April 18th will mark 150 days clean. It has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions as I have navigated from one day to the next, each presenting its own challenges and small triumphs. It has been a period of tremendous growth for me as I’ve been learning a new way to live. I wanted to take a moment to share about what I think is probably one of the most critical aspects of recovery: building a network of other clean & sober individuals who are also in recovery. Doing so has taken me out of my comfort zone in many ways, but the rewards have started to become quite obvious.
I have never been extremely outgoing. I am a mostly introverted individual and have never been someone who has a huge number of people that I call friends. The friends I do have, however, tend to be very close friends and are people that I’ve known for many years. The problem is that none of these people, with a couple exceptions, are in recovery. Substance abuse has never been a part of their story beyond the binge-drinking habits of a typical college student, which they were eventually able to put behind them.
So when I first got into recovery I felt extremely alone. I had friends, yes, but most of them were rightfully busy with their jobs, spouses or significant other, children, and other ‘normal’ life events. I, on the other hand, was jobless, homeless, totally broke, and sitting in a detox in northern Kentucky wondering how the hell I was going to get clean and stay clean.
Time, as it does, passed and eventually I got out of rehab. I was very nervous to go to my first meeting and put it off for a few days, but on a Friday night I finally worked up enough courage to go to a meeting that was pretty close to my parents house.
It was terrible (or at least I perceived it to be). It was a speaker meeting and the story that the woman told was full of triggers and by the time she was done speaking I was ready to bolt out of the room. Something about it made me uncomfortable. It was a story I knew all too well and it brought back that sensation of crawling in my skin that was prevalent during withdrawal.
Somehow, however, I forced myself to go to another meeting the next night. It was a discussion format that is typical of a standard NA meeting and I found it much more manageable. I still didn’t speak to anyone or make my presence known in any way. I just sat and listened, taking it all in.
And so it went for the next thirty days or so. I went to a meeting every night of the week. Slowly, but surely, people began to make me feel comfortable. I still didn’t share anything, but I began making sure I at least did one of the readings each night. I started developing small relationships with people at the meetings that extended no further than the occasional nod or quick hello before I bolted out of the room at the end of the meeting. The important thing though was that I kept coming back. And I didn’t use no matter what, even at that vulnerable stage.
I am writing all of this because I want stress the fact that this wasn’t something that was comfortable for me in any sense of the word. It was genuinely difficult for me to force myself to keep coming back every night of the week and put myself in another meeting with people that I didn’t know and listen to them bare their souls for everyone to hear. The thought of sharing my own thoughts and feelings terrified me — and still does if I am being honest.
Right around my 90 day mark, after weeks of working up the courage, I finally asked someone to be my sponsor. I chose an old timer who celebrated 35 years clean at the very same meeting that was my first. I found myself listening intently when he shared. He appeared to be full of the kind of wisdom and knowledge and experience that I want to have someday. He is kind. Understanding. He really believes that the NA program can help any addict stop using, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live. From what I can tell, he lives and breathes the program every day of his life.
Thankfully, he accepted when I asked him to be my sponsor and that moment marked what I think has been by far the most impactful moment of my recovery. The day after asking him I began to receive text messages from his other sponsees, from what I now know is my ‘sponsee family.’
People suddenly began reaching out. I was introduced to other members of NA outside of my sponsorship family who I now consider integral parts of my network and who I talk to on a daily basis. The moment I worked up the courage to ask someone to sponsor me a whole new world opened up to me. I was suddenly a part of something bigger than myself and had the collective wealth of experience, hope, and strength that I can now draw from at any time. I have started to work my first step and I am almost done. I talk to my sponsor nearly every day. If I don’t reach out to him, he typically reaches out to me.
My point in all this is that this whole recovery thing isn’t always comfortable in the beginning. As addicts we are coming from a place of fatal isolation, lonesomeness, and death. We are coming from a dark place and have no clear idea of who we are anymore. We are lonely and afraid. But when we dig deep and find the courage to keep coming back, day after day, things start to happen. We start to change. All of the sudden, after years of misery, we are a part of something positive and powerful.
I’ve been working again. I just got accepted to the University of Cincinnati to start studying to get my masters degree in Computer Science this coming fall. For the first time in years, good things are happening. So if you are new to this, please, I beg you to stick with it. You don’t ever have to use again. There is a place where you can feel a part of. Keep coming back.
-G.M.C., 4/5/2020, Day 137
Daily Recovery 