I am coming up on five years clean from drugs and alcohol. Just typing that really blows me away, I spent so many years trying to get sober and could not pull it off.
The hardest part about recovery is that for most people, you need to be beaten down until you are completely broken. When that happens, a deep desperation grows, and then you are willing to do absolutely anything and everything to get sober.
There’s no formula for this type of desperation, and unfortunately, many people pass away before they hit their true rock bottom. There have been times when I thought I was at the bottom, and then things would get even worse. As a good friend of mine says, “rock bottoms have trapdoors.”
Why is desperation so vital in regard to getting sober? The only reason I finally got sober after years was that I finally realized I could no longer direct my life or make decisions.
For so long, I would go to rehab to get help and be told what I would have to do by the staff there. Instead of listening to professional guidance, though, I would go and do things my way. My way always gets me to relapse.
Once I was beaten down to complete and utter humility, I was finally ready to accept guidance.
Getting towards my bottom
In 2013, I was working for my father. It was fantastic. My parents had split up about 10 years before that, and after the divorce, I didn’t see my Dad much. He was very much a part of my life, but I lived with my Mom before I lived on my own, so I would only see him a handful of times. This allowed me to see him almost every day.
There was just one problem—I wasn’t sober, and I claimed I was. By October of 2014, I had done so many terrible things that they had no option but to fire me. The day they had to let me go was one of the worst days of my life. I still shudder when I think about it. I broke my Dad’s heart.
I was living in New Jersey at the time, and after I got fired, I begged my Mom to help me get down to Florida because I couldn’t fathom still living up where I had just destroyed everything.
She didn’t even want to look at me anymore, I had ruined everything, yet again. I flew down to South Florida, hoping I could somehow get it together.
Hitting bottom
I rented a very cheap and rundown room in South Florida, and would stay up for days at a time getting high, without even leaving the room. I was so lost, I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t stop using, and I really did not care what happened to me. What a dangerous place to be.
I would go days without talking to anyone, and my family wanted nothing to do with me. I remember at Christmas that year, my Mom didn’t speak to me, but sent me a package with a few small gifts in it. It broke my heart.
I spent the next five months in isolation. I was behind on rent, but the landlord felt so bad for me, he didn’t kick me out. During this time, I wasn’t speaking to my Dad. I tried to, and he wouldn’t respond. Who could blame him?
One day, I texted him and he did respond. We had a very deep talk, and while some of it involved us yelling at each other, I remember feeling like a big weight had been taken off my shoulders afterward. We both got a lot off our chests.
It was a Friday, and he told me to call him over the weekend, since he was going to play cards with the guys that night.
That Monday, on March 17, 2015, I received a call from my Mom. She informed me that Dad had died. He’d had a heart attack on his couch, and was found dead there.
I was devastated. It was the worst day of my life.
I flew up to his service, surrounded by all of my ex-co-workers who knew why I had gotten fired, but had to be nice, because Dad was dead.
The writing was on the wall that day. I was nothing but a piece of you-know-what. I had hit my rock bottom.
Rebounding from the bottom
I spent the next two months crying myself to sleep every night. I could not believe my father was gone and could not believe how terrible my life was. I truly thought I would never get my life together.
The crazy thing is that this was the exact reason I was able to get my life together, ultimately. You see, when you lose all hope, that is when you are willing to listen to anybody and do anything, if given the opportunity for another chance.
On May 16, 2015, my Mom told me I could go to treatment again. Dad had left behind money I could use to go. I had absolutely no hope, but I knew this was my only chance to turn things around.
Early on in treatment, I got an intense spark of motivation. I knew I had to honour my father. All he had wanted was for his kids to have a good life, and he did everything he could to help me. That’s why I had ended up working for him, I wasn’t doing well at the time, and he thought giving me a job would help me straighten out.
What did that motivation look like? First of all, I was no longer going to think I knew what was best for me. I did that for years, and it isolated me from my friends and family in a way I never thought was possible. I also was going to put my heart and soul into everything I did to change my life.
It really was that simple. Simple is essential when getting sober.
As I approach five years sober, I still try to keep my life simple. I have built a beautiful life that I am very happy with, but I always want to remind myself of where I came from. My only hope is that somebody reads this who is near their bottom, and realizes that the key to getting a new life is simply letting go of everything and taking guidance.
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