A Quiet Place–An Online Healing Resource.

Waking up from our dream–the dream that we can project a pretend personality that will be totally accepted as who we are–means becoming completely real.

1.  From A Nana’s Journey: “Becoming Real“

“One afternoon a few days before she died, I found myself alone with her. Many years ago, we had once discussed how much we loved the book, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, by Margery Williams. Nominally a children’s book, I think it actually speaks more to adults. A book I have loved since I was a little girl, its real meaning only became clear for me when I was a woman. For her birthday sixteen years ago, I had given my friend a beautiful copy of that book. It nestled now on her bedside, and she asked me if I would read it to her.”

Excerpt from ‘THE VELVETEEN RABBIT’ ~ By Margery Williams
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse.
“It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

2.  From Courage to Change: “Thy Will, Not Mine: The Path to Sanity“

“Step Three, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” helped me to stop running my show all by myself. I made the decision to turn away from an insane life towards a saner one.  At first, I decided to let my will be guided by God’s will.”

“Today, when my will lets me down, I no longer continue running around in circles.  I am willing to admit  defeat and trust a source of genuine help.”

“I agree, in my own way, with the author of today’s reading in CTC,  “I may find it easier to point to ‘my dry drunk’s’ irrational or self-destructive choices.  It is harder to admit that my own behavior is not always been sane.”

“It’s been too easy to react to the jabs of my dysfunctional parent and blame them for my anger.   I am finding it more peaceful to admit that my own self-righteous anger is also insane.   I can let go of insisting upon being heard or validated by someone who is living in their disease.  When I learn to let God be my sounding board instead, I make my sanity a first priority.”

3. From Successful and Outstanding Bloggers: “Are You Authentic?”

“William Shakespeare wrote, “…to thine own self be true.” In order to be apart from others, one must identify that which makes one unique. Building upon our individuality means identifying our authenticity. Self-awareness is empowering. Do people get a sense of who you are through what you post or tweet? If I met you at a conference, would I meet the person or the persona? Are you that Someone Behind the Curtain, or is there a genuine quality to who you are online?”

“Being fake is not only annoying; it renders you invisible and irrelevant. When our online presence aligns with our offline reality, our effectiveness is magnified. People trust those who are authentic.”

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High Bottom Drunk

Some of the personal stories from the website:

I Almost Choked to Death on My Own Vomit
Tim R., Longview, Texas
It takes what it takes.

Something to Live For
Carl A., San Antonio, Texas
Even cold hearts can find warmth.

Sober Since Seventeen
Jan P., Little Rock, Arkansas
You don’t have to be old and ugly to find recovery.

I Drank With the Best of Them
Barbara T., Charlotte, NC
You don’t have to be a big redneck man to drink like one.

You Can Get Off on Any Floor &
Tilex Changed My Life
Vicki M., Daphne, AL
“Accidental” sobriety brings self-awareness and serenity. In this case, Tilex was no ordinary bathtub cleaner.

Sober, Happy, and Free
Rick S.
When you’re no longer afraid to die.

Let Go and Let God
Klara R., Tylertown, MS
God takes care of me when I get out of the way.

A Brother’s Love
Joey (Anonymous)
Short and sweet.

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The fifteen stories in this group tell of alcoholism at its miserable worst.

Many tried everything—hospitals, special treatments, sanitariums, asylums, and jails. Nothing worked. Loneliness, great physical and mental agony—these were the common lot. Most had taken shattering losses on nearly every front of life. Some went on trying to live with alcohol.

Others wanted to die.

Alcoholism had respected nobody, neither rich nor poor, learned nor unlettered. All found themselves headed for the same destruction, and it seemed they could do nothing whatever to stop it.

Now sober for years, they tell us how they got well. They prove to almost anyone’s satisfaction that it’s never too late to try Alcoholics Anonymous.

1 My Bottle, My Resentments, and Me
From childhood trauma to skid row drunk, this hobo finally found a Higher Power, bringing sobriety and a long-lost family. PDF

2 He Lived Only to Drink
“I had been preached to, analyzed, cursed, and counseled, but no one had ever said, ‘I identify with what’s going on with you. It happened to me and this is what I did about it.’” PDF

3 Safe Haven
This A.A. found that the process of discovering who he really was began with knowing who he didn’t want to be. PDF

4 Listening to the Wind
It took an “angel” to introduce this Native American woman to A.A. and recovery. PDF

5 Twice Gifted
Diagnosed with cirrhosis, this sick alcoholic got sobriety—plus a lifesaving liver transplant. PDF

6 Building a New Life
Hallucinating and restrained by sheriff’s deputies and hospital staff, this once-happy family man received an unexpected gift from God—a firm foundation in sobriety that would hold up through good times and bad. PDF

