Financial Sobriety: One Year of Solvency

Guest post by Jo Christian

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It was a night in January of last year, and rolling over in bed after journaling, I opened my Instagram feed to find my brother’s story with the above caption. In the picture, there was an image of notes with my name and several names of my siblings, as well as his daughters and his ex-partner.

The story had been posted less than 30 seconds before I read it. Immediately, I picked up the phone. Every call went to his voicemail.

I began going through a list, calling everyone in the family. My little brother answered first. When we talked, it took seconds for him to get in his car. This was the second time my brother had tried to take his life, so we knew it wasn’t a joke.

What followed were hours of phone calls from family. We expressed worry and wonder — how could we have missed it? Why was he still so sad? What could we do? Anything?

The feelings were hopelessness, a gut-wrenching nausea that panged throughout my whole body.

The police and paramedics arrived only minutes later, finding my brother before he even lost consciousness. He had taken a bottle of pills, his anxiety medication, which he was adamant wasn’t working, but the doctors wouldn’t listen.

I wouldn’t listen.

The calls stopped once he arrived at the hospital, and doctors pumped his stomach, giving us the news that he would be okay.

However, despite the silence and the assurance that he was okay, I couldn’t sleep. My brother and I were developing a closer relationship in the years leading up to his attempts, but before that, we had been estranged. At one point, we went two years without talking, without seeing each other.

Life had taken us in different directions.

But we were always close. Just two years apart, he was more than a brother — he was a caregiver, a protector, a best friend. Before I could talk, we had our own language. He spoke for me.

When we got in trouble, he took the punishment first, often taking the abusive hand of my parents so I didn’t have to. And despite our different paths, I cried myself to sleep the day after he left for basic training.

So, for him to be so close to death, to be in so much pain he wanted death, for him to try to kill himself the same way my parents had tried so many times before that — it was unfathomable.

The thought that haunted me, that came so quickly after: Was I next?

Growing up, watching addiction destroy your family, taking one person after another, it makes it easy to run. And run, I did.

Getting perfect grades, attending church, and leaving home at 17, receiving scholarships to my preferred private Christian schools — I was getting far, far away from the addiction I had been burned by.

However, despite all my efforts, despite looking around in panic at how addiction was taking others in my family, I failed to recognize the ways it had already grabbed hold of me.

I failed to see how my obsession and codependency with my dating relationships were just another form of addiction.

I failed to see how my late-night study sessions, binging on greasy college food, and staying up all night to perfectly memorize the test material were other forms of addiction.

I failed to see how living in constant fear of financial insecurity and people, doing everything I could to make people happy and secure a living, was another form of addiction.

I failed to see how every shopping spree, before and after getting a credit card, every bit of money mismanagement, my inability to save, my struggle to plan for emergencies or juggle bills, were all parts of addiction — addiction already very much alive in me.

While I had been to therapy and some early Al-Anon recovery, I really thought I had managed to escape addiction from the past. And even though recovery from addiction is a personal process about me, not others, I needed to start with the story of my brother because it was a wake-up call.

After a mandatory psych hold, my brother voluntarily checked himself into rehab — the very same rehab my mother, father, and uncle had all gone to more than once.

His weekly calls and my conversations with him were clarifying.

None of us had escaped addiction — we were born into it, a part of it as we are a part of our minds and bodies. And if he was sick, it was clear I was, too.

It wasn’t long before I began my journey, entering Zoom recovery rooms in Debtors Anonymous, hearing the signposts that made me admit without hesitation: Yep, I am a debtor.

A year has passed.

A year after the most hopeless I have ever felt.

A year after attending over ninety meetings in ninety days.

A year after getting a sponsor and starting to work the steps, slowly.

A year after cutting up the credit cards and beginning to keep my numbers.

A year after prioritizing earning by just showing up and learning to sit with the discomfort of having money.

A year after pressure relief groups and speaker recordings and journaling and inventories.

A year after realizing that if something didn’t change, I would end up where my brother was.

A year of coming back.

The year hasn’t been a perfect year.

At times, I have worked the program better than others. I have learned about other addictions/substances I was using to feel numb, including food, booze, and work.

I have made decisions without talking to my sponsor.

I have gotten compulsive with my spending.

I strayed from the program as times got busier, especially when I was overworking and underearning — both signs of the disease at work.

And even after a year, I still have debt.

But it isn’t about the money, even when it seems like it is about the money. It is about learning that HP, higher power, god, the universe, the one I call “My Great Love,” isn’t a credit card, isn’t debt, isn’t money, isn’t food, isn’t work…

My HP is abundance.

My HP is Hope and Promises.

My HP is the flow of money going in and out.

My HP is serenity, peace, and sustenance.

My HP is the only reason I am here, right now, typing this.

And if I have learned nothing else in this past year of solvency and financial sobriety, it is this: We are all in a process of realizing that everything is infinitely less than the infinite love that exists and sustains us all.

Money has gotten easier.

My health has gotten better as the cravings for processed foods have dwindled.

My life has gotten more peaceful, as I have slowed down and work only as much as I need to.

My partner and I see the abundance of not only money, but a bigger/better house with a backyard and plenty of garden space, pets that love us, two cars that run, and the beginning of lives we truly love. (Including a wedding, all paid for in cash!)

My brother and I have a better relationship than we ever have, talking almost every day about everything, including sobriety.

And slowly but surely, I am finding my purpose — the work I am meant to do in this world: Writing and sharing my story. Teaching writing. Tending to my garden. Practicing contemplation. And helping young adults navigate their identities.

This isn’t much. But it is my little way. My little miracle. Take what you like and leave the rest.

XOXO,
JO

How about you?

We’d love for you to share in the comments:

• Can you recall the moment you realized addiction’s impact on your life and took the first steps toward recovery?
• Has trusting in a higher power been integral to your personal healing journey?

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Jo Christian (they/them) is a non-binary baker, writer/poet, and recovering addict in Southern Illinois. They are the author of Recovering Trans Mystic, a Substack newsletter, and Post-Eclipse: A Queer Home (2024), a chapbook of poems published and available at Bottlecap Press.

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