Recovering from Rock Bottom: How getting sober and honest saved my life

Hi my name’s Ash and I’m an alcoholic in recovery. 

It took me years to be able to say this out loud, but when I finally took acceptance over this fact, my life changed forever. 

Sitting here today, I’m two and a half years sober and I’m living a life beyond my wildest dreams. Yet, this is a far cry from the girl who walked through the doors of a rehab hospital in Sydney, back in February 2020. Back then, I was completely broken. Stuck in the cycle of addiction where every day felt like Groundhog Day. I would wake up hungover and promise myself that I wouldn’t drink that day, yet by the time I closed my laptop screen and switched off work, it was never long before a drink was in my hand. Each day, as I relinquished control and succumbed to my addiction, I would think to myself, “how did this happen again?”

From the earliest I can remember; I’ve always felt a sense of not being enough. A core belief that was carried through into adulthood. As a little girl, I was always striving for my parent’s attention which manifested in extreme perfectionism. Yet, no matter how good my grades were, or how many extracurricular achievements I’d made, in my mind it was never enough. 

As a teenager, my perfectionism turned into rebellion in an attempt to gain my parents attention. I remember always feeling the need to do things first, whether that was dating, drinking or trying drugs.  

By the time I was in my early twenties I was abusing drugs and alcohol on a weekly basis. I was incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship, instead I would blow them up and blame the other person, unable to see the part I played in the destruction of my life. 

At 26 I moved from Melbourne to Sydney, thinking that I could run away from my problems and start over. But the reality was, my problems came with me and it was at this time that my addiction really took flight. Nine months after moving, I fell in love and later married a man who also battled with addiction. We spent the next seven years partying and enabling one another. 

On the outside, I appeared to have everything together and I was ticking all of life’s “boxes” as society would demand. Yet inside I was slowly dying. 

Two weeks before my wedding, my brother-in-law took his own life, and my husband and I spiralled into a grief so intense that we not only lost ourselves but each other. From the day we received the dreaded call, I became a daily drinker. It was in that moment; I unconsciously gave my disease permission to run the show.  

This carried on for two years. As life played out, I became a shell of a human being. My light turned to dark and I pushed away those that loved me most. I lost my energy, my motivation and my zest for life. All the while convincing myself that it was everyone else around me who had the problem.  

My “rock bottom” moment occurred on the 14th February 2020. After yet another night of heavy drinking and using, I walked through the door the following morning and fell to my knees. As the tears streamed down my face, I knew in that moment, I couldn’t go on living like this. Filled with guilt, shame and remorse, I couldn’t fathom another day of this endless torture. I was done. 

One week later, I walked through the doors of South Pacific Private, a rehab located on the Northern Beaches in Sydney, Australia. While I didn’t know it at the time, this was the first day of my new life. I spent three weeks at the treatment centre, where I did intensive trauma work and was introduced to recovery and the 12-Step fellowships. 

They say the hard work begins when you leave rehab, and this was certainly the case for me. Upon leaving South Pacific, it was explained to me that if I didn’t put recovery first, I wouldn’t have a life to go back to. Hearing this, I made the decision to throw myself into recovery, and did all of the things that were suggested to me. 

Early recovery is a challenging time for anyone and I was facing the added complexity of navigating this during a global pandemic. When I had walked into rehab in late February, the world was seemingly normal. However, when I walked out the doors three weeks later, we were days away from the world going into lockdown. In some ways I’m grateful I didn’t know any different, as I was able to adapt to this new world, and my recovery adapted as well. I looked at lockdown and restrictions as a positive for my recovery as it meant the temptation of bars, dinners and weddings were all removed for my first six months. 

They say not to make any drastic decisions in your first year of sobriety. So, I waited twelve months before making the difficult decision to leave my marriage and move back home to Melbourne. It was over the next twelve months that I learnt how to be alone, how to form a relationship with myself and discovered who I really was without alcohol. This period of my life was at times extremely painful, yet I now know looking back, that it was these moments of pain that enabled me to grow and start developing emotional sobriety. 

Today I’m full of gratitude for the life I’m living. My recovery still comes first, which means I continue to prioritise AA meetings, the practice of prayer and meditation along with other spiritual tools I’ve collected along the journey. My experience has shown me that by making recovery a priority, the other areas in my life have all begun to fall into place. I am now a qualified Yoga teacher, dedicated to building a platform of recovery that will help to remove the stigma around addiction, trauma and mental health. My podcast, Behind The Smile is a place where people can go to hear stories of other people who have experienced adversity and overcome their challenges. It is a place of hope, where you can learn about the tools out there to help you along your own journey. 

This is my life’s purpose and I thank you for being here to join me on the ride. Remember, when we recover loudly, no one need suffer in silence. 

With gratitude,
Ash