7 On the Move
Working the A.A. program showed this alcoholic how to get from geographics to gratitude. PDF

8 A Vision of Recovery
A feeble prayer forged a lasting connection with a Higher Power for this Mic-Mac Indian. PDF

9 Gutter Bravado
Alone and unemployable, he was given two options by the court, get help or go to jail, and his journey toward teachability began. PDF

10 Empty on the Inside
She grew up around A.A. and had all the answers—except when it came to her own life.
PDF

11 Grounded
Alcohol clipped this pilot’s wings until sobriety and hard work brought him back to the sky. PDF

12 Another Chance
Poor, black, totally ruled by alcohol, she felt shut away from any life worth living. But when she began a prison sentence, a door opened. PDF

13 A Late Start
“It’s been ten years since I retired, seven years since I joined A.A. Now I can truly say that I am a grateful alcoholic.”

14 Freedom From Bondage
Young when she joined, this A.A. believes her serious drinking was the result of even deeper defects. She here tells how she was set free. PDF

15 A.A. Taught Him to Handle Sobriety
“God willing, we . . . may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day.’’ PDF

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Among today’s incoming A.A. members, many have never reached the advanced stages of alcoholism, though given time all might have.

Most of these fortunate ones have had little or no acquaintance with delirium, with hospitals, asylums, and jails. Some were drinking heavily, and there had been occasional serious episodes. But with many, drinking had been little more than a sometimes uncontrollable nuisance. Seldom had any of these lost either health, business, family, or friends.

Why do men and women like these join A.A.?

The seventeen who now tell their experiences answer that question. They saw that they had become actual or potential alcoholics, even though no serious harm had yet been done.

They realized that repeated lack of drinking control, when they really wanted control, was the fatal symptom that spelled problem drinking. This, plus mounting emotional disturbances, convinced them that compulsive alcoholism already had them; that complete ruin would be only a question of time.

Seeing this danger, they came to A.A. They realized that in the end alcoholism could be as mortal as cancer; certainly no sane man would wait for a malignant growth to become fatal before seeking help.

Therefore, these seventeen A.A.’s, and hundreds of thousands like them, have been saved years of infinite suffering. They sum it up something like this: “We didn’t wait to hit bottom because, thank God, we could see the bottom. Actually, the bottom came up and hit us. That sold us on Alcoholics Anonymous.”

(1) The Missing Link
He looked at everything as the cause of his unhappiness—except alcohol. PDF

(2) Fear of Fear
This lady was cautious. She decided she wouldn’t let herself go in her drinking. And she would never, never take that morning drink! PDF

(3) The Housewife Who Drank at Home
She hid her bottles in clothes hampers and dresser drawers. In A.A., she discovered she had lost nothing and had found everything. PDF

(4) Physician, Heal Thyself!
Psychiatrist and surgeon, he had lost his way until he realized that God, not he, was the Great Healer. PDF

(5) My Chance to Live
A.A. gave this teenager the tools to climb out of her dark abyss of despair.PDF

(6) Student of Life
Living at home with her parents, she tried using willpower to beat the obsession to drink. But it wasn’t until she met another alcoholic and went to an A.A. meeting that sobriety took hold.PDF

(7) Crossing the River of Denial
She finally realized that when she enjoyed her drinking, she couldn’t control it, and when she controlled it, she couldn’t enjoy it.PDF

(8) Because I’m an Alcoholic
This drinker finally found the answer to her nagging question, “Why?” PDF

(9) It Might Have Been Worse
Alcohol was a looming cloud in this banker’s bright sky. With rare foresight he realized it could become a tornado.PDF

(10) Tightrope
Trying to navigate separate worlds was a lonely charade that ended when this gay alcoholic finally landed in A.A.PDF

(11) Flooded With Feeling
When a barrier to God collapsed, this self-described agnostic was at Step Three.PDF

(12) Winner Takes All
Legally blind but no longer alone, she found a way to stay sober, raise a family, and turn her life over to the care of God.PDF

(13) Me an Alcoholic?
Alcohol’s wringer squeezed this author—but he escaped quite whole. PDF

(14) The Perpetual Quest
This lawyer tried psychiatrists, biofeedback, relaxation exercises, and a host of other techniques to control her drinking. She finally found a solution, uniquely tailored, in the Twelve Steps.PDF

(15) A Drunk, Like You
The more he listened at meetings, the more he came to know about his own drinking history.PDF

(16) Acceptance Was the Answer
The physician wasn’t hooked, he thought—he just prescribed drugs medically indicated for his many ailments. Acceptance was his key to liberation. PDF

(17) Window of Opportunity
This young alcoholic stepped out a second-story window and into A.A. PDF

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Danny Botnik:

Hi, my name is Danny Botnik, and I am a recovering addict and alcoholic. I am also a sexual trauma survivor and dually diagnosed. I hope my story inspires you to hope in another day. My goal in sharing my story is to break the chains of addiction; I hope to be a link in the change to end the stigma associated with mental health and substance abuse in our country. I desire to instill courage in other survivors so they can also ask for and get the help they deserve. We are no longer alone.

