A Miracle of Recovery

I had my first taste of alcohol when I was 15.  The locale was exotic even for a teenager.  My father, a university professor, was on sabbatical and we were living in England.  For Christmas that year my parents decided to leave the cold damp misty isles of Britain for the warm and sunny Mediterranean.  Their choice was the balmy beaches of  the Balearic island of Majorca and we eagerly packed our bags leaving the cold and dismal clime of London behind.  It was an idyllic week of sun and sand mixed with an occasional dose of castles, cathedrals and ancient Spanish history.  Our stay coincided with bringing in the new year in Palma the capital of the island chain where the Moorish influence hung heavy in the air.  On New Years Eve the hotel where we were staying hosted the obligatory bash and the champagne flowed like water.  I was 15 at the time soon to be 16 a scant 5 weeks hence.  My mother and father, teetotalers in their young adult years and now social drinkers, made a conscious decision to allow me and my year younger sister to partake of the festivities including the champagne.  They were both well educated and meaning parents who felt that the special circumstances and exotic location warranted some relaxation of their usual strict parental supervision and I could not have been more grateful at the time.

I still remember that first taste of champagne as it bubbled over my lips, the effervescence tingling in my mouth and throat, the warmth that spread throughout my body and the sense of well being that permeated my soul.  From that day forward and for the next 35+ years I chased that same feeling from drink to drink and drug to drug always striving, but never quite achieving the first wondrous feeling on that New Years Eve, 4500 miles from home and four decades past.

High school, college and graduate school saw my substance abuse grow in regularity and diversification as I added more and different kinds of drugs to the alcohol.  By young adulthood I was aware, as were those close to me, that I had some difficulty in controlling my use.  However the legal consequence that some of my friends experienced and which I equated with "problem drinking and drug use" never seemed to happen to me.  I would have occasional lapses of drunkenness which would be followed by periods of enforced sobriety, promises of stopping or attempts to control my drinking by changing from liquor to wine to beer.  But the result was always the same.  When our first son was born I vowed to stop drinking to excess which only resulted in my beginning to lie about my drinking and to hide it.  I became a closet drinker and at some point...which I can't remember...I became a closet alcoholic and occasional drug user.

I continued my clandestine career as an alcoholic as our boys grew into adolescence and when our youngest son David developed a serious problem with alcohol and marijuana at the age of 15 there was no denying that he was his father's son.  His death 11 months later in a substance abuse related drowning was a tragic example of the rapid progression of the disease of addiction in spite all his Mother and I tried to do to prevent it.

After he died...I came out of the closet.  I had never really needed an excuse to drink and drug but now I had a really good one.  No one was surprised by my drinking and even my therapist characterized my increased usage as understandable "self-medication".  What no one knew at the time was that I had jumped back into the bottle with both feet which seemed to be the only way I could make the noise in my head of grief, guilt and anger go away...if only for a little while.  Of course, as all alcoholics know, it only made it go away for a short while, and as the weeks turned in to months it took more and more to make it go away for a time that grew less and less.  I became a increasingly dysfunctional alcoholic until two years after David's death I dropped all the balls I had been juggling for so long and entered treatment at Fairbanks Hospital, the same facility he had attended.

Next week will be the fifth anniversary of the beginning of my recovery from alcoholism, a recovery that begins anew every morning.  I have come to believe many new truths, have received many gifts and have witnessed many miracles in recovery.  I never believed in miracles before because I really didn't believe in God.  But in recovery I have found a higher power and today I do believe in miracles.  When I was just out of treatment I was required to go to "aftercare" a weekly meeting of 35 to 40 alcoholics and addicts.  The counselor who ran the group was a crusty old codger in his late 70s.   He had more than 20 years of sobriety but his years of drinking had taken a heavy toll making look every bit of a 90 year old.  He was full of all that Alcoholics Anonymous wisdom stuff, knew all the sayings and spouted them continuously throughout his weekly meeting.  I didn't like him very much in the beginning because he had a way of reading our files and then calling us out when we said something he took exception to.  I had successfully stayed out of his way and thought I was off his radar screen until one night after I had been in his group for six or seven weeks. 

I don't remember what I said that night but he brought me up short and called me out in front of the entire gathering.  He said "Kim, I've read your file and I know what happened to you...and I want you to know that I believe that when an addict or an alcoholic dies they buy sobriety for someone else.  I think that is what your son did for you."  I hated him for saying that to me that night.  Hated him because I didn't believe it and I didn't want to believe it.  But five years later I do believe it and I have accepted that gift from my son David.  And that journey from the anger I felt that evening five years ago to the acceptance I have today....is a miracle.  A miracle of recovery from my son David.