- Alcohol
Growing up, I always had a feeling of needing something to fill a void inside me. I used food, alcohol, friends, men, achievements, and a host of other things to try to do this. Alcohol and food were my most constant go-to things, until somewhere around the end of high school and beginning of college. Then nothing worked anymore, and I felt swallowed up by the void.
At this time, I made the decision to ask for help from a nutritionist at the college I was attending where I had gone for diet advice before. I knew this time no diet was going to fix what was wrong but I didn’t know where else to turn. As I soon found out, when I totally surrender and know that I don’t have the answer, divine guidance shows up. And it did in this instance, as the nutritionist guided me to 12 step programs that have continued to help me and change my life.
It’s been over 24 years since my last drink, and I no longer use food or alcohol to self-destruct. And for that, I am so very grateful. My involvement in 12 step programs has given me a set of tools to live life on life’s terms, which is what I desperately needed, though I had no Idea that was the problem. I thought if I could just get my problems under control, then all would be well. What I soon found was that it was my inability to handle any stress without an unhealthy escape that was my main challenge. And until I hit bottom and ended up in rooms of others like me sharing how they did it, I could not hear the life guidance that had been there in other forms all along.
So my journey in recovery has continued since then, with many ups and downs, but I have a way to walk through and process each gift that comes my way. Ultimately, I see all my experiences as gifts with something to offer. I was able to go back to school and now have a career that I love. I love the community of recovering people that I interact with on a regular basis and being able to give and receive there. I was married for 16 years and have many wonderful things I received from that time. I am always up for physical challenges, and exercise has always been a healthy escape and stress relieving tool for me. I am currently learning how to play ice hockey, which is extremely fun and scary at the same time. I never knew my life would be so much better and fuller without the use of substances to fill that void. I have a great relationship with my family and love to spend time with them. I also still struggle at times with life’s terms. It’s not all easy, and I make mistakes. But with each mistake, I learn more about forgiveness and love. And that is what I am finding life is really about: loving and forgiving myself and others, over and over.
I am a lover of quotes and the following is one of my favorites. It sums up how I feel about my life and life in general, and I hope to be able to live like this with lots of gratitude no matter what challenges arrive;
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. The being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole of the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me; it is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” – George Bernard Shaw
May we all help each other shine on!!