Relapse, Part 1

Hey guys! I’m baaaackkk!

I gave my lead at the treatment center and it was very well received by the clients/patients there. Many people chimed in and said that my story was powerful, moving, and inspiring. Later, the counselor of the group, said that the clients who spoke up usually don’t have too much to say, so I felt grateful I could provide some of the people in the room with some type of inspiration.

Most importantly, I wanted the clients to know and feel that they are not alone. So many times, I felt like I was alone in this. I was the only one who would hide empty bottles in an apartment that I had to myself, I was the only one who would do the awful things I did (like drinking while driving, as mentioned in this post), I was the only one who would take themselves to the ER twice in one day to feel better, I was the ONLY one, blah blah blah. Now, that I’ve had some time to get to know people in the rooms, I KNOW I’m not the only one, and I’m not alone in the way I feel. It’s comforting to know that other people did the things I did, it made it feel less god-awful. It gave me hope that these people could share with me the things that they had done, overcoming shame and guilt and embarassment, and then they went on to move past it and create a new life.

One of the ladies said ‘God.. I thought I was the only one that did that…’, referring to switching up liquor stores as to not frequent one too many times and risk the cashier knowing about my alcoholism. No, honey, you’re DEF not the only one! In fact, there’s many of us, right here in this here city of Chicago, who did the exact same thing.

An older gentlemen in the room, who looked to be straight from the 70s, said something like ‘when you first started telling your story, I thought ‘so what?! you blacked out in college, big deal,’ but then as you kept sharing and got into the honest details, I couldn’t help but realize how similar we actually are.’

One thing I LOVE about going through addiction and coming out the other end (recovery), is that we truly see how similar we are, instead of focusing on the differences. Young, old, black, white, Asian, American, Mexican, poor, wealthy, professional, blue-collar… IT DOESN’T MATTER.. we can all relate to the pain, suffering, fear, thinking there’s no way out other than just pulling the plug… ending up in horrible places with horrible people and questioning why and how it ever came to this… We ALL have that in common. This is why I’ve learned and come to be a ‘grateful recovering alcoholic’, which I plan on writing about in a whole separate post of it’s own.

So, I think the goal was achieved — I think at least one person got one good thing from my lead, and that’s all I care about.

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I think it’s time to elaborate and reflect on the dark days of late 2016 and early 2017. I think this will have 2 parts.

WARNING: this is going to get nitty-gritty and brutally honest.

So, in August of 2016, my stay at the halfway house/homeless shelter in Libertyville, IL was coming to an end.

I moved to this halfway house, we’ll call it the 12-step House (it wasn’t actually called that, and if you want to really do your research, I’m pretty sure there’s only one place like this in Libertyville…) right after treatment at Gateway in Lake Villa, IL in very early June 2016. It was a true halfway house, with strict rules, curfew, and scheduling. We had to be up by 8 AM, showered and ready for the day by the 9 AM check-in group, most days included an 11 AM and 2 PM group of sorts, and mandatory 4 PM and 6 PM process group. We couldn’t leave the house for more than 4 hours unless it was for work. We couldn’t even leave the house WHATSOEVER (unless it was for a meeting) until we were there for a full 2 weeks. Residents could only work after being at the house for 90 days (even if you were sober for 6 months prior to moving into the halfway house). We were required to go to a meeting every day, outside of the house, obtain a sponsor, and meet with the case manager at the house at least 2x per week. Curfew was strictly 10 PM and lights out at 11 PM. Very regimented, scheduled, strict living environment.

Some people really need the regimented routine after treatment; I struggled and fought it, tooth and nail.

I remember less than 2 weeks in to my stay, I called my mom, crying and very upset about the fact I was held hostage in the house. I couldn’t go for a walk, I couldn’t go get a coffee, I couldn’t do anything! I felt so helpless and powerless. She was like, ‘well, where exactly do you plan on going? Cuz you can’t come back and live with us.’ I was trying to think of someone, ANYONE, I could live with to get out of that house… an ex-boyfriend in Milwaukee, someone I had met at Gateway with their own house, it didn’t matter, I just needed OUT, NOW!

