Alison sat in the one spot of the 17th-story apartment where no windows could be seen, rationalizing that if she couldn’t see out, nobody could see in. She looked around at the strange apartment that she had inherited when her Aunt had to move to an assisted living facility. Kind of a blessing, she thought, that it became her place to live after her ceiling in Brooklyn had collapsed in the old place; kind of a curse, she thought, as she was living rent free and continuing to finance her drug use with what little money she had left, and then some.
She sat as she had so many times, holding a razor blade in one hand, and the next hit in another, with that same question in her mind, “Do I take another hit, or end things?” She sat, almost wishing the police would break down her door. The paranoia so distorted her thoughts now that she literally believed there were men outside the 17th story window, waiting on scaffolding to get her. As her dog Fox, her only companion, walked across the wood floor and she heard the tic-tic tic-tic of little nails with each step, she looked at Fox and said “Shhhh! They’ll hear you!” Her canine companion just looked at her, head tilted to one side and let out a little sigh, and walked away snuggling back into the bed.
She looked down, realizing her stash was empty. She saw around her the many contraptions she had created to facilitate her now daily habit of using and began to frantically call her dealer. A sense of panic set in as she heard the busy signal and tried again…and again…and again; that busy signal tone sounded like a sick joke, taunting her with every tone. As she did so, she saw a business card fall out of her pocket. On the card she saw the doctor’s name followed by ‘addiction specialist,’ and she thought about her visit the other day with Dr. Wright, the therapist her mom practically dragged her to; her poor mom who continued believing that her problem was something other than drugs.
The first thing the doctor did when she arrived was to ask her mom to leave the room. Shocked, she thought ‘maybe this guy isn’t so bad.’ Dr. Wright, who told her, “you can call me William,” asked her about what she had been doing and for the first time in a long time, she told him the truth, maybe because she didn’t know him, maybe because she was tired of lying, maybe because she was exhausted from living this way. After she blurted it all out, he calmly looked at her and said “Okay, well, why don’t you see if you can stop. Just try, and if in a month or so you can’t, we can talk about other options like going away to a treatment center.” Surprised at his laid-back response to her awful drug habit, she took the card, fully intending to throw it away when she got home.
She looked back down at the card now, feeling it in her hand, as she sat on the floor of the old apartment. Still getting a busy signal with her dealer, which made no sense because everyone had call-waiting, she almost automatically dialed the number on the card. She honestly wasn’t even sure what the time was. She heard the doctor on the other end of the phone answer with a cheery sounding ‘hello!’ After introducing herself she said,
“I’m not sure if you remember me, I met you the other day…”
“Of course,” he responded.
“Well I have no idea why I even called you.”
“That’s okay,” he said, with that same laid back, cheery demeanor.
“Well it’s been 2 days and I’m high. I screwed up. I’m high and I didn’t even really try.” After what seemed and felt to her like a long pause he said,
“Well, Alison, it’s okay.”
Huh? she thought.
“You know, I don’t know you that well, but I can tell you that you are a good person.” With no response from her, he continued,
“You’re a good person who has just made some really awful choices.” Fully expecting that he was going to yell at her and tell her what a screw up she was, she was almost in awe of the next words that came out of her own mouth, but she said,
“I don’t want to wait. What do I need to do to go get some help?”
After hanging up, she quickly packed a suitcase, called the phone company and changed her phone number, and was off. She told none of her ‘friends’ who she hung out with, she just left, with no concept of what would be waiting for her at the other side of the flight that was booked for her. She just knew that living this way was no longer an option. A God moment, they call those, whatever that is...
Fifteen years later, sitting in her office, talking to a client who was thinking about leaving the treatment center against therapeutic recommendations, she heard the young man say “you could never understand, you’re a director, with all kinds of degrees.” She quietly smiled to herself and said to the young man, “You know I don’t know you that well, but I can tell you that you’re a good person, a good person who has just made some really awful choices.”
It has been sixteen years since that phone call with the doctor and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I was living a life that seemed to have no way out, and the moment I saw the possibility of something different, I grabbed onto it and never looked back. I had no idea the road that was ahead. In the fog of my choices, my distorted thinking patterns, and my addictive way of thinking, I truly believed until that moment that my only two choices were to continue living the way I was living, or to end my life. This man, who I barely knew, offered me something else...hope; hope that there was another way to live my life.
To be clear, there were a lot of things that worked for me. I made the choice myself to change my life, no one forced me or required me to do so. I followed the majority of suggestions. I packed a suitcase, changed my phone number, went to a treatment center, followed by a long-term treatment program (a little more than 3 months total of inpatient treatment). I then lived in a sober living house for over 6 months. I was so afraid to go back to living my life the way I was before that I did most of the things they told me to. I got a sponsor, worked a 12 step program and then sponsored other women. I stayed out of relationships for the first year. I surrounded myself with people primarily doing the right things. I certainly did several things wrong and against the recommendations too, and learned from my mistakes along the way, but I did my best to be humble, ask for help, and surround myself with support. I continue to work a program in my life to this day.
I changed my career to do something that I felt had more purpose, like many people who experience this type of life do. I went back to school, became a therapist and, after swearing that I would never work in treatment, I ultimately ended up as a therapist in a treatment center, then a clinical director and finally I ran multiple treatment centers. Every time I saw even one life changed, it was inspiring, miraculous, and incredible. And I learned that even in the lives that were slow to change or seemed lost, just because I do not see the miracle happening right in front of me, that does not mean it is not happening. I had clients come back multiple treatment episodes later, telling me about the things I had said years earlier that had saved them from themselves during their darkest days of addiction. I had parents calling me, telling me that the things that happened in treatment gave them time and presence with their children that they never would have had. I had clients able to be parents again, husbands and wives able to be partners again and, most importantly, people sharing that they were able to find joy in life again. Watching that rediscovery has been one of the most rewarding things you can possibly imagine, even in the midst of losing so many people.
We do recover - not all of us, but many of us do. The biggest lie that any alcoholic or addict ever tells themself is 'I want to get high' or 'I need to get high' when in reality, what we are saying is ‘I don't have the tools and resources to manage what it going on in my life and in this moment, I believe that my only option is to escape to feel better’. If given the choice, any of us would choose something healthier if we knew how to effectively feel better or fix the issue that way. We simply do not see it when we are struggling. Provided with purpose, community, and self-reflection, people recover. Often we stray from the path as we lose sight of some of those things, but with the right tools, we get better. When we have the right tools, support and guidance, recovery is not only possible, but living a life of purpose, responsibility and hope, and being fully present to all that life has to offer, is the only possibility.
Today I have two children who have never seen me under the influence. Like many clinicians in the field who are in recovery, I have hundreds, maybe thousands of clients who I have impacted in a positive way and many who are sober because I choose to be present to life. I have built programs and strategies that continue to impact many more people than I will ever have the opportunity to meet, simply because I chose hope that day from a man I hardly even knew and took a risk, something I’ve since watched many of my clients do. And the best I can hope for is that I can continue to be that safe space of hope for others, so that they too can have the option to recover if they choose to do so.
Anonymous