I come from a Russian Jewish family. I was born in 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio, and we moved to California when I was 3-4 years old. My middle name, Morris, is from my Grandpa’s brother’s name Moshe; my ancestors came from the sweeping immigration that took place in the late 1800s and early 1900s when many people were searching for a better life free from persecution in Russia. I loved my family and my heritage; however, I think we all knew something was wrong. My parents come from a generation of “Don’t speak, don’t tell.” I know today that addiction is a family illness and usually spans several generations. My father was a brilliant anesthesiologist, and my mother was a homemaker. She had 5 children and lost one son (Kendrick) when he died at childbirth. When I was 6 years old, our family was ripped apart by divorce. At this time I was also sexually abused by my brother with pornography all around. That night, terror and panic came over my body, and I know today I was in a state of shock from what happened—my innocence was stolen from me. I was 6 years old. From that day forward I knew the world was not a safe place.

At that time we began moving around a lot. I lived with my mother and two of my sisters, and we began to try to make sense of the divorce and start to heal—I could sense fear, worry, and the unfinished business of my mother’s own childhood and life. Abuse happened again at age 12 when my brother seduced me once more and shot me up with cocaine. Around this time I began to drink and use marijuana almost daily. I also took acid at age 12 a few times. I knew this wasn’t me, but I guess I had to deaden the pain. Little did I know that I was a PTSD trauma survivor and sexual abuse survivor, in addition to becoming an addict, all before age 12. We had a tranquil period of life when we moved to Citrus Heights, California, and we carved out a life. Our uncle and aunt proved to be a stabilizing force in our lives and I am sure to this day without their involvement I would not be alive to tell my story. (I love you guys.)

I was told by my brother not to share the SECRET, or I would die; I kept that promise until I was 28 years old. From age 8-19 things were fairly stable. My mom bought a home with the help of my aunt and uncle, and we did the best we could. I knew we all knew things were wrong, but it was amazing how we just accepted things as they were. We gritted it out and did the best we could. I was involved in sports and started using and drinking at age 12. I had a lot of excuses for this type of behavior; really I just wanted to forget. It took me along time to realize that I was between 6 years old and 12 years old emotionally from the trauma and the drugs and alcohol. I always used my charm and intellect to get me through. I just functioned the only way I knew; as far as I was concerned, my life was normal.

About this time in my sophomore year I met my best friend Mark Tucker, and he started sharing with me about becoming a Christian. I jumped in full boat and gave my life to Christ when I was 15 years old. When you give your life to Christ, you are never the same. But I was still an untreated dually-diagnosed sexual trauma victim, with severe rejection and abandonment issues. So I went about my Christianity with an addictive, performance mindset. I carried my Bible to school and was labeled “preacher.” I spoke at youth camp; I gave my testimony on radio; I felt the call of God on my life to be an evangelist. However, at my core, the trauma was gnawing at me saying, “Danny you are not God’s son; you are damaged goods, you will NEVER be enough.” So I went around life with a performance mindset. I would prove that I was good enough. Really I wanted to quit the imperious urges of toxic shame.

In 1985, I went to Arizona and gave baseball one more shot. I walked on at Mesa Community College and was the last person cut. I had not picked up a baseball in over 2 years and was clocked at 90 miles an hour. From there I started partying all day, every day. I opened a few thriving businesses. The search for success and money would make me happy, so I thought. This only fueled my addictive desire for MORE. I met a girl and thought, “Wow, I do not have to be promiscuous anymore,” when she became pregnant out of wedlock. After being separated from my son, I sank into the gripping progressive disease of addiction. I felt completely alone and isolated, having panic attacks, anxiety, PTSD, untreated major depression and the most severe pain I had ever encountered. The untreated depression would last 3 years; I just walked it off. I started my second business before age 25 and lost that also.

I picked performance sales oriented businesses and my work addiction took its toll. I have worked in over 42 health clubs in my career. I also moved over 40 times from age 19 to when I began recovery. I would move anywhere so I did not have to look at ME! Then the end came: I was bursting inside, erupting like a volcano, or a tornado as some people have called me; the disease of addiction took me to the streets of Oakland, California, with pimps, prostitutes, crack, and meth. It always starts with a little and then one is never enough. I lost everything again at age 28. I had lost so much from this when I cried, “God, this has to stop!” The darkness is always darkest before the dawn. I could have died out there or wound up in prison.

