And so… I will keep coming back

I am an addict or alcoholic; however, I do like the loved one needing care (LNC) acronym. Just as important is that I am the child of LNC parents. Parents with substance abuse problems and mental illness. I was born in Baltimore City and spent my early childhood years with my mother, who battled mental illness, domestic abuse, and addiction. My birth father and my mother were divorced when I was young, and he was in and out of prison, running from the law. My mother was beaten up a lot, and I spent my PreK years in dive bars, was exposed to pornography and sex, was kidnapped by one of my mother’s ex-boyfriends, and drank my first Zima beer with my mother when I was five. Eventually, my mother moved us to my grandparents' home before I started elementary school, and there were some significant moments in my adolescence. However, in my experience, if the disease of alcoholism-addiction is not treated daily, it will continue to progress and resurface. By the time I was a teenager, I was a full-blown opiate addict.

Vincent Felitti’s (1985; 2004) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) test claims that boys who score a 6 out of 10 before their 18th birthday have a 4600% greater chance of using drugs intravenously. If I had known this, I would have placed a $1000 bet on my ACEs score of 7 out of 10 because I would have won $46000, because before it was over, I was injecting cocaine with my family living directly across from a Phoenix Recovery center. Yet, even then, I still did not realize that I was suffering from a relentless, incurable disease that, left untreated, is fatal.

The evidence has come from so many loved ones I have lost. In my early twenties, childhood friends of mine, Shilow and Daniel, both died from methadone and Xanax. My mother and stepfather raised me. We were all together before I graduated high school. My stepfather died when I was 25 years old, in a diaper, with hepatitis C and emphysema, but as a direct result of years of using drugs. In 1997, my mother and stepfather had taken custody of Brandi’s first child, who had been born at 1 pound 7 ounces, addicted to heroin. My mother, who helped raise my first cousin Brandi, died when I was 30 years old, three months after Brandi, too, had died in the same trailer, again as a direct result of this disease.

On my father’s side, my first cousin David, before he was 30, my Uncle Billy, and Uncle Gary, both methadone and Xanax. Staying on my father’s side, I had two younger half-siblings: Heather and Scotty, who both died as a direct result of fentanyl overdoses. Heather left behind three children, and Scotty, who had been clean for a month, decided to take one last shot. He died instantly, so he did not feel the burning fire that swallowed his body from the cigarette he was smoking at the same time.

Addiction is incurable, a lethal disease. It is chronic. This means the disease is unceasing, continual, and devoted. It is progressive. This means the disease only gets better or deadlier; in fact, with years and decades of clean sobriety, the more baffling, cunning, and enlightened the disease becomes. And this makes sense to me. Why? I am learning and accepting that the disease is a part of me. It is with me on this journey, my life experience. It is mine. I may have forgotten a few of the individuals who made up the first 30+ years of my life. That doesn’t just go away. For me, I don’t just come into recovery, work, or live the program so that I erase the past. However, my journey of recovery parallels the following metaphor:

I am driving in a car on the highway. My seatbelt is now on, and I am going to the speed limit because today, recovery has given me the choice to follow the law(s). While I would like to say it is clear and the sun is shining, and maybe it is, it is not practical to expect the drive to always have sun-shiny days. If it isn’t practical, it isn’t spiritual. I am driving the speed limit; I have my seat belt on, Steps 1, 2, & 3, because I am powerless against the law, and I have come to believe that if I am prudent, do the next right thing, and follow the law, I will not be of harm to others driving on the road with me. Wearing my seatbelt and going the speed limit is turning my will and life over to the God of my understanding because it’s insane or crazy to think that if I don’t take these precautions, my life is at risk. My reality while driving is that at any moment, the car next to me could swerve into my lane, or my tire could blow out. My gratitude for this obedience or Good, Orderly Direction is that I enjoy this journey. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to harm others, not just those on the road, but those who would suffer if I did not make it to my destination because I was driving erratically and not following safety guidelines. Now, as I drive, I can talk one-on-one with this GOD of my understanding, or I can breathe and listen. This reflection and intuition today enable me to complete Steps 10 and 11. Also, while driving, I will glance at my side views and my rearview mirror. While this glancing back behind me is not a Step 4 and Step 5 inventory, it does allow me, “Just for Today,” during this drive to get a better perspective on my life. You see, a light bulb has gone off. When driving safely, living Steps 1, 2, & 3, I glance at the rearview mirror every day, and what I see has changed. It is brand new scenery. It is truly seeing the gift of hope.

