I know this is a crazy long post, but I feel the need to share this part of my journey with you all. I feel like if I dont share this, it will lose some of the magic it has brought to my life. And I want to hold on to this forever. I dont know any of you, but in the few days that Ive been coming here and reading your words, I truly feel like a part of a genuine fellowship and I have so much love, respect and gratitude for what this program and your shares have given me.

I hope this part of my story will help someone else out there. We really can only keep what we have by giving it away. Thank you sincerely for letting me share.

I never really believed in god. Come to think of it, I never really believed in anything, not like I do now. If I had a "god" it was drugs and "love" For a long time I anesthetized myself with all kinds of substances and jumped from one dysfunctional relationship to another, giving all of myself away, leaving nothing but an empty shell for me.

Well Ive had my share of lows in the past ten years, some lower than others. Im one of those bull headed stubborn types that needed to keep bottoming out over and over until it really started to sink in.

I dont know what was different this last time I hit bottom again. It wasnt even as low as some other times Ive been down. One time I remember actually holding a knife  in my hand and pressing it against the skin of my wrist, seriously on the very edge of the precipice, considering suicide as a better alternative to the utter despair and emptiness I was feeling at the time.

I didnt go through with it and at the time, even that made me feel pathetic and useless.
Well my journey has been like the myth of Sisyphus who was compelled to roll a huge boulder up a mountain only to watch it roll back down over and over again. For every two steps I thought I was taking forward, I felt like I was taking 10 leaps back.
And then I started going to meetings.

My mom overdosed and ended up in rehab when I was 13. It was there that she began the Alcoholics Anonymous program and found sobriety. Unfortunately she did not continue to work the program and is now and has been a dry drunk for many many years. When she came back from rehab she had all these sayings she used to tell me. let go, let god, dont give your power away The one I hated most of all was one day at a time. Every time she used to say that to me I would get so pissed off and think to myself yea right, like skipping two or three at a time is even an option!

Naturally I had some resentment and anger issues. Also I was barely a teenager and I thought I knew everything. That was also the time when I started my own decline and dependency on mind and mood altering substances. But that is a story for another program.

I was happy that my mom no longer went on benders where she disappeared for days at a time. I was happy that my sister and I no longer had to drive her home when she would get spectacularly trashed. I was happy that she no longer went on cocaine binges and would get so paranoid she would lock herself in the closet with nothing but a blanket and a bottle of vodka.

But I felt like nothing had changed. I was still hurting and I still felt that she wasnt there for me. I took my anger out on everything and everyone around me. I took my anger out on myself too. I even took my anger out on the program and thought that the program had failed her, and by extension, failed me.

Now I realize it was the other way around.

I started going to meetings because I was desperate. Desperate in a way I had never experienced before. I wasnt desperate to die, or desperate to escape and disappear. I was finally desperate to live. I desperately wanted to cross the line and get to the other side of the darkness. Even though I hadnt ever really seen it and didnt even know if it existed, I started to believe that there was a different way of life out there and I desperately needed to find it.

I had been in therapy for about 5 months and felt I was getting better but also felt it wasnt enough. I saw a psychiatrist and paid an outrageous amount of money for some anti-depressants but what really blew me away was that he actually said that what would really help me was to go to 12 step meetings.

I figured I was paying the man an arm and a leg, so I better do what he said.
To my surprise the meetings helped. I started listening to what all these people were saying and experienced something I had never felt before. Empathy, understanding, and above all Hope.

I still didnt get it though and I thought I just had to pop into a meeting when I was feeling crappy and that would fix it. Until one day I went to a meeting and I hated it. I didnt even stay for the whole thing. I dont know why, but for whatever reason it rubbed me the wrong way and I left disappointed feeling like the program had already started to fail me.

Then I realized that I was the one who was failing the program. I realized that the 12 steps are a tool and like any tool, are useless until you pick them up and start using them. I was trying to use the program the same way I had used drugs and relationships - as a pick me up, as a quick fix. I was still putting the responsibility in hands other than my own.

Ive known the serenity prayer since I was 13, but I never really paid it any mind. I never thought about the actual words and I certainly never really said them.
I was in an extremely dysfunctional, violent and abusive relationship with an addict at the time. I had been trying everything I could think of to fix everything, fix him, fix us. But no matter what I did, things seemed to inevitably keep spiraling more and more out of control.

