by Jamie G.
CW: Addiction
The hero’s journey is a cycle that occurs within the characters in many popular movies. It describes how our childhood heroes left their ordinary world to pursue a world of adventure that was out of their comfort zone. Think of Catniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and how she left her limited experience of life in district 12 to enter the world of the hunger games, or Shrek leaving the comfort of his swamp to adventure into the castle where Fiona is held. One thing both of these characters have in common is the fear of the unknown, the perseverance to succeed in their new-found environment, and evolution of their self-concept that occurred after succeeding in these challenges.
The hero’s journey isn’t just a time-honoured road map for how to write an intriguing story, it can also be applied to the experience of overcoming addiction. Addiction becomes a comfort blanket, a safe place, your everyday world that you can’t imagine leaving behind. I will take you on an addiction journey, my addiction journey. How I overcame a 4.5-year poly substance addiction and how overcoming that challenge gave me a newfound purpose in life.
The Known
1. Ordinary World
My ordinary world was full of darkness, I had purposefully pulled the wool over my eyes to dull all emotional and deeper recognition of the issues I was facing. The people I used with, I perceived them as family, kindred spirits, lifelong friends. The truth was, they were as lost as I was, using substances to fill an unnamed emotional void we were all too scared to face. Looking in the mirror was always the worst part of active addiction; I looked in the mirror and could not relate to the person I saw. The disheveled shell with eyes that had long lost their spark would look back at me, and I would wonder how I got here. This perception is retrospective, in the depths of addiction I felt glamorous, sneaky, like a double agent pulling off the perfect crime by living a double life undetected.
2. Call To Adventure
My call to adventure wasn’t a golden ticket from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. It was a pinnacle moment of despair that flicked the switch in my brain telling me something needed to change. My boyfriend of 8 months had physically abused me, causing me to leave the apartment we shared. As I got my medical examination ensuring there was no permanent damage done, I thought to myself that there must be more than this. I deserve more than this. This is when I began contemplating if I should contemplate getting sober.
3. Refusal of the Call
The first few months after leaving my boyfriend were a haze. I wasn’t using as often, but I definitely had not committed to getting sober. I was still adamantly convinced I could succeed in school, manage my friendships and be a part of my family while being a recreational user. The most troubling part is I saw no issue with my lifestyle, it allowed me to connect with people and as embarrassing as it is to admit, it made me feel “cool”.
4. Meeting the Mentor
Mentors come in all different shapes and sizes. They often appear when you least expect them to. Mine showed up in a university class about the troubling nature of old fairy tales. He was one of my best friends from middle school, and to be blunt, he was disappointed once we got reacquainted. I wasn’t the person he remembered, and in his own words “my light had been dimmed.” The sting of realizing how far I strayed from the true self I once knew was shocking. I was reminded of everything I’d lost and everything I still wanted to be. This is when I first committed to getting sober.
5. Crossing the Threshold
I would love to lie and say how easy it is to get sober. But in reality, crossing the threshold into a new way of being is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Substances fueled my every move and now, I was running on empty. The most talked about symptoms when getting sober is the all-consuming siren call of the withdrawals trying to lure you back in. While that isn’t easily resistible, it’s far from the hardest part. The hardest part is learning how to be human again, how to integrate back into society and how to get to know yourself outside of the addiction. I had abandoned my hobbies, my old friends, my family, my connection with the outdoors and most of all my sense of self. I had forgotten what it meant to be me. The first few months of sobriety, nothing made me smile. All I could feel was an overwhelming sense of boredom and loss of purpose in my own life. I was essentially a ball of existential darkness and dread; Praying to a god I don’t believe in, hoping that tomorrow would be better.
The Adventure
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies
Six months into sobriety you think you know it all. You think there’s no test you can’t pass. No mountain you can’t climb. But when you come face to face with your kryptonite, all bets are off. It was a normal day on the university campus, and I unknowingly opened my door to the biggest threat to my sobriety so far. Between deep conversations about life and the struggles of being a student, my friend reveals that they are in possession of my kryptonite. It’s staring at me; its power is infatuating just as I remembered. My senses are awakened, and I start to panic. I feel like I’m in Robert Frost’s poem as I beg myself to take the path less travelled. I don’t know if it was will power or pure fear, but as I watched my friend become intertwined with the substance I felt at peace, because I no longer envied him. I did it for the first time. I said no.