In the midst of my internal prison of isolation, fear, and shame, God heard my cry and began to intervene, and I was able to ask for help in the summer of 1994. I shared the SECRET hidden and buried so long ago. What was funny is that my first step in recovery was where all the abuse and trauma started. I entered First Step Recovery in Castro Valley, California, and I began unpacking the issues of my past—the trauma, anxiety, being dually diagnosed—and started to learn how to be clean and sober and live a new way of life… what it meant to be accepted. How would I live without drugs and alcohol, work, sex, co-dependency? These processes and ideas had been my crutch my whole life. Now I started taking the mask off and exposing the lies… these thought systems had been established but they were starting to come down. The first step was admitting that I had been sexually abused and had experienced violence in my family. I realized later that the other issues were just me trying to cope with the emotional pain, grief, loss, rejection, and losing contact with my son because of this disease. I relapsed in 1994, and in December of 1994, I went on a eight month run to die; my addictions took a life of their own. I had crossed over to where you begin to know that there is a darkness that wants to destroy you. In 1995, I went to rehab for the last time. I re-dedicated my life to Christ again in August of 1995, and it has been a slow but steady journey to wholeness. I have had great people help me all the way to being whole. I have taken several steps forward with several backwards. In the last 17 years, I have spent a lot of time working with some great therapists helping me unpack my family of origin issues.

Today I declare that there is hope, and you are not alone. The main thing is to start and make the courageous step toward a better, more fulfilling life. I have completed extensive PTSD and EMDR therapy and also received numerous prayer sessions from trusted people. Most people who know me today would have never known that I had this in my past. Also the people of my past probably thought there was nothing wrong; I was such a great actor and it almost killed me not telling the TRUTH and not talking about my past. The main thing is that I have cleared away my wreckage from the closets of my past and have begun to love myself. I realize that God had a plan and purpose through all of my life and that he uses everything for his good purpose. Today God is restoring my family; I have my sisters back in my life and have real friends. He also led me to work with the great people at Foundations Recovery Network with Rob and Lee and their professional staff. I am truly a blessed man and am grateful for his grace working in my life; I have a beautiful wife Paige and a new baby son Zackary.

I have also been reunited with my long lost son Beau, and with the help of La Paloma, he has begun his own personal journey of recovery. I do not deserve a thing; I am so glad that God restores the broken-hearted. I know it is all God’s grace in my life and that is why I have shared my story with you. If I can do it, so can you. Please start today! I sense that the journey and adventure continue. I also know—I am finally home.

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Part 1: Pioneers of AA begins with the story of Dr. Bob, one of the cofounders of AA. This group of 10 stories shows that sobriety in AA can be lasting.

Dr. Bob and the nine men and women who here tell their stories were among the early members of A.A.’s first groups.

All ten have now passed away of natural causes, having maintained complete sobriety.
Today, hundreds of additional A.A. members can be found who have had no relapse for more than thirty years.

All of these, then, are the pioneers of A.A. They bear witness that release from alcoholism can really be permanent

Doctor Bob’s Nightmare
A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The birth of our Society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10, 1935.PDF

(1) Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three
Pioneer member of Akron’s Group No. 1, the first A.A. group in the world. He kept the faith; therefore, he and countless others found a new life. PDF

(2) Gratitude in Action
The story of Dave B., one of the founders of A.A. in Canada in 1944.PDF

(3) Women Suffer Too
Despite great opportunities, alcohol nearly ended her life. An early member, she spread the word among women in our pioneering period.PDF

(4) Our Southern Friend
Pioneer A.A., minister’s son, and southern farmer, he asked, “Who am I to say there is no God?” PDF

(5) The Vicious Cycle
How it finally broke a Southerner’s obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. in Philadelphia. PDF

(6) Jim’s Story
This physician, one of the earliest members of A.A.’s first black group, tells of how freedom came as he worked among his people. PDF

(7) The Man Who Mastered Fear
He spent eighteen years running away, and then found he didn’t have to run. So he started A.A. in Detroit. PDF

(8) He Sold Himself Short
But he found there was a Higher Power that had more faith in him than he had in himself. Thus, A.A. was born in Chicago. PDF

(9) The Keys of the Kingdom
This worldly lady helped to develop A.A. in Chicago and thus passed her keys to many. PDF

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Robert Ischinger:

I remember growing up with an alcoholic father, saying I would never become an alcoholic. Many years later I had to admit to myself that I had become a junkie instead. I, like many alcoholics/addicts always felt that my life was not good enough and that somehow it should be better. I would feel this way even when things appeared to be good but I had that “hole in my soul” that I heard so many people talk about in meetings.

