Jameson: Committing to an “Everyday life”

I grew up in New Hartford, Connecticut, a small town with a loving family and every opportunity I could have asked for. Looking back, there wasn’t one defining event that made me feel the way I did. It was more of a feeling that followed me for a long time. I moved through life with a persistent sense of discomfort. I struggled to feel like I belonged. I struggled to form meaningful connections with other people and often felt like I was on the outside looking in. Even as a kid, it seemed like everyone else had received some instruction manual for life that I had somehow missed.

When I found alcohol and marijuana in seventh grade, it wasn’t because I wanted to rebel or fit in. It was because, for the first time, I experienced what it felt like to be comfortable in my own mind. The constant feeling that something was off quieted down. I wasn’t overthinking every interaction or constantly questioning myself. I could just exist.

That feeling became something I spent years chasing.

My substance use escalated quickly. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was experimenting with harder drugs. The substances changed, but the motivation never really did. I wasn’t searching for excitement or trying to destroy my life. I was searching for relief from a constant feeling that I was somehow out of step with the world around me.

Eventually, I was sent to a therapeutic boarding school. It was there that I was first introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. Unfortunately, it was also an abusive environment that left me deeply distrustful. Rather than leaving with hope, I left questioning AA, questioning authority, and questioning my own judgment. Instead of feeling more connected, I felt even more isolated from the people around me.

After leaving, my addiction progressed into heroin and benzodiazepines. Those drugs gave me something I had been searching for since I was a kid. They allowed me to feel settled in a way I never had before. For a little while, I could stop fighting myself. I could quiet the thoughts and feelings that had followed me for years.

Of course, that relief came at a tremendous cost.

Over time, my world became smaller and smaller. There were run-ins with the law, unhealthy relationships, periods of homelessness, and a growing sense that my life was becoming completely unmanageable. The things I once relied on to make myself feel better eventually stopped working. What started as an escape became something I couldn’t escape from.

The turning point in my story didn’t come from a single dramatic event. It came during one of the darkest periods of my life, when everything I had relied on to keep myself going had fallen apart. My relationship had ended, I had lost stability, and all the things I had spent years using to avoid myself were no longer working. For the first time, I had to confront the reality that I was slowly destroying my own life.

Somewhere in the middle of that collapse, a thought broke through that I hadn’t been willing to consider before: maybe there was another way to live.

I wasn’t filled with hope or optimism. I didn’t know if recovery would work. I didn’t have some grand vision of what my life would become. I just knew that before I completely gave up on myself, I owed it to myself to find out if something different was possible.

In August of 2015, I checked myself into treatment.

I have remained sober ever since.

Recovery was not the instant transformation I imagined it would be. In many ways, life became harder before it became easier. Without substances, I was still left with many of the same struggles that had followed me for years. I struggled to build relationships, isolated myself, and eventually quit my job. Convinced that I needed to find myself, I spent a period of time living a transient lifestyle. While I remained sober during that time, I eventually realized that I was still doing what I had always done—I was trying to run away from discomfort instead of learning how to live with it.

That realization changed the direction of my recovery.

I began accepting the responsibilities and expectations that come with everyday life. I committed myself to therapy, found a sponsor I trusted, and became willing to honestly work on myself. I started learning how to regulate my emotions, build healthier relationships, and sit with uncomfortable feelings instead of immediately trying to escape them.

Slowly, my life started to look different.

I met my long-term partner and learned what a healthy relationship could look like. I built friendships rooted in honesty and trust. I became someone who could show up for other people and allow others to show up for me. I stopped searching for some external place where I belonged and started realizing that connection is something built through vulnerability and consistency.

Today, my recovery is centered around helping others. I have the privilege of working in behavioral healthcare, where I help individuals and families connect with resources that can support their mental health. Every day, I speak with people who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or convinced that things cannot change. I understand those feelings because I spent many years feeling the same way.

If I could leave anyone with one thought, it would be this: don’t assume.

For much of my life, I approached things as contempt prior to investigation—the tendency to dismiss something before we have honestly taken the time to understand it or experience it. I made decisions about myself, about other people, and about what was possible before I had truly given myself the chance to find out. I assumed I didn’t belong. I assumed I couldn’t change. I assumed I already knew what my future would look like.

Thankfully, I learned that I was often wrong.

Recovery didn’t give me a perfect life, and it didn’t remove every uncomfortable feeling I’ve ever had. What it gave me was the ability to face those feelings without needing to escape from them. It gave me meaningful relationships, purpose, and the opportunity to build a life that I no longer feel the need to run away from.