Digging Out of Shame-Filled Relapses
It was a few months later, after our cross country move, that I was driving in my car. I remember looking around as if I was in another world. Everything seemed foreign. Street signs and grocery stores were different. My husband was different. Meetings were different. Having family and friends long distance was miserably different.
The way I felt inside myself at that moment was unbearably uncomfortable, and if I could have thought of a way to unzip my own skin, crawl out, and run, I would have. Homesick and lonely, I was at my breaking point. It was a specific moment when I would have done anything to numb those feelings, regardless of avalanche of consequences I was about to create. I never gave it a second thought. I saw a place, I turned in, and I made my purchase.
As I sat in my car taking hard swallows of warm wine, I didn’t care that I was an alcoholic or that I was destroying years of sobriety and trust. I just wanted to stop the pain, to numb out, to find a buffer to the harshness of life. My biggest problem was that momentarily, alcohol worked. But I soon found out I had just opened the gates to a hell I could never have imagined.
The Beast Took Over
Addiction is a progressive disease. It took me only weeks to be shamefully sneaking wine in my closet again, hiding it in the garage, passing out in my kids’ bed at night. Then came the lies and denials, the black outs, and my own constant struggle to get myself sober on my own. Nothing was working.
Over the next seven years, I was in seven inpatient rehabs, two of those in one year. I was also admitted to multiple detox centers and psych hospitals, IOP’s, and emergency rooms. I got a DUI with a child in the car and lost my driver’s license for a year. Other tangible consequences can be added to the timeline, but the havoc created in the hearts of those who were in this hell with me ironically kept me prisoner to this ugly disease.
Here’s the thing. I’m a good person, even a good mother. But put alcohol in my body and all bets are off. The woman you and I and everyone else knows disappears. She gets swallowed down right along with the drinks, and out comes the selfish and incredibly destructive alcoholic version of me. I would do horrible things and make awful decisions if it meant I could appease the screaming in my head for another swallow of wine. Everything would be ok if I could just get to a point where I was comfortable. But I never was, of course, and the battle surged on.
Shame on Me
Why did I keep repeating this? Why didn’t I just get sober again and stay that way? I would find myself with a week, maybe three, and the white-knuckle withdrawal would start to settle down. Slowly the Emily that had been living in the shadow of my alcoholism would begin to wake up and look around. It was as though I was opening my eyes to a nightmare and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. That shame was penetrating, an inescapable presence everywhere my eyes looked. I prayed constantly for a do-over, to go back to that first drink of my first relapse, to rewind the clock. Looking at my children through sober eyes made me sick, and I would shake my head to get out the horrible thoughts of who I had become. It was killing me, and I wanted out of the overwhelming pain of my reality. So, I would drink. It was my pain reliever, my buffer, and my best friend when I was lonely and empty and desperate. That is the baffling cycle I went through over and over. Once I would stop drinking, the self-hatred and disgust in all my shame always drove me back to the exact thing causing the destruction- another first drink.
Enough was Enough
I was in the final days before my last sobriety date, when I was sitting on my back porch. I knew it was the end, and that my last drink was fast approaching. Fear faced me from a different perspective this time, because with everything left inside of me, I truly believed the end meant the end of life. I couldn’t explain the urgency or impending doom that lurked about me, nor can I today except to say it was something much bigger than myself. It terrified me.
My oldest daughter was about to be a senior in high school, and my youngest was about to have his first day of kindergarten. I was so tired- of living, of dying, of fighting, of crying, of pretending, of the heaviness of this shame. Somewhere deep inside of me, I dug out my final little white flag and flung it to the ground for the world to see again.
Finding Freedom Again
This had to be it. It had to work. I just knew I couldn’t take it again, nor could anyone else. What was going to be different? I had worked the steps half a dozen times, had different sponsors, and screwed up royally every possible way. Somehow, my desperation allowed me to see some glaring blank spots.
1. Rebuilding God
I had to get out of the driver’s seat on this alcoholic crash course. Not one single good idea has come out of my brain in regards to what’s best for my recovery when I’m first getting sober, but i still hate to relenquish contol of my horrible management skills. I needed a bigger higher power than the one I didnt think was qualified for the position. This image of some tender guy herding sheep in his white robe was too small for my problems. I started from scratch, reinventing a God of my understanding whom I could trust to hold me up when I was falling. This took time. The work didn’t happen by my fucked-up way of thinking, it happened down in my guts, my core, where I still actually felt something and trusted it. That’s where we started talking to each other. It worked.
2. Redefining Myself
In the past, once that obsession for alcohol subsided, those demons would creep in to tell me what a piece of shit I was. That new God of mine would have my back, even telling me to let it go. He meant it was time to quit punishing myself. I eventually gave myself permission to tell my heart I was sorry. That tore me up, and i struggled to accept my own amends. I had never really realized how much I needed to forgive myself. Once that weight was lifted, then more miracles showed up. I was reborn, able to slowly become the woman I was meant to be all along.
3. Owning my Crap
The truth will set you free, but it will hurt like hell. I couldn’t ignore the damage done. However, having a clear idea about a higher power looking over me and an emerging concept of who I wanted to be without the heaviness of shame gave me the motivation and courage to take responsibility. Many people were affected by my alcoholism. I understood that clearly and took the appropriate action necessary to own the damage I had caused and make it right.
4. Having a Second Chance Attitude
I had my head down pushing forward every day for so long. To finally look up and around is to know the taste of freedom. It’s a delicious thing to get a second chance at life, knowing you almost lost everything. It’s like waking up from years in an alcoholic coma. The difference is that I woke up to this life a better person than I ever was before. I wouldn’t say I’m fearless, but I’m not afraid to live today. Life is precious and short, and I hate that I wasted so much of it already. I’ll be damned if I don’t make something marvelous out of what I have left.