7. Approaching the Inner Cave
Okay. I’m sober. But, how can I find the strength to share this journey, to admit to everyone who I used to be and who I am trying to become?
Letting people in felt crucial.
As much as we all like to convince ourselves we can do it alone, I don’t think we can. I was keeping my cards close to my chest, refusing to show anyone a glimpse of the lingering darkness. Why? Because it’s a taboo. It has a negative societal connotation. It elicits judgments of all kinds to come flying at you from every direction. I had become a hermit, a prisoner of my own mind. I had retreated into myself.
8. The Ordeal
One afternoon as the sun streamed in the window, I sat down on my mom’s bed prepared for the ordeal. I was admittedly shaking from the anxiety because I was about to put all my cards on the table. Shedding my skin and revealing what was truly underneath. I started from the beginning and tried to leave out nothing. The tears streamed down my face when I realized the effect that my self-destruction had on those closest to me. It wasn’t even disappointment as I had imagined, it was an empathic outburst of sorrow for the lost years of my life, of my childhood, of my innocence. Once the emotions had settled, I felt lighter. I felt relieved that at least one person in this world knew what I had been through, how I got there and how far I’d come since. I felt… accepted. Probably for the first time in my life.
9. Seize the Reward
I had been walking with my head down and shoulders hunched in shame for way too long. They say the truth sets you free and I am now a firm believer in that. Addiction had turned me into a liar, a cheater, and a selfish person. But for the first time in years, I felt proud. Proud I had opened up to my mom and owned up to the demons that haunted my past. I gave those demons a name and a face as I banished them from my consciousness. My reward was pride in myself and what I had overcome. My reward was letting go of the guilt-ridden muddy waters I had been treading in. It felt so good to have an honest relationship with my mom, the person who matters to me the most.
Chance to Make it Right
10. The road back home
It had been years since I had been to a holiday gathering with my family. It had been years since I gave a heartfelt homemade present that used to be my signature. It had been years since I truly looked in people’s eyes and let them see the true me. Opening up to my mom was good but it wasn’t enough. I felt like a sinner going into the confession room, ready to own up for every sin I had overlooked along the way. Ready to own up to every person I had let down. One person at a time, one dirty self-disclosure at a time, I got this.
11. Resurrection, Atonement
Once I had made my amends, I began growing a support network of people who held me accountable and believed in the changes I had made in myself. I knew the clock was ticking and it was time to rebuild the rest of my life that I had sloppily deconstructed. My community, my support network, they gave me the strength to continue atoning for my mistakes while simultaneously resurrecting the things I genuinely like about myself. I reached out to the job I had quit during my addiction and soon thereafter I resumed my position as the manager of a swimming program. Helping swim teachers grow as young members of the workforce and watching the students learn how to swim gave me a sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment. In school I stopped just scraping by and started engaging with the material with a renewed commitment to academic growth.
12. Return With the Exliher
What keeps you away from the darkness? What feeds your soul? What replaces that need for oblivion? What inspires you to be a force of positive change in this world? What makes being sober feel worth it? It’s your passion. My passion is helping others. Being a positive influence, a support system, a much-needed step in someone else’s recovery journey, that’s what fuels me. I wanted to be able to look back later in life and see all the lives I’d touched. I wanted to turn my pain and my many missteps into something positive. A story people could relate to, learn from, and even find comfort in. My journey has provided me with a way to connect with people and support them in their own journey. It might be a little overly optimistic, but I believe people can change. I believe most humans have the capacity to find their passion, contribute positively to the world and feel comfortable in their skin. Seeing others heal, thrive and grow is now what gets me up in the morning. I am not perfect, and I know I never will be. All I know now is that now, I am someone that I am proud of.