For me, it is okay to embrace my past. It is me. The disease of addiction is part of me, and what a gift and honor it is to have been given an opportunity to recover with like-minded individuals. Individuals who identify themselves as addicts and alcoholics. Individuals who are my family. Individuals that I love. I love everyone in the fellowships, as it's just a small part of how it works.

For me, if I could draw you a picture of my disease, you know how we see what the virus looks like under the microscope, right? Well, if I could show you my disease, it would look like this. Picture a black hole with two beady eyes, consuming and eating everything: planets, stars, light, no matter what, this black hole is going to eat. That’s my disease of addiction. My mother, my father, both sisters, and a brother. Uncles and cousins. Friends and acquaintances. That all-consuming black hole is still there, and so I am an addict and LNC, no matter whether I am recovering or relapsing, I am an addict.

In fact, this is my experience. Step 1: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction (alcohol); my life had become unmanageable.” I was always Step 1. It did not matter if I was recovering or if I made the choice to use it again. If my life is unmanageable, how am I supposed to sincerely admit that I am powerless over the addiction and surrender to help and actually mean it, especially because, in active addiction, denial, shame, guilt, pride, self-righteousness, and hopelessness have distorted my vision, my true identity? There is hope. Building upon this hope for me required humility. It required me to listen and then take action. So, it is May of 2018, and here I am again, going back to 12-step meetings because there was nothing left between me and the drugs, the jails, the institutions, the overdoses. My entire family, both sides and entire generations, were gone. I am holding on to my beautiful wife, and I don’t want to lose her. I am holding on to this lost dream of being a good husband and a father. I am yearning deep within to wake up and go to sleep clean. I want to know who I am because what I have become is not working, and I want to live and experience life.

The hope came when I started going to meetings, and I was told, “You don’t have to stop using; you don’t have to quit getting high.”

I said, “What?!”

They said, “Yeah, I mean, we suggest that you don’t pick it up. If you don’t pick it up, it doesn’t get in you, but that is just a suggestion. Instead, why don’t you keep coming back?”

And so, I did. From May until the end of July, I started attending meetings, and I was still using. Humility. I was told to raise my hand at every meeting when they asked if there were any newcomers. I did. Humility. I was instructed to collect a white key tag at each meeting until I had 30 consecutive days of clean behavior. I did. Humility.

Now, the last time I picked up was at the end of July, so my clean date is August 2nd. This means I raised my hand as a newcomer and picked up a white key tag for almost three months before my clean date, and then 30 days after. I want you to know that I had been coming in and out of my 12-step fellowship area for ten years before this. They knew who I was. They knew who I was. Even when my brain, aka my best thinking, would whisper, You have raised your hand and picked up a key tag for two months, and they know who you are. I still was not clean, and the suggestions I was given were to raise my hand, introduce myself as a newcomer, and get a white tag until I had 30 days clean. Humility. And so, I did.

I heard about 90 meetings in 90 days. I heard about getting and using a sponsor. Now, would these 90 meetings in 90 days be a hell of a lot easier if the sponsor or another willing member took me to 90 meetings in 90 days? YES. Now, while I went to at least one meeting a day for the first 450 days, I will be reluctant to use the following term to someone new: " Look, make 90 meetings in 90 days,” unless I know I can attend every meeting with that newcomer.

