So I went to a going away party last night. Wait before you get ready to condemn me. It was for the couple that heads up our sober living facility. It’s pretty rare that a town my size in rural Kansas would even have sober living as an option, I was skeptical of it when I first heard about it. But watching different friends stumble into the rooms I’ve changed my mind on the whole thing. It’s a divine thing to have this resource available for people. Okay that’s the prelude I have to share quite a bit of my story so it will be a little bit of a read. So 4 years ago my ex had enough of my shit and we separated. My addiction was already running my show but after the separation it went crazy. Life got out of control. Along with my addiction to alcohol I was so gripped with depression my life hurt. Now I have to give you a little about my life at this point. I had everything I should want. Beautiful person as my soulmate. Two kids I adored. A business that was going good, it was very very time consuming though. Friends everywhere I looked. I was involved in my church. Attended regularly and held a couple of service positions. To the world it looked like I was fine but just below the surface I was dying inside. I am blessed with a church that is very progressive with supplying various resources for the congregation. So one Sunday morning probably close to 5 years ago a traveling musical ministry played for our late services. It was a couple that travels the country mostly playing for Celebrate Recovery and I loved the voice. But I wasn’t ready for the message the music was speaking. But I have to share one song was specific to suicide. Little did I know this song would be such a part of my life in a year. So back to post separation. I was all alone in my house and I swam in the bottle. Nobody was around to stop me and if they tried I chased them away. So yeah my world was crashing and I was depressed. I couldn’t find away from my pain in my soul. I wanted life to end. And I’m not going to sugar coat it here. I tried to end my suffering but God stepped in and I didn’t get accomplished what I thought I wanted. So that was roughly 4 years ago. I spent another year not caring if I woke up in the morning. I didn’t want to live but I couldn’t try it again. I tried to get drunk enough to give it another try so many times but never could. So far this year I was drinking as heavily as I possibly could and still function (yeah right). But close to every night I was playing that traveling couples song about suicide. Well at the rate I was drinking my body decided to fight back and blessed me with pancreatitis. So now I’m an addict that can’t face life and drinking fucking hurt. I was so screwed. For this year in here I tried to just be sober. It wasn’t my first time to do this but now every time I drank it caused me pain, extreme nausea and instant shakes. So in this year I drank only 2 times and each were terrible. One was a 5 day bender the other started Christmas Eve morning so I could just take the edge off right🙄. This Christmas Eve disaster would be my saving grace. I got blackout drunk (I didn’t have these ever) and for whatever reason I needed to go for a drive. Well that ended as expected. I got sober when I got stopped for DUI. As I sat in that holding cell sobering up. All this during a holiday season so I had a few days in holding. And I was approached by someone about inpatient rehab. At this point I was broken I thought I was beyond help and was going to die a drunk. But I agreed to inpatient treatment and it started my life into recovery. So right now as I type this my counter should say 480 days so 16 months of recovery and my life is blessed. I accept what I have and what I lost. But this is where last night comes into play. So the couple that played at church 5 years ago, well they got convinced to head up a sober living housing here in town. Last was a going away party for them as they miss California and are returning to there home. And I wanted to show up to tell them thank you for helping so many of my new friends. It was a pathetic showing by our community. I was the only one that was there outside of the program completely (I visit a couple of the men there often though). The other two outsiders were one of the board members and the pastor of my church that started this all. The rest were the people that live there. So in all this time of them being in town I never told them that their one song saved my life on so many nights. Last night I had to say thank you and that started a conversation. It was towards the end of the evening so I wanted to let the residents to have special time with them and I left just a little early. As I walked out to my car shit started to brew in me. Emotions, fucking painful ones of that dark place I once lived in overwhelmed me. The irony here is I was just leaving a recovery situation and now here I am fucked. So I drove around the perimeter of town put that song on the radio and tears rolled again. I don’t ever cry but I cried like a little bitch. I was getting lost in my own head and was just letting it happen for a few minutes. Then my recovery took the wheel I debated going back up there to a couple of friends to vent to but decided they needed that. So I grabbed my phone and sent two texts out asking for an ear. Within a few minutes I was one the phone talking through my pain, guilt, and shame (again for most that know me). It didn’t take but a minutes and I found stable ground. But in that little bit of time I was trying to deal with it alone I was already driving by the liquor store, intentionally or not it was the fact I was right beside it. I can’t do this crap alone I need my resources to keep me from destroying my life. I’m grateful I have made so many friends in this recovery life. I didn’t need them to save me I needed them to allow me to get my toxic thoughts out so I could save myself. Remember this is 16 months into recovery. So at the begging of this doing it on your own might be to much. I have fully embraced the 12 steps and the lifestyle and I was so fortunate last night I had friends available to help me.
I’m sorry it’s such a long read guys! God bless you all and thank you for being here for me last night too. When I came home I got on here and played for atleast an hour to get my head even better.
Edit I told this entire story about one song that is part of my life I ought to share the song.