My drug and alcohol usage began in college. It was the late 1960s when doing drugs seemed somehow glamorous and accepted. I drank a lot on weekends, but since I could stop and didn’t have to have a drink to get me going in the morning, I was sure it was not a problem. When a roommate introduced me to pot, the drinking subsided. But I started smoking pot every night. LSD also became part of my life and none of this seemed wrong or harmful, even though my grades were going downhill and I was becoming isolated from everyone except the people I knew who did drugs.

All this helped me to avoid a big problem in my life. I am a gay man. I came of age at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. Since not only would I not become an alcoholic, I also would not allow myself to have a mental disorder. So I got married. For many years I had career successes and was able to live as a married man and a father. I thought I had filled that hole. As time went on the hole began to grow again. I became discontent with my career and my family life was no longer enough to allow me to feel satisfied. I realized that I had to be honest with myself about my sexuality and then honest with my family. My marriage ended and I was alone.

I began to drink every night, and quickly found pot again. Since this was now the mid 1980s, I also found cocaine. I loved it, but it was expensive and I had to keep doing it to keep the high going. 
About a year after my divorce, I met a man who became my partner for the next eleven years. He introduced me to crystal methamphetamine. I LOVED IT. We would occasionally do drugs on the weekends and at times more often, but we always seemed to keep the usage in check. 
He died of AIDS in 1996. I was alone again and the crystal meth epidemic in the gay community had begun.

It was easy to find meth, easy to meet people, easy to not be alone. Meth began to fill the void I felt when my partner died and then it seemed to fill the hole that I had periodically been trying to fill with all sorts of other things. It succeeded in helping me to think that I was mentally doing well. That I could work better and socialize better. I was convinced that all was well. I had friends. I was meeting all sorts of people. But my life was also becoming darker. I was becoming ineffectual at work. My money management skills were non-existent. 
I eventually lost my job. I was evicted from my apartment. My car broke down and I did not want to spend the money to get it fixed. I began a downward spiral that lasted about 2 years and did not end until I was I was empty enough to admit I needed help. In that 2 years I lived with friends and fooled myself into thinking that I was not homeless since I never slept on the street. I spent all the money I had received from my partner from a life insurance policy along with a large legal settlement. It all went to drugs.

On February 20, 2004 I found myself broken and alone. I was living on a drug dealer’s couch, worrying about the day that I might come home and find my belongings piled on the street. I went to a Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting that night. The meeting was at 10:15 PM on a Friday night. I walked into the meeting scared, nervous and thinking what am I doing? I was shocked to see a room full of gay men who were joking around having a good time without meth on a Friday night. Could this be possible? Did people really gain recovery from this drug and be happy? I stayed for the meeting but was anxious to get out before I had to speak to anyone. There was a part of me that said, “You have to do this.” But the big question in my head was, “HOW?” My whole life was as the Narcotics Anonymous readings says: “Our lives revolved around the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more.” How could I ever work again? How could I find friends? How could I have fun? Would I ever gain back my integrity? 
I went home and the next day, a Saturday, I used up the rest of my drugs figuring if this was the end, I didn’t want to waste them.

The next day Sunday, February 22, 2004, was my first day of sobriety. It is the day that my current journey began. I went to a meeting that night, met a few people who encouraged me to “keep coming back.” The next night I went to another meeting, having heard a message that if you make this a way of life, you can gain recovery. That night I asked a man to be my sponsor. I did this because I had heard in the meetings that if you wanted to get clean you needed to “work the steps” (whatever that meant) and you needed a sponsor to do this. 
The next day I spoke with my sponsor who told me I should go to two meetings a day for the next 90 days. While I thought this was extreme, I was desperate for change. These people told me that if I did what they did, my life could also change. For the time being the people I met at meetings were a “power greater than myself.” 
I had all sorts of questions about God and His will for me. How does one “Let go and let God?” Did I want to believe in something that I was sure most of my life did not exist? For the time being I was told all I needed to believe was that there was something other than myself that could help me. I could believe in that. Shortly I started to compare a higher power to The Force from Star Wars. It worked. I went to at least two meetings a day for the first 90 days.

Somehow my life started to change. I moved from the drug dealer’s couch to a sober living home. I got a job. I was able to feel that there were some changes that were beginning to happen. I could begin feel better about myself. I was no longer lying to my family about why my life was in shambles. I was becoming responsible again. 
I soon began to work the steps. I could not understand how these things could help me to stay clean and sober but all these people I was meeting and all the people I heard speak at meetings said that if I wanted to change my life I needed to do this. So I became open-minded and willing. As I worked the steps, something strange began to happen. I began to feel better about who I was as a person. My sponsor pointed out that my chief character defect was a core belief about myself: “I am not good enough.” As I took that in, I began to realize that my whole life was based on this belief. I struggled to prove to myself that this was not true, but it always crept back into my consciousness. When I was entirely ready to have this removed from me, I asked my Higher Power to remove it. A few weeks later I called my sponsor to say that I thought that my character defects were still with me. He laughed and said, “Honey, they will always be there. The difference is that now you get to act on them and not let them continue to negatively impact your life.”

