My last drink was October 16, 2015. I had convinced myself after a year of sobriety that I was non-alcoholic. I was just what the book refers to as a “heavy drinker” because all of my partying occurred between the age of 12-21.  I believed wholeheartedly that I could drink again because I was 21. In hindsight, not a good argument against alcoholism. I drank for about 10 days before I was crying to God for help. I was alone in my one bedroom apartment, drunk, sobbing.  About 10 minutes after I said the taboo God word, someone came and knocked on my door as a 12-step call. Something was looking out.

I called the sponsor I worked with the year prior and told her, I got a newcomer chip, and stopped calling her. It was easy to not call and still say I had a sponsor because she moved out of state. I white knuckled it for 90 days. While I was still active in my service commitments, social world, relationship, and hobbies, my connection with god was absent.

At 90 days an AAer from another state posted that he needed a place to stay. The good AA I was I told him he could stay on my couch that night. I got brutally raped that night. The one thing I didn’t think could happen in sobriety, happened. I thought that I was safe from that horror because I wasn’t blacking out and putting myself in dangerous situations anymore. It happened in the living room of my own home. The next month one of my best friends overdosed on heroin and died. Circumstances threw me off the mental deep end and shattered my perception of the universe. My already existing Major Depression Disorder and Bipolar Disorder swan dove off a cliff. I acquired PTSD. I became gravely suicidal.

I was so afraid, but after being around AA for a few years I had hope that I was not alone. I began reaching out in meetings, asking if anyone could help me because I wasn’t going to drink, I was going to kill myself.

I got hooked up with a new sponsor. She didn’t keep me sober, but she kept me grounded. We got to work immediately. She picks up the phone when I am afraid of myself. She helped me pray again. She does NOT proclaim to be my mental health doctor and highly suggested outside help. She is a woman in recovery who shares her experience strength and hope with me and guides me through the work as it is laid out in the big book. Outside help has looked like going to talk therapy, quitting talk therapy, going to UNI sober, finding an EMDR specialist, starting med management and getting a service dog.

Something has helped me stay sober through everything. No matter what happens, I don’t have to pick up a drink today. If you are in pain, PLEASE REACH OUT. Someone will catch you! You need to yell when you are falling. I am learning to not let someone else’s darkness cast a shadow on my heart. I pray for light to illuminate the darkness in others.

Stay gold.

-Maggie