Describe your experience with relapse.
I wouldn't wish this on my worse enemy...if I had one. Relaspe is the whipping that your mother or God has given you. I remember that day and I remember the butt kicking it gave me without my permission. I had gotten to the point where the drinking no longer worked for me and I could not find a thing to help me get over how I was feeling. I couldn't stop using what I had been using because I needed something so I drank until I passed out. I was lost, lonely and miserable and didn't have a clue as to what was going to happen to me or for me.
At the end I had laid myself accross the railroad track to end this misery. The train sounded and the arms of the track came down. I closed my eyes and was ready to die, with tears runing down my face. While lying there I realized there was no train coming. I looked up the track for the train- and saw nothing was coming. I just cursed, got up, walked to the store, bought a wild irish rose and took it to the head. I felt even worse after lying on the track, so I continue to go through what I had been doing each day drinking and using cocaine to help me cope with each day. It was back to the same old routine.
What event/ circumstance made you surrender to the disease of addiction?
My sucidal attempts; wanting to die, yet wanting to live; anger, resentments, loneliness, having no friends or family that wanted to be around me; and the emptiness that was in my SOUL. I knew I was going to die or go crazier if I continued to drink and drug.
Describe your relationship with God (in the beginning and now).
I didn't have a relationship with GOD at the end of my addiction. I would cry out and cry to God but it seemed like he was so far away and couldn't hear me; he was busy with someone else and didn't have time for me. The reason for me thinking like this was because he had given me the gift of SOBERITY once and I had given it back to him. In other words I had relasped, so he wasn't fooling with me anymore so I was lost in my own sorrows, the drink and the cocaine.
Today I have a GOD of my understanding and I stay in tune with him. He is first in my first words each morning and last in my last words at night. Before I close my eyes, I give him my will and life each day to use as he sees fit. I missed God being in my life and today I know I can't and don't want to live without him. I know now that he (GOD) is the reason that I am were I am today. Since he (GOD) has been in my life, I have nothing to fear and all my needs are met. He has put loving people in my life to help me with my life. I don't want to even think about God not being in my life today. It is a horrible thought and a lonely one. I got him and he has me! And today I am not letting go- not this day.
What was hard to understand during the beginning of your recovery that you have come to understand now?
The third step. I didn't know how to get God back in my life. I use to cry and beg for his presence. I knew I could not do this recovery thing without him, that's why I relasped before. I let GOD go to help someone else because I thought I knew how to do this thing because I had 10 years clean and sober.
The other thing I learned was to get gut honest with myself for myself. I had to try very hard not to put yester years in my recovery, do some things that I didn't apply last time like; not to get into a realationship and sit on the front row in the meetings and listen. Taking suggestions? Wow, that was a biggy for me because I had ten years so "I know".
I had to relearn all that I had learned in the past and relearn "How To Stay Clean and Sober and Maintain Soberity". Because I did not know how to do so, retraining my thinking was hard at first, but when I was able to put God first it became easier to do and no, I haven't mastered that yet... and I pray I never will because then I believe I will leave the program again and I difinitely don't want that.
Describe your relationship with your sponsor.
My relationship with my sponsor is awesome. That does not mean I always take her suggestions right away, but when my way don't work I welcome her suggestions.
Let me share something with you about my sponsor....This woman was my sponsor before I left Baltimore going back to North Carolina. Although I had stopped contacting her, she kept intouch with my sister and when my sister told her that I was drinking again she cried and said she wanted to talk with me and of course I would not call her. She never gave up on me. She said she knew one day she would find me and we would meet again. She also kept me in her prayers and continued to call my sister for almost 16 years. My sponsor came to N.C. on her vacation, called my sister, and came to my home town. We spent that day together and she asked me if I was tired and wanted to come back home (Baltimore). I said yes. I know God sent her to me. I just know he did because he no longer wanted me to exsist as I had been.
My sponsor brought me back and I went in recovery. We are friends as well. I really have two sponsors; Deb is one. She say she's not but I say she is because she has truly helped me in my recovery. She has given me tuff love and very good sugesstions. She is also my friend. I wish I could one day be as she (Deb) has been to me to someone else. She told me about using my "third eye" to avoid things that could come out of no where trying to attack me and my recovery. She told me it was my diease that would attack from all areas of my life and to be aware. When tears were runing down my face and I wanted to reach out and "touch someone" she listened to what I was so upset about and then told me to go and pray for that person because hitting them will not solve anything.
This time in recovery I use everybody that cares about me and my recovery as a sponsor. I have another sponsor and I love her as well. Her name is Belinda. All of these ladies listen to me, give me sugesstions and they truly love me. They are friends as well. After Deb and Belinda listen to me and my whinning, they give their sugesstions then they say, "go ask your sponsor"... which I do and she will give the same answer that they gave me.
I am a hardheaded person. I will continue to get all the help I need to stay in recovery. If you're reading this and you know how to stay clean and sober a day at a time and have working knowledge of the 12 steps and the 12 traditions and GOD in your life, you can be my sponsor too!