Life was slowly getting better. I was promoted at work to a department manager. I was able to buy a car. My family was able to again depend on me. I was gaining back my integrity. 
At about the two year mark, I was offered a job to be the weekend manager at a residential treatment program. I had to move from full-time to part time at the job I had. This also allowed me to investigate going back to school to be a drug and alcohol counselor. Several people suggested that instead of getting a counseling certificate, I should go to graduate school and get a Master’s degree in clinical psychology. Of course since I was not good enough for anything in my life, my disease screamed at me, “Who do you think you are that you could go to GRADUATE SCHOOL?” Earlier in life I would have listened to that voice but I had learned to question it and ignore it. I applied, was accepted and started school about 2 and a half years after I got clean and sober. That was October of 2006. In June of 2008, I received a Master’s degree in clinical psychology. I remember thinking after I got clean that I would miss the euphoria that I would feel when I got high. It was such an intense feeling that I almost mourned the loss of it, being sad that it was a feeling I could never experience again.

On graduation day I remember waiting in line to walk into the auditorium where the ceremony was happening. I remember walking in hearing music and a thunderous roar of applause and yelling from the audience. I remember feeling my heart start to race and becoming welled up with emotion. As I was walking down the aisle I saw my 88 year old mother, my sister, and my daughter smiling and applauding. Then I noticed my daughter had tears running down her cheeks. My emotions welled up even more and tears were running down my cheeks too. I thought of all that had brought me to this point. Through all the pain, the suffering, and the hard work, in that moment I knew that I WAS GOOD ENOUGH and that I NEVER had to feel that way again. The euphoria I felt in that moment was far better than ANY high I had ever felt with drugs.
 Today I work as a therapist at Michael’s House in Palm Springs, CA. I get to work with men in early recovery every day. Last year one morning I walked into my office and under the door someone had slipped a piece of paper that said, “To Robert.” It was a quote from Albert Schweitzer. It read, “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
I am grateful for those in my life who have rekindled my flame and am humbled by the thought that perhaps my story has rekindled someone else’s flame.

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Having been told I was severely mentally ill and would be for the rest of my life, I left the hospital and went to a rescue mission where I pretty much sat for five and a half years. I was, periodically, wildly suicidal. It wasn’t an odd intrusive thought, suicide, it was a way out of my unbearable pain. My early family life was remarkably dysfunctional. My finally crumpling under the unbearable emotional pain was labeled insanity, rather than the sanity it really was, PTSD being a very normal reaction to terror.

I am not about sweetness and light. My life was a struggle with pain and isolation. I lived for decadeswithout any sense of belonging to the human race. In the mission I would often spend a week or so without a conversation that lasted longer than four or five words. When I left the Mission, I lived in a small
furnished room. Unlike others of my age, I had no house, furniture, car, wife, kids, job, career, family or friends. After years of isolation, I had lost the ability to hold a conversation, or to really know what I was thinking.

I gained at least fifty pounds in a year, living in the VA mental hospital, on powerful anti-psychotic drugs. I did no exercising. I kept my PTSD in control by isolation, overeating, and daydreaming. Both the State and VA mental hospitals did their best to convince me that I was defective, that I had a genetic mental illness, and would need drugs forever. My self-esteem was in the negative range. When I was in a crowd I would try to get to the edges, or leave, as I didn’t feel I was anything other than a social reject (schizophrenics are crazed killers, don’t you know?).

My mother and I, both terribly traumatized in our respective youths, seemed to be having an unspoken contest to see who would suicide first. She at age56, took her life while I was in the VA hospital system.

And yet, here I am, age 61, alive and, most of the time, happy to be alive. I do a lot of volunteering, and am on several Boards and Commissions. I am on Eugene’s Human Rights Commission, and I am on this current task force looking at the fact that those who go through the mental health system die 25 years before their peers.

If I am getting health, within my limits, it is only because I believed in myself. I woke up one day and realized that I wasn’t “mentally ill” in the traditional sense, and that I would have to do all the work myself, if I wanted to survive. Recovery simply wasn’t built into the mental health system. It was designed by “Big Nurse” to warehouse the very lost and battered; to avoid paying the true expenses of taking care of those with PTSD, though it wasn’t called that at the time.

