How it all began...the first few weeks

Through out my late teens and early 20's, I had always liked to have fun. For me, this meant going to bars and staying out late with friends. Alcohol filled a void and gave me a new feeling of being carefree.. a feeling that I thoroughly enjoyed and never wanted to let go of. I guess you could say that since I had to always be the adult as a child... that once I grew up and actually became an adult, I felt I was justified in wanting to act like a child. I only recognize this behavior now as childish.... However, while I was in the throws of it, it seemed to me as only a meer way of letting loose and letting go.... a pleasant escape from reality... and if you couldn't understand, then I was sorry... it wasn't my problem, it was yours.

We had no children..... no responsibilities... As long as I made it to class... I didn't see the problem. Never mind the fact that I would wake up with my head spinning and making every effort I could not to throw up in the car...

......The beautiful and glorious days of being hungover.... it was sickening

 I look back now and don't understand what appealed so much to me about that. It was a time of reckless abandon, I thank God that I never hurt myself or anyone during those days. Selfish behavior was running riot in my life and all I cared about was myself and how a situation affected me.

These days are nauseating... I could very easily become disgusted with myself.

The years passed by and slowly alcohol lost it's appeal to me, I found that I didn't care to drink. However, another drug had taken over my life.. a drug that was introduced by these new friends I mentioned earlier. I lost 30 pounds and felt that I had never looked better in my life. It is a shame that even though the outward appearances had improved, my insides were slowly being torn apart.. The idea that I could suffer a heart attack or a stroke, never crossed my mind. Or if it did, I was too wrapped up in it to care..

That is the way addiction works.... it becomes so powerful and so consuming, that even with knowledge of possible harm, your body screams to just do it one more time... just once.....but as I have learned, one is too  many and 1,000 will never be enough..

...  This escapade lasted only a few months and eventually stopped as well. These experiences only strengthening the idea in my head that people who had problems with drug addiction or alcohol were full of it.. It was simply a matter of will-power and telling yourself no. Easy as that......

I was setting myself up for a huge slap in the face and a wake up call delivered straight from the hands of God.

Addictions, no matter the source, resemble the life of a passenger on the Titanic. You can switch from room to room... The room of alcohol may lose its appeal, so then you go to the room of Cocaine... and when that is no longer fun, you switch to the room of co-dependency... looking for others to validate you.

However many times you decide to change rooms.... one fact remains true....

The ship is still going down.......

I wish I had known then that this is what was going on in my life... Yet, at the time, I never even believed for a second that I had any sort of addiction problem.. I honestly and truly just didn't consider the idea.

"See how easily you can stop", I would tell myself... "This isnt addiction, this is just recreation... youre young, youre having fun, what is the harm? If you need to stop, you will. See.... you stopped drinking all the time.. and you put your nasty cocaine habit away..."

Even though I realize now that all of the signs were there... when you are absorbed in the moment, sometimes the hardest thing to see is the thing that is right in front of your face. Call me naive, but I just did not see it..

Fast forward a couple of years later and here I am... pregnant with my first son. The idea of taking a drink or any drug for that matter had long left my mind... I had moved on and I was growing up. My responsibilities were now directed towards my husband and our growing family.. and I can say that I was going through one of the happiest times in my life.

August 23rd arrived... and at 4:17 in the morning, Parker Bennett Roberson was born. Arriving 5 weeks early, he was the most perfect and beautiful thing I had ever been a part of. I felt like I had just accomplished one of the greatest moments I would ever experience.

Even though I was dissapointed by the fact that I had to have a c-section, none of that mattered anymore when I held that precious little boy in my arms. The world stood still and for a second, I was completely and utterly blown away.  The day couldnt have been any better. We were surrounded by our family and friends.. with smiling faces from every corner. I wasn't affected by the pain, they had me connected to a PCA pump that delivered morphine through an IV anytime I hit the button. Even though I was uncomfortable, the joy of my new son and the euphoria I felt from holding him, easily drowned out any signal from my body that I had just undergone major abdominal surgery. I am proud to say that I would have to be reminded by the nurse to push that button...

6:30 pm...... I am laying in my hospital bed... Josh leaves the room after a phone call and doesn't mention where he is going.... he just gets up and steps out...

8:30pm... I am still alone... I have no one in the room, my baby is in the nursery... and I am absolutely alone... By this time I am sick to my stomach with worry. I have called josh 100 times and he doesnt answer my calls... I call every family member I can think of.......nothing.................. It is at this time, I begin to cry. I am alone, in the dark, and I can not find anyone.  I call out to the nurse and ask her to please bring me my son... I was grasping for any feeling of comfort I could find... and that comfort, I believed, could be found in Bennett. I wanted to hold him and feel his sweet warm breath against my cheek. Even though I wanted to hold him... in reality, he would have been holding me.

The nurse tells me that the doctors are with him and that he can't come to my room at the time. I immediatly feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. As a mother, my mind begins to race... I suddenly feel that there is something very wrong... I start to wonder if my baby is dead, if that is why no one will bring him... if that is why no one will answer my calls...... I am crawling in my skin.... I want to run out of the door screaming and begging for someone to please tell me what is going on...

