Ten years ago, just a few weeks shy of my 24th birthday, I was arrested for my first DUI. Over the next eight years I was arrested 4 more times and admitted to rehab 6 times. I was what the recovery world and the criminal justice system called a “chronic relapser.” I was the person who drank the same day I completed probation or rehab every single time. I was the person who was kicked out of two different halfway houses in just 10 days. I was the person who could not, for the life of me, figure out how to live an alcohol-free life.
I think the reason I kept drinking, even after each new rock bottom, was because our current system of recovery didn’t feel like a safe place to land. I was forced into a recovery system that didn’t make sense to me. People (ab)use substances because they are in pain or have unresolved trauma; and rather than providing adequate mental health services and time to heal, we criminalize, shame, and abandon folks who self-medicate with drugs (alcohol is a drug, btw.)
We live in a world that uses punishment and shame as foundational tools for treating addiction. Each time I relapsed, my pain was met by a harsher consequence. The repercussions for my second DUI were much worse than my first; and if I had gotten a 3rd DUI, I would’ve been given a prison sentence and felony charges. Finding a job with no drivers license and two DUIs on my record is hard enough. Imagine what further damnation would’ve done for my already dying shell of a self.
After each relapse I always wondered, does our criminal justice system actually believe humiliation and oppression are the path to sobriety? Does our current system actually believe sharing my mugshot in the criminal section of my hometown newspaper for everyone to see is the first step toward healing?
Worse yet, in my experience, the system never seemed to care about treating the thing that caused me to self-medicate in the first place. All they seemed to care about was making sure I understood that I was powerless and full of character defects. My worth as a human being became solely dependent on my sober day count, or lack thereof. I was given a label (alcoholic) rooted in shame. I was told I was crazy, broken, and unworthy of basic human rights. So I continued to drink, unwilling to land in that unsafe place.
Luckily, in 2016 while on probation for my 2nd DUI and stuck living in my parent’s basement with a beeping alcohol-detecting-ankle-tether to keep me company, I found a blog called Hip Sobriety. Finally, someone (Holly Whitaker) was speaking my language. Finally, someone was putting words to my experience in a way that made sense. Finally, someone told me there is no such thing as an alcoholic; I wasn’t crazy or broken or powerless. Finally, a breath of fresh air. *Finally.*
Unfortunately, and also unsurprisingly, I immediately drank when that stint of probation ended in 2018. Then I lost everything. Again. I didn’t know what the point was. I absorbed all of the bullshit the system wanted me to believe about us low-life alcoholics, us chronic-relapsers. I felt forever doomed; my disease forever doing pushups in the parking lot just waiting for me to relapse.
But, I continued to drunkenly follow Holly’s work for a couple of years and eventually joined Tempest in December 2020. Not only did Tempest give me a safe place to land, they also taught me to forgive myself for landing here.
In my perfect world, Tempest would have existed and been prescribed ten years ago after my first DUI. With all of that shame-based recovery in my system, it became impossible to forgive myself each time I landed at a new bottom. Those other programs believed making amends to others was of utmost importance, but they never taught me that I, myself, am worthy of love and forgiveness. They never taught me how to forgive myself for landing here in the first place.
Tempest welcomed all parts of me with open arms. Tempest understood that I was a traumatized human in need of a holistic approach to recovery. Tempest works to remove all of the shame from my story. Tempest is a label-free space rooted in life-changing and unconditional compassion. Tempest told me there is no fixing because I am not broken. Tempest gives me agency and encourages me to create a recovery path that is just as special and unique as I am. Tempest, and reading Quit Like A Woman, truly changed my relationship with alcohol. Tempest saved my life.
Tempest understood that people like me, known as “chronic relapsers,” are actually the people in the most pain, with the most trauma. We don’t need more shame or punishment. We just need to be seen, heard, and loved. We just need a safe place to land.
I am writing this fourteen months in my alcohol-free journey, and can’t help but wonder what type of world it would be if everyone who struggles with substance abuse landed at Tempest, rather than whatever is happening with our current criminal justice system.
Imagine what type of world it would be if we all had a safe place to land.
