Thank You for the Good Day

I have felt as if my 1000 days of sobriety were 1000 days of solitude.

As I so hoped, my life did change on October 4.

I listened via live stream – wearing sobriety togs – to all 5 hours of the rally to end the silence about addictions recovery in Washington, D.C. on October 4, 2015. Thanks to UNITE to Face Addiction‘s organizers and participants – including the President via a pre-taped message and the Surgeon General and his staff in full uniform – I feel relieved of an enormous burden.

I’ll stand up for recovery with you.
– Vivek Murthy, M.D., U.S. Surgeon General

The reason I keep my secrets is because I’m afraid I’ll lose you if I tell. I am afraid you will judge what I have done as so shameful that I deserve disconnection. I spent over a year hiding, even from my family, that I had taken the drive of shame to a support group because I couldn’t stop drinking alcohol.

And now the secret is out. I am no longer alone. Everybody knows, or can know, that addiction to alcohol and other drugs is a treatable illness, not a moral failing. I’m not naïve enough to think that stigma is gone. But a D.C. station covered the event, as did The Washington Post. People like Scott Stevens will start to make meaning of the rally and write about it. I do believe social and political change for the better has begun.

Patrick Kennedy: I am an addict. I’ll always be an addict. But I’m an addict in recovery. I count my days. It’s one day at a time.

Lesley Stahl: Is it hard?

Patrick Kennedy: Oh, yeah.

Lesley Stahl: Every day?

Patrick Kennedy: Every day. Some days more than others. But today’s a good day.

– 60 Minutes interview, 10/4/15

So we’ve had a rally and lots of people in recovery from addictions have shown their faces and they’re smiling so it’s all okay, right?

Even though I felt moved and uplifted during my 5 hours of rally-watching, and even though one would consider me a person in recovery because I have not had a glass of wine or any other alcohol for over 1000 days, tonight, around 5:00 PM, I will long for a drink.

I don’t get off on alcohol. It’s not a pleasure thing for me. It’s not social. I drink alone.

When I drink alcohol, I feel filled with caring warmth that completely eases my sore heart, my tired mind, my hurting body. Nothing, nothing, nothing else in my life today does what alcohol did.

I remember watching my sister lying curled around my nephew when he was a toddler. He scrooched back closer into her body and she shifted to encircle him more closely. I imagine the calm and comfort he felt, the absolute trust he felt in her radiating love and her presence. That’s the only example I can think to offer from within my addiction-changed self that in any way is near what a glass of wine would mean to me tonight.

So I’ve been 1000 days without that. Why wouldn’t the next 1000 day be the same? I so appreciate Patrick Kennedy, who has several thousand days more than I without, not being rah-rah about addictions recovery. A one-day rally in Washington is lovely, but then it’s back to the reality of day after day of the push-pull of want-don’t.

No one should ever have to overcome addiction alone.
– UNITE to Face Addiction

I am one of over 15,000 people in my locale with alcohol and other drug problems. For this all-day, every-day illness, especially for those of us in early recovery, we need all-day, every-day – not one-day, even if it’s a very, very good day – care and support. Because, whether we show our faces or keep silent, not drinking and not using is just hard.