The Recovered

The Repair

I sat alone in my room in the treatment facility, this was it, I had taken the first steps to a new life. I should have felt renewed, or so I thought. My mind was constantly on getting one last fix, I just needed one more and then I could quit. I walked to the residence pay phone and popped in a quarter. I wasn’t even thinking as I dialed the number, it rang twice and someone picked up.

I knew the voice on the other, except it wasn’t Derek. It was a women’s voice, that woman was my mother. I started to break down as soon as she said “hello”. I don’t know how she knew it was me, but she did. “Kara, what’s wrong sweetheart?”, this was the first time I had talked to my mom in over a year, I wanted to blurt out everything but I settled for a tearful “hi mom”.

She asked me where I’ve been for the last year, so I explain everything. Where I was living, what I was doing, and who I was with. I got this weird feeling while I was talking to my mom, I couldn’t name it then but I know now. It was a glimmer of hope, a sliver of what life would be.

I used up two dollars in quarters that night, and I had made my mom a promise to call her every second night at 7:00 pm. Little did I know, this would become the first in a long list of promises that I would actually keep.

So every second night for the duration of my 21 day stay at rehab, I would call my mom. She even came to visit a couple times, I couldn’t have been happier. I was nearing the end of my 21 days, I was doing my sober living worksheet. I needed to let the facility know where I would be living, who with, and what meetings I would be attending.

I wasn’t prepared for these questions, I had no idea where I would be living or who I would be living with, and I certainly wasn’t planning on attending any meetings. My mom came to visit me that evening and I shared with her my dilemma. There was no hesitation “you will come and live with me” she said with a smile.

So now I had a place to live and someone to live with, I just had to go to meetings and see which one I liked best. This was easier said than done because I had never been to a meeting before. Were there different kinds of meetings? I had heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I wasn’t an alcoholic.

And so came my final day in rehab, I was excited to go home but I was also scared. I hadn’t yet lived outside these four walls as a sober person, could I do it? And if I could, what would it be like?

I packed up my things, said my goodbyes, and walked out those doors. I was armed with a list of meetings in my hometown, and a sense determination. I made a promise to myself, that I wouldn’t give up, no matter what. And I never did, there were times when I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. In those times of weakness I would recite the serenity prayer “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. I would recite that prayer over and over and over again, until I gained a renewed sense of determination.