I'm Alive Today Because of the Kindness of One Man
How finding a good sponsor can save your life.
Every day I wonder what sort of saintly act I must have committed in a past life for God to place — and keep — this man in my universe. After everything I’ve done, I am well aware that based on my actions alone I don’t deserve him. I remain truly baffled by what this man sees in me.
My sponsor is better than yours, and that is a fact.
Some very important parts of this story must be omitted to protect anonymity and prevent further harm to others by revelation. It can’t be avoided. What I can say is that one day I asked for help, and he quite literally saved my life.
Writing this article, I find myself tearing up. How the fuck am I supposed to use words in order to express the cloud of gratitude, bewilderment, and altruism that I feel towards this man?
For the first time in my life, I feel CONFINED by the English language. What this man has done for me cannot be justified by words, but the following is my attempt to try.
I Used Drugs/Alcohol Because I Hated Myself
Let’s kick this thing off by clarifying exactly what shape I was in when my sponsor found me. To those of you who have seen Forrest Gump, and I hope and pray to God that is all of you, I had spent the past many months doing what I like to refer to as “The Jenny Prayer.”
“Dear God, make me a bird, so that I can fly — far far away from here.”
I was emaciated, had infected holes in my arms from using dirty syringes over and over again, and found myself now shooting fentanyl into my neck because I had no other veins. In all reality, I probably would have not lived to see another 30 days. That is a generous estimate.
I knew I needed help…that wasn’t the problem . The problem was that I simply was not done using. I wasn’t ready to deal with the pain again — it was too much.
I had to be ready to face a life without heroin, and this concept was more terrifying than even death itself. To a drug addict, life is scarier than death; this is the sad truth. I had genuinely accepted that I was going to die before I decided that a sober life was worth living.
Without my sponsor, I never would have had the courage to feel again. While I had accepted long ago that my destiny concluded with me dying in my 20s, he made me feel as though I deserved life.
Life Sucks. Then You Die.
I wish I could tell you who my sponsor is, what he does, and the kind of life he lives. It would make this story so much more amazing. Fuck, I’m sure that a simple snapshot of his daily calendar alone would be enough to make most folks wonder whether he might be the reincarnation of Buddha himself.
The point is, while I was out there doing everything possible to see to it that I ended up in an early grave, my sponsor had learned to love and accept himself. To him, each and every day was a gift — to me it was a curse.
In my sponsor’s eyes, his very existence in life — his sole fucking purpose on this planet — was to help other people. In my eyes, my sole purpose was to never feel anything ever again. I had felt for another human once and that was more than enough.
My sponsor once told me that in his days of early recovery, his sponsor once questioned him about the meaning of life… or some shit like that. His response?
“Life sucks. Then you die…”
Just like everything else in life, this quote and the contemporary state of mind belonging to the individual behind it happened for a reason. I am so sorry that a few decades ago my sponsor had to fight for his own right to live in active addiction.
Cocaine is one hell of a drug. However, pessimistic though it may be, “Life sucks. Then you die…” actually gives me HOPE.
You know who else once thought that this piece of garbage dogma was the meaning of life? Me. Every day. If my sponsor can go from “Life sucks. Then you die…” to where he is now, then anything must be possible.
They say to pick a sponsor who has what you want. I don’t give a flying fuck about my sponsor’s cars or his nice house. Okay, I take that back — the house is pretty damn cool. What my sponsor had that I wanted was not material. I wanted for life not to suck, and I wanted to not want to die.
“We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve”
In the end, I carried around a note in my wallet that I had prepared for the day the paramedics would find my body. I have since burned this note, but to sum it all up, it basically said: “I’m sorry I’m this way.”
I was so sorry that I was unable to accept the fountain of love that surrounded me, because I knew deep down that I didn’t deserve it.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.” — Stephen Chbosky
My sponsor will be reading this, and the only thing I have to say to him is this:
“I love you. Thanks for saving my life and helping me to see that the world is a beautiful place.”
By finally accepting the love that I deserve, I have learned to love each and every day that I wake up. I no longer fear the unknown, and most importantly, I no longer fear feeling something…ANYTHING…towards another human being.
Today, the world is one big adventure just waiting for me to show up. My sponsor made this happen. It could happen to you too.
If you’re struggling to quit drinking, help is available.
If you’re ready to try something different, try my alcohol experiment. Do whatever it takes to stay sober for 30 days: go to your doctor, try Smart or AA or Hip Sobriety or Soberistas. Read beautiful hangover. Listen to Recovery Elevator and SHAIR podcasts. If you think it could work, try Moderation Management.
There is a whole community of people just waiting to help you. Reach out. Something better is waiting for you.
Sign up for more from me at beautifulhangover <3
Chelsey Flood is the author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, a lecturer in creative writing and a dedicated truth-seeker. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love.
