"You are never stronger … than when you land on the other side of despair." ~ Zadie Smith
In the last few years of my twenties, my life fell apart completely.
I had moved to Hollywood to be an actor, but after a few years in Tinsel Town, things didn't go as I had hoped. My crippling fear kept me from auditioning, extreme insecurity led to binge eating almost every night, and the inability to truly be myself translated into a herd of fair weather friends.
As the decade came to an end, I came across the last deadly ingredient in my toxic lifestyle: opiates. A couple of little pills prescribed for pain unlocked a part of my brain that I didn't know existed: a calm, confident, numb version of me that seemed a lot more manageable than the rethinking babble of thoughts, that I was used to.
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At first the pills were like a casual indulgence – I'd pop a few before a nerve-wracking audition or first date, the way other people might have a few drinks before going into town. But my casual relationship with opiates was short-lived: soon the pills were no longer reserved for awkward dates or nerve-wracking auditions, but necessary for any kind of outing or interaction.
I knew I had crossed an invisible line when I felt sick without a “dose” of medication. The physical pain that had been prescribed for them had long subsided, but it had created a need that only increased with use. Soon I got sick from not taking pills. Then I started trying to get more.
I wanted so badly to stop but felt trapped on a terrible journey: I would wake up and hate myself for what I had done the day before, and with deep shame I would earnestly swear to stop – then it would be the afternoon come and with it withdrawal symptoms. If my stomach spun and my head spun I would lose my resolve to stop and look for my next fix. With this solution would come a couple of hours of relief, followed by another cycle of self-loathing, a vow to quit, and more failure.
It was a spin cycle that probably would have killed me if life hadn't intervened in a way that felt devastating at the time. Within two weeks my “normal” facade collapsed and with it most of the pillars of my life. Like a house of cards falling over, I lost my job, my car, my relationship and was evicted from my house.
It felt like a cliche country song where the singer loses everything, except in those songs that person is usually personable and innocent – but in my story I felt like the bad guy.
As I saw my whole life collapse around me, I felt no choice but to return home and seek the protection of the only person who had always been there for me – my mother.
The mother who raised me with morals like honesty, accountability and kindness, even though I hadn't lived them for a while. The mother, who struggled to raise two children alone, got us off the food stamps by attending nursing school and watched helplessly as I descended into the same addiction cycle that cost my father his life.
She told me I could stay if I was sober; I swore to try, even though I'd long ago stopped believing my own promises.
In the recovery program I found soon after, there was an oft-repeated saying on every wall: "It's always darkest before dawn." Literally, it makes you think about how dark the night sky is before dawn falls … how heavy, threatening and consuming. Before the light returns, it can feel like the darkness never ends.
This is how my early days felt sober.
But when I cobbled together for a couple of weeks and then a couple of months, I felt the slightest trust in myself. Through abstinence and therapy, mindfulness and a sober community, the hopelessness that seemed so ubiquitous began to break open and let in some light.
I moved into my own apartment, returned to school for a long-awaited college degree, and had a waiter job that I loved. Then, shortly after I had sobered for a year, I got a call from my brother saying that he was going to change everything.
"Melissa, you have to come home," he said in a tear-streaked voice. "It's mom."
My stomach sagged when I picked up the phone and suddenly felt about five years old. I would find out later that it was a heart attack.
I felt the darkness fall again.
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In the days after her death, I felt like a dependent child who was unable to take care of myself. I dragged myself through brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and arranging her funeral; it felt like my heart stopped with hers.
The same thought kept circling my head – how can I live the rest of my life without my mother?
I couldn't imagine not having them when I graduated, got married, or became a parent. Her disappearance from my future brought with it a much worse fear than last year – but as I began to settle in my grief, I realized that if I was ready to accept, I had a way through that moment.
The tools I sobriety forged would come in handy in the dark days that followed. I share them below as sacrifices for anyone traveling through a dark night of the soul: simple steps to follow when you can't see a way forward.
Take things one day at a time.
In sobriety you learn that it can be so daunting to imagine your whole life without another drink or drug that you just give up and get charged. So instead of borrowing future worries, you learn to stay in the week, day, and moment.
I didn't have to know what a wedding would look like without my mother – I just had to have breakfast. I didn't have to imagine my graduation – I just had to get through one more class. As I pieced together my future one moment at a time, I found that I could handle the void in bite-sized pieces. I didn't have to find out everything – I just had to keep going.
Allow feelings to come and trust that they will go.
A lot of what I ran away from as an addict was the discomfort of my feelings. I didn't want to feel rejection, so I distorted myself to be liked. I didn't want to feel sad, so I moved on to the next activity. In recovery, I learned that we can run from what we want, but at some point they catch up with us in some way. Instead of running, I had learned to allow; instead of preoccupying myself, I was taught to face pain and trust that it would not last forever.
Although this was easier said than done, part of me knew that escaping my mother's death would only get on a freight train later. I would scream in my car as I seething with injustice. I would rock on my couch sobbing when the sadness got too big. It wasn't pretty and it felt awful, but when I let the grief shake through me. I found that there would always be an end … that at the end of my spiral a thread of mercy would appear and I could move on.
Tell the truth.
Even at a young age, I felt much more comfortable wearing a mask of smiles and jokes than telling how I was actually doing at a certain moment. Although sobering had helped me shed layers of the mask, I still struggled to be personable, recognized, and "good". But as the grief wriggled my energy and ability to palatable me, I began to be honest when people asked how I was doing.
Sharing the pain I felt after my mother died was like standing naked in the middle of the street – I wasn't used to crying in front of people and didn't think they'd like me when they found out That it wasn't me It's not always "fun and easy". But it was precisely this kind of vulnerability that allowed real friends to materialize, to deepen old connections, and to show the support I longed for.
Allow yourself to be changed forever.
In recovery from addiction, I began to consider my sobriety date as a second birthday – the beginning of an actual new life. Although the way my previous life had burned down was painful, I welcomed the chance to start over.
But when my mother died, I didn't realize that losing her would break me back down into a thousand unrecognizable pieces – pieces that I tried again and again to put back together but would never be the same because it wasn't me . t.
As I allowed my life, relationships and priorities to be changed by my grief, I found a self that was stronger, more resilient and somehow more tender. I would never have chosen the form of this lesson, but through these experiences I got a more authentic version of myself … an overarching goal of my life.
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It has been seven years since my mother died, and I've been sober for eight years. As my journey continues to unfold, I never lose sight of how broken I once was and how dark things seemed. I also know that life's struggles are not over yet. They are part of being human and of a full life.
But now I think about the fact that it is always darkest before daybreak – I know that I don't always have to see the light …
I just have to keep going.
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