Serenity through sobriety: Finding happiness after addiction

Estimated read time: 8-9 minutes

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Alcohol had become more than a social drink, it had become Sharon’s entire reason for living. Severely depressed and withdrawn, she found solace in a bottle each night, drinking heavily until she passed out. She fought constantly with her husband Jeff, blaming every problem on him or anybody else, refusing to admit she was to blame for her lonely, empty existence. Suicide seemed to be the answer, and she attempted it multiple times. Finally one night, tumbling to rock bottom, she looked in the mirror and faced the truth: It was her problem, and she needed help.

Sharon was 48 years old before she realized that, after a lifetime of drinking, she was an alcoholic. Further still, she didn’t know she was living with bipolar disorder until she sought help for alcoholism and entered a rehab program. It was through rehab and a 12-step program that she transformed the chaos of her life.

A lifetime of drinking

Sharon started drinking around age 15, finding it easy to get liquor despite her age. She found friends that drank and attended parties where alcohol was readily present.

“My girlfriends and I would stand outside the liquor store and offer to pay someone to buy us beer or wine, and if we were really lucky, we would find someone nice that would offer to buy it for us,” she said.

At age 16 she got a fake ID, marveling at the fact that although the picture didn’t look anything like her, the store clerks never questioned it and she was able to buy alcohol on her own. As she moved into her 20s and 30s she equated drinking with having a good time — but her alcohol consumption increased, and she felt depression set in. Then she would have frenzied phases that lasted for days, weeks or even months, thinking it normal to go for days without sleep. Inevitably, these phases would be followed by long periods of depression.

Sharon grappled with the frustration of endless insomnia, which gave her plenty of time to think. What was wrong with her? And when she could finally get to sleep, why did she just turn her face to the wall and not get up at all when she awoke?

As she felt a dark depression taking over her life for nearly the past decade, Sharon lost all hope and saw no alternative than to end her life. It was her rock-bottom moment, but instead of taking her life, she stood in front of the mirror and realized she needed help.

Finding and accepting treatment

Sharon called her parents and asked them to bring her to Utah and check her into a facility. She credits the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute with saving her life.

“It was not easy,” she remembers. “It was a lockdown unit. I was heavily sedated and going through detox, hallucinating, thinking people were out to get me, the nurses were mistreating me, big black spiders were crawling all over me, and I was begging friends and family to come and get me.”

"Admit you are powerless over your addiction and get into a 12- step program. There are so many people out there who have gone through what you have, they are not judgmental and will be there for you. You are not alone."

As difficult as it was, Sharon says she was willing to go through with it because she had run out of options. Her life had fallen apart, but she didn’t want to die.

The Institute assigned Sharon a psychologist and a psychiatrist and immersed her in group therapy sessions daily. That's when things started turning around.

“The first turning point in my therapy came when I admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic," she said. "That was a very difficult thing for me to admit: I had a weakness, I had a problem, and I would have to fight it every day of my life.”

The second turning point came when her doctors diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. Finally, Sharon was able to understand why she had been experiencing up-and-down, manic and depressed phases. There was a name for her disease; she wasn’t crazy. As she started her new medication she felt hope for the first time in her adult life.

“I started having energy and happiness, and my life was actually worth living. I felt hopeful of the many advances in bipolar disorder and the new medications available," she said. "Still, I knew the gravity of my situation, that I had a fight ahead of me, and there was no simple solution. But now that I knew how to treat my bipolar disorder, I could focus on fighting my alcoholism.”

The last morning of her stay she sat in the group room with the other patients and saw a beautiful rainbow streaming over the Salt Lake Valley, “and we said to ourselves, ‘It’s going to be a lucky day.’”

The roadmap to recovery

Being able to quantify what recovery involves can be very useful for not only the addict but family members and helpers as they struggle to understand. The map of the road to recovery breaks down into four highway sections:

Education about what addiction is
Extinguishing the compulsive behavior
Address the attendant addictive behaviors
Addressing underlying issues

For more, read "Traveling the addiction recovery highway" on ksl.com.

Taking back her life with 12 stepsWhen Sharon returned home, her next step was to find a 12-step program. Her husband, also fighting alcohol addiction, suggested they attend together. Sharon and Jeff loved the people in their group immediately.

“They were so accepting and non-judgmental,” she said. “If you stumble, it doesn’t matter. They encourage us to keep coming back and they will help us.”

So far Sharon has progressed through the first three steps:

1. She has admitted she is powerless over alcohol and her life had become unmanageable.

“This first step was easy,” Sharon said. “I had already admitted it when I turned to my parents for help, because I knew my life had become unmanageable and I was powerless over alcohol.”

2. She came to believe that a power greater than herself could restore her to sanity.

"This one was really difficult,” Sharon admits. “When I went into rehab and even when I got out, I didn’t believe in a greater power.”

She began to read a daily reflection called "The Quality of Faith" to find the answer as to why God wasn’t there for her. It reads in part:

"In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves. We had not even prayed rightly. We had always said, 'Grant me my wishes instead,' of 'Thy will be done.' God does not grant me material possessions, take away my suffering or spare me from disasters, but He does give me a good life, the ability to cope and peace of mind. My prayers are simple. First they express my gratitude for the good things in life, regardless of how hard I have to search for them . . . and He answers with solutions to my problems, sustaining my ability to live through daily frustrations with a serenity I did not believe existed."

With this inspiration, Sharon decided to try to believe again, but she knew she needed to change her prayers.

“Mustering up my courage, I decided for one week to put my hand in what I tried to believe was a higher power. It really hit me that I had been praying for the wrong thing. I had been praying, 'Let this turn out or let this happen, why aren’t you doing this? Why me?'” she recalled.

As she put this one-week experiment to the test, suddenly things started to work out and daily blessings started occurring: Her marriage came together and her husband was turning his life around, and she believed. With this belief in a higher power, she says she’s managed to remain sober even though it’s not easy and she still has cravings.

3. She made a decision to turn her will and her life over to the care of a higher power.

“I found this to be really powerful because I had to give up my power and put it in the higher power’s hands," Sharon said. "Suddenly this was very difficult as I faced the realization that I was a control freak.”

As she started to work on this third step, Sharon tried the same experiment as she had with step two. She gave up all control for one week. Surprisingly, she found a burden lifted from her shoulders knowing she didn’t have to be in control and handle everything all the time.

Finding serenity

Sharon’s life today isn’t absolutely perfect, and she has a long way to go — but comparing what she was going through then to what her life is like now, her life does seem perfect.

“I am experiencing joy, happiness and serenity in my life. My marriage has newfound love, we have laughter in our home, we have a respect and even a type of spiritualty we never had before,” she said.

Working the 12-step program has made Sharon aware of how she treats others and how she wants to be a better person. She is trying not to be as self-centered as she was.

“Being an alcoholic makes you a very self-centered person," she admits, "a classic symptom of alcoholism.”

Sharon’s advice for others struggling with addiction? “Admit you are powerless over your addiction and get into a 12-step program. There are so many people out there who have gone through what you have, they are not judgmental and will be there for you. You are not alone.”

Kelly Thacker is a business owner and author of the romantic suspense novel "Numberless Dreams." To email Kelly or find out more about her or Numberless Dreams, go to www.kelly- thacker.com.