I hadn’t learned the art of sitting still yet. I hadn’t learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I was fighting, clawing, running from exactly what the halfway house intended for me to see — that I (me, myself and I) was the problem. I hadn’t experienced the power of meetings, yet. I fought back with everything I had… you’re suggesting I find a higher-power? Fuck that. You’re telling me I need to get a sponsor? I don’t need nobody tellin me what to do! You’re telling me I have to sit here for 90 days and go to all these mandatory meetings before I can put myself to some use and get a job?! WHAT!

Finally, the 2 weeks was up and I could walk to the library and get a coffee. Slowly, but surely, the 90 days started to tick by.

Fortunately, I was there during summertime, so almost all of my 90 days were spent sunbathing and smoking cigarettes. If I get skin cancer, I know exactly which summer caused it.

Sure, I went to the mandatory house meetings and the outside AA/NA meetings. Sure, I met with my case manager 2x per week. Sure, I was in by the curfew and up by the 8 AM wake up time.

I was convinced I was dealing with my anxiety and depression. I was convinced I was doing the best I could do to stay sober and set myself up for long-term sobriety.

But, that entire summer, in the back of my mind, all I could think about was my next drink. The obsession never left me. And frankly, even though I thought I was doing the best I could do, I didn’t do anything to relieve myself of the obsession to drink. I didn’t do squat for my depression or anxiety. I thought I was being introspective and examining my thoughts and behaviors, but I soooo wasn’t. I was bullshitting my way through everything that summer.

And yeah, my relationship with my parents got better. My legal problems were starting to resolve. And, on the 90th day, I was going back to work at a big-girl job, as a Project Manager for a small company, making more money than (I think) either of my parents were at the time.

But, still, my thinking was the same. The way I saw life was the same. I knew, from the moment I moved into the halfway house, that the day I moved out I was going to drink. And I wasn’t gonna let that thought go. I couldn’t face myself just yet.

The time came for me to move out of the house and either into the 12-step House’s ‘Phase 2’ program, or get an apartment of my own. Screw phase 2, I was SO over that, and I got this!!! I’m so ready for this! NOT!!!

Me and Mandy became really close over that summer. We moved in around the same time, so we were serving our 90-day terms at the same time. We cooked together, went to meetings together (though most of the time we just sat outside and smoked), and were attached at the hip. The case managers saw this and tried to warn us, saying ‘you guys are going to get each other into trouble’ in a jokingish manner, but so not joking at the same time. My case manager got real with me one day and said ‘Judith, if you move out with Mandy, I assure you that you will relapse, and it’s going to get worse than ever before, and I can only hope and pray you stay alive long enough to really get yourself better.’ I was like ‘PSSSHHHTTT… you don’t know nothin’ lady!’

We decided we were gonna move out together and be roommates. The case managers heard about this and made a plea, offering us Phase 2 together, if we would only stay in the program.

Neither of us were ready nor willing to do what needed to be done to stay sober, and we were headstrong in our determination to move out together and have a cute apartment and make dinner for each other and live happily ever after.

To be honest, a part of me knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I knew I should listen to my case manager and give Phase 2 a try. I knew I should NOT move in with this girl, who had relapsed twice since moving into the halfway house, who was clearly not ready to give up either. But, the addictive side of my brain was telling me, ‘C’mon, this will be fun!!! You’ll be on your own again, able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and omg Mandy will be so fun to drink with! You’re not like you were before, you haven’t had a drink in 4 months! C’mon it’ll be a blast!!!’

So on September 11, 2016 we moved into an apartment together.

I stayed sober for a little over 2 weeks in the apartment with Mandy. Mandy had gone right back to drinking the day we moved out. But I was still on the fence.. like do I wanna do this? Should I do this? Ehhh… fuck it.. life is too short to not let yourself have something you REALLY want, like booze.

The night I relapsed was… not awful, but not really fun either. Mandy and I had plans to make a big dinner with lots of prep work that night. She was like ‘Judith, wouldn’t it be fun to have a couple glasses of wine while we’re getting dinner together?’ and I was like ‘uuuuuuuuuuugghhhhh yes it would be so fun.. but can I? Can I do that?’ and both her and I looked at each other and in a split second the decision was made… time to go to the store and grab a big ole bottle of Barefoot!

