A Grueling Goodbye to Addiction
A Grueling Goodbye to Addiction
Published on:
Apr 18, 2025
Category
General
Sheer embarrassment and shame have always sat at the center of this section of my story. It’s the simplest part for me to put on paper but the biggest struggle to put out to the public.
It’s been 17 years since I said “so long” to alcohol. That’s 204 months, 884 weeks, or 6 THOUSAND 205 days since I said a gut-wrenching goodbye to my most toxic coping mechanism.
Even after all this time, the idea of an alcohol-induced escape sometimes sounds satisfying. An instant symphony after 17 years of static — the background noise of my mind finally silenced again by several shots of Finlandia or taking a quick trip away from this turmoil, so conveniently packaged in a tiny blue pill.
I could tell a million tales to the world about addiction as there’s not much shame standing on my back anymore. For 6,205 days, I’ve won this game day by day. That’s not embarrassment — hat’s guts and grit and glory. However, since April is Alcohol Awareness Month, there’s a specific story I want to share when it comes to my relationship with alcohol and drugs.
As an adopted individual, statistics show I was twice as likely to develop substance use disorder (SUD) than my non-adopted counterparts (Yoon, 2012). I’ve been asked many times over the years why I turned to drinking and drugs as an adolescent and the answer is simple. I wanted a place to turn where I could fit in and numb the pain of all the places I had been getting stuck in my adoption journey. Nobody cared that I was adopted or that I was “different” when we were drinking and getting high. EVERYBODY cared that I didn’t know my birth story at the gossiping girly sober sleepovers — recognition I certainly didn’t want.
I felt some sense of security in my life of addiction. I had a community, a place where I belonged. I had people I was attached to and people who were attached to me. Being adopted often made me feel insecure and because addiction is a disease of attachment, I became not only addicted to the substances, but also to the connections I was forming. As someone who craves yet also fears attachment, addiction gave me access to the attachment I was craving with the ability to numb my fear of connecting. It was the perfect prescription for my pain…until it wasn’t.
Getting sober meant reclaiming my life but it also meant facing big fears, like the loss of all the attachments I had made. Despite being unhealthy, those attachments were my lifeline throughout all my years of adolescence and early adulthood. The loss of them was a grueling goodbye but since March 8, 2008, I’ve felt every ounce of this place, washing out all my adoption wounds the hard way.
So, in our alcohol-induced society, where glasses are chiming at nearly every event I attend, I give a non-alcoholic “cheers” to 17 years of finding freedom. Finding how to be fully present and content in all my favorite places without buddying up next to a bottle of booze. My peace is no longer sitting on the shelf at the liquor store. It’s present in every sound, every sense, every bug, every branch, every smile…everything I couldn’t stop to appreciate when I was drinking.
The journey continues…
