A Year and a Half Sober! Insights so Far

A year and a half ago, on June 2nd, 2022 I finally went to rehab. I had hit the mother of all the rock bottoms I had hit before. That morning I got home at around 7 am having spent the night in a dingy, abominable strip club in Mlolongo. I took my last drink that morning, a disgusting sip of Chrome vodka which tasted like death. I had no money and ‘fulizad’ about 250 shillings to buy that Chrome Vodka and take a motorbike home.

I will never forget how miserable I was that entire night. I spent most of it arguing with the guy I was half dating, who was almost half my age. We walked to Mlolongo in the middle of the night arguing. At some point that night, I had thrown my mobile phone into the bushes in anger because I was so angry at him, at alcohol, at me, at everything!

I knew I was to go to rehab that week and I remember telling this young man that morning that I was going away and he would never see me again (dramatic much!). I did not tell him where I was going, but somehow I knew I would get sober and I knew I wanted nothing to do with him and the life I had been living anymore.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I was tired. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired! There is a depth of misery and hopelessness that only alcoholism can deliver. If there is a hell on earth, alcoholism is it. It brought me to my knees. I say this as someone who had been through some pretty dark things in my life from my teenage years: suicide attempt at age 15, clinical depression, social anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, my dad (an alcoholic) committing suicide when I was 17, and so on. You get the gist. I had been through some dark times in my life but alcoholism in my mid-thirties until the age of 40, took me to hell.

There is a passage in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that aptly describes the hell I was living in: “As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker….then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen – Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!” (Page 151, Alcoholics Anonymous). As the book says, only unhappy drinkers would understand.

How did I end up here?

That first day in rehab was hard. I had begged my mom to take me to rehab because I knew that if I kept drinking I would die. I can’t tell you how I knew that, but that sense of foreboding had been growing and had escalated after a friend of mine died 3 months earlier in a car accident leaving a bar in Mlolongo. The driver was drunk.

Once my mom and aunt left the rehab, my phone confiscated, and the gates of the rehab center shut, reality set in. It felt like I had been locked in prison. It was the worst feeling ever. I kept asking myself, “How did I end up here?” as I looked around the small garden and the 7 other clients I found there. “Me of all people? How did this become my life?”. This kind of thing had only happened to other people. I had always known myself to be above this level of self-destruction, but as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It had fooled even me! Drink in hand I had burned my life to the ground.

Acceptance at last!

My first night in rehab was hard. I panicked and my mind began to reason with me, telling me I had made a mistake coming here. “I wasn’t too bad, was I”? But I knew it was tricks that the demons of alcohol were playing on me. I accepted my lot. I carried only 3 books into rehab. My bible, journal, and a notebook.

I began journalling the very first day I got there until the last day. I’ll spare you the sad details, but part of my entry for that first day which I titled Day Zero, reads, “First day at rehab. I don’t know how I got here. I feel sad, frustrated, and lost. I don’t know exactly how I got into this terrible dark hole. It’s like I crawled into hell myself and didn’t map my way out. I feel lost and confused. Father (God) please help me. I feel like I don’t have what it takes. But I know you are able to help me find myself again.” It goes on for a while.

As I look back now, God heard my prayer. A few days later in an act of broken and utter surrender, I cried out to God on my knees in my room and begged him to deliver me from alcoholism, and he did. That day the obsession for alcohol which had ravaged my mind and foiled all my attempts to quit alcohol, was lifted never to return. I can honestly say that since that first week in rehab, I have never desired alcohol, craved it, or desired it. It was a miracle. The Alcoholics Anonymous Program founder, Bill W. called it the obsession being lifted, repelled, or removed.

What happened?

Looking back a year and a half later, I can only give glory to God because he did for me what I could not do for myself. I had tried everything to quit drinking: counseling, AA, coaching, spirituality, mind science, books, research, switching alcohol brands, switching friends, switching bars, alcohol experiments, motivational books, willpower, etc., but nothing worked. I was outsmarted. The longest I went sober was 3 months. I was a chronic relapser.

God did exceeding abundantly above all I asked him or even imagined. My life is completely different now and I wake up every day sane, happy, and peaceful knowing exactly where I was the day before, who I was with, and where I have slept. Something else is not living my life for me. I can create memories now, and happy ones at that.

Slave to King Alcohol

I was a slave to alcohol. I had sold myself to it for nothing. The astounding thing about alcoholism is that it sneaks up on you. No one sees it coming. I never saw it coming. No one ever wakes up as a child and dreams of being an alcoholic when they grow up.

