by Fiona Stockard | Sep 2, 2013 | Benefits of Sobriety
“Waiting is the Hardest Part” – Tom Petty
I agree, Tom, waiting sucks. So, why do we do it? I’m not talking about waiting for the bus, or waiting for a burrito, or waiting for your next paycheck. I’m talking about waiting for things we don’t need to wait for.
The idea of waiting for your ship to come in is ridiculous. If you’re waiting for your ship to come in, get the crap off the beach and start swimming! Go find the damn ship! Yeah, there might be sharks. Yeah, the water will be rough. Yeah, your arms are going to get tired. If you look for your ship, though, you’ll get there a hell of a lot faster than by sitting on your butt, supping coconut juice.
My life sucked! Like, hardcore sucked! I knew I had to stop drinking and getting high. I actually wanted to stop, too! I knew how to stop, but I kept waiting. Waiting to be caught. Waiting to lose it all. Waiting for a sponsor to knock on my door and say, “hey, I’ll sponsor you! I was just in the neighborhood and saw you drinking whisky in your underwear at noon. I kind of think you need help!”
A sponsor isn’t going to walk up to you. It just won’t happen. Let me repeat, IT WON’T HAPPEN!
I guess you can wait. Hell, I did. Here’s the thing, as I stood waited, I kept getting pushed and beaten by my own self-destructiveness. I was tossed around like a tree in a hurricane. I was beaten over and over again, but still refused to move from the path of the storm. Standing still and waiting left me vulnerable to hurt myself and I did. Finally, after a decade of waiting…
I stopped f**king waiting!
I got off the beach, dusted myself off and started to swim! Sharks nipped at my feet. Waves shook me back and forth. My arms felt like they were going to fall off. The water was cold, but guess what? All that crap? It made me stronger!
I went to a meeting and got a sponsor. I met him once a week. I never missed a meeting, not one! Then, eight months later, my life was 100% fireworks blasting, scream it from a mountain top, awesome. All I could ask myself was “why the hell did I wait so long to change?”
Waiting IS the hardest part, so don’t wait!
by A Women in Sobriety | Aug 2, 2013 | Benefits of Sobriety
Where Rubber Meets the Road
Hopeless alcoholic and drug addict turns life around. What a great heading! Is it frontline news? Well, not in the Sun Sentinel. At certain times during my sobriety, I’ve felt there should be a parade in my honor. There should be parties and a band celebrating my triumphs. I mean, look at how well I’m doing! I’m young and sober. Days have turned into months and years.
I finished a commitment for the first time in my life! I completed treatment at a women’s treatment center and stayed in an all women’s halfway house. I got a sponsor and worked ALL twelve-steps. I started sponsoring other women, started taking them through the steps. Slowly but surely, I’ve begun to understand the concepts behind the twelve-steps and utilize them in my daily life. Life is good.
I have a relationship with God. I have my family back and we have a better relationship than ever. I have more friends than I know what to do with. I haven’t thought about a drink or drug in quite some time. For some, though, there’s still something missing. I feel like a piece of the puzzle is still in the box, on the shelf, out of reach. I can’t put my finger on it. Then, one day, I thought “I’m sober, now what?”
I’m Sober, Now What?
That question hit me hard. It was the combination of all my fears and anxiety. I have a program of recovery. I’ve gotten back everything I lost through active addiction. But I still feel like summer camp is over!
It’s time to sit down and figure out what else there is. What else did I want from life?
It’s time for me to sit down and figure out what goals, dreams, and ambitions I have.
It’s time for me to sit down and figure out who I am and what I really want.
So, I started to think about what I want from life. First, I want to go back to school. I want to get an education and expand my academic horizons. Let’s start there. Well, I went back to school. It was great! For the first time, I was in college because I wanted to be, not because I had to be! After a few years, I graduate with a B.A. in a field I love.
I start to advance at work and land a job with a decent salary. I begin to learn a lot, both inside and outside of recovery. From here, I expand my goals. I want to open my own business, helping sick and suffering women. So, I do. I learn more, and am more fufilled, by helping others than by anything else.
A lot of times I sit down and talk about life with people in recovery. After a certain point, I believe everyone hits a period on their life where, if all their ducks are in a row, they feel the end of summer camp. At this point, it’s important to remember the sky’s the limit!
