Give yourself a chance to change your life and to get sober.
Before I got sober, I didn’t want to participate in my life. I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to do any of my classes. I didn’t want to be involved with my family. I couldn’t show up on time. Usually, I couldn’t show up at all. I would be drunk. I would be high. I couldn’t tell the truth to save my life. I couldn’t follow through with anything, so I couldn’t achieve any goals that I would set for myself. I eventually became so depressed that I didn’t want to wake up in the morning. I didn’t want to live.
At the age of eighteen, I tried to kill myself, and my family put me into treatment against my will. I ended up in treatment for 56 days in San Francisco. It took me a long time to get to the place where I decided that I was ready to change and that I wanted to start listening and getting involved in the groups and changing my life. I’ve been sober since September 21, 2007.
Now, I want to wake up in the morning. I want to participate in my life. I make self-care a priority every day by working out. I want to help other people, and I want to make the community a better place to live. I have a job that I love, and I have a family that I love very much and they want me to be there and they want me to participate and I’m good at it.
It took me about five years of sobriety to prove to my family that I was different, that I had changed my life, that I was going to show up when I said I was going to show up, that I was going to be a productive member of society. It took a long time to heal all those pains, but today I can say that I’m the number one daughter they want to take on vacation and they love me.
A strong recovery for me means staying involved in the community, helping other people, working the twelve-step programs in our communities and working with people that are still suffering and struggling.
Even in sobriety, you struggle and you have challenges. You think that when you’re in recovery, your life’s going to be peachy moving forward, but you’ll still have challenges that you have to walk through. And you’re going to need other people to help you to get through those challenges and support you and show you the right way. And, it’s all going to be worth it in the end as long as you stay sober every day. We all deserve a chance to be loved and to be told that we are enough.
Life is so precious and there are so many people that don’t ever get the chance to get sober. They don’t get a chance to recover and they don’t get a chance to make amends to their family and they don’t get a chance to ever be happier and feel that peace and serenity. Give yourself a chance to change your life and to get sober. If you fall down, you can get back up. Keep trying and keep reaching out and to people. Build that support network and find people that love and care about you that are able to set healthy boundaries and support your recovery. Don’t ever give up. Don’t ever lose hope.
For me, Rimrock is Recovery.
