I saw this alarming statistic on my social media feed this morning: 5.3 million women in the US with Alcohol Use Disorder. When I researched it, I realized that statistic is from 2015! Imagine what the number is today? Yet, here we are in 2019 and alcohol is still glorified everywhere around us, and we are taught that it is okay to be a part of our everyday life.

Alcohol is a depressant. It is not for everyone. If you are one of those people, you should not be ashamed to choose sobriety. As I stand here today, going through the most trying time of my life, I feel so blessed to have realized 500 days ago that to be the mom that I wanted to be I did not want alcohol in my life anymore.

Five hundred days sober today. I am proud to say those words. I am mentally strong. I almost lost the love of my life a few months back and now he has begun the journey of healing through chemotherapy this week. I feel all the emotions. The gratitude, the fear, the stress of how I will make it all work and the depression at night when I feel alone. Feeling all the emotions allows me to work through them. I can validate them; I can be gentle with myself and I can find solutions to the problems that can be fixed.

If I was drinking, I would be just trying to escape all the emotions. Then it would turn into this downward spiral of trying to escape but in reality, not being able to. Then it would lead to my own illness and falling apart in a time that I can’t. No more escaping. I choose to feel.

Billy and I talk every day (even before he was sick) about gratitude. Through his path of healing, we choose to focus on that. Gratitude for my support system. Gratitude for my family and friends. Gratitude for Billy fighting as hard as he can and doing everything in his power to heal. Today I have gratitude for my sobriety.

When I began my sobriety journey, I wasn’t completely sure why. When I continued, I wasn’t sure it would be forever. Today I know why. It was the beginning of my healing journey. I have gratitude for my life and where this path is leading me.

- Amanda (@missdjlux ❤️)

I know this is heavy right now especially before the Holidays, but there is truly only NOW. This moment is the only moment that really is, the past is gone, the future is completely unknown and this moment, in my NOW, I’m holding space that this can change and we can save a society of people that have been almost discarded. 

Do you wonder why we have so many drug addicts in our country, why so many people die from overdoses? The system is broken! Over the past couple of years, I have sat back and watched and shed tears as my son goes in and out of detox, back and forth with rehab. Every time it didn’t work out I would be heartbroken and think why doesn’t he want to get healthy? Why doesn’t he just stick with it?

Well, he is on the rollercoaster ride once again trying to do everything right and this time I’m trying to follow him every step of the way. Before Thanksgiving, he checked himself into detox. From the first phone call, I knew that he was pretty sick. His cough sounded horrible, he barely had a voice and he had a rash on his hand that was turning into ulcer sores. When he asked for medical treatment he was basically denied. He was told to sign up for the nurse that came in only on Mondays, 5 days away. He did that and was at the end of the list so was not seen on Monday. He was then told that he could check himself out of detox and go to the Clinic and then try to get back into detox the next day if there was a bed. HUH???? First of all, how many addicts do you know in the middle of detoxing can check themselves out, go to a clinic, spend the night on the streets and not use again sending themselves into another 7-10 day at least drug spiral? Simple medical care should be given to everyone.

Let’s think about this for just a moment, this is a sickness, period. No one understands this better than I. It affects some people and doesn’t others. Just like diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s, cancer… It is a disease. Now, I have heard some people say that it isn’t the same because you have a choice whether or not you TRY alcohol, cocaine or even drugs prescribed by your DR. Well, all it takes is one time and if this disease is in your make up then you go down the rabbit hole and before you even realize you have the disease it is too late.

I’m one of the lucky ones that this disease did not get its deadly grip on, not because I didn’t TRY. When I was in my teens I drank alcohol, smoked pot, did cocaine and acid morning, noon and night. From the age of 15 to 20 I don’t think I lived 1 “sober” hour. I did more drugs than any one person should do in 20 lifetimes. But then I found out I was pregnant, and I stopped everything without even thinking twice about it. It was easy for me. The father of my baby, the man I got started on hardcore drugs, couldn’t quit and I didn’t understand why he couldn’t. Fast forward to 5 years ago when I had both of my knees replaced. I was on so many strong narcotics for over a year that the Dr. I saw a couple years ago was amazed that I didn’t have an opioid addiction. Some people don’t get diabetes or cancer even if they eat sweets every day or smoke 5 packs of cigarettes. Because it’s not in their make-up.

Imagine with me for just a moment, that a man is told he has lung cancer. We don’t look at cancer patients and say, and we never should say, well that’s too bad, you should have never tried cigarettes. Or, maybe you should have stayed out of the sun. When they relapse, and cancer comes back, we don’t turn them away and say too bad that didn’t work for you. We treat them, as we should, with empathy and compassion. We have fundraisers to try and help with their medical and daily living expenses.

Addicts are looked down upon, treated worse than criminals many times unless you have a lot of money. At a time when they need sympathy, compassion, and understanding we tend to attack them and put them down. When they get clean and are finally on a good path, they are many times sent out with no good tools to stay that way. Many of them, if they can get work, can only do so in jobs that are infested with drug usurers and addicts, making their struggle to remain clean and sober almost unbearable.

The system is broken and until it gets fixed and some changes are made, this problem is only going to grow. No one yet has been able to convince me that the pharmaceutical industry has a hand in this. It’s not like diabetes, high blood pressure or cancer, where they can rape the patients with the outrageous cost of prescription drugs. The only money that is made on addicts is treatment, so let’s fix them just enough so that they fall off and come back in another 6 months.

CBS did an article last year; drug overdose is now the leading cause of death in those under 50. It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. It is below if you would like to read it….

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/overdoses-are-leading-cause-of-death-americans-under-50/

I know there are some good programs out there but there have to be more. The system needs to change, or this disease is about to wipe out a whole generation. I buy lottery tickets, not because I want a big house, fancy car or crazy jewelry and clothes, I buy lottery tickets because I want to BE that change! Will you BE the change with me?

- Celeste (@motherhealing 💖🙏🏻💗)