Author Mary C. “grew up in an alcoholic household, vowing to be different, but found myself in my own struggle with addiction.” Read her harrowing yet truly hopeful story. (Happy new year!)
Church basements were familiar to me growing up, with their neutral brown folding chairs and dirty chalkboards. The adults drank scalding coffee with powdered creamer and old sugar, always in those ubiquitous white foam cups. I couldn’t name everyone I recognized, but their faces were kind, and it seemed like they understood everything about how we were struggling. My sister and I had to be quiet for the hour, but at the end, we got to hold hands in a large circle and pretend to recite the Serenity prayer. These were Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, and my mom was changing her life. She was a binge-drinker, and she had met my dad at the Gunpowder Lodge on Belair Road–a fall from grace for a girl with a Catholic school upbringing.
My grandparents had once been so proud of her wonderful grades and impressive skill in extracurricular activities, like band and basketball. She was even scouted locally. Maybe this drive for perfection was overcompensating for her trauma and family secrets, and it began to catch up with her. Before she could get to college, she was kicked out of her home, staying with friends and family. Eventually, as a young adult, she found herself living in a shabby apartment with two young children, an alcoholic and drug addict husband in and out of jail, scraping by on food stamps. My mom knew something had to change, and all she had was a mustard seed of hope. But it was enough.
This iota of hope, with the help of AA, was fostered to grow into steely fortitude. One day at a time, my mom came to believe in this new way of living, trying her best to hold true to her promise to show up for life, to simply be open to welcoming good things she didn’t know she deserved. The going was not perfect, and it was many years before she finished her bachelor’s degree, but she pushed further to earn several advanced degrees and is now a licensed psychiatric nurse practitioner.
On July 2, 2009, at the age of 21, I started my own journey of recovery in AA. “Started my journey” is quite euphemistic—I had nowhere left to go, no other options. I drank only for three years, but the damage was staggering. Just like my mom, my addiction took me to a place I did not recognize—from Dean’s list to failing, burned bridges with friends and family, no self-respect. The drive that had once propelled me to hang on, tooth and nail, to my aims, to always follow through and do my best, to try and try again until I succeeded, was my motivation in continuing to try to drink normally. I knew AA was where I needed to go, but I spent my childhood wanting to be anywhere and anyone other than where I was, who I was and who my family was. I faced certain death, and AA was asking me to do the impossible: accept who I am.
Somehow, over time, self-acceptance started to take hold. It began as gratitude for simple things, and I did become truly grateful AA had been so close by all those years. I could say whatever I wanted about my mom, but the irrefutable fact was she had decades of continuous sobriety, and she was accomplishing great things.
I’ve now passed my first decade sober, and just like my mom did, I’m inching my way toward obtaining my bachelor’s degree. I’ve transferred schools, stopped, and restarted multiple times, but my education has always been my most important life milestone, and I’m just trying to keep showing up to receive what I deserve.
My dad was not so fortunate—he died as a direct result from his addictions, about 11 years ago. His presence in our lives was very erratic. He would sometimes splurge on us girls for the holidays; other times, he wouldn’t show to pick us up from school. It never dawned on me, on the long rides in my grandfather’s Buick out to the halfway house in Westminster, that maybe my dad just couldn’t love himself enough to get and stay clean and sober. That’s what hurts the most. Because I know now, from my struggles, that addiction has everything to do with a cycle of emotional isolation and utter despair. And though my alcoholism totally upended my plans for my life, the options are clear: this imperfect compromise of my dreams or death.