My suggestion is this: if you are new and still using it, you need to do two of the following three actions every day:

1) Don’t pick it up, and it won’t get in you. This means don’t use drugs.

2) Go to a meeting, get a phone number, and use it.

3) Pray on your knees when you wake and before you go to sleep.

If you do two of those three things every day, I truly believe you will come to find the hope you need to get a sponsor, work the steps, and then the infinite recovery process begins: service, meetings, literature, it is infinite. This means if you use drugs today, you'd better go to a meeting, get a phone number, and use it, or you'd better pray on your knees in the morning and before you go to sleep at night. In fact, you might want to pray that God gets you to a meeting.

I started working on the Steps from a 12-step Working Guide, which has probably killed newcomers. It is academic in that it is over 100 pages long, and Step 1 has 69 questions, and Step 2 has 66 questions. Look, I have a sponsee, and he couldn’t even read the sections leading up to the questions. He could only muster the strength to go right to the question and read what he had written. It is a lot. However, there is no right or wrong way. My sponsor now works with me on steps from the 12-step Basic Text, and we have also created a reservation list and a GOD resume.

The internet provides those in recovery with access to everything. There are original 12-step working sheets; you name it, though it is best to take the suggestion of your sponsor. If you feel hopeless, then you need to find another sponsor. Once you have found another sponsor, you then need to give your sponsor a two-week notice. It doesn’t have to be so personal, especially in the beginning.

And so, I worked the Steps. I had worked Steps 1, 2, & 3 for the ten years I had been coming in and out prior. They call this the 1, 2, 3 Jitterbug or something funny until the addict never returns. I proceeded to do Steps 1, 2, & 3. I then did them again. Within nine months, I began what would become my first 4th Step inventory, a plethora of life experiences and misconceptions that added up to 120 pages front and back. Just sharing, the inventory took about 12 hours over a month. I had no idea that using drugs with my mother and father was abuse. Clueless. I didn’t know. It is here that I began to see the evidence of change. 1.5 years in, and the bone structure in my face had changed. My wife said my smell had changed because of God; this program afforded me the opportunity to change everything mentally, physically, and spiritually. I did a six and seven, and I am back on a six and seven again; in fact, I will always be working the Steps as long as I do today what I did yesterday. In Step 8, after two years, I faced one of the harshest realities. I had caused myself harm. I had harmed myself. Just profound. During Step 9, I awoke and realized it was a bubble: conscious contact or something. Step 9 truly allowed me to accept that I am never alone.

As Chuck C. said, “Often, I am by myself, but I am never alone.”

Step 10 was a commitment, as I suggested, to write out the long list of end-of-the-day questions for 60 days. It is here that I began to notice that I naturally, as Jimmy K. said, work the steps in facets of my life. During Step 11, I dedicated 30 days to meditating, building on my experience as a prayer mechanic, which is not keeping it simple. My prayers are formal, but it is mine, just like my recovery. Every morning, night, and throughout the day, I begin: “God, creator of life, the spirit of the universe, that which knows no bounds, beyond conditions, Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai, Yad he vay he, Christ, Buddha, Ala, all the names, the energy, The Sun, nihilism, whatever and then I talk as honest as I can. I pray for others. Reflecting on the many people is a state of prayer and meditation for me. I pray for their happiness, their health, and their prosperity.

More evidence for me that this way of life works is that one year into the program, I was fingerprinted and pretested for a job as a daycare teacher. Twenty years before that, I was on a methadone program, taking pills, smoking crack, and shooting up with my family, and now I have been given a second chance to be around 100+ infants and toddlers. I got to pat the backs of a dozen babies, snoring every day. The 12-step fellowship allowed me to write and defend a thesis and then write and defend a doctoral dissertation, both of which were about family members whose loved one has alcoholism and addiction.

