Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
I’m 28 years old and I work in community outreach for a treatment center in Phoenix, Arizona. I did not start in the role as business development representative– I came to this job a little by accident. I was not quite sure about working in this field at first because I am in recovery myself. Now I think, “What took me so long?” I love it.
My story began at a young age. Both my parents were alcoholics. I knew what alcoholism and addiction was; I knew what it did. It still got me and once it did, everything went downhill very quickly for me.
I had my first drink when I was 13. Shortly before that I had even said that I would never drink, never take drugs, that I would never lie, and I would never break the rules. I knew what alcohol could do to family systems, to careers, and to friendships. I was so certain that it was never going to happen to me.
I remember that feeling I got from drinking. A feeling of your heart beating fast, your palms getting sweaty, not knowing if you pass out or throw up. I was in love. Drinking didn’t give me the feeling of being better, but I felt like I was finally enough when I was drinking. I was finally feeling okay. I drank to black out from there on. I learned that Xanax and alcohol are a sure path to a blackout for me, so it became my routine. I couldn’t actually understand why people would drink without blacking out– at the time, I thought that would have been a waste of time.
At age 16, I had kidney stones. The doctor asked if I drank and of course I told him I did not. They gave me Vicodin. They told me to take it together with a diuretic. I heard “Vodka” and learned how well alcohol and pills go together in my addicted world.
When I was 17, one of my buddies died in my own yard. He overdosed and passed out. He went outside and passed out. Then he froze to death. You would think that would be enough of a wakeup call for a teenager, but it wasn’t. When the cops came to investigate, my answer was to go to the other room and get loaded. This was the only way I knew how to deal with things. I was essentially homeless by age 17– I was living in different motels and on different couches. I was THAT GIRL on the couch.
I got sober when I was 20. I don’t know how to explain what happened other than to say that I was finally done with it. I was spiritually and emotionally broken. My mom was not an enabler and I’m fortunate for that. If she would have been an enabler, my story would have been different, maybe I would not be telling it right now.
My turning point came on a Tuesday morning. That Tuesday morning, I woke up at a gas station. I had been asleep on the ground in the open air, smelling like Tequila. It felt like the movie Groundhog Day. I was out the night before and passed out, and this wake up situation was the first thing I remembered again.
My friends were in school, but I was not. I was young and didn’t know how to have a sober life or even how that could be possible. I had bottoms before that were actually worse, but it took that particular Tuesday morning to wake me up.
I knew some alcoholics that were sober and in 12-step programs. My own mother had been sober for six months at that time. I called her up for help. She picked up my remains and put me into a shuttle to Flagstaff, Arizona, and checked me into a state-funded treatment center. I was 20 years old when that happened. When I arrived at the treatment facility, I felt as I didn’t belong. I didn’t see that I had anything in common with “those people”.
I thought I just had a little problem for a while, and that it would get better soon. I thought I would stay only a short while to get my mind together and figure a way out. But I ended up staying. At around day 15 of treatment, I freaked out about something and began crying and shouting. My counselor told me that the doors are open and I could leave if I wanted to. This was the first time I was accountable for my own life, and I stayed. The journey of recovery is not an easy one. If it would be easy, a lot more people would be sober. It was challenging. I had a lot of good reasons to get loaded, but no reasons that getting loaded would fix.
During my active addiction, I did meth for a long time. I also smoked weed and used cocaine. Fortunately, I was never an IV user because it was too scary to me. I could stop all of those things, but I could never stop the alcohol until I entered treatment. Once I got sober from alcohol, I found out that alcohol was not my problem either– alcohol was my solution.
I’m grateful that I can look back to my stories today and laugh about the insane things I did. The problem was so bad that we would do anything before we would admit that we had a problem with addiction or alcoholism. We would steal, lie, and cheat– but we would not reach out for help.
For me, stopping was the easy part; staying stopped was the hard part. I had to learn to show up for life and stay in it even when it gets really, really hard. Everyone has something, and everyone is recovering from something. For me, the alcohol was the solution. For others, the solution might be different but the problem about living might be the same. Forty percent of all college students have an issue with eating disorders. It is scary. By the time many people reach out for help– some of the symptoms and damages are irreversible. I’m glad that I’m in recovery now and that I was able to come off the substances again.
You are not alone. It is never too late and it is never too soon to reach out for help. I was getting sober at such a young age, yet I thought my life was over.
I thought I would never be able to talk to boys, go to weddings, have a date, go even to a grocery store anymore. None of this is true. I didn’t know how people lived sober and what a beautiful thing it is. I lost my dad while I was sober, I got married sober, I watched people die sober and I graduated from college sober. Life simply goes on without drugs and alcohol, but life without drugs is pretty amazing.
I started running in sobriety. It’s one of my many passions I have today. I was a personal trainer before I started working in the field of treatment. I love to see the change in people, and observe growth in self-esteem. Get excited and believe in yourself– this is the beginning of a new, powerful life.