I walk down the sidewalk and stop in front of a parking lot. I learned a few weeks after landing homeless on the street that there is divine warmth that radiates off of car engines, and if I hovered around I could feel it, however fleeting. I stand in front of a white Honda Acura, trying to absorb all the warmth I can, staring out at the bay, with the bridge spreading itself across the skyline. The views that people come from around the world to see hold no beauty for me.
Sober and Shameless
Interventionist, Author of The Lost Years and expert from TLC's Addicted, writes on addiction, recovery and living life sober.
01/12/2011
Do Not Count Us Out
01/08/2011
Do Not Count Us Out
I walk down the sidewalk and stop in front of a parking lot. I learned a few weeks after landing homeless on the street that there is divine warmth that radiates off of car engines, and if I hovered around I could feel it, however fleeting. I stand in front of a white Honda Acura, trying to absorb all the warmth I can, staring out at the bay, with the bridge spreading itself across the skyline. The views that people come from around the world to see hold no beauty for me.
How did this happen to me? How will I ever get out? I pray as hard as I can that god will take me from this nightmare, but until then, or in case He in all his wisdom has forgotten me, I will drink myself to death.
My prays were not answered in death, but in landing in a homeless shelter -- after having a near-death experience, seeing a white light and knowing it was not my time. I have struggled and fought my way through 16 and half years of sobriety, putting my life back together slowly. I got off the street, moved into a van, found a job in a coffee shop and began to heal myself. I’ve faced and made amends to each person in my life I have ever harmed, including knocking on the doors of the homes I robbed. I put myself through school, passed my GED, and took one college course at a time. I opened an addiction intervention business, which has grown from one phone in the corner of my 400-square-foot studio to an international company helping families in crisis all over the world.
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I feel like shouting sometimes, as loud as I can, that addicts can and do recover. Addicts of all types- over eaters, under eaters, self harmers, gamers, shoppers, hoarders, love and sex addicts, drug addicts and alcoholics and everyone else in between-can and do recover.
We are not expendable.
We do matter. We can be difficult, hurtful, say terrible things, lie, steal, cheat, we can smell, maybe we are fat, maybe too thin, but beneath the addiction, we are worthy. We do feel. We are sad and afraid. We are lost and are being crushed beneath the weight of the addiction that is strangling the very life from us but we are valuable and worth saving.
Do not count us out: We are resilient. We are powerful; and once in recovery and on a path of wellness, we are unstoppable. I have watched miracles happen in my work. I have watched near-death people come back to life. I have seen the uneducated become educated, and I have seen the unemployable become employable. I have watched abandoned children learn to love themselves, and I have seen parents who lost their families become parents again, regaining the trust of their most beloved. I have witnessed families heal generations of pain caused by addiction.
We are everywhere. Recovering addicts of all addictions, we are everywhere, loving and living life to the best of our ability.
Happy New Year
Sober and Shameless,
Kw
12/12/2010
Ten Suggestions for the Holiday Season
As a family interventionist, I have spent the last 15 years supporting families of addiction through the holiday season and into the New Year. Some families are still waging the war, trying to save themselves and their loved ones and some families are in early, middle or the later stages of recovery. Whatever phase families are in they all need support and guidance. I have come up with the top ten suggestions I have given families over the years. I hope they help you or someone you love.
1. Tell the truth. Families of addiction are afraid to tell the truth. The most painful truths, when told with compassion, can mend broken relationships. It is not pain that splinters families, it is dishonesty. Be honest with yourself and those you love. Take the risk to live a transparent life. Hide nothing; Live open.
2. Be mindful of your own relationship with alcohol and other chemicals. You cannot pass on what you do not have. Be an example.
3. Do not let your holiday plans be derailed by another person's choices or consequences. Addiction will derail the best laid plans if you allow it. Stay focused on path, your family will follow.
4. Create new family holiday traditions that do not include alcohol. If addiction has affected your family first hand, it makes sense to take a break from all substances and enjoy life and the holidays unaltered, sometimes for the first time, in years.
5. Do not be afraid to be different. Not as many people as you think will notice if you choose to take on number 4. Set the tone for your family and lead the way. It simply is not true, that 'everyone drinks at the holidays.' Be brave. Be sober.
6. For families and addicts alike, always have an exit paln, when attending holiday parties. Always have a way out, a safe ride home, numbers in your pocket, of people to call for support, your own car, numbers to taxi's or friends, or all of the above, but always have a way out.
7. Attend a 12 step meeting. You do not have to have your own addiction to attend a 12 meeting and the redemption in the rooms is almost contagious and the good will palpable.
8. Be of service to someone else. Give freely of your time. Nothing soothes the soul like getting outside of yourself. For example, It is a very powerful to leave the comfort and warmth of your own home and feed the homeless, even if your own heart is breaking, you will feel better. I promise.
9. Play. Families that have been affected by addiction become accustom to heavy tension, free floating fear and a sense of powerlessness, to help themselves and those they love most. Over time, this 'walking on egg shells feeling' becomes the norm. Families need to play. Run on the beach, walk down a sidewalk and notice something you have not before, or get up five minutes earlier and simply stare out the window and take in the beauty of early morning.
10. Write a gratitude list. Families of addiction can have a narrow tunnel of vision as addiction slowly takes over the lives of the family members. Write a gratitude list. Put down everything you are grateful for. I guarantee that by you get number 10 you will begin to feel better, if only for moments.
Remember always, if the addict in your life is using or not, it is possible to have a joyous holiday season. Rest, enjoy and ring in the new year with a festive heart, always bearing in mind, as long as the addict is still breathing there is hope for change, recovery and redemption.
