by Fiona Stockard | May 26, 2015 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
Early-Recovery is Crazy!
The title says it all – early-recovery is crazy! We’re a whirlwind of emotions (mainly negative ones!), fear, insecurity, anxiety, highs and lows, and all sorts of madness.
It’s not all bad though. It’s also the time when we grow the most! Think about it like this – when we’re at ground zero, there’s nowhere to go but up. I probably grew more, and learned more about myself, in my first six months of sobriety than at any other time in my life.
This column, the newest from Sobriety for Women, will focus on the good, the bad, and the ugly. Admittedly, there’s usually more bad and ugly than good! So, to start things off, let me tell you all about the night I moved into what would become my final halfway house.
A Halfway House Horror Story
I “transferred” halfway houses at around ninety days sober. I say transferred because, to tell the truth, I was kicked out of the halfway house I’d been living in. I didn’t drink or get high, but I wasn’t living by spiritual principles. I was making selfish and impulsive decisions and, wouldn’t you know it, got kicked out.
So there I was, ninety days sober and effectively homeless. I scrambled and found another sober living residence that was willing to take me without a security deposit. Thank God for the kindness of women in this program!
I moved in around dinnertime that night. I met the owner, the house managers, and my new roommates. It turns out I actually knew one of the women living there. We’d previously lived together in another halfway! South Florida is a small place, friends!
This woman, let’s call her “Martha,” was a chronic relapser. I had been too for quite some time, so who was I to judge?
I emerged from my room later that night, around midnight I think, and found Martha and another of our roommates sitting in the living room with belts around their arms. The coffee table was littered with powder, burnt spoons, orange syringe caps, and a bent and dull needle.
To say I was shocked was a bit of an understatement. Just a few hours earlier, the owner had stood in our living room and talked about the power of honesty, willingness, and spiritual living. Martha and our other roommate stood there nodding their heads.
Fast forward to midnight and they were nodding their heads in a completely different way. I didn’t know what to do! I knew what I should do, but there’s a huge difference between should and taking that action.
One thing was for sure though, I knew I didn’t want to get high. I retreated back to my room and called the owner. I was shaking as I called! I didn’t want Martha and the other girl to hate me! Still, I knew if I didn’t talk to someone ASAP than I’d join them. That’s just how addiction works.
The owner didn’t answer, so I called a house manager. She told me to do nothing tonight and they would kick the girls out tomorrow. She told me that, if I needed to, I could leave and sleep on her couch for the night.
We talked for close to an hour. I slept in my new halfway house (halfway home!) that night. After we got off the phone, I prayed for a good thirty minutes or so. I asked God for the strength to stay sober.
The following morning, Martha and our other roommate were kicked out. It wasn’t the big deal I’d made it into in my mind the night before. The owner came over, drug tested them, and they left. It was that simple.
The Power of God
The only reason I stayed sober that night was because of God and the house manager I spoke to. I truly believe that woman was an instrument of God working to help me!
I’d been kicked out of a halfway house that day. I wasn’t living by spiritual principles. I moved into somewhere new, someplace outside of my comfort zone. I saw a woman I was friendly with (calling her my friend might be too much, but we were certainly friendly).
Then, hours later, drugs were placed in front of me. There’s no reason I should have stayed sober. All signs pointed towards relapse. But I didn’t! God was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
That night was the start of my REAL recovery. That night was the start of me listening to, and learning from, others. Although it’s a crazy story, it also displays a powerful and simple truth – we only need to do the right thing to tap into a spiritual power beyond our understanding.
by Sally Rosa | Oct 15, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Hardcore Sobriety
I was lucky enough to get sober with a bunch of Big Book thumpers. Actually, scratch that, I don’t know if I’d have gotten sober without them. Really, I was graced enough to be given the gift of sobriety from a bunch of Big Book thumpers.
If you’ve been sober for any length of time, you probably know what a book thumper is. If you haven’t, let me tell you!
Big Book thumpers are individuals in recovery who stress the importance of working the twelve-steps and spreading a message of hope, straight from Alcoholics Anonymous, more commonly known as the Big Book.
These are the women at meetings who aren’t afraid to call bulls**t when they see it. They’re the one’s who’ll crosstalk, giving newcomers the advice they so desperately need to hear. They’re the ones you see smiling and laughing until the conversation turns to the steps, then they get deadly serious.
In short, they’re the ones saving lives.
Going to Rehab & My Introduction to Book Thumpers
I didn’t get sober the first time I tried to. Like many alcoholics, it took me a few tries. That isn’t to say it’s impossible to be a one-chip wonder, plenty of people are. Still, most alcoholics I know needed to be beaten up pretty good before they became willing.
I was living in a halfway house in Delray Beach. I was going to aftercare and twelve-step meetings everyday. I also couldn’t stop drinking and drugging. Eventually, I ended up back in rehab. This was the definition of a blessing in disguise!
While in treatment, a group of women heavily involved in H&I (Hospitals and Institutions) brought meetings in. These were hardcore book thumpers! I didn’t take their numbers, or even talk to them really, but a seed of hope was planted.
Getting Sober Thanks to Book Thumpers
Seeing these women and their passion for spreading the message of recovery, gave me hope. Plus, they were saying things I’d never heard before. They didn’t rehash the same old “don’t drink and go to meetings” slogans. Good things they didn’t! Not drinking and going to meetings kept me sick! If I could simply not drink, I wouldn’t need twelve-step recovery in the first place!
Instead, they were saying things like “Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles” (Big Book, p. 62).
Or, “Instead, the problem [alcoholism] has been removed. It does not exist for us” (Big Book, p. 85).
They were calling themselves recovered alcoholics. What an idea! You mean I had a chance to recover? To get better? Not to sit around, miserable as f**k, until I inevitability drank again?
The 12-Steps & Staying Sober in the Real World
And then came the fateful day when I got out of treatment. I wasn’t in the safe and protected rehab bubble anymore. I was in the real world. Was I going to stay sober?
Well, a close friend took me to a meeting she described as “different.” Turns out, it was a step-study meeting, packed with book thumpers! They weren’t the same women who’d brought the H&I meeting into my rehab, but they preached the same message.
I got involved almost immediately. I asked a woman to sponsor me. A few days later, we sat in Moe’s (great burritos, btw!) and worked the first three steps. It took a total of about fifteen minutes. Then she got me writing. The dreaded fourth step!
It turns out the big bad fourth step wasn’t so bad after all. Neither were steps eight and nine. None of the twelve-steps were scary or hard! Maybe I had that gift of desperation people talk about. I don’t know. I just know that I started to feel better and I was going to do whatever I could to keep that feeling going.
Being a Book Thumper Myself
Six years later, I sponsor women the same way. I’m a book thumper! I get girls into the steps quickly. They get better quickly. Of course, very little of their success or failure has anything to do with me. It all has to do with their level of willingness.
When I was first getting sober, my book thumper sponsor asked me, “are you willing to go to any length for your sobriety?” I had no idea what she was talking about, so of course I said yes. I thought she’d have me go to a lot of meetings or something like that.
Today, I know what she really meant. Going to any length means exactly what it sounds like. It means doing what my sponsor asked. If your sponsor is a book thumper, she’s going to ask you to get into the Big Book. Do it. Trust me, that simple book is the key to a whole new life!