But I can't....I am confined to a hospital bed.... my stomach has been cut open... and I can't move. I am stuck and I am in one of the worst physical predicaments of my life. Completely and totally helpless.

It is at this moment that I see something that to this day, still runs through my mind.  I see josh... I see steve.. I see my grandmother... and I see a group of our closest friends.. followed by 2 of my doctors... and somewhere in the middle, I see my mother. She is shaking.. unable to walk... and covered in blood..

Josh comes to me and carries out one of the hardest actions I believe anyone in this life would ever have to do. He grabs my hand... and through a trembling voice, I hear him say the words I will never forget.

... Deann... I'm so sorry..... Tommy has been in an accident...

I ask him if my daddy is okay... hoping and praying that somewhere in all of this, God has found a way to grant us mercey... Surely.... the God I believed in wouldnt do this to me. He wouldnt give me the happiest day of my life just to rip it away in one of the most cruel and hurtful ways imaginable..

But the answer I am looking for is not there... and all I hear is... "he's dead"..

A deep and painful knot develops in my throat.... and I feel sick to my stomach...I start to shake and the tears fall from my eyes.... flooding down my cheek...

I can't stop crying... all I want to do is close my eyes and go back to the way it was just a few hours before.. Where I can sit in my room, and look in the corner at Tommy... beaming from ear to hear as he holds his precious grandson and sings to him a song that his daddy used to sing to him...

I feel deep sobs building in my chest..... but I can't let them go.... It was at that moment that I learned that in order to sob.. your stomach muscles have to be intact... and frankly, mine are not..  Instead, they are hanging on together by a few stitches... With each wail that tries to escape from my mouth... a horrible and burning pain shoots from my stomach up into my chest.... and at that very moment, it hits me.... I cant even cry like I need to... and there again, I feel completely and totally helpless.

My hands reach for the button.... I need something to ease the physical pain I am in....  a few minutes later I realize that I don't hurt so much... not just physically, but emotionally as well... and for just a moment, this situation seems managable.

Days go by and the funeral has arrived.... From the moment I left the hospital, I have been on my feet. Well wishers come to our house to see the new baby.... and then to offer condolances at the same time..Their eyes give it all away....

I havent rested.... I can't sit still... if I do, I start to think too much... and then I feel as if I am going to lose my mind... So I keep myself up and busy... By this time, it is a week later and I have gone through a prescription of Percocet... I had reached a point where my incision was starting to swell even more, and I was anemic from losing blood... my blood pressure was elevated and it was obvious I was in pain due to the fact that I hadn't taken a single minute to allow my body to try to heal.. So I took my medicine every 4 hours, as directed, and I soldiered on.. I kept a strong front for my mother and my family.. I had to hold myself together for my son.

I call my doctor and ask them about refilling my medication. I have to be at the funeral in a few hours and I will be on my feet all day.. The doctor agrees and mentions that he will make sure that I have enough to get me through the next few weeks since the situation at hand has called for a greater physical demand than most.

At this time, I am still not psychologically or physically addicted.. and, had I been able to stop then, I probably never would have become that way.... Yet, a few weeks later, I am in the hospital again... having another surgery related to complications from the c-section... and so it begins..

6 weeks of continued use, moving from one surgery to the next.. with one complication followed by another..

My body has now become accustomed to the chemical componets of this medication.. I am directed by the physician to take 2 tablets instead of 1 to limit the pain from the most recent surgery. He tells me that it is normal for the body to need an increased dosage after being exposed for a period of time. I just wish he had told me then, what so many tell me now... all it takes is 2 weeks..... just 2 weeks.. and your body can become dependent.

and unknowingly, that is exactly what was starting to happen to me...

One Year later... and a battle of a lifetime

As I look back at the entries from last year, I am overwhelmed by the emotion I was experiencing. The pain of loss and suffering is so apparent to me now. I almost feel as if I am an outsider looking into my own life as I read the words that I wrote so effortlessly last spring..

I look back and feel the sting of the reality of the situation.. not only was I suffering the imense pain of the loss of a father, I was suffering the pain of a loss of myself... Oh how I wish I could speak to that woman from last spring and tell her... STOP, PRAY, and dear God.. please ask someone for help... I wonder if things now would be different if I had known then, the amount of heartache I would bring upon myself.... Little did I know, but I was entering the battle of a lifetime.

I sit here as I write... and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. I am nervous... I am scared... I am aprehensive. For a while, I have been struggling with the notion of letting so many people into some of the darkest parts of my life. At first, the worry of judgement overwhelms me.... but then there is a sense of peace. I feel a familiar voice in my heart telling me to let go and reach out... I sometimes wonder if that familiar voice is that of God. A voice that for so long, I ignored when convienent.

 But as I have learned, his whisper soon turns into a loud demand that I can only put off for so long.

So today, I am taking a risk and putting myself out there.. in hopes that maybe, just maybe, someone can find consolation in knowing they are not alone.. because for so long, I felt as if I was... Chalk it up to living in a small town.. but it isnt difficult to feel like the isolated blacksheep when it seems as if you are the only one with these struggles. The struggle of addiction or alcoholism. My drug of choice was pain killers... I had learned that not only does it relieve physical pain.. but emotional pain as well.