Sober and Shameless, Kw
11/18/2010
Lets Get Addicted
I was asked at my last speaking engagement by a woman, “Kristina Do you think that helping others is a new addiction for you?”
11/07/2010
The Power of Inspiration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwNY-5DaZg
I am humbled to be featured in this video along with these other amazing and moving stories.
Sober and Shameless, Kw
11/03/2010
Lets Get Addicted
I was asked at my last speaking engagement by a woman, “Kristina Do you think that helping others is a new addiction for you?”
I was surprised by the question. I stood in silence for minutes as I considered my response.
“In my addiction, I did terrible things. I am a person who has done anything to get and stay high. I have robbed homes, sold my body, I have hurt my family; changing and altering their lives forever, which is a weight I carry. I was viscous and cold and heartless. I stole from you anything I could take and would lie to get want I wanted. Every second I was awake I wanted to die. I lived this way for years, and would infect anyone near me with the misery of my addiction.
In the last 17 years, I have tried to change my outlook on life. I have made peace with those I harmed most, including myself. I have laid the truth of my life and addiction out for the public see, and bared the vulnerability of standing, bare, exposed and honest, in hopes that others might learn. I have built a practice helping families, fighting and waging the war against active addiction. I have sat up late into the night with newcomer women who are scared and overwhelmed at the prospect of a life sober, when drinking and using is what we do best. I have sat in homeless shelters, spoken at numerous high schools, churches and community centers, trying to educate on addiction and inspire change and recovery. In 17 years, I have gone from opening my eyes in the morning, feeling so angry that I was still alive, to opening my eyes, and asking myself, ‘how can I help today?”
My life has purpose and at the end of the day, when the kids are asleep and the work is done, the house is quite and the day complete, I can honestly say, I am proud of who I am and the life I lead.”
The room stood, and applauded, as tears rolled down my cheeks.
If a life of service is a needle in my veins, I’ll shoot it, if helping others fills me with the sweet sense of purpose, I will inhale it and if giving of myself helps others ‘live and rediscover life,’ I’ll drink it.
If helping others is addiction, I say, “let’s get Addicted.”
Sober and Shameless, Kw
10/31/2010
10/30/2010
Wounded or Wise
I spoke before a group of police officers in my home town. It was their holiday party, and they asked me to do a presentation on addiction and an inspirational talk on recovery. The group contained some of the same officers that ‘knew’ me during my years of addiction. I give speeches all the time in my work in front of audiences of ten people to many hundreds, and speaking is something that I enjoy and look forward to. However, on this afternoon, I found myself very nervous. Nearly sick, really; in fact it has been many years since I have been that nervous. Standing in front of this group of men and women, badges shining, hair combed perfectly and uniforms pressed with sharp creases, brought back all the memories and emotions from a hard time in my life. Then, the police were always the enemy.
I robbed homes. I broke into houses while families were away, and stole whatever I needed to pay for more glorious and necessary highs. To say I didn’t care would be untrue; I did. I carried heavy regret deep inside, which a clean bag of meth and a bottle of gin, might dull for awhile. I thought of the families more than I dared to admit, but as time passed I learned to push the thoughts and feelings away. The police haunted me.
So standing in front of these police men and women, some faces familiar some not, I was filled with ugly feelings of many years past. I did my best to set them aside, and began to tell my story. At the end, they stood and applauded. They asked questions, and one of the young officers asked me, “How does it feel to be wounded at such a young age?”
This question brought back many emotions. First I was enraged; how dare he judge me? It’s so easy to sit in your chair and call me wounded. I was ashamed. It has been a long time since I considered myself wounded. In fact I have spent fifteen and half years trying to heal my wounds from addiction. Then I felt sad. What if he is right and I am nothing more than a wounded person trying to masquerade as a healthy person? Maybe, this is the tragedy of addiction, that I would never really be free. I will always be trying to get back to what I was never able to be. Maybe I will always be defined by my addiction.
But, in the middle of this spiral of emotion, it came to me: I am not wounded. I am wise. I am wise in areas I never planned on being wise and I pray my children will never have to learn their wisdom the way I did. I can tell you about the dark side of addiction. I can tell you what it feels like to sell your body for a gram of coke; I can tell you what it is like to see evil in the eyes of the man who is raping you in an alley; I can tell you what it is like to be on the edge of desperation, be willing to do anything just for one more hit of any chemical. I can tell you what it is like to feel hunger so deep that begging becomes an option and I can tell you what it feels like to be so cold that your body aches and your bones feel frozen. I can tell you what it feels like to miss your family so deeply that the human light inside almost flickers out. And I can tell you what it is like to face death completely alone, and being overcome with fear that it will not be a fleet of angels coming to take you home.
I can also tell you what it is like to recover from a “seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.” I can speak of the courage and tenacity it takes to stay sober one day at a time. I can tell you what it feels like to do an honest day’s work for the first time. I can tell you how it feels to come face to face with those I have harmed, standing in the doorways of every home I robbed. I can tell you how it feels to see my rapist and somehow come to terms with what he did to me and allow him the same opportunity to try to find recovery in the rooms of A.A. I can speak to the joy and exhilaration of becoming an All American swimmer only a few years after being an all American drug addict. I can tell you about how great it feels to be alive in the morning and how it feels to play with my children. I know what it means and how it feels to be in the grace of god and to be grateful for every moment that I am alive.
I said to the young officer, “I am no longer wounded. I am wise and I know how lucky I am to live the life I do, not because it is grand, but simply because it is. My wounds have closed and I am taking my rightful place in the world. I am a woman, who is a wife, a mother, a business owner, an author, an All American athlete, and All American drug addict with 15 years of soberity. And I am proud to stand before you today, defined by none of them. I am truly free”
Sober and Shameless, Kw
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