I’ve Been Sober for Over Half of My Life
I started experimenting with alcohol at twelve. It eased that dull ache of social anxiety. It made me feel cute and funny. I liked getting attention from guys. Being inebriated helped ease the feelings of growing up with a father in prison and a mother with her own mental health issues, including alcoholism.
Through an alcohol and drug-induced adolescence, my addiction became less of something to do for fun and turned into something I had to do no matter what. I needed alcohol to fuel my desire to go to school, work, and any other function. I started to use drugs in excess, and soon I was using alone, not just at parties. My life revolved around drinking.
I got to the point where I crawled on the carpet on my hands and knees, looking for white powder. When my father got out of prison, the two of us sold drugs together as our livelihood, which led to me losing many relationships.
The problem with this lifestyle is that it can start out as fun, and then the places it can take us can be extremely demoralizing.
On my twenty-first birthday, I felt as though I couldn’t go on and that I had lived enough of this life. I suppose I was lucky to have hit my own personal bottom at twenty-one.
Three months after my birthday, I got pulled over for a DUI, and three months after that I drank and used for the last time. I was assigned a probation officer and weekly UA’s (urine analysis) in a deferred prosecution program. The program said if I attended two years of treatment and got in no more trouble, my record would be clean.
I began to think, What is the worst thing that can happen to me if I have to stay sober? It’s only two years, right?
It was strange to be reading sobriety literature at twenty-one while my friends were all out at bars. It was complicated when my own alcoholic mother questioned my sobriety.
I eventually found a community of other sober people, even some who were my age. I found myself pregnant at eight months sober with a guy I met in recovery rooms.
Twenty-four years have passed since I took my last drink and drug. My twenty-two-year-old son has never seen his mother or father drink.
My mother was not so lucky. She died an alcoholic death at fifty-five, homeless and wrapped up in her own addiction.
But sobriety is possible. Long-term sobriety is possible.
The truth is that we don’t have to hit bottom to realize alcohol is negatively affecting our lives.
Stopping any addiction isn’t easy, but I can’t believe how much support there is now for people wanting to live a life free of substances. Honestly, I have felt so alone for all of these years, and like I have such a secret, but hearing people share their stories of hope and triumph are so healing. We can recover, and alcohol doesn’t have to keep us held hostage to its empty promises.
I am so glad I have held on when temptation lurked. I am so thankful to have been one of the lucky ones who received the gifts of a sober life. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
About Melissa:
Melissa Steussy is a writer depicting stories about alcohol use, sobriety, veganism, and all sorts of strange poems that come to her in the middle of the night. Melissa is from Seattle but moved to the Minneapolis area a few years ago. Her first book, a recovery memoir, called Let Your Privates Breathe came out this fall.
Let Your Privates Breathe-Recovery Memoir
Facebook Page: Let Your Privates Breathe / Instagram: @melsteussy