We got back from the store, and she opened the bottle. The sound of the foil coming off the neck of the bottle, the sound, smell, and sight of it being poured into a clean, crystal-clear wine glass made me literally salivate. I drew that glass to my lips and tasted sweet, sweet poison. And… just like that.. I was drinking again.

Within a few days, I was worse than ever before. I was binge drinking, from the moment I awoke to the moment I passed out. There was no playin games or messing around this time — the sole purpose and focus was to get drunk. I would open a bottle and wouldn’t/couldn’t stop till it was gone or I was passed out, and when I woke up and there wasn’t any left, I was angry. Often times Mandy would finish off what I couldn’t when I passed out, so I was angry at her. Then she would run across the street to the wine store and get us more, and everything was all better again.

Within a few days of starting to drink again, I lost the aforementioned Project Manager job, because I basically disappeared. I went back to Gateway about a week after the first drink. I called my employer from Gateway and they said, ‘you need to take time to get better and we’re not going to wait around for that to happen. You’ll get your last paycheck in the mail.’

So yeah, like I said, within a week of the first drink, I was back at Gateway, where I had successfully completed in-patient treatment just 5 months previous.

I didn’t stay long and checked myself out AMA (against medical advice) right after the benzo taper was finished. They had to call my emergency contact, who I put as my mother, when I left AMA. And the cycle continues.

Within a few weeks of the first drink, I had been to detox twice. Within 2 months, I had been to detox probably 5 times. I’m not exaggerating, I could not live on my own volition for more than a few days at a time because I drank myself to near death every chance I got.

I would get retail associate jobs that I would keep for about 2 weeks, enough to collect a paycheck, and then never show up again. I would stop showing up because I was either too drunk to get myself to work and/or care, would show up to the job drunk or severely hungover, or I was in detox again.

On, and on, and on, and on like this for 5 months. It was exhausting.

I was beginning to think of myself as a lost cause, and I think my parents were starting to feel this way, too. Nothing seemed to slow down my drinking. Not detox, not halfway houses, not inpatient treatment, not employment or money, not near-death experiences, nothing. I was starting to feel like there was no way out of this cycle unless I took my own life and ended it once and for all.

I remember one day, after a particularly shaky and anxiety-provoking hangover, I went to this little wine and appetizer bar right by the men’s clothing store I was working at. I had just opened a new bank account so I didn’t have a debit card yet, and of course I had no cash. I was about to declare bankruptcy so all my credit cards were cut up and thrown in the trash. All I had were those blank checks that the bank provides when you open a new bank account.

I drank $100 worth of wine that night, and I got drunk, fast, because my body was so malnourished and dehydrated, not to mention the amount of pills I had taken that day to try and make myself feel better. I ordered an Uber to take me home and tried to walk out of the place without paying. My Uber driver got caught up in the Chaos (with a capital C) and wrote the check for me. I got into the car and made some bullshit excuse for why I was absolutely plastered on a week night. The Uber driver was Adam, the guy I mentioned in this post, who for some reason or another, decided that he liked me.

Adam took me home that night, and I invited him to come up to my apartment. I was so drunk, I didn’t intend on sleeping with him, I just wanted the company. He put me to bed and stayed the night. In the morning, Mandy was SO UPSET that I invited him into the apartment. On the one hand, it was understandable she was so upset, he was practically a stranger. On the other hand, SHE had brought random dudes into our apartment, too, so I was like ‘what the fuck are you all mad at me about?!’

What a great way to meet a girl, right?! So drunk she tried to leave the classy wine bar without paying, invited you up to her apartment, and couldn’t see to getting herself to bed, so you had to make sure she made it there. Then you were so worried about her choking on her own vomit that you stayed the night to make sure she was OK… how cute!!!

Whatever the reason Adam decided he loved me and that he wanted to worship the ground I walked on, I will never know, but I am grateful for the many nights he made sure I went to bed with a Gatorade at the ready for the morning. I’m also grateful he let me borrow his Xbox and TV, so I never even had to leave the bed.

