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Recovery in the News
"Somehow I pulled myself together"
Meg Haskell
Bangor Daily News
September 28, 2006
I woke up early Sunday morning on the floor of my office, with my forefinger wrapped around the handle of an empty jug of wine and absolutely no recollection of buying it," G.G. Roberts said. "I have no clue where the idea came from, but somehow I pulled myself together, still very drunk, and I went to AA."
It was her first contact with Alcoholics Anonymous, at a 12 Keys clubhouse in Leavittown, Pa.
In the empty parking lot, as she waited for the building to open, a disheveled, unshaven man walked toward her car. "I looked at him and I thought, 'Now there's a real alcoholic.' But he came right up to my window and bent down and said, 'You never have to feel this way again.' Turned out, he had eight years of sobriety and came to the parking lot every morning looking for people like me, to keep them company until the meeting started."
That was back in February 1978, and G.G., now 73 and living back in her hometown of Skowhegan, hasn't touched alcohol since. Recently retired from a satisfying second career as a substance abuse counselor, she emphasized that virtually every user she has worked with has suffered from some kind of deep emotional pain, most often stemming from childhood trauma and pressures.
Family dysfunction comes in many forms, she said. "People can be addicted to religion, to their work and their ambition. A father who gets so angry at ball games, yelling at his kid for not being a better player he's setting that kid up." "I was spending a lot of time in bed, sleeping."
Meg Haskell
Bangor Daily News
September 28, 2006
In 1988, at the private residential treatment program he checked into "just to get people off my back, because I knew I didn't really have problem" Danny Gazette encountered "street thugs from New York City, heroin addicts and people so fried on alcohol they couldn't string two words together." It was intimidating. He felt like he didn't belong there, because, again he didn't really have a problem.
Except for the Xanax he had been taking for more than six years, first at the prescribed dose and frequency, but lately more pills, more often. "I was spending a lot of time in bed, sleeping," he recalled. "I was becoming very dysfunctional."
Within a couple of days of checking in at the treatment program, he said, "I fit right in. We were all there for the same reason."
Danny grew up in a family where alcoholism was a daily reality, and faults the Washington, D.C., psychiatrist he was seeing at the time for continuing to prescribe the anti-anxiety medication after studies showed it was addictive.
"I'm predisposed to addictive behaviors," he said. "If someone has an addictive personality, why are you giving them tranquilizers?"
The 28-day residential program was a success, not only breaking the Xanax habit but also helping Danny to begin sorting out some longstanding psychological baggage. "I was able to put a lot of that garbage away and start thinking about what I wanted to do with my life," he said.
Now working in the public school system and living contentedly in Farmington, Danny says people should be wary of using medications to deal with their emotions.
"The best way to deal with anxiety or depression is to go in and talk with someone," he said. "Medication can be a helpful tool if it is used right, but the doctor really needs to know what he is doing and see the whole person before he writes that prescription."
"There was just no hope if I didn't get sober."
Meg Haskell
Bangor Daily News
September 28, 2006
John Stillings has been at the Day One residential treatment program in Hollis for about eight months now. At 19, he has got a lot a lot of history to sort through, including his role in a tragic 2004 car accident that claimed the life of a young friend in his hometown of Glenburn.
"If I went back to drinking now, it would be like slapping my friend in the face," he said. "I also realized that if I didn't get my life together, I was looking at spending a long time in institutions. There was just no hope if I didn't get sober."
John started using young, and is trying to catch up with fundamental life lessons he missed. "When you start using drugs at a young age, you don't really mature," he said. "Responsibility, reasoning skills, basic stuff; it's like a whole life packed into a year here."
He misses his family; his parents did everything they could to intervene in his drug use, and they have given him unconditional support since he has been in treatment. He would prefer to live near them when he leaves Day One but plans instead to stay in Portland to be part of the strong community of young people in recovery there. "I don't really know anyone my age in recovery up in Bangor," he said. "Everyone I know there is still using." Judy Redding doesn't like the term "co-dependence."
Meg Haskell
Bangor Daily News
September 25, 2006
Judy Redding doesn't like the term "co-dependence." _ "It pathologizes the family," she insists. But Judy, a licensed drug and alcohol counselor with a long career in the treatment field and a recent master's degree in anthropology, is quick to admit that when her husband, Rod, was finally ready to get help for his longtime drinking problem, "My first response was, 'Great! But I don't have to quit drinking, do I?'"
It was Rod's long climb toward sobriety that fueled Judy's professional interest, as she and the couple's children participated in 12-step programs and group counseling sessions for the families of alcoholics. In time, she opened a private counseling practice, and then became a consultant and a political lobbyist for treatment providers.
"But I continued to drink," she said. "I was living a dual life. I was going out and working in the field, then coming home and drinking by myself." One evening in the winter of 1985, after a glorious day of downhill skiing with her husband and their youngest daughter, she found herself crouched behind the kitchen counter, secretly chugging down enough cheap wine to get her through the evening ahead.
"I had a spiritual awakening," she said. It was the last drink she ever took.
Of her own progress in treatment and the support of the 12-step community, she says simply, "The loving kindness and compassion of people in recovery is boundless."
Judy Redding seems poised for a happy, productive and creative retirement. She has a loving family, a pretty antique farmhouse with a view of the Kennebec Valley, a new motorcycle and opportunities to travel.
"You look at us now, and we look pretty good. And we are good" she said, reaching to take her husband's hand. "But, oh my God, the freakin' fires we've been through." "I suddenly understood that if I didn't stop drinking, I would die young."
Meg Haskell
Bangor Daily News
September 25, 2006
The first time he agreed to enter an out-of-state residential treatment program for alcoholics, Rod Redding brought along a handful of Valium and a pint of vodka to help ease his transition into sobriety. "I thought I could smuggle it in," the retired educator recalled with a rueful chuckle. "But they found it." After 35 days of intensive personal therapy, group sessions, recovery meetings and physical exercise, he was feeling good, ready to return to his home and family and a promising academic career in Maine.
"On the way to airport, I stopped at a bar and had two drinks," he said. "I was showing them who was in charge. It's such a perfect example of alcoholic thinking."
Clean and sober for 27 years now, Rod can poke gentle fun at his fruitless attempts to control his drinking. There were the early-morning battles of conscience when he would toy with the notion that maybe drinking wine for breakfast wasn't the best thing. There was the seductive notion that he could somehow school himself to "drink like other people." There was the "2-2-2 plan" an agreement he worked out with his wife, Judy "Twice a week, I could have two beers, and twice a year, I could get drunk."
But one chilly morning in 1979, watching the sun come up over the St. Croix River and nursing a hangover from a party the night before, "I suddenly understood that if I didn't stop drinking, I would die young. I would lose my wife, my family, my job everything that really mattered to me. And for the first time in my life, I wanted not to drink more than I wanted to drink." He was 45, and, with the support of the 12-step philosophy, hasn't taken another drink since.
In 1994, Rod Redding retired from a respected classroom and administrative career in the Maine Community College System. >From 1994 to 2001, he taught classes in psychology and human services at the University of Maine at Augusta, and was recently named professor emeritus at that school. Occasionally, he and Judy still teach a course together, called, appropriately enough, "Addiction in the Family."
"Recovery Works" will feature two profiles each Thursday and will replace the "Finding a Fix" column through September.