I heard recently that what you are doing at the start of the year represents what you will be doing for the year ahead. I don't know if that is true or not, but I can see how I spent so much of 2010 dealing with the feelings and thoughts and actions that stemmed from what happened New Year's Eve night and early morning New Year's Day.
A year ago tonight my boyfriend relapsed after years clean and sober. I had just celebrated my first year of sobriety a week earlier but managed not to follow him into the wasted streets of New Orleans. In less than three weeks into the year Andrew died, and our dreams were turned to ashes like his body. And much of my year had that flavoring of struggling with sobriety and burying friends and loved ones.
I met someone a couple weeks later who became a good friend and who joined with one of my very best friends in helping me not to mess up moments after hearing the news that my lover had been found dead of an overdose. I did not relapse at that time and a couple weeks later celebrated 13 months of sobriety for the first time since I was 13 years of age. 2010 was filled with friendships, some old, some that were fresh starts of relationships from years ago, and some that were completely new. I learned to lean on friends and ask for help, and that is why I am sitting here this morning able to write these words. I am alive and sober today because of my friends, the most important of whom also happens to be my Creator.
I ran from my feelings of guilt and regret and resentment, and my program suffered. I reached my fourteenth month of sobriety, but by then the war had turned ugly, and I was losing. I mentioned earlier that I learned to lean on my friends, but I learned that lesson by not doing it during the first part of the year, or at least not doing it enough. In February of this year, with the recommendation from the friend I made the month before, I finally found employment after 15 months without a job. So as the second month of the year came to an end, I had a job and friends and my sobriety, but I was sliding downhill and afraid to tell anyone. I was ashamed that after 14 months of sobriety I had begun to white knuckle recovery again. I didn't let anyone know what was happening inside me, and my secret became even more flavored of guilt and shame. Relapse became just a matter of time.
It's hard for me to believe sometimes, but in the third month this body turned 39 years old and my sobriety got as old as it was going to get during that stretch as I reached my 15 month mark. On the outside much of my life looked so much better than it had been but the inside was a mess. That mess began to color the outside, and both sponsor and sponsees began to ask those wonderful questions like are you doing ok? And still I did not open up. I tried to handle what was happening on my own, just like I had tried to deal with Andrew's relapse and all that followed on my own. This was a hugely bad idea.
The fourth month of the year came and I reunited with a face from the past. What a blessing to find the treasure that I had longed for and prayed for. I connected with another soul on a level that I didn't believe was even still possible for me. But even with her I didn't share all the turmoil raging inside me. I had been given a gift from God, and I almost threw it away before it was even mine. Days before achieving my sweet 16 month sobriety birthday I relapsed. Things went downhill fast from there, and in a couple of weeks I was in worse shape than I had been in years. My life had lost all semblance 0f order and control. My friends and family worried and reached out, but I had once again bound myself tightly in the chains of my addiction. I realized that if something didn't change I wouldn't live much longer.
In May I walked back into the rooms, a true mess, and I remember the fear and concern on the faces of my friends as they saw the condition I was in. It took a few tries to even be able to make a week clean and sober. Recovery felt so much harder to attain this time around. But I got honest with myself. I started working the steps of recovery anew and with a vengeance. Once more God, in His infinite grace, granted me a fresh start. On May 17, I picked up my last wet chip of the year and felt grateful for my recovery. I also had the blessing of someone to share my life in recovery with. I thank God that my relapse did not cost me the treasure that I had found. The hurricane I unleashed in my life did not blow out the flame of love that begun the month before.
My recovery grew stronger, and my relationship became more than I believed I would ever find. I felt truly blessed. Over the following months, life continued to have its roller coaster tendencies. My relationship and recovery grew even stronger and more wonderful. I buried several more friends. My job fell apart after my boss threw me under the bus for the second time, and I launched out into business for myself. I felt the pain of being attacked and misused, and I felt the joy of being loved and accepted by new family.
As the year grew near to a close, I celebrated 7 months of sobriety for the second time. I felt the wonder and joy of my first of many Christmases with Leah. I saw my youngest brother for the first time in years and it went so much better than it could have. The foundation for my photography and digital art business solidified, and I have a career doing what I love. All of the sentences in this paragraph represent pieces of my biggest hopes and dreams that I firmly believed by the third week in January were lost to me forever. What a difference a year can make.
My life looks nothing like it did this time 365 days ago, with one exception. For the third year in a row I am ending one year and starting another clean and sober. My life is so much better than I deserve, and I thank God for the miracles and blessings He has given me. So much progress has been made, and I have learned so much and strengthened my program of recovery, as much from my mistakes and failures as from my successes. I have gone through tragedy and relapsed. I have gone through tragedy and remained sober. I have lost love and found it. I have a family of my own, and I can't imagine my life being any better without Leah in it. I nearly killed myself in relapse and I found the rebirth of recovery. I lived in 2010.
It is my prayer and wish for 2011, that I, that my family, that my friends, and that those reading these words, live every day of 2011 and as many days of the years that follow that God allows us to remain breathing on this floating rock in space. I have been truly blessed. I do not regret the mistakes I made, for I learned and grew from them, and I feel so thankful for the things I did well and right. May 2011 have more of the later for all of us and less of the mistakes. After all, progress and not perfection has made this year a damn good one.
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