Today Marks 14 Years of Sobriety

All I knew was that I didn't want to be a slave to heroin anymore.

November 27th, 2009. Released from jail, straight into detox, awaiting trial, zero idea what was going on.

All I knew was that I didn’t want to be a slave to heroin anymore.

I’m not here today to tell you my life story, but rather to consolidate lessons learned from this continued experience, including what I have found to be the five necessary ingredients for freedom from bondage — in this case, addiction:

1. Rock bottom.

   Everyone has to hit it. This does not mean you need to lose everything and be homeless on the street. I’ve seen people fall to much greater pits of hell than that, and it still wasn’t enough for them.

   I’ve also seen people hit their bottoms while still having all elements of their material life intact, no legal consequences, no court orders.

   Why is this?

   All bottoms are emotional.

   My “rock bottom moment” did not look like (insert list of horrible things here). That played a part, yes, but it was more so the emotional breaking point as a result of these things, not the things themselves. Everyone has a different threshold for what brings them to that place internally.

   I could list 50 things that would make most people never view me the same again, and I could do it without flinching or feeling a thing. Then I could list three things that might seem way less severe, but those three things affected me and contributed to me breaking down much more than the big crazy stories.

   The pain that comes from consequences is what saves lives and leads us toward sobriety— not the consequences themselves. It is a somewhat unique process to determine what consequence will get under one persons skin over another. It often isn’t what we’d assume. The emotional state of hitting bottom, however, is exactly the same.

   Pain is the admission price we pay to get sober, and is the touchstone of spiritual growth, which is required to stay sober. Getting sober (detox) versus staying sober (recovery) are two very different things.

   As addicts, we are dealing with something I can only compare to as possession. I don’t say that in a religious context, I say that because I know what it felt like to be owned by heroin, and I legitimately thought I was possessed by a demon. I was basically remote viewing my life while something else took over and called the shots, and I was horrified, but could not stop it.

   Something else was in there that was not me.

   And yes, it did go away when I got sober and started doing the work.

   My “rock bottom moment” bottom came in two parts:

   The first one was when I fully realized how f*cked I was, and I gave up. I told myself one day, while slumped down on a bathroom floor, that from that point forward, I was willing to kill or be killed, if it meant I had to go even one day without heroin. I “knew” in that moment that I could not survive without heroin. I made a death oath to myself if I ever couldn’t get ahold of it. I was officially owned.

   There are no words to describe how low it is to surrender to a master of death. I was defeated. This is part of hitting bottom. Defeat.

   This defeat prepared me to be set free.

   When I was finally physically removed from the streets by police officers and thrown in jail, as I deserved to be, a strange thing happened: my survival instinct kicked in.

   It had nothing to do with whatever was coming my way legally, I couldn’t even think straight and was dopesick as f*ck. All I knew is that I had to get sober, and I knew of a treatment center in town. I had to get in there. I had to go. That was it. Complete tunnel vision. As soon as I was out of jail, that was where I was going.

   The window of desperation is VERY fleeting. If you ever meet someone who reaches out for help, know there is a time limit before the addiction takes hold again and they lose their willingness, as the waves of delusion wash over them and take them back to the abyss.

   Somehow, I knew this was the case, it was almost as if I could visually see a small window into a black void and I had to jump through it before it shut. It was the first time in my life that I stopped thinking about all the reasons why I couldn’t get help.

   Those reasons looked insanely trivial if you saw how I was living. They were:

   “I don’t want people to know. I don’t have the money, and I can’t use my health insurance, or people will find out. I can’t leave my fiance. I can’t leave my dog. I can’t do inpatient, that’s too long, I just want outpatient. Oh, they won’t take me in outpatient because my habit is too severe? Well I can’t leave this person, I can’t let these people find out, ETC…”

   Often, we make the wildest excuses in comparison to what the result will be if we don’t bite the bullet and get the true help we need.

   What we don’t understand is this:

   All of those things we cling onto as important are going to go away VERY SOON if we do not get help— including our own lives. I mean a physical death when I say this.

   You don’t have to be a heroin addict to be at that severe of a risk, I’ve known plenty of people who have drank themselves to death. They had nothing but alcohol in their systems, and they died. This is one of the most commonly enabled addictions out there, because it’s legal and so centralized in our culture.

   Addiction is addiction, it does not mater if you are homeless on the street or driving a $100,000 car with a five bedroom house - you will lose everything. The cunning nature of addiction will just have you convinced that you’re in control and you’ll somehow be the exception to the rule.

   There is virtually NOTHING we can do with a shred of lasting success if we do not remove the chains of bondage around us.

So, I did it. When I was released from jail I got my ass into that treatment center. I was there for 90 days, and then did 2 years of outpatient, along with weekly therapy sessions with a trauma specialist, as treating chronic PTSD is just as much a part of my recovery as is treating the addiction.

There are many paths to recovery. I chose to be part of a 12-step program and that is what has worked for me, along with solid spiritual paths and communities, and finding purpose and connection.

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2. Relentlessness

   To the same degree in which we pursued the avoidance of whatever the drugs & alcohol was medicating, to the same lengths we’d go to in order to get our next fix, that exact amount of effort must be applied to our recovery.

