Twenty years today. Continuous. Unconditional. Sobriety. For my own reasons, I’ve not shared posts like this, but I recently read something that changed my mind, “We recover loudly so that others don’t have to suffer silently.”

Twenty years and four days ago I was released from a North Philadelphia holding cell. Un-showered, hungry, cold, empty. I never got back my shoelaces that were taken upon intake, and I had sold my winter coat on the street weeks earlier for $30. No one to call.

Fate put a familiar face in my path, and she helped me. Bought me a toothbrush and some lunch from McDonald’s. Took me back to her house, let me shower and gave me some clothes. After trying really hard not to, I picked up a drink some hours later. I have no memory of the next 3 days. I do remember being told that I had to go…

I sit here 20 years later in a house that I own, on a couch that is mine, with blankets draping my lap. My body is clean, my belly is full, and I am warm. Shoelaces (check!), winter coat (even gloves, scarf and hat). Rich where it matters.

If I can do it, you can do it. Promise.

I like to reflect on the previous year when there’s an anniversary…I’ve had numerous jobs this year before starting my own business and deciding to build a life that I love (in spite of people thinking I’m crazy). I’ve watched my daughter grow in both size and confidence after going through some things that would be hard for anyone, let alone a 10-year-old. I’ve looked in the mirror and faced some painful, ugly truths…someone I love allegedly took the life of someone they loved and less than 3 weeks later, the man I loved chose to not choose me (on our anniversary).

I choose love anyway…because I’ve paid the price of not. Now, I face something I’ve been running from most of my life, writing. I’ve already been told by someone in my family that they will not read this. They don’t want to know my darkness, which inherently implies that they don’t want to know their own. It also assures that they will never fully know my light and, therefore, me. And that’s ok. Somehow it just further confirms to me that this is something I have to do.

And here we are. Each experience brings with it an opportunity to relate and share with others. At the end of the day, In Bloom is about me (and you) being in bloom. As cheesy as it may sound, I am the first garden I must learn to care for. Though I believe that ultimately only this moment matters, history can be a valuable tool in changing the present…

I lived in New York City for a time where I studied writing. We were to write a short story about anything we wanted to. I sat down one day to write and out came one of the very last days of my addiction…

The chase is finally over. At least for the next few hours, she thought as she plopped down in relief on the naked, urine-smelling mattress by the door. She took a hit and desperately struggled to hold the poison deep in her lungs. For a moment…it was exhilarating! What she imagined heaven must feel like…light and free…limitless. She exhaled, only because her body forced her to, and as she did, she warped into numbness mode. She needed that numbness. It was the only weapon she had left to fight life.

Her family briefly crossed her mind…her little brothers and how she missed them…her father and his disappointment in her…her stepmom and her incessant worrying…her letter saying she had sent a guardian angel…her mother and her relentless efforts to save her…the looks of disgrace from everyone…but with a sip of a warm, foam-less quart of beer, she swallowed those thoughts right down. The pain of remembering that there were people out there that she mattered to, was too much to bear. She knew she was unworthy of love and figured that they would all eventually realize it too (if they hadn’t already).

She glanced around the room…the cloudy, roach infested room whose only source of light came in through a window from a nearby streetlamp, and from a digital clock that branded laser red numbers into her large black pupils. She wasn’t sure if it was morning or night…not that it mattered anyway. The shadow of a hunched over body in the corner of the room caught her eye as she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone…

Fuck, she thought as she plucked another crumb of her ticket back to bliss from a miniature zip-lock bag. Carefully, she pressed it into the tip of a narrow glass tube that had once held the stem of a white rose…with the strike of a match, the man began to raise his head. She couldn’t make out the expression on his face or see his eyes, nor did she particularly want to. She couldn’t recall his name either, but she knew that she needed him that night…his car, money, connections…regretfully, she also knew that her contribution was next. He slowly found his way over to where she was sitting and staggered down next to her.

She had been up for days, and the psychosis was taking its toll. As if reading her mind, the man reached into his pocket with his rough, dark-colored hands and withdrew 8 powder-blue pills. He handed her 3 and ate the rest. Fucking selfish bastard.

After she had consumed her portion of the pills with the remaining beer, the man slid back onto the single-sized mattress whose springs were now beginning to protrude through its skin. He clutched her shoulder, pulled her back and they began her part of the unspoken bargain.

She was on her back with her limp head resting to the side. Hurry up…a cockroach darting across the wall caught her eye. Then another…and another. They reminded her of a time when bugs would set her curiosity in motion. She would follow them around and watch them closely, wondering where they were going and what they were doing…Oh God…Please hurry up…as tears almost welled up in her eyes and almost made their way down her sunken-in cheeks.

This, she knew, was what hell felt like.

My answer to life…I thought I wasn’t cut out for this human stuff. A round peg in a square-holed earth. I went to any lengths to run away from myself. By the end, there wasn’t enough alcohol or drugs in the whole wide world to take the pain away. I had run out of places to go. All I wanted was to die and that wasn’t happening fast enough. At 19 years old, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I didn’t want to go, but even more than that, I couldn’t live like that anymore. A man from the meetings gave me the phone number of a woman and told me to call her. That she would be perfect for me. Out of desperation, I did, and I found Betsy…

The very first thing that Betsy asked me was, “Are you willing to go to any lengths to stay sober?” I was. I was beaten. She told me to call her every day, go to meetings every day, ask God (whether I believed in Him or not) to keep me sober in the morning and thank him every night, to help other alcoholics, to stay away from people, places, and things. She was tough and honest. I needed that. She drank exactly like me. I couldn’t hide from her. She told me the truth no matter what…even if it hurt me. She cared more about me staying sober than about my feelings or me liking her (thank God for that). She sacrificed my short-term happiness for my long-term benefit (isn’t this what unconditional love does?). By example and with great passion, she taught me how to live life without a drink or a drug and so, so much more. She placed in me, the mustard seed…

A man would soon tell me that I was receiving a great legacy through Betsy and that someday it would be my job to pass it on…