My Story - Sara P.

I am the woman you see at the grocery store with her toddler in the racecar shopping cart, purchasing the week’s groceries while having a Starbucks latte. I was also the same woman at the very same grocery store laying in the parking lot, fallen down drunk, waiting for my husband to kindly come and retrieve me as the cop on patrol was willing to let me go home if someone could take me there. Apparently, I was stumbling out of the store, started falling, and could not stand back up. A concerned bystander tried to help me and then determined to enlist the help of a policeman. I vaguely remember bits of this scene. Sadly, there were more of these incidents when I was incapacitated by alcohol, some I can barely recall and some I only know about from being told secondhand.

Growing Up in a World of Beer

I don’t remember when I had my first drink, but it was young, about twelve. Alcohol had always been a significant part of my life prior to becoming sober. When I was 3 years old, my family moved from Vermont to Pennsylvania and my dad purchased both our new home and a beer distributor. Being the daughter of the main “beer man” in a very rural county was an asset growing up.  I infamously brought a can of beer to school in 5th grade on a dare and was suspended for my first time. Throughout junior high and high school, I had easy access to a teenager’s playground of free booze. Growing up, alcohol was ever present and plentiful, an indicator of happiness and fun.

Throughout my teens, I drank often and primarily to get buzzed or drunk. It became a must, a priority, in order to consider myself having a good time. Alcohol was the recipe for fun for a very long time, until it wasn’t. I remember first blacking out when I was about 21, but it probably happened way before that, it just wasn’t brought to my attention. My boyfriend and I were having a festive Christmas party in our new little apartment. We had invited friends and family and I was downing the chardonnay, per usual. Apparently, I was screaming to all of our guests  that the brownies at the party were not “Fucking pot brownies!” I guess I was obsessed with swearing about this at the top of my lungs in front of my boyfriend’s parents and other folks I would not typically have spoken that way around. I didn’t believe my friends the next day when this came up in conversation. Yet, it was true, and marked one of countless times to come that I would black out and morph into my rotten evil twin.

So, the journey continued and I drank heavily through my early 20s. I got fired from restaurant jobs for reasons related to alcohol and drinking at work, but I didn’t value those jobs and I blew them off. Not once did I stop to think to myself, “Wow, I have a progressive and life-threatening illness and I need to stop drinking.” I simply thought, “I’ll be more careful next time.”

The Spiral of Self-Destruction

It wasn’t until my late 20s and early 30s that I began to understand I had a considerable problem. Some family and friends recognized it as well. I believe I may have gone to my first AA meeting in my late 20s. While I have the utmost respect for those in AA who found their sobriety and reclaimed their lives through their dedication to that program, it was never for me. It did not touch my soul or provide a path to freedom from drinking. AA didn’t inspire me to quit drinking, but instead made me feel deeply saddened that I had arrived at this point in my life where I could never drink again. I felt so damaged and depressed within the walls of those meetings.

Despite many sporadic and failed efforts to quit, I continued to fight tooth, nail, and liver cell to keep alcohol in my life. When I thought about losing it, I felt an overwhelming sense of despair. I could not see how I would be fully happy again without it. Instead, it would be an eternal roadblock for the rest of my life, plaguing me at every social event or even during my own private relaxation time. I was never able to watch someone out to dinner or standing around at a party, enjoying an elegant looking glass of chardonnay and not internally seethe. An envious voice in my head fumed, “You fucking bitch, I am so jealous!”

While I drifted throughout relationships in my 20s and 30s, I was never very happy or secure in them. My drinking played a huge role in who I chose to be with, how I allowed myself to be treated, and my expectations within a relationship. Eventually, by the grace of God, my troubled path led me to my now husband, father of our precious daughter. I showed him a lot of the best of me at first, but the drinking soon revealed itself to be problematic. He mentioned that his previous wife had an enormous problem with alcohol and I noted it, but it didn’t stop me. I just continued to apologize any time I went too far with my drinking. Paul and his kind heart forgave me.

He bailed me out of jail for the first time. I had been annihilated on a work day and I remember thinking I was lost on my drive and becoming very confused. I stopped at a gas station to get cigarettes as I smoked when I drank a lot, which was quite often. A police officer approached me and that was the end of that. Apparently, I was driving erratically and someone called highway patrol. They set out to track me down and easily located me. Subsequently, I was carted off to jail following arrest number one.

