STAYING THE COURSE
We asked these three clean and sober individuals to reflect on their recovery journey in 2023 and to share on how they plan to stay the course in 2024.
BY PAULO MURILLO
THAT LIGHT
“I got sober in 2023 by choosing to go to rehab. Today, I have an amazing community with an amazing team like my therapist, my counselor, spiritual support group, and certainly my sponsor. My mom passed from this disease about two years ago, so that’s what pushed me to consider my own using and how it made things a lot worse. My ongoing relationship with my mother, even though she’s passed, has kept me sober. And my commitment and my healing has kept me sober… In 2024, I plan to hit the steps a little bit harder. I reached my fourth step a couple months ago, and I’m still chipping away at it. I will continue to build my canoe, explore new meetings, build my sober community, and really lean into my creativity. That’s another reason why I got sober, to keep that light going and recommit myself to my creative endeavors, which you can find on my Instagram account @forrestpage.”
—Forrest Page, sober since April 4, 2023.
THAT JOURNEY
“In 2023 I took on sponsees. I wasn’t sponsoring for a while because I was just so focused on work. I started working with a new sponsor, so all of 2023 was like a whole brand-new journey of discovery… I got a promotion at work in the beginning of the year, and I was really doubting myself because it was drastically different. In previous years, I always bit off more than I could chew. That’s when I turned to my recovery and broke it down one day at a time… Two nights before I got sober, I remember looking at the stars and saying out loud, ‘There’s gotta be something better than this.’ And my life today is leaps and bounds better than the constant grind of finding and using and manipulating. The work that I put into recovery has paid so much dividends that I can’t even begin to explain. In 2024, I plan to continue that journey of discovery.”
—Eric Lopez, sober since March 20, 2014.
THAT HELP
“In 2023, I had the willingness to get sober, but I did not know if I wanted to stay sober. Then I almost lost my private insurance, and I had to fight the County and the State to prove that I qualified. When I won the fight, I realized that it was time to get clean. When I looked inside, and I saw how completely unhappy I was, and that I had everything that I needed to survive, but I was still living with a God-shaped hole inside of me. I checked into a facility in Malibu. I was surrounded by so much silence and peace and serenity, which I hadn’t experienced in so long… A doctor at the facility told me to embrace it, so I did. And from that day on, I have kind of been surrendered. I found that I wanted to stay clean. I asked my former sponsor if he’d be willing to sponsor me again, and he said yes. I’ve been leaning on him, on my support group, and the Van Ness Recovery House. I call three people a day, I call my sponsor every day, go to a meeting every day, stay transparent, and I talk about my feelings if I feel like using… In ‘24 I’ll make sure that I don’t make the same mistakes.Those are all things that will help me prevent a relapse and stay clean in 2024.”
—Blaine Heffron, sober since September 14, 2023.
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