KEEP COMING BACK
We asked these clean and sober folks what it was like to come back into the rooms of recovery and start anew after having some previous recovery time
BY PAULO MURILLO
PURE GRATITUDE
“It was very hard to come back, especially when you had a bunch of time. What kept me out is was the fear of judgment. I had been using in the rooms. My ego told me I couldn’t go to treatment. I felt like a complete failure, but coming back was the greatest gift I have given myself. Probably the better half of 2019, it was just one long suicide attempt. I got to the point where I couldn’t get sober and I couldn’t go on using the way I did, because I was going to die. I was hopeless and giving up. I was too old to start over again. It was painful to take another breath on this earth. Luckily I found some grace. I answered the call when my brother called. He put me in rehab. There was a change and I didn’t want to die anymore. Somebody put their hand out and I took it. I went to rehab and it changed my life. Gratitude, humility and willingness, those three things were different this time. To be on the brink of death and then to be on the other side of that, every breath was pure gratitude.”
—Harrison Bloom, sober since July 24, 2019.
GETTING CONNECTED AGAIN
“It was definitely hard. There was a lot of shame. Especially with the people I got sober with because the connection wasn’t there. They didn’t trust me. I had to start a new recovery and get new friends. I had to do the work and raise my hand. It was really uncomfortable. I got over that shame by telling myself that this disease wanted me dead, because I loved getting high too much. I didn’t care. It was going to kill me I told myself ‘just go to the meetings. Everyone is the same here. Nobody is better and they all have the same problems you do.’ I went to meetings, welcomed the newcomer, and that’s how I started getting connected again. What I’m doing differently is I’m doing the actual work, staying in the middle and reaching out to people and built a support group.”
—Juan Hernandez, sober since June 6, 2022.
OVERCOMING THE SHAME
“It was a short relapse. In measurable ways, there weren’t a lot of consequences. I didn’t get fired, I didn’t drain my bank account, I didn’t kill anybody, but the emotional consequences were that it felt like the whole world caved in on me. Recovery was the foundation that I built my life on, so the roof didn’t cave in, the whole foundation disappeared. It was really scary and disorienting. I carried around so much shame. Then somebody told me the good news about shame is that it is self-creating. I turned it on, I could turn it off. Twenty-three years later I still remember that. Shame is a kind of self-centered fear. Sometimes I can’t get out of fear, so the answer is to get out of self. The minute you get out of self, any fear that’s self-centered melts away. Overcoming the shame can be a guardrail to getting your life back on track.”
—Kevin Chase, sober since September 19, 1999
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