The officers at the jail would not allow me to call my husband right away and it was approaching night time. I bawled and begged through the tiny window of the wretched jail cell. No one would acknowledge my pleas and continued to ignore me as time crawled along. I knew Paul would be worried sick and thinking I was in an accident or laying in a ditch somewhere. During the agonizing hours spent in that cell waiting to call my husband, I remember being sick with fear and shame. When they finally allowed me to call him, he said he would be there in the morning to bail me out after I was able to see the judge. So, I spent that entire dismal night in jail.

One would think after that experience, I would be done with alcohol. Who gets trashed on a work day and drives around and gets arrested for a DUI? Not normal people of course, but I continued to drink anyway. I’m sure I made some type of half-hearted attempt at cutting back or quitting entirely but I know it did not last more than a couple of days.

There were more incidents, another at work. I showed up drunk and they called my husband to come and get me but he was out of town. He sent a friend to drive the full hour plus to retrieve me and I was immediately put on paid leave. It’s truly astonishing, but after this lengthy episode and weeks on paid leave, I was able to return to work. Being the ever conniving alcoholic that I was, I enlisted the help of my primary physician and told her I had taken too much Xanax (as she prescribed it to me for panic attacks) and I was appearing erratic at work. I asked if she could write a letter describing the effects and confirming I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder and took medication to manage it. She also  detailed the side effects of taking too much of the medication at once. It worked. Unbeknownst to her and everyone else there, I was in truth, a raging alcoholic. It was indeed an amazing state of affairs and I believe God protected me then for a reason. Today, I make it my mission every day to help children live better lives any way I know how and I like to think of myself as a “difference-maker” in this world. Before I got sober, I could never achieve my full potential as a school psychologist when I was a train-wreck myself.

Many occasions, at previous jobs, I drank in the mornings and continued to drink throughout the day. I hid alcohol in desk drawers, water bottles, coffee mugs, and seltzer cans. There were mornings I could barely function until I downed several drinks to steady me so I could put on my make up or fill out a sign-in sheet without visibly shaking. Most of the work drinking I was able to keep hidden. Concealing alcohol at home did not go as well. My husband and I had an endless hide and seek game going as to where I chose to hide my alcohol in the house; bottles of wine in large coat pockets, hard seltzers in sock drawers, bottles behind pillow cases and in old suitcases, and in the trunk of the car with the spare tire.  It was all an exhausting and disgusting display.

I continued to drink and there was another arrest. I showed up again at a gas station mere walking distance from my condo (yet I chose to drive). I was so drunk I could barely walk and the police happened to be there to witness me. What followed was another trip to jail, similar to my experience before. Still, I did not stop drinking. I still could not let alcohol go. I worshiped it, it was my world.

Eventually, and unexpectedly, I got pregnant and I did stop drinking immediately. I had actually taken a trip to my first rehab facility right before I found out I was pregnant. I did not stay even a full day, as they took my phone, imposed extremely strict rules, and made me feel like a complete prisoner (which you pretty much are in rehab). So, I left immediately and came home vowing to stop drinking. This time I did, but I believe I only remained sober then as I soon discovered after a couple of weeks that I was pregnant.

When my daughter was born, I thought it would be ok to start drinking again, as ridiculous as this sounds. I had several glasses of wine to celebrate coming home from the hospital. It did not take me long to return to a condition of severe alcoholism. I know now that I went straight back to my old pattern of drinking because I had damaged my brain so severely from years of alcohol abuse. My brain tasted that first sip of alcohol and my neural pathways, which I drank so hard to build, immediately lit up like fireworks and cheered me, “Let’s drink to oblivion!”

There are so many shameful  episodes related to my alcoholic drinking, I could write for hours recounting them and that is just what I can remember. I was physically committed to a mental institution, one of my crowning alcoholic achievements,  because I was on a bender and blacked out. I was told I called my boss to tell her I was going to kill myself, that I had a gun and I knew how to shoot it. As a result, the police showed up at my house. Not just one cop, but an entire entourage and the neighbors were all out of their homes, trying to see what was happening (as I would have been as well). They took me to the hospital in handcuff chains and the doctor recommended I be committed. My husband gave the go ahead and there I went. Upon being released, after several very frightening and demoralizing days, I may have stopped drinking for a brief time, but not very long.

