THE POWER OF SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE, STRENGTH, & HOPE

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Real Life Real Talk- Abigail here!

I hope everyone’s weekend has been great so far. I am actually being an overachiever and typing this on Friday night so I can actually enjoy Football Sunday and not be stressing to do this blog post last-minute. So, Friday night at 10pm it’s safe to say my weekend has been quite peachy so far.

Is it just me or has yet another month FLOWN by. I have been staying up later and waking up earlier trying to see if the days don’t go by as quick. No need to try this at home… I can assure you the days go by just as quick and you are left completely exhausted.

Now that we have all looked down at the calendar and noticed that September is halfway over, we better hurry and speak up and speak out because #NationalRecoverMonth is coming close to an end and after this month you won’t see awareness until next September. (Just kidding!)

I personally am kidding but the harsh reality is that is the sad truth for many. Silence on this disease is killing our loved ones, now is the time to break the stigma with addiction. When this month ends nothing will change for me. I will keep telling my story and sharing the raw honest truth of addiction and recovery. That is what helped me. There was not a therapist, doctor, or psychologist that could help me. But another alcoholic could and did.

Addicts live a life of insanity that no one understands. It hardly makes any sense to us and it definitely doesn’t make sense to anyone that is not one of “us.” When I think back to before I got sober one particular story comes to mind that I shared in two different settings and I got two completely different reactions.

My memory kind of gets fuzzy on some events or periods of times in my life because quite frankly I lived in a blackout state of mind approximately 18-20 hours a day. But somewhere either before or in between my couple of rehab stay-cations, my family was hopeful that a therapist would do the trick and “fix me.” On one of the first visits I had with my therapist she began to ask about my drinking habits and the quantities I was drinking. I began to go into great detail and told her I was drinking rubbing alcohol and that I had perfected the science behind it, I would chug an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol and I would chase it with a water bottle of pink lemonade. I didn’t even get to the “why” of everything because I could tell by the deer in headlights look on my completely speechless therapists face she could not even begin to understand. I felt more alone and insane than I did before I walked into her office. I knew what I was doing was the definition of insanity but I didn’t need to be reassured of that by someone who could not relate or understand what I was doing or going through because she simply was not one of “us.”

Fast forward to some time after 6/9/15 (my sobriety date) to a day I was attending an AA meeting and I shared the exact same thing. I remember this meeting like it was yesterday. My hands were clammy and my heart was pounding out of my chest as I began to share something that at that time I thought I was the only one to experience. Brand new sober and fresh in to recovery I couldn’t make it through a meeting without crying while I shared. So add that to the clammy hands and fast heart beat, I shared with a room of 50 strangers my personal experience with rubbing alcohol. I looked around the room and was waiting for the same looks on people’s faces that my therapist had given me. There was not a single one. All I saw was people laughing, smiling at me, and nodding their heads up and down like been there done that. I didn’t even know what just happened, all I knew was I instantly didn’t feel alone. These people were like me and had done the same things I had done. They could relate to me, they knew exactly what I was going through and most importantly they understood me. I will never forget when the meeting ended, numerous people came up to me and told me they had done the same thing and that I wasn’t alone and to “Keep Coming Back!”

Same story, two different settings, and two different reactions. One reaction stuck with me and allowed me not to feel alone and find hope from others stories when they shared their experience, strength, and hope with me. This is why I share what I share. Your story, my story, our stories together can help end the stigma of addiction and give hope to others that they are not alone!

Thanks for following along  while I shed light on alcoholism and share my passions of digitals, decor, and design. If you have any questions or just want to chat, shoot me a message. Be sure to follow me on Instagram @abigaillalumandier where I post daily!