Good evening!
My name is Melissa, and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is July 24th, 2019. I have decided to start a blog covering topics such as alcoholism, addiction, surrender, God, etc., and using memes to provide the topic itself. I mean, who can't identify with a meme? When I saw tonight's meme, I knew immediately I wanted to use it for a blog discussion!
Tonight, is the night before my 3-year anniversary. I would be lying if I told you I wasn't amazed. While I knew I had a lot of inner strength, somewhere buried deep down underneath all of the lies myself and other people put into my head throughout the years, I had no idea how to tap into that inner strength until about 3 or 4 days from now - 3 years ago. There was a trial-and-error period before I understood how to maintain sobriety; this is not something that I had learned overnight.
Throughout the years I have had many days of laughter, quite a few days of crying, anger stepped in on occasion and was quickly brought to forgiveness. Resentments are one of my biggest adversaries in this new lifestyle I am trying to lead, right behind fear. While all of those days included something that was generally out of my control, I remained humble - because every day I learned something new. I don't mean new in the sense of information - it was more learning about my intuition and my strength which is provided by none other than, God.
Prior to entering into the sober lifestyle, I had a really hard time maintaining life period. In the last two years of my active addiction, I was consuming, on average, a fifth of whisky per day. I was in and out of the hospital with pancreatitis and seizures. I ended up calculating that in the last two years of my using days I was in the hospital for over half a year in combined visits. I was fired from the job that I had for almost 10 years as a bartender because I was drinking on the job. Upon looking for a new place to work, I could not hold a job because I was having seizures while working from not drinking for a little over 15 hours. I was failing out of classes, unless I dropped them first - which was more likely. My family never invited me to any family function, family vacation, family dinners, etc. My friends were dropping like flies - they just wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. I was an absolute, and utter disaster.
How great God is with His timing and His wisdom of how He chooses to send His messages. While sleeping one night I had a nightmare that woke me up. Since I thought that it was just the television that was causing the bad dreams, I proceeded to turn off the television and go back to sleep. Falling into another dream I find myself within a church, walking past the pews. I see my family and my friends congregated in the front and a casket just beyond them. Everyone is grieving. I walked up to the casket, looked inside, and saw myself.
In that moment I woke up into reality and was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. Tears are streaming down my face like a waterfall. My hands and feet are clenching so tight, and I can't seem to loosen the grip. My breath is short and becoming increasingly hard to catch. And my mind was racing faster than I had ever felt before. After a few moments of forcing a deep breath or two, I was able to ease up a little. I looked on the side of my bed and saw about 15 empty bottles and just wondered how I had gotten here. Something inside me reached for the laptop and began my mission of finding a treatment center - which had never once before been an inkling in my mind.
Long story short, I went to treatment. I was there for 5 days on Adavan before I asked to be taken off so I could start the residential program. The day that I was taken off, it was a Sunday, I had my first full meal in a very, very long time; French toast sticks! (I will never forget it). Walking back to the room with another client I fell out and had my 8th and final seizure that I am aware of. I cracked my head and had to be transported to the hospital to get a staple in my head. While there the doctor looked me dead in the eye and said, "Melissa, science tells me that you should not be living right now, but here you are - let's get your levels back to semi-normal, shall we?". To tell you that I was beside myself when he presented this information, would be an understatement. That day and the 3 or four days following I was pumped full of potassium and magnesium among a few other vitamins and nutrients, had 2 blood transfusions, healed from pancreatitis, and found out I was anemic - among other things, I am sure. After my stay at the hospital, I went back to treatment to finish the remainder of my stay.
This was not the last time that I drank, though, I ended up getting about 5 months sober, and some things fell apart in my life. I ended up using my old coping mechanisms to battle the problems that I was facing. I had taken some of the suggestions when leaving treatment, but not nearly enough to be confident that I could make it through the day without needing that "liquid courage". After a 5 month of on again and off again drinking - trying to quit on my own accord - I realized that I needed to go back into treatment. This time, I went in with a 110% attitude. I took every suggestion and even sought out more suggestions. If someone was offering some kind of help to get my life back on track, I was there and listening. Taking everything in.
I went to the 3/4 house, I stayed for a few months. I learned a lot of valuable lessons that I could not have learned anywhere else. Things such as patience, tolerance, forgiveness, respect, honesty, fairness, -- I literally could keep going for forever! Living with 18 other females, whom are all different ages and from different walks of life, who are all recovering from a different drug of choice - there is bound to be some issues. Luckily, I was able to learn and prosper from all of the lessons that God was letting me experience and in such a short period of time!
I left the 3/4 house after 3 and a half months and found my own place to stay within walking distance of the place that I was employed. I didn't have my license for the first 2 years of sobriety. The rent was super cheap, the area was rather nice, and it was my OWN place. That was the best part. I didn't have to carry a giant backpack with all my valuables anymore, I didn't have to hide my make up or my toilet paper, I was free to come and go as I pleased - no curfew, no questions! I have now been living in this apartment for a little over 2 and a half years. I have a kitty named Brian, who just turned 2! I have since gotten my license and in September that will mark a year of having that back with restrictions. I have that sweet little blow box in my vehicle! LOL! I have been with my employer for almost 3 years, the end of September marks that!
While I did lose a large number of "friends" in this transition in my life, the friends that no longer wanted to be around began coming around again. My family was beginning to invite my places again. First to family dinners, and then family functions and I am super happy to report I have even been invited on their family vacations. None of this would have been possible without coming into the life of sobriety, and I never would have been able to find this life of sobriety without first finding God. He is the one that has made this whole thing possible. Some people say, "You did this, Melissa, it's not God", I implore them to tell me then, why I couldn't do it until I met Him? -- which wasn't until the second time that I was in treatment despite trying to find Him, that is a story for another blog post. This has definitely exceeded my normal word count.
The point of giving you all of this information is to show you that it is possible, no matter how far down you have gone to come back - until it is too late. Now is the best time to make that choice for YOU. Because YOU are worth it. I don't know you, and I know that you're worth more than whatever drug, drink, relationship, situation, or feeling is telling you that you're not. Remember those are the words of Satan, and he has no home in your heart, mind, body, or soul. I am living proof that the devil's stronghold can be weakened and broken with the Word.
"For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future". - Jeramiah 29:11
Blessings to you always,
-Melissa Paige 🙏💞