Or at least so I thought... I would later learn in rehab that all i was doing was putting a band aid over a much larger problem... covering...... covering....covering.....

Not actually dealing with the root of my sadness and hurt.

I only ask one thing of you... I ask that whoever you are, you keep an open heart and a tight tongue. It is so easy to judge those when you do not understand the situaton they are facing. I hope to help you understand all that I can about so many of us affected in some way by this horrible affliction. Either dealing with this disease themselves or having someone close to them fighting it.  Each person in life has hardships and difficulties. Some of us are blessed with never knowing the heartaches that could be so easily cast upon us and.... some of us are not.

God gave us the shoes that fit our feet. It is our duty to walk in those shoes to the best of our ability. I now can say that I took my shoes, put them on, and when the walk got difficult, I looked to the only escape I knew.

No child ever says when they grow up that they want to become an addict or an alcoholic. When I was a little girl, all I wanted was to feel loved. I wanted to feel like I fit in somewhere, or that I belonged... With a single mother who worked non-stop, my environment wasn't the most stable or forgiving. I had to grow up and grow up fast... I had to take care of myself.  If you had an emotion, you sucked it up and delt with it on your own.. The most important rule, never let anyone see you appearing weak. That meant, all smiles, all the time. It meant that when things got painful, it was YOUR job to hold everyone together and to get them through.... worry about yourself later.

Little did I know that this mindset that I had acquired at the age of 6 would become the mindset that would send me down a path of total and complete self-destruction.

Very simply put.... My father had been killed, I was a mother to two small children, a very close relationship with someone dear to me had been strained beyond any control... and I was hurt. My heart literally feels as if it is going to break into a million little pieces and leave me lifeless.

For several years before I had children, a did what most college students did. I drank... and I liked it. I like the feeling it gave me... that feeling of being confidant in myself and of who I was. I was a happier person.. I could forget about all of the things that made me feel so worn and beaten. There was a period where I drank and I drank a lot... at the time I couldnt see that I was the only one doing this. I simply wrote it off as not having the right friends... I needed friends that liked to have fun as much as I did.. and liked to have fun all the time. (I think back to this and I am humbled by my behavior. So many things I took for granted...)

Eventually these new "friends" led me to other things that would consume my life for a few years... things that I wouldnt escape until Josh and I became pregnant with our first child. I was amazed at how easily I put everything down.. no second guessing... I was becoming a mother and I was honored to be able to take pride in myself for once... I was creating a child, and I wanted to make sure that this little miracle would have the best life possible.. and that meant taking care of myself.

When I was in treatment a year ago at Fellowship Hall in Greensboro, a counseler that I grew to respect and love who had almost 30 years of sobriety, brought up a very good point that I had never thought about before. She asked me why I thought I was so easily able to stay clean and sober when I was pregnant. She then said something to me that would affect me immensely. She said, "It is time for you to love yourself as much as you love your children"... Hearing that felt awkward and wrong... I worried that it was selfish and self centered to put yourself first.

Only now am I starting to gain a true understanding of what she really meant... Recovery is something that we can only do for ourselves. We can't do it for our friends.... our families... our spouses... or even our children.  I have to do this for ME... and me alone. They say that the one thing you put infront of your recovery, will be the first thing you lose.......

As I try to think of the words to say.... I am hit by the sting of reality... June 2nd, 2011 would have marked One Year for me... One year of being the person that GOD had created me to be... not the person I had formed myself into. Sadly, this date will come and pass without celebration. Instead, I am now thanking God for 36 days. After 10.5 months of a new life, I let my guard down. With the severity unknown to anyone, I was struggling with an immense hurt and heartache of emotionally losing someone very close to me.. someone that was my last tie to the memories of my father and our family. Exhausted from this turmoil and the countless days in and out of the hospital with our new son, followed by the emotional highs and lows... I became lost inside of my own head and misery.. and turned to the old familiar ways that I knew best. For two days, I patched my heartbreak with Percocet, rather than my faith and spirituality, and with those actions lost a friend and my serenity that I had worked so hard to obtain. And there I stood, April 21st.. back at square one... with my head hanging lower than it ever had. I had truly hit my rock bottom.  Reflecting over this hurts me beyond words...  I truly believe that disappointment in one's self is one of the most difficult things to endure. But for a moment... it is one of the most necessary things to feel. For this can give you the fire you need to reignite your true-self... the true-self that God so desperately wants the world to see and know.

I do not wish to shut the door on my past...for it can not be changed, no matter how hard I try to will it into fruition. My job is to take it as it is and pick myself back up and reach my hands toward God instead of the pill bottle. I dont ever want to forget the things I did.... the memories of those things, if I allow them, will always serve as a reminder and where I dont want to go and where I dont need to be.  And this time, I will let them... no more trying to erase from my mind the notion of who I am. I am Deann... a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a person... But most importantly... I am a recovering addict.

All I know for certain is that for today.... I am where I need to be.

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him" DEUT. 30: 19-20