Post #16 ~Part 2: The Door That Wouldn’t Open

Before I tell you what happened next, I want to talk about my first few days clean. I need to be very clear about something. This was the hardest time in my life to stay clean.

Three days in, I went with Lisa and her daughter, who was about five at the time, to the meat market. All I wanted to do in that moment was use. I was so dope sick that in my mind the only thing that would make me feel better was getting loaded.

Lisa asked me, “Do you want to come in with us?”

I told her, “No.”

While she was inside the store, I sat in the car fighting with myself. I could feel the urge building. In my head, all I had to do was get out of the car, walk down the street to the people who looked like my people, and I could be high within minutes.

But something unexpected happened.

I started to pray.

Now let me be honest. I was not a praying person. I wasn’t religious, and I definitely didn’t believe there could be a God if He allowed me to live such a painful life.

But in that moment I prayed anyway.

I said, “If you really exist, please do not let me open this door.”

Then I grabbed the door handle and pulled with everything I had.

The door would not open.

I tried again.

And again.

For what felt like five minutes I pulled on that handle, and the door would not budge.

Finally, the door opened.

And standing right there were Lisa and her daughter.

In that moment something inside me shifted. For the first time, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, there really was a power greater than myself helping me stay clean.

Four days clean.

Now let’s go back to what happened after Unity Days.

The guy I met there, we will call him Gary, and I started texting that night. I was still staying at Kristina’s house, and she saw me smiling at my phone. She immediately knew what I was doing.

It didn’t take long for my old behaviors to start creeping back in.

The next day we rode our bikes to Post Falls, had breakfast, and then I went back to Lisa’s. When an argument broke out there, I used it as my excuse to go see Gary.

We won’t get into the details of that night.

I stayed over and left the next morning. Later that day, while I was out with a few people from the halfway house, I met someone I truly believe God placed in my life.

We will call her Mama.

Mama was rough around the edges, a biker chick who was also in a 12 step program in Coeur d’Alene. I didn’t know it yet, but she was going to become a huge part of my recovery.

Gary, to his credit, wasn’t all bad. He was actually trying to help me find somewhere to stay before I went back to California. That’s how he introduced me to Judy and her husband.

They attended a different 12 step program than I did, but in that small town in northern Idaho there was only one meeting a day for my program and several meetings for the one Judy attended.

Let me tell you about Judy.

She was the kinder, softer way, one of the most genuine souls I had ever met. Without really knowing me, she and her husband invited me to stay with them for the next three weeks.

Somewhere along the way I heard someone say that you should put the same amount of energy into getting clean as you did into getting loaded.

Most people recommend doing 90 meetings in 90 days when you first get clean.

But I knew something about myself.

When I was using, I got loaded more than once a day. So that’s how much recovery I needed.

During those early weeks I went to two meetings every single day, one at noon and one at 7 p.m.

And during that time, I met so many people who would become pivotal in my recovery.

Looking back now, I can see something I didn’t understand at the time.

What took me to Coeur d’Alene in my first 30 days clean was my old behavior. But somehow those same choices led me straight to the people who were about to help save my life.

Mama.

Judy.

I didn’t know it yet, but these two women were about to become anchors in my recovery. They were about to teach me things about strength, honesty, and faith that I had never experienced before.

And what happened next would push me to the edge of whether I was really ready to live a different life.

Because staying clean was about to get even harder.