The Search for Freedom

In the midst of these three years since my daughter was born, I went to a few rehab centers, one for 2 full weeks right before Christmas. I said to myself during that excruciatingly lonely and painful period that I would get better and I would never put myself in this position again. That time was basically one of the worst and lowest points of my life. I begged the staff to make phone calls to my husband as much as was allowed. It was what I lived my day for, waiting to hear their voices. I would say, “I love you so much” to my daughter. All the while, I could almost hear what my husband was thinking on the other end, “If you really loved her, you wouldn’t have been drinking. You wouldn’t be in this position. We wouldn’t be in this position.” It is baffling that one could say they love someone but be that absent and possessed by drinking. It appears so obvious that you’re choosing alcohol over them and in all actuality, you are.

In recovery, the past is my cross to bear. I cannot change it nor can I remove it. Wounds from the past could fester and further poison me if I allow them to do so. I believe succumbing to self-hatred would be easy to do. Thankfully, I have found that daily practices of gratitude and self-forgiveness are critical to moving forward in sobriety. Although it was the poisoned part of me doing all of the choosing, it was in fact me. The part gripped by my addiction, the good core part was in there, fighting to be seen. Sadly, it did not have a chance in hell, until I was rid of the demon running the show, the alcohol.

I stayed sober here and there and more attempts at AA and various online quitting groups followed. I read about the brain and that really resonated with me, but I was not persistent in anything that related to self-care. My brain was too polluted to allow anything to “sink in” and change me.

I amassed yet another arrest due to being highly intoxicated and blacked out in public. This instance marked the third time I searched out and hired an attorney with the hopes I could have the charge removed from my record. Money I spent on alcohol-related events is unfathomable to me, but it pales in comparison to the stark reality that I nearly lost my family due to my drinking.

In June of 2023, my mother, who was a light and joy in my life, passed away. She had been a best friend to me and losing her was unthinkable. Mom slowly deteriorated over the course of a year, suffering one horrific medical event after another. Her poor body was in excruciating pain but eventually, it was a burst gallbladder that had the entire family flying home in order to see her and say their goodbyes. I was not able to be by her side when she passed away because I was too drunk to function. I booked 3 different flights but kept canceling them as some part of me (somewhere in the depths of chaos in my brain) knew I couldn’t get on an airplane, nor would they even let me if I had tried. I cannot clearly recall that time and only see bits and flashes. I know enough to know it can only be described as heart-breaking.

All the while, my husband and close friends took care of my daughter when I was incapacitated. I loathed myself and in the words of Laura McKownen, author of, “We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life,” there is a special hell for mothers who become addicted. There was no lower form of being than a mother who could not choose their child over alcohol.

From Darkness to Light

By the time of December 2023, right before Christmas and my daughter’s birthday, I was in another depth of drinking that made my husband finally tell me, and make me believe it, that I had to go to detox or it was over. He convinced me he was taking our daughter and everything else and I could have alcohol. Ultimately, I went voluntarily, but not enthusiastically. However, yet again, by the grace of God, this time, I welcomed the opportunity to get sober. I trudged through the detox and cried on my knees regularly. I begged for strength to make it through the self-loathing, the shame, the guilt, the emotional turmoil, and to put it aside to focus on clearing my head.

When I got out a few days later, it was a shaky start, but I was on the path to freedom. My father, who has been one of the most solid, unwavering sources of strength and support for me, shared a book my brother had shared with him, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” by Dr. Amen. I started reading that book and a daily book of his. I started working on my sobriety and my brain, learning about and experimenting with self-care. Gradually, I started changing. Finally, I began to see why I drank, how it affected me, and felt the powerful pull to change. It finally made sense to me and I saw that proverbial light. I found Sarah’s book, “Beyond Booze”, and it opened my heart to so much more in this life. She helped provide focus on what to put back into my life after taking alcohol out and to find what I really needed to evoke joy and generate authentic happiness. I became a better person every single day. The work is never done but the work is full of beauty.

Today I have my family, my treasure of a daughter, the best thing I have ever done. My bond with her is so deep and pure, it could kill me when I think about how my drinking hurt her and my family. But, I am now able to acknowledge my past and allow myself to feel that pain but not reach for alcohol to extinguish it. I can love myself through the pain and allow myself to be proud of who I am now. I am a wonderful mother, wife, daughter, friend, and professional. I am a beacon of light and love. I can share my past in the hopes it will save or inspire others.

