My journey from addiction to recovery
I’m Bronwen and I’m a recovering addict. I’m going to take you on my life’s journey and hope you take something positive out of it.
I was born into a loving and secure family. So secure that my parents are still married after 50 happy years of marriage. I have one older brother who has a 10-year-old son, who I’m legal guardian to, which I am very proud to be. I don’t remember much from my early childhood years… but then who does? I was born in Durban however I have moved back and forth my whole life between Durban and Johannesburg.
While still living in Durban, like all teenagers, I started experimenting at a young age. My experimenting started off with occasional alcohol consumption but progressed very quickly to an ‘every weekend’ activity. Alcohol gives you a false sense of confidence and makes you lose all your inhibitions, which by the age of fifteen led me to start smoking weed occasionally.
At this stage we moved from Durban back to Johannesburg, and this is when my wheels fell off.
One of my first addictions was Tippex thinners and when I ran out, nail polish remover. I started smoking more weed and there was excessive drinking… Including stealing my dad’s red wine and other alcohol. A month before my 16th birthday, I got extremely drunk at a party and ended up having sex for the first time, which ended up being a one-night stand.
Falling in love was easy, but my first love was not the best influence and he turned out to be abusive. I went from weed, alcohol and thinners to experimenting with acid at the night clubs I enjoyed frequenting. At school I rebelled and eventually took an overdose. I was hospitalised at the age of seventeen. Once home, I couldn’t handle my reality and never coped well with being told what to do, so I ran away for a month to my first love and his family. This snowballed into endless problems and eventually I dropped out of school in the 3rd term of Standard 9 (grade 11).
Now out of school, completely lost and not knowing what to do with my life, I enrolled in a Girl Friday course, where I completed a one-year course in six months. I started working when I was seventeen. All of this took its toll on my family and in 1996 my dad suffered a mild stroke. My family and I then moved a few times back and forth between cities but still I rebelled and took no responsibility for my actions and all the events surrounding what I never realised then to be – MY ADDICTION.
My addictions took a turn for the worse when I started dabbling in Ecstasy. By the time I turned 21, I had tried cocaine while continuing with the rest of my vices, all while hitting the pubs, clubs and rave scene in a big way.
I was lucky enough to receive a free plane ticket from a previous company I worked at, so I took the opportunity to travel abroad. I had a working holiday in London, travelled to Ibiza and did a twenty-one-day tour around Europe. My travels were amazing, but my vices followed me, and my addiction had not changed. I now realise this was because I had no idea I was an addict, and I had been for a very long time.
On my return in October 2001, I started working at an advertising agency as a personal assistant. My employer trained me into a media position within a year. I studied a part time Media Management Diploma course in 2008 and became fully qualified in Media and Advertising.
One of the biggest, most tragic and traumatising events in my life was soon to become my reality, in the next love I met. He was my everything and I was completely devoted to him in every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately he was the ultimate abuser, manipulator and fuelled my addiction to levels of no return.
I had my first line of Cat in December 2001 just before meeting him. I continued to use Cat and E, but it progressed to Cat every weekend, then once during the week, then we became middlemen dealers, which is when our habit increased. We were co-dependent; I smoked weed occasionally, and we used to go for four days with no sleep until we passed out. He developed psychosis after the abuse of weed, Cat and Coke (which I didn’t know about). He tried to set me alight, tried to strangle me a few times; sometimes I would even hurt myself because I couldn’t handle being accused and blamed for things all the time. I couldn’t shave, wear sexy underwear or even go to the guest loo five steps away from him, without him watching me always, because he would wonder who I was having sex with. These are just a few of the things I went through with him. I would have you here for a long time if I had to go through all events that took place in detail.
We got engaged in 2005 and planned to get married in November 2006, but I ended up in a treatment centre in July 2006. The event which led me into treatment was that my employer strongly suspected I had an addiction and called an intervention with my family. I started as an outpatient at a treatment centre, but my (then) fiancé had not started treatment which made it almost impossible for me to stop, especially being around him whilst he was feeding his habit.
I thought I could cheat the system by asking others how long it had been before they got tested, however that didn’t work out too well. I got “bust” twice by testing positive and was then sent into an inpatient treatment centre for thirteen weeks. He continued feeding his habit and went through to visit me one Saturday and was tested upon arrival and tested positive for Coke. He was then sent to a rehabilitation centre for six weeks. I managed to keep my job, and the thirteen weeks in treatment were given to me as unpaid leave by my employer.