Yeah, it sounds cheesy, I know. It’s true though! I never imagined I’d have the life I have today. What about you? Did you ever think you’d have the life you have today? Sobriety is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. BUT, I need to know about life after sobriety!
by A Women in Sobriety | Jun 16, 2013 | Benefits of Sobriety
I Won’t Love You to Death!
Sobriety is a life changing experience no matter where you are. Still, you’re told to get as many sober supports as you can. They help you deal with the emotional up’s and down’s that occur in early sobriety. So, when I found myself states away from my family, I questioned if I would make it. If I did make it, I questioned how our relationship would be affected. My relationship with my family was affected, but in a way I NEVER could have imagined!
Before I made the decision to get sober, I was with my family daily. They’ve always been supportive of me, even through the tornado of my active alcoholism. I knew they were always there for me, but I wasn’t capable of being there for them. My alcoholism hindered my ability to be a daughter and a sister. I wasn’t able to support my father when his brother, my uncle and godfather, passed away. I wasn’t able to support my father while he battled cancer. I wasn’t there for my mother through the death of her mother. I have more examples of selfishness than fingers on my hands.
Probably the scariest part is that I truly believed I was supporting my family through all these events. In sobriety, I learned that simply being physically present isn’t enough. Alcoholism blinded me from the pain I caused others. Pain through my actions and inactions. Pain through my constant screw ups. When I finally hit enough pain in my own life, I agreed to make a change and seek help. This decision wasn’t easy. My parents say me down and my mother said the words that changed my life forever. I won’t love you to death. This was the first time I realized how my actions affect other people.
Getting Better Far Away
I moved many states away from my family, to go to treatment, and now live thousands of miles away. This change was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! I wanted my family to be there and support me, just like they always did. I went through so much it seemed like a phone call was never enough.
I missed major events in their lives! My sister gave birth to two children. I missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, deaths, and the small, daily struggles my family went through. Here’s the thing, even though I wasn’t there for any of these major events, I was present. I was supportive. For the first time, I helped my family.
Today, through maintaining physical and emotional sobriety, I’m able to be the daughter and sister my family deserves. I can have actual conversations with my family. I can give back the support they’ve shown me my entire life. Although it’s hard to be so far away from them, I’m in their lives more today than I ever was.
I was promised that if I continue to do what I’m supposed to do, I’ll be able to mend my broken relationships. This promise came true in more ways than I could have ever imagined. Being able to support my family gives me more gratitude than anything else. We’ve never been closer than we are now and we live thousands of miles apart! Sobriety’s give me my family back, no distance can ever change that!
by Fiona Stockard | Jun 1, 2013 | Addiction Treatment, Benefits of Sobriety
How to be Grateful in Recovery
“You know, when I blew out my birthday candles this year I didn’t wish for anything…I simply said Thank You.”
BAM. Gratitude at its finest. Who says that? Who says I’m happy enough that there’s nothing else I need to wish for, not even on my birthday wish. A free wish! Well, a grateful alcoholic said those words to me.
We’ve all heard the saying that you can’t be resentful and grateful at the same time. In moments of hardship, it’s best to remember what we’re grateful for.
A month ago, a woman sat in front of me, broken and confused. She had another relapse under her belt and one more reason why AA wasn’t the answer. She wasn’t sure if sobriety was the right choice, but decided to give it a shot anyway. Not the half-measure, one-foot-in attempt she’d done in the past. She decided to give a real, honest effort at sobriety. One prayer later, she’d been given a sign that launched her into action.
See, gratitude is an action word. I hear that all the time, but what does it mean? What does it mean to be grateful and sober? How does someone become a grateful alcoholic or addict? I asked myself that question a million times in early sobriety. I’d hear people with some time talk about how grateful they were. WHY?! Didn’t they see where we were? We were stuck in South Florida, in a stuffy, little room littered with slogans like “Easy Does It.” There were E-Cigs being smoked the entire time, too! How could they be grateful?
For months this question plagued me. I didn’t understand! To me, grateful and sober clashed more than wearing pink and green. After I started to do some work on myself, after I developed a relationship with God, after I developed a relationship with sober people, my feelings began to change. Things I’d been sure of my entire life began to change. My reaction to life began to change. I began to become happy.
