The Reality of a Brat

“Hi, my name is Shannon and I am an alcoholic.”

I am also an addict. Oh how many monologues I have started that way in AA meetings. I am also an addict but it isn’t kosher to say that at an AA meeting. My date of sobriety is February 14, 2001. Some people separate clean time and sober time, I don’t simply because alcohol was just another drug for me. If you’re the type that does though, my clean date is May 1998.

I was a semi-functional drunk. I held down a job, my bills (mostly) got paid on time. I was just very difficult to love, often irrational and very intolerant. My personal relationships were pretty unhealthy at best. I never went through a drug rehab although I often think it would have been a lot easier if I had. Much like learning a new language, recovery can often times be easier to grasp using the “immersion” type approach. Live, breath, eat recovery and some of it is bound to sink in. Also, too, that removal from friends, places and things that reminded me how much I wanted to use and how easy it would be to do so would have been a kinder, gentler approach.

That wasn’t the road I took though. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was lack of resources… I really don’t know now. I got sober through going to meetings, getting a sponsor and working the steps. Many rehabs have meetings in them, some take patients to outside meetings as well. In either case, it gives an alcoholic/addict the ability to get off everything long enough to get clear headed about their life and the road they are on. The road I was on was death or insanity. I was my own worst enemy, I sabotaged my own success at every chance I could get. I am so grateful for the women that took me under their wings and loved me when I couldn’t love myself. If it weren’t for them, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have the life I do, I probably wouldn’t have made it alive as long as I did.

If you think you might have a problem with drugs or alcohol, there are a lot of resources out there willing and able to help. The old saying goes though, “If you are wondering if you are an alcoholic/addict, you probably are”. And if you are, you don’t have to live like you do. There are other ways. I would be happy to talk to anyone offline more about it. Simply shoot me an email through the Contact Me button at the top.

Filed under: recovery, health on September 7th, 2007