I was probably clean and sober for about four months. I then started consuming alcohol again in December. I was never a big drinker, but started again, so I relapsed. My fiancé (at the time) and I started using Cat occasionally again, and eventually the abuse started all over again. Towards the end of our relationship, he was going to whore houses and always blamed me for having orgies whilst he was sleeping. He eventually used to drop me at work and I would always have to report to him my every move. It was mostly verbal and emotional abuse that I went through, however there was some physical abuse too. The final straw was, after one weekend, when he grabbed and bruised my arm quite badly. I finally spoke to my parents, told them what was going on and they helped me move out the next Wednesday, 12th September 2007. From that day I didn’t use drugs again for about four and a half years, however I continued to drink alcohol. By that stage, I hardly saw friends and family anymore. My brother was no longer mates with him. I was made to give the engagement ring back, even though I paid for the gold and the making of the ring, as the diamonds were family heirlooms. He had broken me right down, from a confident and happy person, to someone who hardly spoke, and I cried every day. I began to think that crying every day was normal until I left him and then realised that it wasn’t. I was scared to start over and to move back in with my parents, but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done.
I had to rebuild myself. I had flings with a few guys. I then bumped into someone whom I had known from my school days. We dated for about two months. This is when I finally realised how I should be treated and I’ll always be so grateful to him for that. I did however turn out to be his rebound. I then dated another guy for about three months and turned out to be his rebound too. Over time
the last two guys I dated became my two best guy mates. The first rebound was unfortunately involved in a car accident in March 2011. He was in a coma for seven and a half months and then passed away in November 2011. This affected me more than I realised at the time, and even after many years since his passing it still hurt, however it got easier with time.
I started using shrooms from March 2012 and occasionally E and then back to my drug of choice, Cat. In September 2012 I met another guy at a mate’s birthday. He was a dealer on the side. Apart from a few MDMA’s or pills, I never really bought or got anything else from him. He and I were together properly from November to the beginning of February 2013 when he ended it. I was really hurt. One of my best mates gave me her healer’s number to see if she could help me. I saw the healer from February until June for four sessions and a ‘healing your heart’ course. During this time, I realised that I had never dealt with the way the ultimate abuser treated me, I had just suppressed it. It was suggested that I work on me and my happiness. I also learnt to always trust my gut and always do what makes me feel comfortable and happy.
My using became every weekend from February 2013 when the dealer and I broke up. I became a weekend addict. I went out every weekend with one of my best mates. She and I have known each other since 2001 and our brothers knew each other from Durban. We lost some contact and didn’t see each other that often, however we became single at the same time and started using every weekend together until August 2013 when she started getting serious with her boyfriend. It was at this time that I started seeing a lot more of the new mates I’d met. Every weekend we got together and fed our habits. We’d club hop, always finding the next “jol”, and would carry on like idiots. This is also when I started taking GHB and tried Crystal Meth and basically did whatever was going. We did have a lot of great times however it wasn’t all smiles for me, especially from August when some bad consequences started. There are three particularly bad ones that come to mind.
In August 2013, after using and staying awake from Friday through to Monday morning 2am, I got home I took half a dormicum sleeping tablet. I started feeling wobbly after about fifteen minutes, so I sat on my kitchen bar stool. The last thing I remember is eating a tennis biscuit and smoking a cigarette. The next thing I know, it’s about 3am or just after and I wake up on the floor not knowing what happened and I have a sore left leg or foot, not quite sure what’s sore. I got up and went to bed. In the morning I woke up for work, took painkillers and continued with my day. By the afternoon my foot was so sore that I decided to go to the Emergency Room. I had to be driven there. My foot was so swollen and blue that the doctors thought it was broken. I had x-rays taken and got examined. It turned out that I had severely damaged and torn the ligaments and I hurt the tendon. I was given a moon boot and crutches; I was off work for three days and had to have five weeks of physio.
In November 2013, I went to a mate’s house with my mate. We partied on Cat and GHB from the Friday night, throughout Saturday. I had been having half ml of GHB at a time. Around early Saturday evening, we all decided to have another GHB. As I had mine, it tasted stronger than usual, not knowing that the guy of the house had poured me 4mls. Within twenty minutes I was lying on the grass and moving around so much, whilst saying “Please help me, I don’t like this”. I don’t remember every single moment after that. I remember being carried inside, then I felt sick and puked outside. I then wanted to lie down. The guy of the house took me into his room and locked the door. My friends were knocking on the door and shouting for me and I remember him telling me to tell them I was fine. We ended up having what I thought was consensual sex, but because of the state of mind I was in and because of him knowingly giving me 4ml, it was rape. I only found this out in a gender group during my treatment. I eventually got out of the bedroom and I remember not being in control of what I was doing at all. The last thing I remember is having a swim and sitting in the garden. The next thing I knew was that it was three and a half hours later, and I woke up on a bed inside with all my mates around me. I had blacked out and didn’t know what had happened. The rape never really affected me to the extent of what I can imagine being raped would affect someone, as in active addiction I was very promiscuous, which I had a lot of guilt and shame around. Due to this, I blamed myself for what had happened at the time, as I felt I had allowed it to happen.
