M 2020. Although I abused substances and alcohol in high school, my true addiction didn’t start until I was in college. My abuse of marijuana, pills, and alcohol blossomed with my newfound freedom. I also found that I could self-medicate for several mental health diagnoses I had received in high school that pharmaceuticals hadn’t helped with. As my education progressed, I knew I would have to begin taking drug screens for nursing school. I attempted to quit using drugs on my own and was initially successful; however I turned to consuming more alcohol in order to compensate for my grieving drugs. Before I knew it I was consuming alcohol around the clock to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay. Halfway through nursing school, I was arrested for a driving drunk. Knowing this would bring a whirlwind of consequences and close so many doors for me, I Page 4 y name is Anna and I’m an alcoholic and addict from Colorado. I am 25 years old and have been sober since January 24th , turned to suicide. The next week was spent in a secure psychiatric hospital being treated my alcoholism and suicidality. While I knew that I needed to stop drinking, or face more outcomes similar to my DUI, I wasn’t adamant that I truly had a problem like other alcoholics or addicts. Less than a month after my release from the hospital, I was getting high and drinking again. Fast forward a year and I had graduated from nursing school and passed my state boards to be a licensed RN. My drinking and drug use is at an all-time high; I was consuming around a liter of vodka a day while smoking copious amounts of marijuana and taking a friend’s prescription benzodiazepines. Within a month of getting my nursing license, which I viewed as a huge personal milestone and the beginning of a career for myself, I faced the penalties of my DUI. I lost my driver’s license and my newly obtained nursing license, and I also lost my job. Faced with these turn of events, I again became suicidal and attempted to drink myself to death. A dear friend reached out to my family to let them know that, once again, I needed to get help. My father drove to come stay with me that night, and the next day I was set to fl y to Florida from Colorado to stay at an addiction recovery facility in Fort Lauderdale. That facility saved my life. The nurses, counselors, and doctors there invested personally in my recovery and helped me fi nd a new way to live my life. They helped me fi nd ways to cope with my mental health and the stresses of life without wanting to drink or get high. I went to group therapy, individual therapy, and AA and NA meetings every night. I met people who had similar struggles to me and we worked together to fi nd new and more productive solutions to our problems. I stayed there for 49 days. My life looks very different now. It feels different too. I live in Nashville, TN with my fi ancé and have begun the process of getting my nursing license back. I have found new hobbies and ways to fi ll my time other than drinking and drugging. My daily routine has completely changed; my life no longer revolves around where I can get my next drink or pill. I am genuinely happy. There are still hard days; there are days when I miss the high of my past life. But I would so much rather have one hard day of cravings than the thousands of miserable ones that would follow if I slipped up and used. Breaking the cycle of addiction is not easy or comfortable. It has required me to make many changes in my life, rather than just stopping the use of addictive substances completely. For me, what worked the best was changing where I lived. A geographical change allowed me to leave behind a myriad of things; I no longer had places to use, people to get drugs from, or people to use with. I fi nally understood what people meant when they say they got a “fresh start”. The other biggest change I have made in my life is adopting a policy of complete honesty, about everything to everyone. As someone who was habitually using addictive substances, lying had become a routine part of my life. I chose to use dishonesty and deceit in order to preserve a false feeling of integrity about my actions. I now choose to be completely transparent about how I live my life and why I do the things I do. Compared to the web of lies I lived in before, I now feel free. I am beyond grateful today for the life I have lived and everything I have been through. It is a beautiful life full of beautiful things.
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