by Fiona Stockard | Oct 1, 2014 | Sobriety For Women
Written By: Fiona Stockard
My Name is Fiona and I’m an Addict
It took me far too long to say those words. It took me even longer to mean them. My road to recovery from substance abuse began the first time I made myself vomit. See, before I could imagine getting better, I had to get worse.
Growing up, I always felt like the weirdo, the odd-woman out (turns out most addicts felt this way!). I was overweight and had low self-esteem. I suffered from anxiety and depression. In turn, I felt like a piece of crap everyday.
My Story
At eleven years old, I made myself throw up and instantly felt better. That’s kind of sick, right?
I didn’t lose tons of weight. I didn’t become suddenly popular. The boy I had a crush on didn’t ask me out. What did happen was that I gained control. On some tiny level, I finally had control over my body, over my mind.
Fast-forward a couple of years, I found out pills worked better than vomiting. Fast-forward a couple of years from that, I found out heroin worked better than pills. Oh, and guess what? Cocaine and heroin worked best.
By seventeen years old (before I was even legally an adult!), I was one hot mess. I was addicted to multiple drugs, living on the street, and alienated from my family. I was more addiction than person. Luckily, my mom just wouldn’t give up on me. She got me a plane ticket and a bed in one of south Florida’s most prominent treatment centers.
That wasn’t happily ever after though. Though treatment was an amazing experience, I relapsed afterward. Life was hell for another year. Eventually, I went to another treatment center and got better. Turns out all I had to do was change everything. Though this sounds hard, it was so much easier than the alternative.
If my story sounds like a bad afterschool special, that’s because it is. I was a statistic. I was the story you told your kids to scare them. Today, well today, I’m much different. I’m writing this, exposing myself, in the hopes that other women might not have to go through all I did.
What I Needed WASN’T What I Wanted
I’ve been around the block when it comes to rehab. I’ve been admitted twice to in-patient, residential programs, and been to more intensive outpatients (IOPs) than I can count. I knew the system. More accurately, I knew how to beat the system.
It wasn’t until multiple therapists, doctors, and addiction professionals had called me on my s**t, that I began to heal. To put it another way, what I needed wasn’t what I wanted.
What I needed was an all women’s rehab, therapists who examined ALL aspects of my life, supportive peers, and aftercare. In my IOP experiences, I received none of the above. IOP works great for a lot of people, I can’t stress that enough. But for this broken woman (for this broken GIRL really), IOP didn’t even allow me to cut down my use.
My first time in residential treatment, I had two of the four. I was in a women’s treatment center and had great peers. What I didn’t receive was comprehensive clinical care, or any aftercare.
My second time in residential treatment, I had four out of four. I was surrounded by incredibly warm and supportive women, the entire treatment team kicked my metaphorical ass, then built me carefully back up, and the rehab looked after me upon discharge. Guess what? As a result of all that, I began to change. I was given hope and I wasn’t trading that hope for all the drugs in the world.
Recovery is For People Who…
Addiction treatment is a vital and necessary part of recovery, but ultimately it’s only the start of a lifelong process. Treatment offers a ton of crucial services (like those I mentioned above), a place to be physically separated from drugs, guidance, and hope. What treatment doesn’t offer is the desire to get better. That has to come from within.
Remember, I drank and used after my first visit to residential treatment. This was largely due to not being provided the safe environment rehab should be, but also because I wasn’t ready to change.
To put it a much simpler way, a woman needs the desire to heal more than ANYHTING ELSE. What women in sobriety need is a fire within their chests, a voice that won’t stop repeating, “you can do better, you can get better, you ARE better!”
by A Women in Sobriety | Sep 10, 2014 | Drug Addiction
This article originally appeared on Addiction Blog
How Addiction Really Affects The Family
We all know the scare stories about how addicts hurt their families. We’ve heard about the crying parents, the terrified siblings, and the confused aunts and uncles.
We’ve probably experienced them too! I know I took my family to hell and back during active addiction. Will I ever really know what they went through though? I decided to interview my family and find out.
My Parents
Sobriety for Women: So, how’d you do it? I probably scared you both to death for years.
Mom: You did, but that’s part of being a parent too. I’m not trying to take you off the hook by any means, but having kids is a terrifying experience to begin with. It doesn’t help if your daughter is abusing drugs, but even if you didn’t cause one problem, I’d still find something to worry about.
Dad: I saw things a little differently. Your mom is absolutely right, being a parent is an exercise in terror. Seeing your kid take drugs and become a drug addict though, that was rough. It was hard being powerless. I didn’t think that I was powerless for a long time either. I thought that if I were just harder on you, you’d clean up. It took some time to get rid of that way of thinking.