The last consequence was what made me ask for help. This was surely higher power stuff, as I had prayed on the Wednesday for help to stop feeding my habits. The first weekend in December I went to a rave club with my mate. I took a Candy Flip capsule called a Super C. I honestly thought I was going to die. It was fun in the beginning however the acid was so hectic that even strangers were asking me if I was ok; I must have looked really drugged. Finally, when we went to the car, I tried to have a bullet of Cat to feel better and I started getting sick so badly that I was battling to catch a breath. After getting sick, I was even more out of it and all I wanted to do was go home. My mate took me to ESP in this state, which I managed for all about just over an hour and then was taken home. I took a tranquiliser when I got home, slept for eight hours, woke up and went and joined some mates in my complex and carried on using. I got home late Sunday night and took another tranquiliser. I woke up late for work on the Monday morning to my mom arriving at my place and waking me up and asking what was going on. At first, I got defensive and tried to lie, but then something made me speak up and tell her that I have been feeding my habits again. I then told my employer and went through to my treatment centre for an interview. I was very resistant to go into treatment and I was a real nightmare; angry, scared and extremely full of nonsense, however I eventually agreed to go into treatment and was admitted on 4 December 2013. My drugs of choice were mostly cat and GHB and only once I was admitted into treatment, did I discover that I was also addicted to codeine. My adcodol pills were taken away from me which pissed me off as I always had headaches, not realising at the time that it was my addiction to codeine that was giving me the headaches. I withdrew for about ten days with terrible headaches, however I was given Mypaid to help with this.
So I clearly didn’t arrive in treatment because my life was good! However, this was unlike my first time in treatment where I had over R80 000 debt. I was fortunate enough that my dad paid everything off for me, and then cancelled my credit card, overdraft facility and all my clothing accounts. I didn’t have any debt coming into recovery this time round. My rock bottom was my health and spirituality.
My clean date is 4 December 2013. I did eight months of treatment. One-month inpatient, one month outpatient, three months of aftercare and I completed three months of relapse prevention in August 2014. I decided that this time I was going to do whatever it takes and to take my recovery seriously, as I honestly feel that I do not have another relapse left in me.
So… How have I incorporated the five pillars into my life?
SPONSOR – I only got a sponsor on the 7th of May 2014, when I was five months clean and sober. I never realised how important a sponsor was until I met mine. I had been in a bad place and went to vote with a friend of mine. We stood in the queue with a guy she knows, who is also in recovery. We got chatting about a few things and especially that I didn’t have a sponsor yet and I wasn’t in a very good place in my recovery. We exchanged numbers and that same night I got a call from him. He had bumped into his friend at a shopping centre and said to her that he had met me, and I really needed a sponsor and help, so he put her on the phone. She and I spoke every night at a set time, and I would tell her about my day. She helped me through so much and helped me to see things from a different point of view and to also not be so hard on myself. I have really grown a lot since May 2014. I also became a sponsor myself once I was a year clean and sober. What I have learnt is that some sponsor / sponsee relationships work out and some don’t, and that’s ok. The sponsees that I first had didn’t work out, however I learnt so much from them and situations that they went through, and it helped me to deal with situations in my own life. I went on to have two active sponsees, as well as a temporary sponsee.
MEETINGS – I did mostly three NA/AA meetings a week, however I did go through a stage where I was only doing two meetings a week for about a month. I then decided to start trying other meetings as I was nearing finishing relapse prevention. By December 2014, I was attending between four and six meetings a week.
The meetings were good for me and made me more focused with my recovery and with life in general. I listened very carefully to the preambles and especially the part in the NA preamble “Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs to recover.” As well as the Alcohol CA Preamble. These stand out for me because I know that if I ever relapsed it would definitely be on alcohol first, as I had never thought that I had a problem with alcohol, and even got into a bad space at the end of April 2014 when I was planning a relapse on alcohol once I was a year clean. I had to surrender once again and get real and stop living in the future and recommit myself to recovery.
From January 2015 I became really involved in the CA fellowship and was attending between six and eight meetings a week. However, I started really battling with balance, so to get some balance in my life, I attended three meetings a week, more if I could.
STEP WORK – I didn’t do step work every day, however when I committed to my step work and did it more often, it really helped and felt like more and more weight was lifted off my shoulders. Also going through my step work with my sponsor was a brilliant reminder of where I have been, and that I have always had a problem with alcohol. I also found that when I did a Step 5 with one of my sponsee’s, it really helped me too, and as much as it was her Step 5, it was like it was for me too.
