A horrific accident ultimately leads her to the rooms and recovery
Alcohol has always been a part of my story. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic father. I started sipping alcohol as a toddler.
My story is not unusual. At some point growing up, I went from a confident, outgoing young girl to an insecure pre-adolescent without boundaries. I never seemed to feel like I was good enough and often felt as though I was doing something wrong. I was not worthy of having the special relationship my mom and sister seemed to have. Or was it my father’s unpredictable rages that left me feeling ashamed and humiliated?
Either way I was an alcoholic just waiting for large amounts of liquid to be added.
As a freshman in college, I quickly joined a group of females in my dorm that seemed to drink about the same as I did. They joined the rugby team because there was a lot of drinking, so I joined, too. One Friday at practice were two kegs of beer. I remember drinking a few beers, no big deal. This next part has been pieced together by friends and family in the months that followed. After drinking at practice, I went to an off-campus party and blacked out. At this off- campus house, I informed some friends that I was headed back to campus to meet friends. They later said that I seemed okay. There was a tunnel that went under Route 81 to allow students to get from campus to the athletic field. On my own and blacked out, I did not take the tunnel. Instead, I found a hole in the fence and crossed Route 81 on foot.
I have no recollection of this, but apparently I ran across the highway as an oncoming car was honking at me. Did I hear it? Did I see it? I do not know. However, the driver of this car and his passenger saw me. They swerved to another lane, but still struck me on my left hip, throwing me onto the median strip. They pulled over and called for help. The ambulance took me to the local hospital, where they deemed my injuries so extensive that I needed to be flown in a helicopter to the University of Virginia Hospital. There I became an unidentified female in James Madison University logo clothing, all alone in a coma.
I was finally identified and spent the next two weeks at UVA Medical Center before being transferred to a hospital closer to home where I spent the next six weeks learning how to walk and think again. It is all very confusing to me. People kept asking me what I was doing on that highway, but it wasn’t until I returned to school in the fall that I could visualize what happened.
My mom wanted me to be evaluated for alcoholism, but even after the accident I thought that I just drank like my friends, no better or worse. But I meet a smart addiction counselor who asked me about alcoholism in my family, After I relayed my stories about my father, and some my mother had told me, he said there was a strong chance I was alcoholic like my dad. Then he asked me about how many blackouts I’d had. That was when I discovered that blackouts weren’t actually the point of drinking. This counselor told me I was actually supposed to remember what happened. Whoops!
Back at college, I kept living with my drinking buddies, but I did not drink. I started attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings and found some comradery there. But that same wise counselor suggested AA might be the place for me, and he was right.
I started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and there I learned that I was valuable, worthy, and good enough—because people around the tables loved me until I could love myself. It has been a long road of challenges, opportunities, loss, hope, and growth. I have learned that drinking is only a symptom of my problem and I have created a lifestyle that supports recovery.
😆I just celebrated 31 years of sobriety last week. I do not take my sobriety for granted. I ask for help. I go to meetings. I work with a sponsor. I share my experience strength and hope with others and I trust in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not terminally unique but I sure do feel special to have received this incredible gift.