I give the most credit to the Eugene Rescue Mission where I lived for years. It helped because it wasn’t connected to the mental health system. No one there forced me to take drugs that dulled my mind, no one there labeled me crazy or defective. I had a cot in a large dorm, simple food, and a very simple job folding newspapers for their recycling program.

Let me repeat that: I was aided the most by someone giving me sanctuary from the highly degreed shrinks and their soul-shriveling labels. I lived among equals, men who were equally damaged, distant ghosts unbound by family or relationships.

I fought the VA for years until I got a fairly small pension. Using that, I joined a weight-loss club. Cost me a fortune, but that was the only way to get the 50 pounds off. Very hard to keep it off, but I joined an exercise club, which was expensive, to help me. I went into counseling, as a Vietnam Veteran I was
eligible to use their Vet Center system, which was then a peer-led counseling program. I sat across from someone I grew to trust, for years, relearning how to take my inner world and expose it to the light of conversation. I got off those damn psychiatric drugs, and I stayed off them.

I counsel people today not to do what I did, as I just walked away from the drugs, and for months, had a doubling of my emotional problems. The inner emotional storms were…horrible. But I survived. And I suspect that, though those years took a lot out of me, I bought back a lot of those 25 years. And I do not give much credit to the traditional mental health system for much of my “recovery’. It fought me for years to stay on Thorazine. It refused me a pension, even though I was diagnosed schizophrenic and locked in a VA crisis ward. It did nothing to aid my self esteem. I do have a lot of respect for the Vet Center perspective that sees dysfunction as a natural result of trauma.

I don’t have degree from Yale or Harvard, but I would match the education I received in Norwich State Hospital, Northampton VA Hospital, the Eugene Mission, and years on the street, with the education of any psychiatrist. I sat in the Mission and the hospitals and, within limits, learned what terror and horror and hopelessness felt like. I watched where it came from, how impossible it is get rid of (broken hearts never heal), and above all, I learned that we are remarkably resilient, we human beings, if we get a chance to relax and relearn love. Recovery isn’t about being “cured”, as many of us never had a disease in the first place. It is about relearning to love who we really are, and to accept the daily burden of our struggle as just something we share with most other humans.

Hugh Massengill
H.massengill@comcast.net

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I just got out of jail. My sister had been at The Next Door, and I looked it up
on the Internet; I didn’t want to go back to my hometown because I knew I could
relapse there, so I wanted to get as far away as possible. I went to Knoxville
first, but all my problems were too close by. So I asked about switching to
Nashville, and The Next Door said, “Come up tomorrow.”

I didn’t think I was going to like it at first. It’s scary at first to be
somewhere that you don’t know anyone, but it’s also great. You’re around new
people who are recovering addicts too. 

Here I can be anything I want to be. That’s
what I was looking for – I want to be better than I was and better than how I
grew up. I’ve been at the Next Door for three nights. It keeps me busy, too, and
I’m doing a lot of things for the first time. I went to NA for the first time
in years. The difference is that I really want to be clean this time around. It
teaches you how to take care of money and get a job. My roommate Sarah is
helping me a lot and showing me some of the ways I can change. She was asking
me why am I here. I want to be clean for the rest of my life.

I want to have a family and have kids. If my father and them were to die today, I
would have no one to bury. I’m trying to give my kids some of what they’ve
given me. I’m 23. I’ve been in jail for the last three years due to my
addiction. This year will be the first holiday I’ll be out. I called my mama
and said I’ll be home for Thanksgiving. She cried. My older sister is in recovery
and she’s helped me so much. She bought a car and got a job and just got a
house. I’ve only been here three days but I love it. In a few weeks I can go
out job hunting and I’m so excited about that because my last job was in ‘02.

2.  Trish Schamber:

It was probably no surprise to anyone that I became an addict. My mother and father were both drug and alcohol abusers and we kids mostly got in the way. My father became saved and quit using and became the sole parent of three girls, although only two of us were his biological children. My mother abandoned us and continued to use and run the streets. At the age of five, I was sexually abused by my babysitter’s son, and at the age of six I was sexually abused by my grandmother’s husband, which continued until I was eight. I really never knew my mother until I was thirteen when I moved in with her. She was excited to get me drunk, and I remember the parties we had every weekend, dancing and drinking to country music.

At the age of thirteen I began to self-mutilate. 
After being sent back to my father’s and then returned to my mother’s, I found myself in a girl’s school for a year and a half. I went to a foster family and was sent to a group home when my foster mother caught me self-mutilating. At the group home I was hopeless and hated myself. I tried to commit suicide by taking to bottles of sleeping pills, however the staff knew that something was going on when I went to bed early, since I was usually up as late as was allowed. I was sent back to the girl’s school and was eventually released on my own at eighteen. I moved in with a friend who always knew where parties were.
 I began to drink constantly, always looking for a party, eventually I moved back to my mother’s and began using meth.

