Addiction & Recovery - Meet others & come say hi

3 years ago I found myself homeless on the streets of Los Angeles with a 25yr. Meth addiction, an alcoholic drinking a gallon of vodka a day, a two pack a day cigarette smoker and prostituting myself for all if these habits. I tried to commit suicide..I didn't want to live. I grew up in foster homes.. Had no family and no hope.. I had lost my daughter, husband and everyone who remotely cared about me..Feb 8, 2016 I cried out to Jesus ...he answered me with the Walter Hoving Home. A beautiful Christian discipleship home that saved my life and gave me back hope and a relationship with Jesus. Here I am 3yrs. Later..grateful and alive. I now work for Unshattered who employs women who are winning their battle with addiction.

Those sound like great character traits in order to maintain sobriety, @johnwhitfield.

Hello @hisgrace6992 and welcome to Mayo Connect,

I'm pleased that you shared your story of sobriety with Connect. It sounds as if Unshattered has given you a place to give back to others what you have learned about sobriety. What do you feel is the most important character trait for a person wanting to stay sober?

If you are not an alcoholic, a person with a crisis of life and death you can just stop drinking. If you are an alcoholic you have a brain disease. That means you have to decide if you are an alcoholic. That means working through denial, that is the biggest obstacle. That is best done with the help of another person or persons. That is best-done with treatment, therapist or AA groups. Alcoholism is a serious disease that always ends in jail, institutions or death if not treated. I use to be a licensed alcohol and drug counselor. I have seen the tragedy of addiction many times over.

Hello @johnwhitfield

I appreciate this well-written post about addiction/alcoholism. You say, "That means you have to decide if you are an alcoholic. That means working through denial, that is the biggest obstacle." From my own observations, I feel that is true.

I would be interested in hearing from others in this discussion about overcoming denial. @hisgrace6992 @savana1 @zeph317, if you are comfortable sharing more from your own personal experiences, how difficult was it to work through denial? If you are currently a sponsor or work with others how strong is denial in their lives?

I feel that the most important character trait is integrity. I feel this because as soon as you start to deny what you are feeling or start to tell untruths you are starting to "cover up" again which is why in essence a lot of us turned to drugs to "cover" up something we could not or did not want to deal with.

I think if I remember well, denial didn't last to long for me because I knew I was addicted

Agreed, I don't think denial was the issue, I think it was a lack of willingness to deal with the issues that caused me to turn to addiction. Often some of these issues were hidden childhood hurts that were not even recognized.

I believe you are right about that, @hisgrace6992. Even denial has its roots in something else, doesn't it? Childhood hurts can certainly represent these roots of denial as you so aptly point out.

@savana1 @johnwhitfield and others reading this discussion,

Did you also discover the roots of your addiction/denial in traumatic experiences of childhood or another time in your life?

Please of course share, only as you are comfortable doing so.

Yes my rooted issues was they way I was brought up, my mom was also an addict and are relationship was very verbally and physically abusive my dad wasn't in the picture , so feeling unloved and wanted as a child turned me out into drugs