“I was lucky to find a community that accepted me for who I was and saw my own goodness long before I was able to.”
This series showcases personal stories of addiction recovery and sobriety. Today’s edition features D.R., an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and mystic who has been putting pen to page for over twenty-five years. She was nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize and for the 2023 Best Microfiction Anthology. In her newsletter, I Can Only Give You Everything, she shares excerpts from an autofiction book she wrote based on her coming of age in the Northwest punk scene and her battle with and recovery from addiction.
When and how did you get sober?
The last time I took a drink was February 25, 2018. A month after that day, I went to my first AA meeting.
I do not believe I would have stayed sober had I not gone to that meeting. Even though I had been battling with alcohol for over ten years and was ready to stop, my mind was diseased with alcoholic and addictive thinking. I am certain that without a recovery program, I would have slipped back into old behavior and gone back to drinking. I would often repeat in my first month of going to meetings, “Before I came here, I didn’t have a manual for living.”
What was the turning point in your decision to get sober?
The turning point for me was Christmas morning after a blackout. The night before, I had done something that went against every moral fiber in my body and soul. I awoke that morning filled with dread. I really felt that if there is an afterlife, when I died, I would be stuck in purgatory surrounded by the same demons that would come out of me when I was drinking.
In that moment, lying on the floor with a throbbing hangover, I realized that even suicide would not save me from the fear and pain that had become my waking life. With no solutions left, I surrendered.
I was going for a walk, and I literally fell to my knees. I let go right there on the sidewalk, and for the first time in my life since I was a girl, I prayed to God and asked for help. Immediately, a voice that was not mine came into my head and said, You need to go to an AA meeting. I know that sounds cheesy, but that message from beyond quite literally changed my life.
What surprised you about getting sober?
I think the biggest thing that surprised me about getting sober was the solution, which was to admit powerlessness over my addiction. My whole life, I was told that I needed to control my drinking, that I was a selfish person and hurt people because I only thought about my own interests. I also had this very backward idea (probably because I grew up around addiction and dysfunction) that if I could control my husband’s drinking, then I could stop—that somehow it was his fault that I drank in the first place.
What I learned my first month in AA was that it was the control that was destroying me. Thinking I could just tell others how to fix their lives and that that would fix mine was insane. The answer I found was a spiritual one, and very different from what I thought AA was preaching about God before becoming a member. When I first learned about AA and how God was written into a lot of their literature, I really thought this was the patriarchal God that is so prominent in Western society. The truth was that it could be anything that was not me or another human being. As long as I didn’t make people or my ego into God, and I was honest with myself, I would get better.
The first meeting I went to, I had a spiritual experience that changed my perspective permanently. Two things happened at this meeting. The first thing was that I could relate to everything that the women were sharing about their experience, strength, and hope around alcoholism. And for the first time in a very long time, I did not feel alone.
Second, this feeling of belonging and being heard through the people sharing their own honesty about alcoholism struck me with this profound understanding that I was a part of something far greater than myself. I got this intense feeling that everything was connected—and not just the people in the room that day. I mean everything, from the cells in my body to the stars in the sky. I knew in that moment, with tears running down my face, that if I surrendered to this force, this beautiful, never-ending mandala of birth, life, and death, I would be okay.
The message I got was that the cure for addiction was connection. I would get better through giving my power to a higher power, clearing the wreckage of my old life, and passing the message to another alcoholic. Nothing I could do in my life could be self-serving anymore unless it would also help others. If I loved myself, that would help others because then I would know how to love. If I judged myself, in turn, I could offer nothing but judgment to my fellows.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered on your alcohol-free journey?
I was given the tools to get better in AA, but that didn’t mean the process was easy. Getting sober was the most difficult thing I have done in my entire life. I come from an incredibly long line of ancestral trauma. Many generations of my family have experienced alcoholism, dislocation, antisemitism, poverty, and sexual and physical abuse.
I had this very naïve idea that if I just stripped away the alcohol and drugs and worked all 12 Steps, I would be sailing on a pink cloud from here to kingdom come. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
When I stripped away the alcohol, I was faced with the addiction underneath the alcohol—one that I would find out had propelled me to drink in the first place. I was addicted to the feeling people get when first falling in love. I was a dopamine addict.
A few months into recovery from alcohol, I almost relapsed when I decided to try to date someone with the same affliction I had. Since I did not have the illusion of alcohol to cover up the reality of the situation, I got really triggered by this encounter. I found that the reason I had been chasing romance and shallow sexual encounters since I was a teenager was because of this deep inadequacy within myself—this hole inside of me that felt so unlovable that I thought the only way to fill it was through romantic attention.
Shortly after this revelation, I checked myself into another 12-Step program for people with intimacy disorders. Through working the Steps in this program and in AA, and listening to other women share their stories, I found that my romance addiction was rooted in sexual trauma.
The hardest thing about recovery is that you have to look at why you drank and used drugs in the first place. I drank and acted out in dangerous sexual behavior as a coping mechanism for my complex PTSD. The first two years of my recovery were some of the hardest I have ever had to face, but I did not have to do it alone. I was guided by some of the women in my program to a method of healing C-PTSD called EMDR and Somatic Experiencing.
What are the biggest benefits or gifts of sobriety?
The biggest challenge of my recovery journey ended up being my biggest gift. I no longer feel unsafe in my body. I have forgiven myself for the people I hurt on account of my alcoholism and love addiction. I have forgiven those who have hurt me, and this has set me free from them.
I am not always happy, but I am no longer chasing a high, nor am I running from my monsters. I can take life on life’s terms, and most days I find that I can offer the same kindness and grace to others that I so desperately needed in the throes of my addiction. Most of all, my life has purpose, and I want to live. Before, I was running from life; now I am facing it head-on, excited to find out what the next step forward will bring.
What words of advice would you give someone who’s considering sobriety or newly sober?
The only advice I can give someone ready to get sober is to be gentle with yourself, forgive yourself, and have the courage to ask for help.
My shame around my alcoholism kept me isolated and sick for decades. The people who helped me the most, when I first got sober, led by example and did not tell me what I was doing wrong. I was lucky to find a community that accepted me for who I was and saw my own goodness long before I was able to.
Be kind to yourself. True power does not come from force, and love heals all wounds.
Please say hello in the comments, and consider sharing your sobriety story.
Thank you for sharing, D.R. We look forward to connecting with you in the comments.
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