My Sober Story

Just like there are repeat offenders in the criminal system, there are repeat victims in life. Constantly being hurt and abused – Life is constantly happening to them not for them. I was one of those people. I was a victim.

I was slowly driven away from my inner light at a young age and as my light got dimmer and dimmer that need for an artificial light source came through.

I grew up in a traditional middle-class family in the suburbs, I experienced some mild childhood trauma but nothing extremely severe. At the age of 10 my parents got divorced and my mom relocated us across the country which is where my journey with pain began. I felt lost and lonely in my new school, and I struggled to fit in, I became a chameleon blending into any social setting I could, to try to feel part of. I never felt good enough and I never had my own identity. I was succeeding in academics and athletics; I was even on student council but I felt like I was an imposter - but I found something that would make me feel better - alcohol and soon after boys.

Alcohol made me feel like a confident princess, I could be anyone I wanted when I was drinking. I was beautiful, I had a voice and I got attention – I had light. I was the star of the show. I graduated with honors and had earned scholarships but all the while I was broken and lost inside my head.

Alcohol had given me light, but alcohol brought me to very dark places. After high school, I was addicted to that artificial light and I got into the world of exotic dancing and I began dating men who were larger than life. I felt like I had arrived, as in this dark little world I was a somebody. But when the lights of the stage were dim, the club was closed, and the fair-weather friends were gone I was alone once again. I was a nobody.

I got caught in the cycle of this fancy new life and alcohol was the star of my show. It ruled my world but at the time I had no idea. I thought it was just a phase, every 20 something went through. I met the man of my dreams at a bar and thought I was through with the night life. We settled down into our happily ever after, had a few children and built a wonderful new life. We would host gatherings at our house every weekend for our other couple friends and life looked wonderful from the outside.

But behind closed doors addiction was running the show. Full paycheques were blown on drugs and alcohol. We were living a double life. On the outside we looked like a stable successful middle-class family. I was climbing the corporate accounting ladder and he had a long-time union job with an amazing company. Life seemed happy in the surface we had no real reason to be using yet we did – that is the baffling nature of untreated addiction. But we were not addicts, not us. With life becoming increasingly more unmanageable, domestic violence slowly crept into our home. What started as little jabs at my self-esteem quickly escalated into life threatening altercations, but I would justify and smooth over the situation each and every time. It was going to be ok, I just needed to do this or that it will get better. But it did not. The police would come and go from our home, visits from social services would increase but we did not have a problem we were the perfect white picket fence family – we did not have a problem – I clung to this fantasy until reality crept in. 

One morning my 6-year-old son began to treat me the same way as his dad had been treating me and that was an eye-opening moment for me. I saw the truth. That was my first bottom. One night shortly after we left, in the middle of the night, with only our pajamas on our backs through the garage and I never went back.

I was free – drugs, alcohol and domestic violence were going to be a thing of the past. Now that I am free of this life, I am going to be happy. I am a new person. What wonderful tales those would turn out to be.

The reasons to drink and use just changed. I would tell myself things like, you work so hard to provide for your kids on your own – you deserve a drink. That was a stressful day today, you deserve a drink. The kids are at their dads this week – I’m feeling kind of lonely – you deserve to have a drink. The reasons to drink kept coming and I could never just have a drink. I would drink myself into a black out and use drugs almost each and every time. I was chasing that feeling of light in the darkness but could no longer find the light.  But still I did not have a problem with drugs or alcohol. You see if you had the life that I had, you would drink too or oh who me I don’t have a problem – you should see my ex he is the one with a problem.

How poetic those words would turn out to be. You see I found a solution to my problem – a sober man. Here he has all the rough around the edges appeal of bad boy but without the added problem of drugs and alcohol. I had found the solution to all my troubles - until he relapsed back into addiction and I found myself dating someone who closely resembled my first husband. But as luck would have it his recovery support team quickly swooped in and got him back into treatment and thus in August 2016, I began to attend weekly meetings of a 12-step program to support my partner. 

There I heard stories from women just like me who identified as addicts and alcoholics and I quickly realized that that had been my problem all along. I put down the drugs and the alcohol and began my journey in recovery. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, and I didn’t get a magical new sense of happiness right away but day by day I got stronger and more self-aware. I got connected spiritually and began to have faith again, in myself, in life and in a God personal to me.

One year into my sobriety my sober partner relapsed, and I made the decision to continue this journey alone. I tried dating a few times after that relationship but with this newfound mental clarity and strength I saw red flags in every guy and decided to grow and develop myself instead of a relationship. I got comfortable being uncomfortable and I found that a tremendous amount of growth comes when you do all those uncomfortable things – someone said to me early in recovery that if nothing changes nothing changes and I was miserable so I changed everything I could.

At two years sober, my ex-husband, the father of my children died of a fentanyl overdose on Thanksgiving Day 2018 two hours after I had picked up the kids from dinner. This was my rock bottom. I was flooded with feelings of guilt and sadness. In the two years I had been developing my sobriety, his addiction had been growing worse. It felt like for every step I took into the light he took one further into the darkness. Why did I get this new amazing life and not him?

This was the point my life took a whole new trajectory – I credit God but you can call it whatever you wish. I made the decision to jump all into this life of recovery, before then I was only scraping the surface. I began pushing myself to heal more and endeavoured to learn more about myself. Outside of my 12-step program that I am heavily involved in - I have taken personal growth courses, gone to therapy, explored natural healing techniques and some bizarre ones too and I have grown, boy have I grown. I started sharing my journey of recovery with the world and the world turned around to listen. I decided to be the girl I needed to see when I was living in the darkness to give hope to those who were suffering in silence just like me, I turned my mess into my message and the world has blessed me as a result.

I  have been rocketed into a new life – wilder than anything I could have ever imagined and I have found my true identity, my purpose and my light and I share that light with the world and I keep pushing myself to be uncomfortable because I am no longer addicted to pain I am now addicted to growth.

I have become the girl I was pretending to be all those years. I can walk with my head held high my shoulders back. I have confidence, I am beautiful, and I am worthy.