Post 28: I Could Not Do It Alone

Well, today is a first for me—writing this blog from an airplane.

Let's talk about gratitude today.

I am grateful for every part of my life.

I am grateful for the beautiful life Bill and I have built together and for our huge blended family.

I am grateful for regaining custody of Hunter and Karl. I am grateful for Stina and Matt, who gave me something I didn't even realize I was missing—the opportunity to choose more love. They added to my heart in ways I never expected.

I am grateful for my parents and siblings, who supported me unconditionally throughout my life. No matter how far I fell, they never gave up on me.

I am even grateful for the painful times because I walked through some of the hardest moments of my life completely clean. No matter what happened, I didn't have to use.

Do you know what it's like to come into recovery and start an entirely new way of living?

For the first time in my life, I never had to lie again. I never had to pretend to be someone I wasn't.

Do you know why?

Because I found myself surrounded by people—in my life and in recovery—who loved me for who I truly was.

The real me.

Not the version I created to survive.

Not the version addiction convinced me I had to be.

Just me.

Recovery taught me how to be honest for the first time in my life.

I learned how to be a friend.

I learned how to be a sister.

I learned how to be a mother.

I learned how to be a wife.

I learned how to be a daughter.

I learned how to be present.

I learned how to feel.

I learned how to show up even when I didn't want to.

Most importantly, I learned my own worth.

I know some of you reading this are thinking:

"That's not me."

"My family will never want me back."

"There's no way I can get clean with everything going on in my life."

"How can I be honest when I don't even know who I am without dope?"

That is why we start with one simple task:

Admitting we are addicts.

The rest comes with time, often in ways we never expect.

Some of us get our families back.

Some of us build families that aren't connected by blood.

Some of us discover we aren't rotten to the core like we believed.

But most importantly, we learn that we cannot do this alone.

One of the hardest things for me when I first got clean was admitting I was powerless and needed to surrender.

Did anyone else struggle with that?

Let me tell you my truth.

I came from the streets of Los Angeles—a place where you couldn't show weakness. A place where admitting something or someone had power over you was seen as weakness.

Surrender wasn't even an option in my mind.

When people talked about surrender, all I heard was that I had to bow down to someone or something.

It took me a while to understand what they meant.

I wasn't being asked to give up.

I was being asked to admit that there was one thing I could not do alone.

I didn't have to announce it to the world.

I only needed to be honest with one person—my sponsor.

I had to surrender to the fact that my own willpower was not enough to keep me from putting dope in my body.

Of course, there was still the issue of trusting someone I barely knew.

That part took time.

But eventually, I did.

And when I finally opened up, it was the first moment I felt a little hope.

Maybe—just maybe—I had a chance to save my life.

Then they told me I needed a Higher Power.

Now, if you have the misconception that a 12-step program is a religious group, that's not been my experience.

It is a spiritual program.

No one told me who my Higher Power had to be.

They simply told me I needed one.

Once again, the lesson was the same:

I could not do this alone.

Are you catching the theme yet?

Every one of us has tried to quit on our own at some point.

And most of us ended up with the same result—we couldn't stay stopped.

Of course, we justified it.

"I didn't really want to quit."

"I made it a few hours."

"I made it twenty-four hours."

"At least I made it a week."

The truth is, many of us couldn't stop long enough to finish a two-week round of antibiotics when we were sick.

And trust me, I wasn't perfect after I got clean.

I made mistakes.

I stumbled.

I had plenty of character defects to work on.

But I didn't put dope in my body.

That changed everything.

So let me ask you:

Do you think you might be an addict?

Do you think someone you love might be struggling with addiction?

If so, don't hesitate to reach out.

Share your story with me.

You are not alone.

One final note: I originally wrote this post on the plane, but life had other plans. Shortly after landing, I became severely ill with strep throat, an ear infection, and an acute respiratory infection. Recovery doesn't stop life from happening—it just gives us a better way to walk through it.

Today, I'm grateful for that too.

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