Relentlessness is required because the cravings and mental obsession will come back, especially in the beginning of our new journey.

If alcohol and drugs were our PROBLEM, we’d be able to detox and move right on with our lives, but no, alcohol and drugs were our SOLUTION to deeper problems, and now that our “medicine” is gone?

Here’s my experience:

I’m glad I did a 90 day residential program. The reason for this is at the 28 day mark, where most people get released, I was actually worse, not better.

Why?

Because the “medicine” was gone, and all the things I had been numbing and running from my whole life were back in full-force. 28 days is enough to get most of the acute withdrawals gone, but not enough time to even approach the causes and conditions that drove us to use in the first place.

I was an absolute lunatic in treatment, constantly threatened with being kicked out, I could not for the life of me even act somewhat right. I was explosive, rageful, destructive of property, got into fights, I was a lot.

Somehow I managed to stay. And thank God for that, because by the time I did leave at 90 days, I had a stable exit plan, I knew my way around the local recovery scene, had a sponsor, had a sober living house I was moving into, and had a plan to follow.

Relentlessness is also necessary because you will have to do some serious inner excavation.

This will require a level of transparency and honesty that will make your skin crawl.

It is beyond uncomfortable and runs contrary to every single instinct you have at that time. This is one of those scenarios where you have to die, just not a physical death.

The death is a death of a false self, an egoic self, a self that we’ve told ourselves repeated stories about that worked as an engine to justify the behaviors in our addiction. That self that we think is our real self is a delusion, and in order for us to live, it must die.

This is a very painful process. No one else is going to do it for you either.

You will need a relentless will, and the willingness to be completely honest with other people, because there will be times when your willingness alone isn’t enough.

There will be times when your behavior goes sideways and you think going and getting high is the answer. In these situations, what saves your life is other people being aware of the headspace you are in, so when you start to slip, they intervene.

It also makes it 10x easier to reach out for help when people already know what’s going on with you, as opposed to feeling like “oh god what are they gonna think when they hear about all this PLUS that!?” - side note, even if no one knows, tell them anyway, no pride, secrecy or human reaction is worth your life. We want you to live.

Of course, it is up to you to accept help or not, and this is why connection and having a community of other recovering addicts is so necessary. Shame is a huge part of addiction. Being around other recovering addicts will save your life, remove the shame and create connection, the antidote to addiction.

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The next key ingredient?

3. HONESTY. This is the only “singular” thing I believe saved my life, because I have done a lot of stupid shit in sobriety.

   I have hung out with people who were using drugs. I have dated drug dealers. I have been arrested in sobriety for a non-drug related allegation. I have been homeless in sobriety. I have had abusive relationships in sobriety. I have been extremely suicidal in sobriety.

   What saved my life?

   HONESTY. Any time I am hiding something in my life, that is a huge red flag. The only thing that saved me over and over again when I made bad decisions (we all do, and we all will) was the fact that other people knew about it, so it wasn’t allowed to fester in the dark to the point of me either offing myself, or picking up a drink or a drug.

   Once you get in the habit of being honest with others, and you’re at that point where you’re about to relapse, the instinct of picking up the phone and calling people until someone answers will kick in before you put that bottle to your lips, or needle to your skin.

   The ability to reach out to others before a crisis, and also during a crisis, is critical to survival. It doesn’t come naturally to any of us, it feels like baptizing a cat, it’s super uncomfortable, do it anyway. Your life depends on it.

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4. PURPOSE. I just listed a bunch of bad stuff I have been through in sobriety. There is also just as much (if not more) good.

   I had to find a reason to live early on, because just “being sober” is not enough.

   For me, that purpose was music, and using my lyrics to tell the stories of what I had been through to help others. Then it became helping others as a whole, and not letting what I had been through be in vain.

   Fun fact, I never made music until after I got sober. Never sang a note. I had always written lyrics though. I took that chance and began… now it’s my life’s primary direction, or one of the vehicles of it at least.

   Purpose is extremely important. the WHY of why you are doing this, the WHY of why we are here. There were so many times I wanted to get high in those first few years… then I’d look around at the small amount of music gear I had in my room.

   I knew that as soon as I got high, all of that gear would be in a pawn shop so I could buy more dope, and I’d never get any of it back. I knew I’d be sacrificing music, and I loved music more than anything, so that kept me in line when nothing else did.

   Over the years, purpose has expanded exponentially. To add a little “hope” to this article and paint a more accurate picture, I’ve gotten to experience so much in sobriety. Being sober means we get to have a second chance at life. It does not mean we are immune to what life entails, it just means we get to live it.

I’ve gotten to travel to multiple countries, most notably Cambodia, where I was able to visit on the ground organizations that were dealing directly with rescuing victims of sex trafficking, something I am also very passionate about.

I’ve been able to see the world. I’ve gotten to know myself. I’ve also been able to experience what it’s like to be of service and not only become a social worker at one point, but to be able to bring meetings into various schools, jails, institutions, psych hospitals, work at homeless shelters and warming centers and treatment facilities and detox clinics. I’ve been able to pass on what was freely given to me.