HIGHER POWER – I personally believe in God, the universe, and angels. I’ve always been more spiritual and although I have always believed in God, I had anxiety around the word God and religion for a very long time because of an experience I had at a church when I was 21. After speaking about this to a couple of people that I am close to, sometime in July 2014, I became a lot more open minded and decided to let go of my resentment that I had held on to for so long, as I realised that it was the people and the experience that I had had at the time, and wasn’t God or religion as a whole at all. I couldn’t believe how much lighter I felt and how things changed for me since July 2014. My faith is a lot stronger and growing all the time. I hardly have anxiety, fear or sadness anymore, which is a blessing, as these emotions used to consume me. By learning to let go and Let God, and by keeping present and focused on the here and now, I am full of happiness and peace.
SERVICE – The service I started off with was very light. From the beginning of my recovery, I helped with lifts to meetings, helping others where I can, shared at an in-house meeting, and then also took up the key tags and hugs service position. My sponsor said to me that the first year in recovery was for me and thereafter I give back. I found that once I reached a year clean and sober, my service really became a lot more meaningful to me. I became a sponsor which helped others as well as myself, and this helped me grow in my recovery and within myself. In January 2015 I became more involved in the CA (Cocaine Anonymous) Fellowship. I took up an H&I (Hospitals and Institutions) service position with a friend of mine for an in-house CA meeting at a treatment centre. The meeting was incredible. People that came through to share their experience, strength and hope, faith, and courage for us, said that the meeting is like 5 meetings in 1, that’s how powerful it is. I got something out of that meeting every week and it kept me grounded and kept reminding me of where I’ve been. To watch the growth of these amazing people always made my heart smile. I was also involved at the Thursday CA meeting, and was in a rotation to chair the meetings, and help where I could / fill in when necessary for other positions at the Thursday and Sunday CA meetings. I continue to help others where I can, and because of me being very open about my recovery, I have had a lot of friends reach out to me for help and guidance and others that have also said that because of my monthly (now yearly) clean & sober posts on social media, it has inspired them to do something about their addictions… which is awesome!
My life has changed so much, and I have never been so happy, serene, grateful and proud all at the same time. It has been a great journey so far. Yes, I have had ups and downs, but more ups and I’m also very fortunate that I’m a very optimistic person and I don’t have depression or anger issues. I always try to take a lesson out of every situation, whether good or bad, and that has helped me to grow from strength to strength.
I now see a lot more of my family which I love and cherish, as when I was using.
I tried to avoid them as much as possible. I am so grateful that my relationships with my mom and dad are stronger than ever now, as I have always been close to my mom, although during active there was a lot of dishonesty from my side. Also, I have spent a lot more time with my brother and with my nephew, and it’s just amazing the love they give me, and the bond we share.
Yes, I had to change people, places, and things, however I have been very blessed with reconnecting with some great mates of mine, as they have all given me the most incredible support. I am also very fortunate that I have a lot of friends that don’t use drugs (many new friends) that support me, more than anyone could ever wish for, including my friends that have also come into the rooms and the friends I have met in recovery. I have had such fun over the last nine (going on ten) years! Who knew life could be fun without drugs and alcohol… I sure didn’t.
Within the first eighteen months of my recovery, my finances also amazingly changed for the better. I managed to pay off a longstanding loan account I had with my dad from things like car services etc. I paid for my first car service EVER out of my own cheque account, which was huge for me… I’ve managed to save money, as well as take out other investments.
Because I really wanted to do whatever it takes for my recovery this time round, I paid half for Relapse Prevention and my counselling during those three months and paid for my individual counselling sessions from September to December 2014, as I wanted to continue with some kind of treatment until I was a year clean and sober, as this was what was suggested to me.
After I reached a year, I decided to continue seeing my counsellor. I saw her once a month, until I was just over two years clean and sober, as my sessions with her were always beneficial to me and she played a massive role in my recovery.
Just over four years ago, I met the love of my life. I found my person, someone who loves me, treats me so well, supports me and supports my recovery more than I could have ever imagined. I have never been happier!
Last year July, I changed jobs (after almost 21 years), and my person and I relocated to Cape Town in December. Two significant changes that required time to adapt but have ultimately proven to be incredibly rewarding for both of us.
These shifts reaffirm how much progress I have made, and I can’t help but recognize that my journey of recovery played a pivotal role in enabling me to not only manage these transitions but excel in them!
One day at a time…
I will find every opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope. Every day is filled with experiences. I can choose to let them pass me by, or I can allow myself to learn lessons from them. It is easy to let the day pass by quickly and virtually unlived. If I refuse to stay in the present moment and choose rather to be filled with resentment, stuck in the past, filled with fear, or stuck in the future, life truly does pass me by.
My experience truly has no value. But if I choose to learn lessons, stay in the present moment, and remain connected to my Higher Power, my day is filled with experience, strength and hope.
I really am… a grateful recovering addict. Thank you for letting me share.
Bom-you’re an absolute inspiration. I remember our days at school together – we laughed so much! Thank you for sharing your story. It’s touched many a nerve with me. May you continue to be happy, fulfilled and sober!