For Jerry suffering from anxiety was a hell he never envisioned it was sobriety, not alcohol that led to hope and recovery
By Jerry A.
September 1, 2020My name is Jerry A. I have been sober 11 years since July 27, 2009. Here is the story of my journey and my “hope moment.”
I was raised in a very nice household. I would even call my childhood privileged. When I turned about 9, I started to have debilitating anxiety. So bad that I would come home and lay in the fetal position on my bed because I could not calm down. In those days I was just told, “Oh, it’s growing pains,” and the issue was never addressed.
When I found alcohol somewhere between 17 to 18 years old, I thought I had finally found a cure for my anxiety. I immediately became an alcoholic. Alcoholism exists in my family, and the environment in which I lived made it very easy to get alcohol.
By the time I was a junior in college, I knew deep in the back of my brain that I was an alcoholic and this was probably not going to end well.”
By the time I was a junior in college, I knew deep in the back of my brain that I was an alcoholic and this was probably not going to end well. I destroyed a relationship with a girl I loved very much. That added to my problems and only made me a more voracious drinker.
I was never honest with myself—or all the people around me. Hope arrived at my doorstep on Sunday, July 26, 2009. That’s when my entire family from all over the country came in with an interventionist. I was given two options: 1. Get served with divorce papers and be banished from my family for life, or 2. Listen to each person’s story and get treatment for my horrible addiction.
The choice was easy.
I was SO relieved that they were there. I could finally admit defeat (something I have a real hard time with).
HOPE had arrived!
Eleven years is not that long. I have learned a lot about myself, and I hold my sobriety close to my heart.”
Hope continues to drive me as I work the program and especially the 12 steps. My sobriety has been tested in many ways throughout the past 11 years. I live with a son who has extreme bipolar disease and my wife has severe depression.
I have been through hell and back during my recovery, saving my son from killing himself two times and my wife once. My sobriety is stronger for all of this. This is part of “giving away my program.” By giving it away, I feel a tremendous sense of relief and satisfaction.
Eleven years is not that long. I have learned a lot about myself, and I hold my sobriety close to my heart. After all, this is something I am doing for myself, no one else, and hope is something I am graced to feel every day because of it.