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5. Connection, the antidote to addiction. This means connection to a community, to ourselves, to a higher power of your choosing, to the world around us, to address the disassociation and fragmentation within ourselves that caused our flight in the first place.

   I experienced things in life that I never had before, which connected me even more to this whole life thing. Music for sure is one of them, martial arts (BJJ/Muay Thai) was another, along with amazing communities who do both of those things, as they are lifestyles. I got to go back to school and although I view universities as indoctrination centers now, I still had access to many opportunities as a result of that, so I’m grateful.

I have been part of beautiful spiritual, creative and revolutionary communities over the years, and learned what love is (and what it isn’t).

I got to have real friendships in life, and I got to learn how to grieve for them when many of them would pass away from this battle.

I was exposed to spiritual paths that to this day have revolutionized and enriched my life beyond measure.

Ive been able to live in several places and learn so much from everyone I met there.

I’ve been able to perform my own music at bars, concert venues, and festivals. I’ve even had the honor of being hired as a songwriter to create custom music for content creators and brands, and let me tell you, learning about someone else’s life mission and having the honor to write a song about it is an unbelievable gift. I was so happy to do that.

All these little experiences deepen our capacity to Love.

This might not sound like much to some, and it might sound unrealistic to others.

To me, it’s huge, because I grew up as the kid who hated themselves, who was a daily drinker and drug user before I got out of middle school, who ran away when I was 14, never thought I’d live past the next day, and I didn’t want to most of the time either.

I had no faith in myself. My only aspiration back then was to find a way to always be high and never run out of drugs. That was as good as I thought I could do.

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One day, I looked outside and saw a woman jogging with her dog. Doing normal people stuff:

I felt like I was living inside a glass dome, looking out at a reality that was right in front of me, but some impenetrable wall was between us, and it was a reality I was tortured with watching because I could never attain such peace and normalcy.

Running? Using your body for exercise? Having a dog? Being normal? Healthy? Being outside during the day? What?

I wanted those things so bad, and even when it literally ran past me on the street, it couldn’t have been farther away.

This is an example of disconnection to the world around us. If you’ve watched Stranger Things on Netflix, it feels like being in the upside-down. Same place, different realities.

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So from someone who was completely hopeless and lived every day just to get enough dope to be unconscious, to:

Traveling the world, going to school, becoming employable, going on adventures, learning how to be of service, have dreams, start achieving them, to realize I had a place on this earth and some worth, to learn what friendship, trust and love felt like, oh… one more thing… to come to know that Force which we often call GOD. The Most High. The Creator.

To connect with a Divine Force in this universe… to be a personal witness to miracles, to physically feel it beyond explanation, to have felt and known Agape, to learn compassion, resilience and faith… all of this is a GIFT of first, getting sober. Second, walking the road of recovery.

It looks like facing every single demon you have and contending with them until they no longer exist.

It looks like unpacking every trauma and releasing it.

It looks like unraveling your shadow and integrating it.

It looks like picking yourself back up and reaching out for help when you fall back into old patterns and behaviors.

It also looks like being of service in any way that you can, as that is a part of the new life. We keep what we have by giving it away.

***(Within reason- see the program of Al Anon if you’re like me and have gone overboard in that department 😆)

And there is no end to that process, it’s part of life— a life well lived, in my opinion.

Because these demons of ours, if we do not bring them to the light, if we do not seek the medicine and the higher consciousness in the darkest of realms, they will rise up and kill us, just like they tried to in the beginning.

It’s either us or them. We get to make that choice every day. Pick one.

This was a pretty intense article, but yeah… that’s my two cents on sobriety on this day, 11/27/2023…..14 years later. It’s a wild ride, and where I’m at today?

Honestly… I just turned a huge corner in my life. The breakthrough I have been wading through is an entirely new level of consciousness. These “spiritual experiences” are required of all of us humans I believe, but definitely if you’re in recovery. Stagnation is not natural, if you’re not moving forwards, you are moving backwards.

Today I have the strength to step up to the plate and do the hardest thing I’ve likely ever done:

Assuming FULL responsibility for every facet of my life, including the responsibility of loving and caring for myself, the responsibility for disciplining and re-parenting myself, the responsibility of valuing and protecting myself, and embodying that energy and presence in the moment, everywhere I go.

That is a huge change from the junkie who once felt she had no soul who surrendered to heroin (or else, death) because she knew she couldn’t live without it. Luckily, she was wrong.

I don’t miss the old life one bit, or there’s no way I would have stayed on this side of the fence this long.

May our hearts be open and may we be protected, blessed and divinely guided in all of our endeavors.

Thank you for reading.

Pictures and music below, to put some real-life behind words on a screen 👇

Picture from detox in 2009:

Picture from life NOW, in 2023:

A song I wrote in 2021 that I feel is somewhat of an ode to recovery and the shadow work/excavation process: (True Warriors Hunt Themselves)

In loving memory of two of my best friends, Kaitlyn Oslund and Shane Atrushi.

Fly in Bliss until we join forces again. (no those are not beers in the picture, two kombuchas and a monster energy drink lol.)