My boyfriend was a drug dealer so I quickly relied on meth to get through the day. I became pregnant and sobered up and felt really good about life, but as soon as my son was born I started using again. In 2007 my house was raided; I was not there but my son was taken into DFS custody and my boyfriend went to jail. Although I tried to stay sober I could not maintain it, and I began drinking very heavily and often. I ended up moving to a new town where I started selling meth. After nine months I was arrested and sent to jail.

I sat in jail for sixty days, and that was my new beginning.
 I decided I was going to stop the cycle: my mother used and her mother used, and so on up the line. I was going to do something different for my child. I started reading my Bible and going to church. Jesus was my life preserver. After sixty days I was released and ran into my boyfriend. He had also found Jesus and changed his life. 
We got custody of our son back; I completed my probation without a flaw, and he got off probation two years early because his probation officer said it was “futile.” We also have a daughter now. I am currently attending school for a Bachelor’s in psychology and criminal justice. 
Our lives have become the total opposite, and our sobriety has impacted our families’ lives. His mother and two sisters quit using meth, and my two sisters have quit as well. 
We are so blessed!

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1.  Wendy Lee Nentwig:

I’m not in recover personally. It’s ironic that I’ve actually never tried a single drug and never been drunk, but I feel like I’ve been through addiction — in some ways I feel like I’m still in it. 

My grandfather was an alcoholic, and that disease colored my mother’s childhood in ways I’ll never full understand.

It continues to affect her and her siblings, and that dysfunction trickled down
into my childhood, too, coating it like a syrup that stuck to everything. My grandpa never got help for his addiction. In the small Montana town where they lived, my grandma would call the local bar and tell them to send her husband home for dinner. One of my aunts then married an alcoholic who drank until theday he died as well. I guess it’s true that sometimes, no matter how much you swear you’ll do things differently, you fall into patterns that feel mostfamiliar. 

Addiction continues to wreak havoc on the next generation of my family … and the next.

As I type this, I don’t know where my brother is. I literally don’t know. His cell phone was turned off a month or two ago and we don’t know where he’s living, so once again he’s off the grid. He’s 47 and has struggled with addiction for most of his life. There have been clean periods where we’ve been really hopeful, and then there have been really bad periods. I used to be bitter that the mood of every holiday was contingent on whether or not he showed up.

Now I’m just sad that so many of my calls home to my parents include the question, “You haven’t heard from your brother, have you?” I wish I could make him understand that while he can’t change the past, it’s a tragedy to let it rob him of a future. I wish he’d see that our family isn’t whole without him. That his kids miss him. That he’s worth saving. 

It’s heartbreaking, but it gives me hope to know that great treatment options exist and that there are people at companies like Foundations, so that one day, if he’s ready, when he’s ready, there will be someone there to help.

2.  Melissa Blankenship:

My father is an alcoholic. I hated how it affected our family when I was growing up; sometimes I hated him. I always thought if he really cared, he wouldn’t put us through the fear and sadness of his drinking. All he had to do was stop. He never did.
 I went into a blackout the first time I drank. Drinking was an easy way to “belong” in college and I saw no reason to stop. I always drank to intoxication; that was the goal. Regardless of failing grades and embarrassing blackouts, I continued.

After college, morning shakes became the norm. I lost weight, ruined relationships, hated myself. 
I didn’t have a drinking problem, but I did have an alcoholic father. ACOA was an organization I decided to check out. These were other adult children of alcoholics and it was freeing to talk about the impact drinking had on us while we were growing up. I went to meetings regularly. I bought fifths of bourbon on the way home. Around that time alcohol stopped working. I was more depressed than ever and started contemplating suicide. I went to therapy. I went on medication. I stayed depressed. 
I will always believe it was a God thing when I called the AA Intergroup number one night while drunk, looking for an ACOA meeting that would fix my soul. The blessing was that I remained sober enough to remember the conversation, but greater still was the man who answered the phone. He encouraged me to attend an ACOA meeting where he went to AA. He was kind and accepting and told me he would meet me there. 
I wanted his calm and peace. He was so comfortable with himself; so loving toward others. He invited me to AA.

That was 23 years ago and I have been blessed with sobriety since. The gifts are like nothing I could have imagined; the peace and self-acceptance are a true gift. The people in the program loved me until I could learn to love myself and I will be forever grateful. 
I see my father differently now. I wish he was in the program. I love him unconditionally and I thank God I found the program, even through the side door. 
The beauty of recovery is that it’s always there. The other side is possible and you can’t know how wonderful it is without walking through.

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