I never woke up one day and said, “When I grow up, I want to be an alcoholic like my father, ruin my teenage daughter’s life, spend most of my time in dingy smelly pubs, wet my bed all the time (and throw out two mattresses in the trash as a result), hang out with guys half my age who have absconded university and worry their mothers sick!, wake up in strange places, strange beds, with strange people, wake up with unexplained bruises all over my body, not know where I am or remember how I got there, not remember how I got home the next morning or where I left my phone, lose phones, lose friends, go days without showering, sleep in my car, spend over a million shillings in a few years in alcohol-related activities or accidents, develop stomach ulcers, get into car accidents, lie to my family about where I am and what I am doing, worry and traumatize my daughter, my mother, and my cat!, have years of blackouts where I can’t remember what I did, run up the stairs of our apartment complex at 1 am one night screaming at the top of my lungs laughing because my drunken mind tells me it will be fun to wake up the neighbours and children, undress in a party full of people I just met and annoy the female host, place myself in sexually risky incidents and so on, and so forth.” You get my drift.

No, I never woke up one day and decided to do all those shameful things, and yet I did them all because alcohol messes up your brain and makes you a completely insane person. And yet with each of those incidents and more over the years, I would wake up and tell myself it would never happen again.

A Broken Record

My life was a cycle of broken promises made to myself. I would swear never to drink again, never to do those things again, but a few days later it’s like amnesia would set in. Alcoholism only allows you to remember the good times, until the next horrible incident inevitably happens, and it all comes flooding back. “This time it will be different”, is the running theme of every alcoholic’s life. But it’s never different, instead, it’s worse. And eventually, you’re drinking to hide from yourself and the all-consuming shame and self-disgust.

My shame was worsened by the fact that I was running a spiritual coaching business, writing, and inspiring others to live their best lives, yet mine was a mess. I felt like an imposter and a fraud. How could two seemingly opposite personas dwell in the same body? I had two separate lives which I kept separate, but the house of cards I had built was slowly crumbling.

I had sworn as a teenager never to become like my dad. He died at 43, and here I was at 40 slowly inching towards a death like his. By the time I got sober last year, I was suicidal. I saw no way out. It horrified me to see myself playing out my dad’s life. It felt like an out-of-body experience. It shook me to my core. But, there was a small spark of hope left in me. Something within me never fully gave up. I didn’t want to die. I knew God could help me because I had seen him deliver me before from some hard things when I was younger. But my prayers and good intentions seemed to avail nothing. You know what they say about the road to hell. I would always drink again.

It gets worse

On a day like today on 1st December 2021, I fled to Nyeri to my aunt’s place. Yes, I fled like a fugitive because I was too embarrassed to be seen in the neighborhood. I had had a week of binge drinking where I had completely shamed myself. I seemed to be slowly losing my mind because my bottoms were getting lower and the blackouts scarier.

It felt as though past a certain point of drinking, someone else would take over my body and make sure to do the most shameful things possible, and then flee in the morning and leave me to deal with the consequences. After coming to my senses in this boda boda man’s house drunk with my pants down, I was shaken to my core. I spent 10 days in Nyeri praying and reflecting on my life and watching recovery videos. I made it to 3 months sober somehow but I was using willpower, and it did not last. My mind was on alcohol the entire time.

When my friend died in March 2022, I relapsed and went on my final 3-month bender from hell until I got into rehab on June 2nd, 2022.

We do recover!

Now that the drunk-a-logs are out of the way! Yes, we do recover. As the Foreword to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, I “recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body”. I will share a few things that helped restore me to sanity and gave me by God’s grace, a joyful recovery.

1. Surrender

I only spent a month in rehab for financial and other reasons, but it was enough for me because I was desperate. My whole spirit, soul, and body were of one accord and wanted out. I was determined to be free. What was different this time? I gave up. I admitted complete powerlessness and meant it. I surrendered fully. Surrender allows the grace of God to come in. It was do or die. I couldn’t imagine a life with or without alcohol. When I gave up, God took over. God honors surrender. I had to admit, “God I have messed up this life you gave me, help me, I can’t make it without you.”

Surrender is a beautiful paradox. We must give up, to get up. One of the quotes that spoke to me deeply in my early recovery was by Elizabeth Gilbert: “I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.” I accepted my bullshit and was ready for change no matter the cost.

2. Relationship with God

One of the gifts of my sobriety was re-establishing my relationship with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I had lost this faith years ago and traded it for the god of self. But the god of self took me to hell. Who was I kidding? All my talk about how I created my own reality with my mind did not help me when alcohol had me by the neck! I could not help myself let alone save myself.

When I cried out in surrender during my first week at rehab asking Jesus to forgive me for everything and anything, a beautiful journey of reconnecting with the God of the bible again, began. It changed my life and made me new. Prayer, bible study, and meditation were crucial in renewing my mind and cleaning me up from the shame and wounds of my past. Step two of the Alcoholics Anonymous program says it beautifully, “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” I found this to be true for me.

3. Radical Honesty

The alcoholic is a self-destructive beast, like a tornado, leaving destruction in his wake. One of the reasons alcoholics continue drinking even when life is falling apart is the fear and terror of facing the destruction that is their life, and the people they have hurt. But I have found that without radical honesty and a willingness to face everything head-on- all our mistakes, shortcomings, failures, selfishness, and hurt we have caused others, and take full responsibility, recovery is not possible, at least not long term.

