I am a truly grateful, recovering alcoholic. I am 60 years old and have cumulatively been sober 32 years with one relapse. Last month, I celebrated 6 years of continuous sobriety with the validation, love, and support of my groups. My groups, including 12-step groups, have been crucial to me. Alcoholism is a disease of loneliness, and I have found 12-step fellowship to be the antidote.
Traumas in my life were a major reason I went down the path of alcohol and substance use. I lost my adoptive father at age 7, and my family did not cope well with that loss. My home environment was filled with cynicism, rejection, abandonment, and hostility. My mother struggled with her mental health which put stress on me and my siblings. The fact is, as family members, we never really talked to each other.
When I was a teenager, I was driven by ego, fear, and survival. I started drinking at the age of 16, the same year I experienced a sexual assault by the manager of my first job and a resulting pregnancy. I had pre-existing depression and anxiety, which led to a huge increase in my drinking. I developed a host of defenses that kept me separated from everyone including the people that were trying to help me.
In my early days drinking, I convinced myself I was just partying with friends. However, addiction got its hooks into me before I even realized it. I started to face consequences including car accidents, being fired from jobs, an arrest while on vacation for yelling at a cop, throwing up in public places, finding myself next to someone I didn’t know, not remembering where my car or keys were, visits to psych ER’s, frantic 4am calls to my mother threatening suicide etc. Each time I was terrified about what I said or did while in a blackout.
How could liquid in a bottle lay waste to my life and rob me of any hope, goals, or happiness? Slowly, over time. The last 5 years of my drinking were the darkest and loneliest time of my life. I alienated friends, my husband (who was also an alcoholic and has since passed away from alcoholism), my family, and my workplaces. In early January of 1992 I wrote a letter to myself basically accepting that I probably wouldn’t make it to my 28th birthday at the end of the month. My disease was working overtime to convince me there was nothing to live for. I had so destroyed my life, and there was no coming back.
The night of my 28th birthday I invited co-workers to join me at the Cabin Resturant & Bar up
the road from my job in Valhalla, NY. I was driving a rental car because I had totaled my and my
husband’s car. When no one showed, the emotional pain of rejection and loneliness just caused
me to drink even more. When I left the bar at 2am, on a cold, snowy night, I approached a
large tree on the right, while the driveway to my Yonkers residence was on the left. A voice in
my head was yelling, “Just do it, there is nothing here for you”. At the last second, I turned the
wheel back left. The car careened and was totaled, but I had lived. I called Four Winds Hospital
the next day. I, finally, admitted I needed help. It was a tremendous relief.
I went to an outpatient program, joined AA immediately as my life literally depended on it. I
traveled from Yonkers to Katonah every day. I did everything that was suggested, including 90 meetings in 90 days, setting up before meetings, and not making any major changes for a year.
After a year, I ended my marriage and moved to Northern Westchester. I started to feel
connected again, for the first time since my teens.
After 4 years of sobriety, I returned to Four Winds, this time as a mental health worker. I could
help these teens & young adults! This provided me with true joy and optimism. I quickly moved
up to be a staff trainer and eventually the director of the crisis intervention training program, I
have since completed two degrees, worked in rehabs, max-security prisons, as the director of
an adolescent shelter and I offer talks & workshops based on my experiences and formal
education for parents, students, educators, and mental health professionals. Being able to
serve in this way makes every moment of my life worthwhile, and it continues to heal my heart
and mind.
I maintained 26 years of sobriety. One night, having stopped going to meetings, feeling
disconnected, single, and just trying to survive, I sat down at a bar in North Salem. I said to
myself, “just one drink”. I argued to myself: “I have done so much personal work on the “why I
drank” issues. I could surely handle one drink. A sip was all it took. I relapsed for 6 weeks and
was right back to the same mental games, cynical thinking, desperation, shame, and
compulsions. One night, I almost drowned. The next day, I sobered up and went to an old
home group in Armonk. I was welcomed back with open arms, this time doing 120 meetings in
90 days. AA taught me how important it is for people to get to know me and vice versa. I can
happily say I still attend 4 meetings a week, do service and have a profound gratitude I am here
with a heart ready to serve and support others.
Recovery is a journey of spiritual and human development and each of us is worthy of its gifts!
With love, Wendy