Not too long afterwards, I finally understood what it meant to be grateful and sober. The sentence my friend said, about simply saying “thank you” on her first sober birthday, hit me like a truck. Not only because it was an original saying I’d never heard before, although I did think it was so adorable! It hit me hard because I need to remember gratitude. As a recovering alcoholic and addict, I need to be reminded to be grateful for how good my life is today.
After being sober a few years, life has shown up. The pressure of being responsible adult has been filling me with fear lately. So, what does God do to shut me up? He places a newcomer in my life to remind me how exciting sobriety is. He places a newcomer in my life to remind me how wonderful life is and how the little things can make the best day ever. It’s experiences like this that make my sobriety worth more than anything in the world. Today, I’m grateful to be sober.
by Fiona Stockard | May 10, 2013 | Addiction Treatment, Benefits of Sobriety
Fun in Sobriety?
The first time I tried to get sober I was 19. This was December, 2006. I’d dropped out of college after the first semester of my sophomore year. I thought I was like every other nineteen year old girl. Turns out, most nineteen year olds can go to class sober. Turns out most nineteen year olds don’t black out every night.
My parents realized long before I did how unmanageable my life was. They sent me to rehab and that’s where I perfected the art of telling people what they wanted to hear, of sliding under the radar. I wanted to have the willingness to get sober, but the truth is, I just didn’t. See, getting sober wasn’t worth it to me. I thought you couldn’t have fun in sobriety. I wouldn’t get sober for another five and a half years.
During this time, I didn’t much fun at all. I laughed sometimes, but always at the expense of someone else. I laughed because making fun of someone else made me feel better about myself. I gossiped because it made me feel better about myself.
Fake Fun in Fake Sobriety
I had periods of abstinence during those five plus years, but never actually worked a program. I couldn’t imagine a life without drugs or alcohol, let alone being able to have fun sober.
The truth is, during those periods of abstinence, I still had all my old behaviors. I lied, cheated, stole, and manipulated. I just didn’t use substances. I felt even worse during this time, if that makes sense. I didn’t have drugs to cover my feelings. I was a raw nerve and living a miserable existence. I remember doing activities that should have been fun. I even thought I was having fun sometimes. Really, I was just trying to fake it ’till I made it.
I thought if I didn’t change my attitude, or behaviors, but laughed when other people did, it might rub off on me. That didn’t happen. After awhile, I didn’t think sober people could have fun at all. I thought everyone else was doing what I was, faking a happy life. So, I went on one hell of a run. I used for a year and a half. During this time, some very close to me passed away. It was only then that I began to realize my crippling addiction. It was only then I began to realize I didn’t want to live this way anymore.
Real Fun in Real Sobriety
My sobriety date is January 17, 2011. I got sober on my 24th birthday. I’d love to say that I did the right thing from the start, that I finally had willingness, but I didn’t. I had to experience more pain, this time while in treatment, to become willing.
I was in an intensive inpatient treatment center for seven months. After about six months, I found what would become, and still is, my home group. I remember going to this meeting and seeing so many young people smiling, so many young people having fun. The crazy part was they were sober! You mean I can have fun in sobriety? This was a new idea for me. I saw clients returning from pass with sober-supports. They were happy and looked like they were having fun. This boggled my mind. I asked myself hundreds of times “are they really having fun in sobriety?”
I realized these people were only happy because they’d worked through the twelve-steps and found a new way of life. I decided I wanted what they had. I got a sponsor who began to take me through the steps. Eventually, I did a fifth step and learned my life had been driven by self-centered fear. I started going out with people after meetings. I slowly began to have fun in sobriety.
Still, I wasn’t 100% sure what people actually did for fun in sobriety. I soon learned, you do the same thing normal people do! You go out to dinner, to movies, to concerts, to friends’ houses. To this day, some of the best moments I’ve had have been sitting at a friend’s apartment, just talking and laughing.
I remember being in a friend’s car one day. We were joking around, laughing, and generally having a good time. He looked at me and said “If I knew sobriety was this fun, I’d have gotten sober a long time ago!” I couldn’t agree more. I thank God everyday for finding me a home in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think God everyday for the simple fact that I can be happy. I thank God everyday for being able to have fun in sobriety.
