How to Save a Life
I'm not sure why I stopped blogging about my recovery. Maybe because I started believing that it's not a topic that should be shared openly, shamelessly. Heaven forbid someone not like me.
The best thing we can ever do in this life is be true to who we are. This means all the things that make us uniquely individual - to include our flaws and sometimes the things we don't want the world to see.
I just had the BEST weekend, and I spent so many moments overflowing with gratitude for my life.
My Chinese roommate from the Arhanta Yoga Ashram in India was visiting the US for the first time, so I went up to NYC to see her. We ate yummy vegan food, went to yoga and walked around shopping for things I couldn't afford. I stayed the night with one of my best friends from High School. We laughed and talked in the way it feeds your soul. I soaked in the views from her apartment, we ate brunch on the water front, I went to a flea market in the city where I bought more healing crystals, went to an AA meeting, and then I took another yoga class before my bus left. Just before leaving, I met up with another soul sister from the Arhanta Yoga Ashram who lives in the city. She was the only other American there with me at the time.
I enjoyed the sunset, a meditation and gazed at the full moon on the bus ride home. And then I realized that (yesterday) it was exactly 21 years ago when my family lost a very special person, my uncle, to mental illness and alcoholism. He was 37 years old when he committed suicide. This bittersweet moment will be its own blueprint in my mind and heart like the day we lost him...
I was 10 years old. I was playing basketball outside my elementary school and walked the few short blocks home when the world stopped. I had on a grey Looney Tunes shirt and black and teal reversible Umbro shorts. All I could hear was my sister screaming, "Why?" and my brother crying... A neighbor of my grandparents delivered the news. My parents went to my Grandma and Grandpa's and I couldn't get a hold of them.... I couldn't understand. Today I do.
I'm so grateful for my recovery and for my life. I'm not ashamed. It's a genetically predisposed disease, I didn't choose this path. It was given to me so that I could grow spiritually. That I might share my experience, strength and hope.
I'm not sure I ever shared this openly, but actually, if it weren't for my uncle, I don't know if I'd be sober today.
It was April 15, 2014. I'd just spent 4 days in a hospital bed detoxing from alcohol. I was staying at my sister’s in Nebraska trying to decide if I was going to go to treatment or go back to DC and resume my life as I knew it. That night my uncle came to me in a dream.
When I woke up, I knew that if I didn't get help I would end up exactly like him. It was in treatment for alcoholism that I learned I'd been self medicating a Major Depressive Disorder. My Uncle saved my life. I owe it to him to live it the best I can.
And maybe if I talk about it, it will give someone else enough hope or courage to talk about it when it might otherwise mean their life.
The best thing we can ever do in this life is be true to who we are. This means all the things that make us uniquely individual - to include our flaws and sometimes the things we don't want the world to see.
I just had the BEST weekend, and I spent so many moments overflowing with gratitude for my life.
My Chinese roommate from the Arhanta Yoga Ashram in India was visiting the US for the first time, so I went up to NYC to see her. We ate yummy vegan food, went to yoga and walked around shopping for things I couldn't afford. I stayed the night with one of my best friends from High School. We laughed and talked in the way it feeds your soul. I soaked in the views from her apartment, we ate brunch on the water front, I went to a flea market in the city where I bought more healing crystals, went to an AA meeting, and then I took another yoga class before my bus left. Just before leaving, I met up with another soul sister from the Arhanta Yoga Ashram who lives in the city. She was the only other American there with me at the time.
I enjoyed the sunset, a meditation and gazed at the full moon on the bus ride home. And then I realized that (yesterday) it was exactly 21 years ago when my family lost a very special person, my uncle, to mental illness and alcoholism. He was 37 years old when he committed suicide. This bittersweet moment will be its own blueprint in my mind and heart like the day we lost him...
I was 10 years old. I was playing basketball outside my elementary school and walked the few short blocks home when the world stopped. I had on a grey Looney Tunes shirt and black and teal reversible Umbro shorts. All I could hear was my sister screaming, "Why?" and my brother crying... A neighbor of my grandparents delivered the news. My parents went to my Grandma and Grandpa's and I couldn't get a hold of them.... I couldn't understand. Today I do.
I'm so grateful for my recovery and for my life. I'm not ashamed. It's a genetically predisposed disease, I didn't choose this path. It was given to me so that I could grow spiritually. That I might share my experience, strength and hope.
I'm not sure I ever shared this openly, but actually, if it weren't for my uncle, I don't know if I'd be sober today.
It was April 15, 2014. I'd just spent 4 days in a hospital bed detoxing from alcohol. I was staying at my sister’s in Nebraska trying to decide if I was going to go to treatment or go back to DC and resume my life as I knew it. That night my uncle came to me in a dream.
When I woke up, I knew that if I didn't get help I would end up exactly like him. It was in treatment for alcoholism that I learned I'd been self medicating a Major Depressive Disorder. My Uncle saved my life. I owe it to him to live it the best I can.
And maybe if I talk about it, it will give someone else enough hope or courage to talk about it when it might otherwise mean their life.
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