling? That's what I experienced with alcohol. I still tell people to this day. I don't hate alcohol. I love it. I literally can't get enough of it. It was a horrible relationship. I abuse it, alcohol was slowly killing me in every imaginable way. I had to make a decision (with some serious external reinforcement) to end that relationship and pursue something else.

So, I guess what I would want people to know is this: Recovery is hard. We have to change everything. Look in the mirror and be honest. Breakthrough that denial. We are much more in tune with reality than we might think. I made all the excuses. I did all the convincing. In the end, I knew I was an alcoholic. The longer I tried to prove that I wasn't, the more of a raging alcoholic I became. Stop the bullshit. There are resources out there. Get help. AA is one way to get sober. There are several other ways too if that doesn't fit you. Stop thinking you are "so different" from every other alcoholic. You aren't special. There are something like 20 million of out there. We can be homeless, educated, have families, be married, working full time, getting by, have money, be living under a bridge. We can be black, white, native, men, women, teens. Addiction really doesn't care about your wealth, health or background. Recovery doesn't care who you are either. When you get around a bunch of people who are sober and happy, you will find, we would be happy to support another struggling person break free from addiction. We weren't special either. We got through that denial somehow. We got help. And we are here today. 

Lots of love guys!
​Julie