I remember a time many years ago when I thought I had the whole world figured out. I thought I would graduate from high school, go on to college and be finished with my college degree in four years. I knew I would play sports in college, and I always hoped I would go to college on an athletic scholarship. I figured that once I finished with college, I would either go back and complete more schooling or I would go on and get a job and lead a ‘normal’ life. Never once did I imagine that my life would not work out this way.
A lot of these thoughts I can attribute to being young and naïve. I thought everything I had planned for myself would work out the way I expected. However, somewhere along the way, things changed. I began drinking and using drugs too often, caring less about school, athletics, and anything else in my life that would have been productive.
Never once did I think it would take me 5 or 6 years to complete college, being in and out of school and in and out of drug and alcohol treatment centers. Never once did I imagine that many of my Friday and Saturday nights would be spent at 12 step meetings, and that I would be calling myself an alcoholic and a drug addict.
Looking back, my time in treatment shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. I drank too often and too much, and I used drugs excessively. For a long time, though, I was able to function fairly well and I was able to do well in school and continue playing sports. That all changed when I began to care more about drugs, specifically cocaine, than anything else in the world. I can remember the first time I ever tried cocaine. I loved it, but it wasn’t something that immediately took over my entire life. It was a progression, but before I knew it, I felt like I couldn’t live without it and I didn’t want to live without it. Somewhere along the line, I lost all hope in achieving my goals, and quite honestly, I didn’t even care. Finding money to buy cocaine and using all of the cocaine I had were really my only goals. I suppose on some level I knew I had a problem, but I was so deep in denial I couldn’t admit it. I truly believed that cocaine made me a better person and allowed me to function better in my everyday life.
The truth is that it wasn’t until I overdosed and ended up in the emergency room and back in treatment that I was fully able to admit that I was a drug addict and that I could never successfully or safely use drugs. I had always known I drank too much and that sometimes my life was out of control, but the people with whom I surrounded myself were just like me. They drank and used drugs and I thought what I was doing was normal.
Cocaine took over my life, and it did so very quickly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see it that way until I almost lost everything, including my life. I used to think my life would go according to my plan. I know today that life doesn’t always work out that way. However, even though my life hasn’t been what I thought it would be, I wholeheartedly believe that it is unfolding the way it is supposed to and that I am where I am today for a reason.
Bio
Rachael is one half of the mother daughter team behind Addicted to Sobriety.com. Rachael is a recovering Drug Addict & Alcoholic. She’s attended multiple rehab centers, transitioned to a halfway house post recovery and now interns at a outpatient drug rehab center.