She is 5’3”, 145 pounds, dressed in business casual, and has curly hair. She drives to work in her black mini van, lucky enough to have the opportunity to bring her kids to work with her. For the last 14 years she has managed 160 kids per day, twice as many parents, 24 teachers and to keep her corporate bosses happy.
She comes home to a hard-working loving husband every night, cooks dinner, and hates cleaning. She takes her kids to sports, scouts and playdates. Her weekends are filled with friends and so many invitations she has to turn half of them down. She is surrounded by texts and Facebook likes, love and laughter.
She is in complete and utter isolation; alone in her secrets. She starts drinking every night at 7:30 and stops only when she passes out. She cries a lot by herself. She is tired, exhausted, and messy. She has everything most anyone could ever ask for and yet has nothing at all. Her pain is so deeply embedded in the scars of her previous marriage, childhood abuse, bullying from middle school and the sexual assault that remains today a part of her identity. She lives and breathes and waves and smiles with hidden pain in every moment.
She is an addict.
She will ask for help, but only when it is too late—because asking for help is the hardest thing she has ever done. She is not the helped; she is the helper. She will ask for help after she has drained her family’s bank account and tried to quit on her own a hundred times. She will ask for help when she is riddled with guilt and shame, and there is nothing left to do but die or beg for tender mercies she offered so many other people. She will ask for help because she can’t see up from down anymore.
She is an addict.
She walks into a dark room full of strangers in the basement of a church. She sits quietly in the back and takes it all in. Sweating from the withdrawals and crying from the pain of being there, she misses all the signs she is in the right place because the voices in her head fill her with shame and guilt. She gets there late and leaves early the entire first week, because she wants to hide. She doesn’t want anyone to know her secret.
She is an addict.
On day five she finally introduces herself to the meeting as “an addict.” Her voice shakes and the cheers and welcomes that follow embarrass her. She doesn’t feel worthy. But she keeps going back. She gets a sponsor and follows all of the suggestions. She puts minutes together that become hours – hours turn into days, then weeks, and somehow into a 30, 60, 90 day key tag—then a six and nine-month tag. She develops friendships and trust in a 12 step program simply by doing all of the things that addicts before her have done in the name of staying clean. She does miss using and getting loaded. Sometimes it hurts to think she will never use again.
She is an addict.
She learns to accept responsibility for the chaos she’s created, and the choice to live as “the victim” of the serious crimes committed against her. She learns how to forgive the people who hurt her. Most importantly, she learns to forgive herself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is worthy of this forgiveness; of this new life. But she has to choose to believe this for herself. She begins to make that choice, and every morning she wakes up and makes it over and over.
She works every day of her recovery for a better tomorrow. In that process she starts a blog, tells her truths, opens up to the world, obtains a job that she loves, grows closer to God, creates boundaries with life, says goodbye to people who didn’t belong here, laughs uncontrollably, runs races, creates and checks off a sober bucket list of items, really listens to women and cares about their stories, is inducted into the honor society at school, saves money and finds an insatiable thirst for life like nothing she knew was possible.
She is trusted and in return she trusts.
She is loved and in return she loves.
She is a fighter, and in return, she wins.
She is clean and sober.
She is an addict.
This post was submitted by Stephannie Stephens.
photo credit (top): Paulo Brandão via photopin cc