S4W: What was it like seeing me in active addiction?
Mom: It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with, maybe the hardest. Your father talked about being powerless to change your behavior and he’s right. Seeing you hurt yourself over and over and not being able to do anything? That was horrible. It was also hard to understand that you were sick. I think addiction causes a lot of anger. I was angry with you for a long time. I’d stay up late, asking myself “why can’t she just stop? Doesn’t she see how much she’s hurting us and herself?”
Dad: Anger was huge for me, too. I couldn’t understand why you kept using drugs. It was easier to be angry than to confront the fact that my daughter might die. That’s something that no parent wants to consider. Seeing you in your addiction was hard too, because I blamed myself for a long time. I thought that your shortcomings were because I hadn’t raised you right. There was a lot of “I should have” and “why didn’t I?” happening.
S4W: So, again, how’d you do it? How’d you cope?
Mom: A lot of praying! I’m not sure, truthfully. It was hard. We have good friends and they helped a lot. None of them had children who dealt with drug addiction though. Your father and I went to a support group for a year or so. It was offered through one of the outpatient centers you went to. That was a lifesaver. Being able to vent about everything that was going on with you, as well as the issues your father and I were having, was priceless. Even better, the other families would talk to us after. They would let us know that they’d been where we were and things got better. It gave me a lot of hope.
Dad: Yeah, the support group helped a lot. One of the things parents of addicts don’t hear about a lot, and something I want them to know, is that your marriage may suffer. It happened to us. We were so wrapped up in trying to help you, that we ignored each other and, after awhile, we became angry with each other. I think we blamed each other for your issues. So, having somewhere to go and find out that we weren’t to blame, that was important.
My Siblings
I asked my brother some similar questions. He’s two years younger than I am.
S4W:What was my addiction like for you?
Little Bro: It was hard. I was pretty pissed at you while you were using and for a long time afterwards, too. We had some of the same friends and hung out with similar people, so I didn’t get why they were fine and you were a mess. It was hard too because I thought I always had to stand up for you. Even though you were older, it felt kind of like I was protecting you. So, that was pretty stressful.
S4W: I bet! I know we didn’t talk at all towards the end of my addiction. What was going through your head then?
Little Bro: I mean, like I said, I was just really pissed at you. I felt like you’d worn down mom and dad. You made them angry and scared all the time. That seemed really unfair to me. Plus, you kept messing up and they were always there to bail you out. It seemed like no matter how much you f**ked up, they’d take care of you and ignore me. Not ignore, but you know what I mean. Like, it seemed that they took for granted that I was always going to be okay, and you never were.
S4W:So, how’d you get over it? How’d you forgive me?
Little Bro:You just earned it. I didn’t forgive you the day you went to rehab, or for like a year afterwards, but down the line I did. You showed you were different. You showed you were a new person and a new sister. I think you reaching out to me helped a lot, too. You wouldn’t let me stay pissed at you!
by Fiona Stockard | Aug 22, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
The Big Book Broken Down – Part Three
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to recover from alcohol and drug addiction. It was founded in June of 1935, just celebrated its seventy-ninth anniversary, and boasts over two million members.
AA’s central text is the Big Book. With a sponsor and a Big Book, AA members work the twelve steps, and “recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” (title page).
Today, I’ll be breaking down chapter three, More About Alcoholism.
More About Alcoholism
This chapter is all about identification. At its most basic, it’s designed to let prospective AA members identify their drinking with alcoholic drinking. That’s what More About Alcoholism did for me. It gave me hope knowing that others drank like I did, yet were able to get better.
On the second page, various methods of controlled drinking are listed. They’d be comical, if I hadn’t tried some myself. Drinking only beer? Been there, done that. Not drinking at work? Been there, done that. Did these methods work for me? Not even a little!
Later in More About Alcoholism, Jim’s story is told. Jim was a used car salesman (big surprise!) who couldn’t stop drinking. He managed to put a bit of sober time together, but relapsed after mixing whiskey with milk. He thought he could drink, as long as he had a full stomach and mixed his drinks! While I never tried this exact pairing, I did mix weed with tobacco. I was convinced I could smoke weed, as long as it wasn’t only weed.
Further on in the chapter, AA compares our alcoholic drinking to jaywalking. We get sideswiped, clipped, maybe ever full on hit, but just can’t stop. Finally, we’re badly injured and taken to the hospital. After getting out, we start jaywalking again. We’re promptly hit by a truck and killed.
Seems a little bit extreme, right? Well, think about how our loved ones view our addiction. To them, we’re just as tragic as the jaywalker. We keep getting hurt, yet can’t stop drinking or using. We’re incapable!