When I shared my first Step 12, it coincided with the week my son Judah was born. My wife and I welcomed a second son, Patrick, two years later. While having children, obtaining college degrees, and the prestigious luxuries of social acceptability are nothing compared to the love, hope, and faith that 12-step fellowships have enabled me, it is easy to share with you that I am truly living a life beyond my wildest dreams. Again, social acceptability, prestige, and ego do not equate to recovery, but please know we are all worthy of living happy, joyous, and comfortable lives, free from the horrors of active addiction.

 “We continue to hope, even when all seems bleak.” “We continue to pray, even when no one appears to be listening.” “We continue to say thank you, always and in all things, "doing what we know to be good for us." And so, I continue to keep coming back, just for today, and FRAA Recovery has enabled me to give back differently.

I love you all.

Dr. Adam J. Pyecha, DSocSci, MA, MH

The Reason Why I’m Here

My story may seem unremarkable, but it is my story, and it is the reason why I am here. My son is an alcoholic. He has been for about 15 years. In 2017 at the age of 22, he was diagnosis with cardiomyopathy. Cardiomyopathy is best explained by saying, “where a healthy heart pumps blood at 60%, his pumped at 9%”. His doctors told us his heart was failing and they put him on the heart transplant list. I didn’t cry, I guess I was in denial, but the tears did not come. Even after the doctors told us that his heart was damaged by his excessive drinking, I still did not cry. My son wasn’t just an alcoholic, he was what some would call a sloppy drunk, a raging alcoholic, a wino. There was no denying it, so why cry.

Even after this heart wrenching diagnosis, my son continued to drink. Eventually, his actions tore my family apart. My ex-husband and I no longer speak (we were friends). My brother and I fought over his living with my parents. My brother-in -law and I fought over his care and expenses. His maternal grandmother kicked him out of her house, essentially rending him homeless. The paternal and maternal sides of the family were deeply divided.

Enter FRAA – Families Recovering from Alcoholism and Addiction. This organization is in its infancy, but they have so much to offer the families with loved ones suffering from addiction. I found out about FRAA after working with one of its founding members. FRAA isn’t another support group like Al-Alon. FRAA is not a round table of discussion or sessions of commiseration. This organization is unique because it supports the entire family, not just the addict. It’s a lifeline to families that struggle. It’s a lifeline to me.

As I sit down to write this testimonial, I am overcome with a wave of emotion. FRAA made me realize that I am a survivor. Why, you ask? I’m the mother of a son who’s recovering from an addiction. While he’s battling his addiction and his demons, I’m battling his addiction and demons. I’m surviving. I’m surviving as a family member, as a mother, as a woman. I found solace in knowing that there were services there for me.

FRAA helped me realize that addiction is a disease and it is contagious. When a loved one has an addiction, the rest of the family catches it. It affects every family member and loved one connected to the addict. Where Al-Anon teaches families that they are not alone, they preach that the loved one has to want to get better and as moms and dads, we should not feel as if we failed the addicted loved. On the other hand, FRAA says, “mom/dad, you did not fail, but nor do you have to be complacent.” FRAA has the resources and the counseling to help you mom & dad with your loved one and to help you with your personal struggles.

FRAA gave me the strength to deal with my personal feelings. That gave me the strength to save my son’s life. Myles is my entire world. He is my son, my only child. Losing him could mean losing a piece of me, but FRAA came to the rescue. FRAA helped me to understand my mental health and well-being are equally important and that I don’t have to deal with this alone.

Today, Myles is thriving. This time, I found a facility that treated Myles depression as a means of treating his addiction. FRAA explained to me what was happening while Myles was being evaluated. They explained his medical issues during detox. They gave me insight on his facility and his care. And finally, for the 1st time in 8 years, I heard my baby laugh. He called me mommy (yes, he’s 30) and we talked more in one day than we’ve talked all year. He has a long road ahead. I know that, but at least now that road is paved with the kind of help that treats the family, not just the addiction or the addicted.

With Heart Felt Appreciation and Love,

Dr. Monica M Thompson-Henry, CCTS, MBA, DBA