I was in the depths of the alcoholic pit, what some may have thought, including myself, one in which I could never escape. But, I did escape. Here I am.

I can say with all honesty that now, at 44 years old and living the most beautiful sober life, I have not ever been happier. It pains me greatly to think of the years I spent allowing alcohol to take from me in a billion different soul-sucking ways. But, it is part of me and what led me to where I am today; able to love myself again, forgive myself, and to fully love the others who make my world go around.

I assume many people feel compelled to write their story in order to help heal themselves and to inspire and support others to do the same. A crucial component of the story I think we all want to hear from someone who has “made it” would be, how did they do it? For me, it was not one specific thing that turned me into an alcoholic, nor was it one single thing that set me free. I am certain the mini trauma’s (I’ve heard them referred to as “little t’s or little traumas) that happened to me in my earlier years helped ignite my propensity for alcoholism. They most certainly damaged my self-esteem and ultimately, my self-worth. But negative events alone did not do it. I think it was a steady progression of regular drinking that made me emotionally and physically addicted. Drinking was the answer to any emotion I wanted to feel or not feel. I drank for comfort when I felt none and for a companion when I had no one. Before I got sober, I did not know how to sit with my emotions or feelings. I had to begin to learn how to feel them instead of drinking them away. It’s much of what Sarah’s book helped me discover: I had to learn and am still learning, what I can put back into my life to make it rich and fulfilling in the absence of alcohol. I had to start filling up those empty holes left where alcohol used to live. I speculate a lot of recovered alcoholics need to learn who they really are all over again. I’ve heard before that we stopped growing emotionally when we started drinking to handle those emotions. That makes a lot of sense to me.

The Power of Love and Support

I am here because of two things: love and understanding. I found love FOR myself I had lost, love for my daughter, husband, family, and friends. I also received love FROM those same people. The light came on when I began to practice self-care, to learn about why alcohol had the power to take my life away from me, and understand how it could hijack my brain, tricking me into thinking I needed a poison to function. Everyone has a unique journey and story of their own, but mine is one that involves learning to love myself and see that who I am and what I have done in sobriety is pretty amazing.

Someday, I will share my story with Piper and instead of embarrassment or shame, I pray she may feel something more like pride. Maybe she will think her mom is brave and strong and that she’s a fighter. Above all, I want her to know how much I truly love her. For the earliest years of her life, I was often fading in and out of existence. The bond that I couldn’t feel before because alcohol blocked it out is now a love that is so soul-swelling and powerful it could shatter me into a million pieces of pure joy. I’m sure most mothers recognize the feeling of loving your child so hard that words aren’t enough. Not a single morning goes by when I wake up and see her, that I do not think how grateful I am to be here on this earth with this incredible little being, to get to love her, and to be her mom.

My husband, Paul, cannot go without acknowledgment. He has been an insurmountable force in my recovery. He fought this hideous monster of addiction like a true warrior. My dad and his unwavering counsel, held my hand in those ugly trenches of despair. He often said, “Honey, we’re in a battle for your life. We’re at war here.” And we were. And we emerged victorious. I so often think of my mom, who I miss every single day I live and breathe. She was not there to see me finally get sober, but she knows I have peace, as I know she now has hers. I have dear friends and family whom I cherish, and when I look around now, I get to see them all still here. Many are not so fortunate. It is my dream that through sharing in recovery, those who have suffered like me can learn to love themselves again and share their bright light with the world. ‘We can make a difference in a way that those who have not suffered could not.

“If you are going through hell, keep going.'“
– Winston Churchill

“Long is the way/ and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.”
– John Milton, Paradise Lost

In closing, I come again to think of my daughter. The love I feel now for her is overflowing from me at all times, overwhelming me in the most welcomed way. I used my words to tell my story but this poem says what I could not describe about the love I’m capable of now through a sober heart and mind. When I came upon this poem, it struck my soul and made me smile.

Poem (Jessica Urlichs)

I want to tell you that you are the most beautiful masterpiece I didn’t draw.
But my heart grew your heart and now you grow mine.
Motherhood serves emotions with such ease, and it’s quite lovely to feel such adoration on a regular afternoon. You continue to explain things with such exuberance that it makes little pockets of joy within me burst and sting.
I guess it can still hurt to be forever changed in the best way.