I brought Adam through the hell on Earth that was my life at the time, and I will forever be very sorry to him for that. But he stuck around, and I don’t know why, so I guess I’m not too sorry? I don’t know. To this day, I can’t bring myself to texting him back, because I feel so much shame and embarrassment for what he witnessed. It is what it is, I guess.

Over time, me and Mandy’s relationship became more and more volatile. She had this boyfriend, that I hated with every bone in my body, and he caused many-a-fight between the two of us. He would waltz in to our apartment like he owned the place, clean out the fridge AND the freezer, use my towels, mess up the bathroom and the living room, and never repaid us. IDK, maybe he could’ve like, bought a pack of toilet paper? UGH! To this day, I still can’t find it in me to like anything about that guy.

Well, Mandy would be in and out, in and out of a relationship with him. One day it would be over, the next day I could hear them having sex. One time, she gave him $40 to pick us up sushi, and he was gone for ~4 hours, and came back with NO sushi, but was super high on crack and heroine. He was a real winner. And Mandy ALWAYS defended him and her relationship with him. It drove me absolutely crazy.

There were several times I had to call the cops on Mandy and her boyfriend, because I would hear a very loud argument turn into something/somebody hitting a wall, or the arguing would suddenly go silent, and I was worried someone got hurt. She punched him, he restrained her, they ended up wrestling on the floor. They would yell at each other SO loud, that at times, I wasn’t the one calling the cops, it was the neighbors.

She gave him a key to our apartment, and I was absolutely enraged. I made it clear I didn’t want him around, like ever, but especially when she wasn’t there. When I came home and he was there but she wasn’t, straight for the biggest glass I went, and shut myself in my room, drowning my rage and anger with alcohol and Ativan.

To get back at her, I gave Adam a key. Adam was responsible with the key. He would come over on his lunch break and, for example, fix our internet or upgrade our router, or something like that. To get back at me, she made ANOTHER copy of the key and gave it to our other friend, Stu, also mentioned in the post Reliving Christmas 2016. Practically anyone could have gotten into our apartment it seemed.

We were in this cycle of ‘oh yeah, that’s what you’re gonna do?! Well fuck you, I’ll show you!’ and then we’d hug and make up, only to be at each other’s throats minutes later.

I already posted some of the details about this time in my life in the Reliving Christmas 2016 and Reliving December 2016 posts, and also in the Sober AF Thoughts for February 6, 2018, so I’m going to skip ahead a bit.

My life continued to be in a constant state of turmoil, chaos, and near-death experiences.

The day I lost my job at Siemens, I showed up drunk, with more alcohol to drink in my coffee mug. I left the office, practically stumbling over my feet, saying ‘I just really don’t feel good, I need to go home.’ I called an Uber to pick me up from work, and on the way home, I bought more alcohol to keep numbing myself. Later that day I got a call saying that I no longer was needed at the office and that my things would be ready to collect at the front desk whenever I could pick them up.

Like I said earlier, somehow Adam convinced my parents that if I was going to have a chance at getting better, I needed to get out of the apartment with Mandy, and in a safer, more controlled environment.

My parents, at this point, did not want the destruction that followed me everywhere, in their home. However, they agreed. I moved home, and I was like the Tasmanian Devil, tearing through and destroying everything in my path.

They tried to lay ground rules, like: Judith, you can only drink this much, you have to pay rent, you have to get a job and GO to that job, and we have to see some positive changes happening, or else, you’re out on your own and we’re done here. For good.

It was my LAST chance at making it work. If I couldn’t make it work living at home, then I was going to be living out of my car or on the street, and that was that. They didn’t have the capacity to care anymore, I was too far gone.

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I’ll tell the rest of the story in a different post… I feel like this post is WAY long enough, and there’s still quite a bit to tell.

The good news is that I’m now within just a few days of 9 months clean and sober. I’m not homeless, I have a steady job, and I truly enjoy my life today. I found a way out from a situation that didn’t seem to have any other way out other than taking my own life. Recently, I read a quote that pretty much summed it up:

“You can start out with nothing, and out of nothing, and out of no way, a way will be made.”

This is what I did and continue doing every single day, tirelessly, just like I used to drink, relentlessly.

 

Thanks for reading and please reach out if you wanna chat!

Sincerely,

Judith