I have a little over a month sober Hello my name is Vanessa I’m a recovering addict, I’ve been addicted from 22 years, using for abuse reasons from the age of five till I was 13 I was sexually molested first by my uncle’s stepdaughter then by my older brothers friend when he would leave me but take my younger brother to his drug dealers. In Jr high school a guidance counselor saw I showed signs of abuse and told me to stand up to my abuser they would leave me alone, after doing so he beat the living shit out of me and sent my older brothers other half siblings to my Jr high school saying they knew someone who saw me having sex with a cat. This lead to daily sexual harassment to where I spent most of my time in the office reporting it and nothing being done I was told to not let it bother me. When I turned 18 my last year of high school I dropped out after having enough. I had started to black out drunk at 15 and by 21 using other drugs. In my 20 and 30’s I was raped and beat multiple times, This went of for most of my adult life. I’m 32 in a few hours 33 days sober. Because of the life I’ve lived mental health is difficult for me. NA is difficult for me due to surrendering myself to a higher power, I was raised going to Church and being told just because of who I am I’m going to hell. So Faith is very hard for me. Being told it gets better is very triggering for me, my life has shown me it’s the opposite. Last year my husband who is struggling with addiction his self moved us from my home state of Wyoming to his home state of Washington and for the first few months we were homeless living in my car and a storage unit. My health took a turn for the worse and my mother in-law let us move in with her even though she didn’t want my husband to because of his meth addiction. He kept using and cheating on me and beating on me. I left him on the highway on day when we were fighting in my car and even through him out of my car in Walmart parking lot after finding out he was cheating on me again. On December 31 we got into a domestic violence fight when he threw in into a wall and punched me in my stomach, he was taken to jail and spent 3 months there. He’s now almost six months sober and on house arrest getting ready to be released from it. I’m unable to work currently because of health problems and depression and anxiety keeps me at home. Every day I wake up wanting to get high or drunk so I don’t have to feel like I’m feeling. Sadly I’m on a waiting list for mental health services. My own mother moved in with us in December and since my husband and I sleep on the living room floor so my mother can sleep in the bedroom. I feel lost most days and every day I get up trying to be a better person than the day before. But it’s hard, it’s hard to want to live when you feel like it’s never going to get better, when you feel like your a burden, when you fear what tomorrow will bring, when you want to so badly but can not trust those around you because of trauma. But I still go on, I still try, because I’m afraid if I don’t I’ll just be this forever.
Welcome Nessa 
You’ve been through so much. So much. No one should have to go through that.
But you can overcome. You can get what you need. It starts with searching, or, as you say,
That’s what will lead you to success.
Have you tried a meeting? For a lot of people they are helpful. It’s a community of people who understand, and that means so much. There’s online meetings Online meeting resources and in person meetings (and lots of resources and podcasts and books) here Resources for our recovery
Hang out here on Talking Sober too. There is so much here, so many interesting people and interesting threads. Welcome home!
Hello Nessa very glad you are here. Your story and testimony are very powerful and your story alone has the ability to help so many. You are here and God is on your side even though you have been through so much there is strength in your words. Pray and have faith in the worst and in the best of times. Things will improve. We here in this forum are also praying for you. Thank you for writing in here. Just your writing alone is and will help so very many. I have been praying for you and your family as I type this.
Yes I’ve been attending narcotics anonymous with my husband for my whole sobriety, we found a group on Thursday I really like but now are moving to another group because of over religious Christians in our Friday group shoving they’re religious beliefs down everyone’s throw, here what I wrote about our meeting last night,
N.A did not go well today, I’ve grown up with Christianity, and do not believe in it’s teaching as a whole, I had some very poor examples, of what Christianity is, I’ve been told I’m going to hell for being who I am and I need to repent. My experience with Christianity, has left me with a crisis of faith, to such an extent that faith of any kind is difficult and for many years I lumped Christianity as a whole together in this thankfully I have had some experiences and encounters with Christians that do not believe this way which gives me hope for Christianity in general, but still leaves me in a spiritual crisis within narcotics anonymous with giving myself over to a higher power. Today in group we had a Christian basically tell an indigenous woman that her beliefs are wrong, and another mentally ill person, who just spouts off nonsense and rhetoric that goes against what I’ve been reading in the na book and literature, goes against what my sponsor says goes against what my mental health providers have ever said, and told us it was wrong to talk about the things that led us to addiction and the only way that we were going to recover was not talking about it. I had a very hard time sitting there and not starting an argument over religion, versus spirituality because these people have a right to feel how they feel but they don’t have a right especially in narcotics anonymous to jam their religion down our throats. The chair of our narcotics anonymous group is slowly on his way out of the area and I think has just lost all will to govern our meetings properly. But it makes it very hard for me to want to share and participate in group when I know that it’s coming that I’m told that how I’m feeling is wrong because I’m not surrendering myself to the Christian God. I believe that mainstream Christianity is a cult, that too many people use to spread hate, I want to get better I don’t want to be dependent on anything to get through my day but Christianity is not content with the views of anyone other than what they feel is right, just like this nonsense in politics where Christian extremists twist what the founding of our country was truly about it’s not the freedom of Christian religion it’s the freedom of religion every religion we are not a Christian country we are a country of many religions. It just makes me very sad, that I even have to talk about this and just reaffirms my addict mentally of keeping to myself. I don’t want to cause problems for anyone and I do not want to turn anyone off of narcotics anonymous. I briefly message the chair of another meeting in the same building on a different day a little bit about what went on today. But I’m not sure how to go about all this because as I said everyone has a right to believe what they feel, and I don’t want to take away from anyone’s higher power that’s helping them get sober. Or how even address it to these people in this group I was in today without getting into a verbal argument with extremist Christians. I am not trying to bad mouth Christianity, but I’m sitting here upset over the entire encounter today, feeling like this just may not be worth it, I love my Thursday group and generally feel better after attending my meeting, but as I’ve said today has just left me feeling so upset that a safe place is not safe and I’m always going to struggle with this.
Nessa, that are here on this group having gone through all you have, is testimony to your incredible inner strength.
I wish you all the best and hope you can find the support you need here.