I had to accept my powerlessness over the situation and over him. This was so hard because I felt like if I gave up my illusion of control, then I really would be left with nothing. I didnt want to acknowledge that I had precious little to begin with.
And even though I still didnt believe in the words, or think that anyone was out there listening, I started to say the serenity prayer. I started to pray for guidance. I took a leap of faith.

To my surprise, there was a higher power out there and I started to see that if I just shut up and listened, the answers would come.

I finally got the courage to leave after an especially violent incident between my ex and I. I packed all my things, put my dogs in my car and finally left for good.

I drove 3,000 miles from California to Florida over four days to set myself free and though the journey was the hardest thing Ive ever done. It was only the beginning and it truly got my in touch with my higher power in a way that I can barely explain. Someone recently posted a saying that hit me really hard, she said I didnt know god was all I needed, until god was all I had. This is so very true for me.

I kept saying to myself, if I look back, I am lost. The first day I made sure to drive far enough away to rule out the temptation of turning back. I didnt know where it came from, but I found a fierce determination and focus that I had never had before. The second day, things got harder. I started to despair and feel lost and crazy. So I started to recite the serenity prayer not because I believed in the words yet, but because I needed to push all the thoughts out of my head and that was the first thing that came to mind.

Then I started to see signs. Literally.

 I was driving through New Mexico when I started to lose it and after a few minutes of saying the serenity prayer I passed a road sign that said Truth or Consequences I couldnt even make this up if I wanted to. I was floored. I started talking to this unseen force that I clearly felt was trying to talk to me and I said ok. I hear you. I am listening

I made it to Texas and as I continued to drive, the sky became overcast and I could see rain up ahead. As I got closer to the storm, I noticed a rainbow to the right of the road. I had to laugh. Then I noticed that on the left of the road, there was another rainbow. Then my mind was really blown because I realized that these werent two different rainbows, but the two sides of one arc, stretching right over the road I was driving on. There really was a higher power out there who was letting me know that everything would be ok. I could no longer even try and doubt it.

The third day I was still driving through Texas and I was literally in the middle of nowhere when I got a flat tire. I was pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere looking at my flat tire with all these cars passing me by and I said hey, Im here, Im still listening. A few minutes later a truck pulled over and two young men got out of the car and helped me out. As one of them was changing my tire, I looked at his arm and he had a tattoo covering his forearm that said SAVE ME FROM MYSELF.

Again I said to myself, ok, I hear you. I am listening.

The road through Texas is a long and lonely one and it wasnt long before I started to waver again. Exhaustion and fatigue were beginning to take a serious tole on me and I began to cry uncontrollably. More than cry I began to sob. The despair was palpable and pouring out of me at this point, so I had no choice but to pull over at a rest stop and try and get it together.

Im sitting in my car and I start to say the serenity prayer in between the sobs that were racking my soul and body. I said the serenity prayer until I could stop crying. I dont know how long I sat there for, but eventually I started to breathe again.

I got out of my car and walked my dogs around for a bit to try and continue to regain my composure. The rest area was beautiful. The day was a little cloudy but not overcast. There was a lovely breeze and the ground was covered in tiny wild flowers. I took it all in. I let myself breathe. When I finally walked back to my car I saw a butterfly had somehow gotten stuck underneath my windshield wiper but was still alive. I gently lifted the wiper and placed the injured butterfly on the grass. I know that it was dying and I said a little prayer for it. When I turned around to get in my car, I saw two butterflies swirl past right in front of me. I took all this as another unmistakable sign.

Along the way I passed two more road signs, one for Comfort, another for Welfare. I drove 600 miles out of Texas that day and said the serenity prayer the whole time just to keep me going. The last leg of my trip went smoothly.

I left California with the sun setting behind me and drove into Florida a few days later with the sun was rising before me.

I know that I had a higher power with me the whole way. I know that I never would have made it without finally putting my faith and trust in that power and I know that it will never leave my side as long as I keep my heart and mind open to receive its messages.

I never knew how powerful faith could be, but everyday I wake up now, the very first thing I do is to talk to my higher power and say thank you. I say thank you for this new day, thank you for another opportunity to live my life as honestly and humbly as I can. Then I say the serenity prayer and do my best to live one second at a time.

Some days are easier than others, and I know the road ahead of my is long and full of ups and downs. But I am so very blessed to have all these wonderful new tools to help me on my way and I intend to keep on using them.

I took pictures and have posted them here too, in case this all sounds like a crazy dream. Trust me it really happened, I was there.