For the longest time I thought I was somehow made wrong-I felt different from my family and everyone else I knew. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere, a misfit. Since I was small, I have felt awkward, insecure and uncomfortable in my own skin. I am a twin and I use to always wonder if I got switched with another baby in the hospital because we were nothing alike. Drugs became my solution to this predicament. For years I used every drug I could get my hands on. The relief I felt when I used was the only thing I really cared about. I had succumbed to the notion that in order function in this world, I was going to need to be intoxicated in some way for the rest of my life.
Somewhere along the way my solution stopped working for me, the consequences got greater, the relief didn’t last long if I got any at all. My solution had failed me and there I was at 26 years old without a way to feel ok in my skin. I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to be, or what I was going to do. I walked into AA because I had no other option. I didn’t have any hope that my life and how I felt would ever be any different.
One of the first meetings I went to I heard someone share “I felt like everyone got handed an instruction booklet on life except me.” Since that meeting and over the years I have heard that phrase hundreds of times from people in the rooms, but the first time I heard it I thought “Hey! That’s just like me!” I couldn’t believe there was someone else that felt like I did, and I was hooked. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t feel like an alien in this world. I had hope that I belonged somewhere and wasn’t alone and I think that’s been the biggest gift recovery has given me. There isn’t anything I need to go through alone anymore. I have a god of my understanding and people in my life that are there with me whenever I need. I am so grateful for my recovery and so glad I have found my home.
