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Hello everyone!
Abigail here reporting in for Sunday night real life real talk 🙂
Another week has come and gone just like that, this one a little bit crazier than last with little to no time to sit back and relax. That is life though. I hope you all’s week and weekend was great.
The question that brings us here tonight: So how did I really get sober and stay sober?
Before I get into what happened after waking up in the hospital all alone, I believe it is important to preface tonights blog with letting you all know a couple years prior my parents had sent me to a rehab facility which was followed with a sober living home placement. Sober living allowed me to stay sober for quite some time, after 9ish months I moved out to my own place and that is when the wheels came off leaving me 5,000 times worse off than I was before my rehab staycation.
After I woke up all alone in the hospital a week before I was 22 from overdosing on rubbing alcohol one night  I had quite a bit of time to think about what I was going to do next. I knew what I needed to do next but it was getting to the point of wanting to do it and figuring out how I was going to do it.
I spent a few days alone in my apartment after getting out of the hospital before I mustered up the courage to show up at my parents house and beg for help. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had spent those last few days in my apartment continuing to drink. Yes, you read that right- continuing to drink. My parents finally allowed me to walk into their home and talk to them. I remember just like yesterday telling them I wanted to die so badly I just couldn’t die. I was doing things that should of killed me and they didn’t. Which led me to beg one last time for help. My mom was hesitant, rightfully so. She had been down this road one too many times with me and was just done. My dad was able to talk my mom into paying to get me back into sober living.
For the life of me I could not stop drinking and knew I never would be able to if I didn’t move back into sober living where I had around the clock accountability. The words Sober Living Home brings on instantaneous roller coaster emotions for me though.. I know I needed to live there but there were a lot of things about it that I could not stand. It was hard for an alcoholic like myself to commit to something that I knew I wasn’t going to like. The rules were outrageous and the monthly rent was insanely high. Long story short- I committed to sober living and I had a new home.
Some of you are probably wondering what sober living is. Well, they are all different. I have only lived at one sober living house so it is the only one I can describe. 5 bedroom house, 15 twin beds, 15 females, mandatory AA meetings every single day, nightly breathalyzer test, chores, monetary fines, rules, and more rules.
Since I was now fully committed to the sober living house I was fully committed to AA meetings. It was in the rooms of AA where I sat back and listened to the stories of individuals that had 10, 15, 20+ years of sobriety and how they did it. I was hanging on only by a thread, I was sitting in there for months and was only relating to these other people by the way we drank. I needed to relate to someone deeper. By that I mean I needed to meet someone that got sober at my age and stayed sober. Shortly after this point I decided to attend the monthly sobriety birthday celebration at the group. On that night I got to meet and watch a gentlemen pick up his 20 year chip that had gotten sober at the age of 18. That was it. That was the missing piece to my sobriety puzzle that I had been searching for. I found the hope in meeting someone get sober at such a young age and stay sober.
These crazy rules and mandatory AA meetings is where it all finally clicked and I was able to plant my feet in the right direction and learn how to live life on life’s terms moment by moment and eventually one day at a time. The joy about recovery is that there is not a wrong way or a right way, it is each persons own way. Before I knew my own way I had the help of sober living and AA to guide me to figuring out what worked for me and how I was going to stay sober.
I know it sounds very hypocritical for me to say but, while I do not attend AA or live in a sober living house anymore I would still recommend it to anyone! The best places to hold individuals accountable and to find hope.
Thanks for following along as I share my passions of digitals, decor, & designs while I shed light on alcoholism. If you have any questions or just want to chat, shoot me a message.
XO,
Abigail
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