Spotlight On
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| 5/27/2009 |
SPOTLIGHT ON...
What it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now
By Belinda S.
Well, where to start? I know that I was an alcoholic long before I took my first drink. As long as I can remember I have had this feeling of being different. I felt that I was not as good as other people. I grew up thinking that I was a bad little girl.
I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic and a sexual abuser, so from a very young age I felt that I was being punished for being a little girl. When I was young you didn’t talk about such things, you just had to pretend that they never happened.
At age seven or eight I began acting out by lying and stealing. I only knew negative attention, but I was searching for something to fill that empty feeling that I had inside.
When I was 12 my whole life turned upside-down. My mother and I were in a car accident and she died. I was the youngest of 5 children and no one was ready to take on the responsibility of raising a little girl.
I ended up living with the youngest of my three sisters and her husband. That is when my living nightmare began. My sister’s husband liked to play with little girls and I became his private personal toy. This went on for two years during which time I met my two best friends -- alcohol and drugs. Ahh, what friends they were to me for so very long. When they were with me I could stand anything. I felt no more pain or emptiness.
When I was 15 I ran away from home because I could no longer deal with my sister’s husband, and when I told her about it she was in total denial and called me a liar. That is when I met the man who was to become my first husband.
By the time I was 16 I had gotten pregnant, married and had a baby boy. By the time I was 18 I had joined the Air Force, gotten divorced and left my baby boy behind in my wake.
During the eight years that I was in the military, my drinking really took off. By the time I was 20 I was having blackouts at least 3 times a week. I did not know that is what they were at the time. I thought that everyone who drank forgot what happened. I started getting really bad because I started waking up in strange places with strange people, not knowing how I got there or what I had done while I was there. Many times I would come to with no clothes on and I would have to get dressed and leave before anyone woke up. I would have to drink to feel better and forget about what had happened -- if I remembered it in the first place. I really thought that these things were what everyone experienced when they drank.
Then the glorious day came when I discovered speed. What a great thing that was for me. No more blackouts, no more sloppy drunks. I could drink and drink and drink without too many adverse symptoms. I could party for days.
In September 1985 I tested positive for pot and was discharged from the military. Here is a God shot: I got an honorable discharge. You will see why I say that in a little while.
Between September 1985 and September 1986, I got introduced to crack cocaine, got pregnant, had another baby, abandoned the baby in the hospital and hit the streets of Las Vegas. On September 3, 1986, I was shot point blank with a .38 and left for dead in an alley on 14th and Freemont.
Little did I know my disease was full-blown. When I woke up in the hospital two months later on full life support and paralyzed on the entire right side of my body, all I could think about was getting loaded when I got out of the hospital.
For the next 20 years, drinking and using were my top priority. In the meantime I had three more children, got and lost many jobs, but all I really lived for was the next drink.
In 2000, I began using IV drugs (meth) and during the next three years that’s all I did. Drink and use meth. On May 15, 2003, I arrived at my jumping off place. I could no longer go on the way I was going. Child Protective Services had stepped in and taken my children, my health was failing me, I had track marks all over my body from my neck down to my toes. The only work that I could do was in the streets, if you know what I mean, and it was to the point that I looked so bad I couldn't even do that. I couldn't stop. No matter how hard I tried or wanted to I just could not stop. I wanted to die and I couldn't even do that.
At that moment I asked God to please help me. An angel he sent took me to detox. I was in detox for 2 weeks, and from there I went to a sober living facility for veterans. I was in a recovery program to help homeless vets with their addictions and help them get back into the work force. Here is where the God shot I was talking about earlier comes in. In order to get into this facility you had to have an honorable discharge!!!!!! God knew what I would need long before it happened and prepared the way.
While I was at that facility (14 months), I went back to school and got a job with the State of Nevada in the Mental Health field (Administration). I now work for the same place that I was a patient in for trying to kill myself in 1999. God really does have a sense of humor. My life has come full circle: I am no longer a patient, I am an employee.
On May 15, 2003, I did not want to stop drinking. I just wanted to learn how to drink and use without trouble. But I stayed sober long enough to learn about this disease called alcoholism and to learn that there is a solution.
One day at a time I do not ever have to drink and use again as long as I follow a few simple directions as outlined in the Big Book of AA.
Thank you for being a part of my recovery.
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