Getting Sober

An excerpt from "Every Woman...":

"She picked up her first drink at a sleepover in 7th grade. Her friend grabbed her mom's wine from the top of her refrigerator and they all took a swig and put it back. The rest of the night she would beg her to get the bottle so they could have more. She didn't drink again until high school.

In high school, she was an Honors/AP student and Varsity athlete. She was also drinking several times a week and smoking pot almost daily. All of her friends did the same and it didn't seem out of the ordinary. When her mom would go out of town, she would have parties at her house, and after school they would go into a eucalyptus grove to get high.

Her drinking began to spiral out of control in college. Her first year, everyone drank to excess. She would often black out or be stumbling back to her dorm room, not remembering the night before. She would show up to her classes in her clothes from the night before, still drunk. Her grades plummeted and she became a C student, which had never happened before. She was having a blast and could have really gotten hurt but didn't. She would be the drunk "designated" driver and would take pride in how good she could drive when she was drunk. She wouldn't remember who she'd slept with and stopped keeping track. Her life was a 24 hour party. When she was 18, she was diagnosed with PTSD due to flashbacks from abuse in her childhood. She wouldn't take any medication that was prescribed to her because it got in the way of her drinking. At 20, she had a fake ID and was going out to the clubs regularly. She was dating several club promoters and would have her own "list" for the club so her friends could get in for free. She thought she had arrived. This was the life! She was invited to private events at the Thoroughbred Racetrack, knew all the club promoters and bar owners, was a swimsuit model, and got all the attention (and free drinks) she could ask for.

She always told herself she would never touch hard drugs. Her dad was a recovering addict and it scared her. She had a friend that would drink and party as much as she would and they were scandalous! They started dating a couple of much older guys that did a lot of cocaine and would take them to Vegas and Mexico, treating them like queens. They started using cocaine...just a little bit and it turned into a love affair! She felt like she was on top of the world. It was amazing! It was just like that drink she had in 7th grade and she wanted more. She ended up crossing a lot of boundaries she had set for herself and found herself holed up in her house during the day, getting loaded, and then going to strip clubs, bars, night clubs, Vegas, and Mexico at night. There was one particular night that she was doing her regular thing, and she was getting ready to meet her friends for dinner and could not find her stash of cocaine. She started to panic...she hated coming down. It was the worst. She searched her room and became hysterical. She had decided that if she couldn't get high anymore, then she would kill herself. She called her therapist, freaking out, sitting on her bed with a knife in her hand. Her therapist asked what was going on and she told him. He told her to put the knife down and go to bed. And if she didn't, he would call 911, they would come and stop the bleeding, and then she would be institutionalized. That scared her more than coming down so she did as he said and went to go see him in the morning.

She walked into his office a complete mess. He sat her down and said, "Celeste, I think you have a problem." She was floored! How could he say she had a problem?! Her life wasn't out of control! She was modeling for local magazines and swimsuit companies, she had so many men after her, was going to yacht parties and hanging out with Playboy Playmates....was he out of his mind?! He said she should check out a recovery-based meeting and she was so angry! She knew that she was nothing like her father, who had been sober for 8 years. Little did she know that one of the club promoters that she was dating was sober, and that he would call her on her shit that same week.

They were out at their regular Friday night club and all of her friends had been instructed to no longer give her any more coke. The guy she was dating went around and told everyone that he forbid them from giving her anything. She was SO angry! When they got home that night, he told her that he couldn't hang out with her when she was loaded. He said it was getting too bad and she was no longer attractive. She thought "His loss!" If he doesn't want to hang out with the hottest chick in town, then too bad for him! She was working for a few local politicians as a secretary and always told herself she would never use cocaine at work. She lived this double life - successful in her career and academics, and socially a mess! The politicians were "of counsel" to a huge law firm in town and it would jeopardize her job and their career if she brought it to work. That week, she couldn't help it. Everything felt like it was spiraling out of control and so she had to continue her high at work. When she got home, she felt awful. She called up that sober club promoter and told him that she thought she had a problem (he would again come to her rescue in 2008). He came over and dumped all of her drugs and alcohol. It was gut wrenching, like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. She was crying as he dumped the cocaine down the toilet, thinking to herself, "How am I going to survive without it?!"

He took her to her first recovery-based meeting in 2001. She struggled staying sober for about 2 weeks and on June 11, 2001, she stopped drinking and using. She did everything that was suggested and stayed sober for 6 1/2 years. She had more fun in sobriety than she ever did getting loaded."

Storytelling is medicine and I hope that this story can reach and help at least one person.

#sobriety #soberwoman #alcohol #drugs #recovery