It was essential for me to face my life, face myself, face the wreckage I had caused, and admit that “I did it. It was me and no one else.” I had spent a lot of time in my drinking career seeking sympathy and blaming many people for some of the things I had done, including blaming alcohol. But no one forced me to drink. I opened that door. No one held a gun to my head to make me hurt my daughter and hurt myself. It was painful to look at my life frankly and accept FULL responsibility, but it was a game changer! It was half of the solution to freeing me from shame and guilt.

A common phrase in recovery is, “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” It is.

4. Making Amends and ‘Cleaning House’

Another powerful aspect of recovery that I learned in the Alcoholics Anonymous program is making amends. This is a thorough house cleaning of identifying those harmed or wronged and making every effort to make amends to them, verbally and physically where applicable. Without this final aspect of taking responsibility, the alcoholic will not find freedom from shame and guilt and this will likely cause them to continue self-destructive habits and drink again.

In facing what I had done, going to all the people I had wronged, admitting what I did and how I hurt them, and asking for forgiveness, a miracle happened. This was the final half of the solution to shame and guilt. Freedom came like sunlight breaking through the clouds on a dark morning. That mental turmoil and anguish was lifted. Those hideous Four Horsemen of the alcoholic apocalypse that the Book Book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about – Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair, were vanquished finally!

I also had to cut off and cut out all the people, places, and things connected to that old life of alcohol. I thank God this was easy for me once I left rehab because I was determined to start over. I wanted nothing that reminded me of the hell I had been living. In recovery circles, I heard it termed as “avoiding slippery places and slippery people.” If you keep going to a barber shop, sooner or later you will get a haircut. Do not deceive yourself. Make a clean break as much as possible.

5. More Surrender and Relationship with God

It is not enough for surrender to happen at the beginning of recovery. It must be the last thing the recovering alcoholic is left with. Surrender must now become a way of life. It is for me. I abandoned my life to God and I found he does a better job than me or running it. As long as I humble myself and allow his will to be done, and not mine, I find my sanity continues. I don’t have to manage my life anymore. The alcoholic tends to be driven by extreme self-will and self-centeredness. This has to die if true recovery is possible.

Surrender is now a part of my life by God’s grace. My relationship with God through Jesus Christ has given me freedom and made me a new creature. But I know I cannot get back into the driver’s seat again if I am to stay recovered. I am the car and he is the driver. If a car tries to drive itself it will head into a ditch fast, and that’s where I was headed in my drinking. I was on the fast track on the highway to hell. God lifted me out of that pit and I never want to go back there again, so I stay close to him.

Surrender for me involves daily prayer study of the Bible, and constant communion with God.

6. Support System and Giving Back

It is important to have people around you who share the same goals and purpose. No man is an island. Recovering alone is hard. In the first 10 months of my recovery, I found support in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a game changer for me because I was going through the intense process of healing, making amends, and finding myself again. The spiritual principles of the program, the fellowship, and sharing with others helped me to get my life back on track again.

The recovering alcoholic needs to find some form of community or support. I now meet that need in my church fellowship and service opportunities.

It is also important for anyone in recovery to use their story to help another person. There is a secret power in reaching out to another suffering alcoholic that fortifies one’s recovery. In active addiction, we took and took and were selfish. Now we need to give and give, so we can heal from our self-centeredness. When you give, it comes back to you. It works! I love to share my story in rehab facilities and wherever the opportunity presents itself because I know the power of testimony in helping another person. When I was suffering I lapped up stories of recovery like a dying man in a desert.

7. Never, ever Give up!

And finally, never give up. The main part the alcoholic has to play in early recovery is never giving up. Without that inner belief that things can be better or at least begin to get better, there likely won’t be much change. You have to want to be better before you can begin to get better. In my experience, something in me wanted to live. I knew I was better than what I was living, but I just did not know how to break free of the chains that held me. That spark of hope I spoke about in the beginning kept me alive and kept me believing against hope.

A quote by JK Rowling became my anthem in early sobriety. It kept me going. She said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” I believe those words. Being at the bottom I knew there was no other way but up. I accepted my situation and was determined to rebuild again from zero. Mindset is everything

One Day at a Time!

We do recover! If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone. Never believe the lie that you must stay in a perpetual state of recovery. Relapses are often part of the journey to recovery, but it is possible to transcend them. Just never give up. It took me years, but finally, the miracle happened. If you are currently struggling with alcoholism, I hope my story has encouraged you. I know for me other people’s stories frankly shared, did a lot in providing me hope when I was struggling and I hope I have done that for someone too!

Usually, when it seems like the end, it is the beginning. At one and a half years sober, on 2nd December 2023, I can only say Glory to God for his grace. He did for me what I could not do for myself. Take it one day at a time!

#recovery #alcoholism #alcoholfreelife #wedorecover #recoveryispossible #recoverycoach #recoveryjourney #alcoholawareness