Fair enough, but what if you’re not convinced you’re an alcoholic? Don’t worry, AA has that covered, too. “Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once” (pp. 31-32).
I couldn’t pass this test once, let alone more than once. Then again, it’s a little harder to try controlled dope shooting and crack smoking! Still, the point remains. People that drink like we drink, that use like we use, can’t control their intake. It simply isn’t possible.
Finally convinced you’re an alcoholic? Try this on for size, “The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker” (p. 30).
This was certainly true for me. All I wanted, and I mean all I wanted, was to use like other people. I didn’t understand why every time I drank, or got high, bad things happened. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that I wasn’t able to control my use.
The chapter goes on to say, “We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control” (p. 30) and “Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever” (p. 33).
Again, these were true for me. I could stay clean for short periods, but every time I used, my life rapidly spiraled out of control. Okay, so what could I do to stop? Go to treatment and learn about myself? Yeah, that sounds good!
More About Alcoholism says, “He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all his reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside…” (pp. 36-37).
Here, alcoholics are introduced to a very important idea. Self-knowledge won’t keep us sober. It’s that simple. Self-knowledge can help normal drinkers stop, but people like me? It just isn’t enough.
In fact, the chapter goes on to say almost those exact words. “But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge” (p. 39).
Why can’t we stop drinking through self-knowledge? I’m not sure of all the reasons, but one is that we simply can’t remember how bad our drinking was! AA members say as much, “They said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and more, for what I learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots” (p. 42).
So, we have these “strange mental blank spots.” That makes sense to me. There have been countless times where I started getting high without a second though. It didn’t once cross my mind that using was a bad idea.
What can I do? How can I stay sober? How can I live a life where I don’t hate myself and everyone else? Am I screwed? Nope. There’s hope. More About Alcoholism ends with the quote “His defense must come from a Higher Power” (p. 43).
When I first came into the rooms of AA, I didn’t like the idea of God or a Higher Power. Still, I was beaten up enough give it a try. Guess what? The God idea worked better than I ever could have imagined. We’ll learn how in two weeks!
by Sally Rosa | Aug 12, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Recovery
Written By: Tim Myers
Robin Williams Committed Suicide, But You Don’t Have To
Robin Williams chose to end his life yesterday. He’s dead and everyone is mourning the loss of one of our greatest actors.
99.9% of the people posting on Facebook never met Mr. Williams. Think about that for a second. He touched so many lives through his god given talent that millions, who had no relationship with him, are crying.
Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse all died by accident. None were celebrated in the way Robin Williams is being celebrated. None were loved in the way Robin Williams is loved.
Why?
So, why’d he do it?
Well, I think I know why. See, I’ve wanted to commit suicide quite a few times. I suffer from depression. I’m a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, just like Robin Williams.
There were many times in the past I’ve wanted to kill myself. Not in the seeking attention kind of way. Not in the dramatic kind of way. In the pit of my stomach, calm realization that my pain can be over, I’m going to do this kind of way.
I’ve been there. I was so sick of my failed attempts to get sobriety, so sick of my constant up and downs. I reached a point where I felt doomed to live in a constant state of sadness.
If you’ve never experienced clinical depression, this is what it feels like – you’re trapped in a cement box and no one is around for miles. It’s always dark. All you hear are your own screams and the voice in your head keeps saying “it won’t get better until you die.”
That’s how it feels when the depression takes over. I’m willing to bet that’s what Robin Williams felt like before he committed suicide.
That’s how I felt four years ago, sitting in a red leather chair in Lake Worth, Florida. Tear pouring down my face, a kitchen knife tight in my hand, a note on the table, bottles of vodka across the floor, and the sick thought that my twelve-year-old sister would be better off when I’m dead.
I was never thought I’d wake up, but I did.
Hope
I don’t want to die anymore. Here’s why:
- I’ve accepted that I suffer from depression.
- I sought out professional help and continue to see a therapist.
- I take non-narcotic medication everyday, as prescribed.
- I regularly attend Twelve-Step meetings.
- I pray and meditate everyday.
Do I still get sad? You bet your ass I do, but it never gets as bad as it was. It never takes me back to the red leather chair.
I suffer from the disease of addiction and the disease of clinical depression. They’ll kill me if I let them. Through the use of these five crucial things I keep my diseases at bay, in remission, and away from my soul.
I guarantee that for twenty years Robin Williams did these same five things. He was sober and happy. For the last several years, he wasn’t. His diseases convinced him it was time to go.
Robin Williams committed suicide…but I promise you don’t have to.
