My eyes opened to the white airbags surrounding me. The crunch of the car as I hit the street pole replayed in my head. I was leaving a friend’s wedding after having countless glasses of wine. I don’t even like wine, but they didn’t have Prosecco. So many happy people and couples around me reminded me of my grief for the one I imagined marrying.

My battle with addiction began when I lost my boyfriend to a car accident on his way to me. We were nineteen when he died—just children. Covid-19 took over the country shortly after. Despite it being a tragedy to some, I welcomed it happily. I needed the world to pause; I needed time to grieve, or in my case, begin drowning my sorrows.

The pandemic made it easy to disguise my dependence on alcohol. My alcohol addiction brought me many rock bottoms. It’s fitting that a car accident, of all things, would be the thing to open my eyes to my addiction. It had sparked the drinking, and now it had sparked a change. Through extreme grief and alcohol consumption, I came to understand that there was only one person who was going to bring me back to who I was before. God. My addiction led me to confront the real issues that I was refusing to face.

Isn’t that what addiction does? Keeps you from dealing with the thing that you struggle with the most?

The realization that the drinking has gotten out of control was gradual, the action itself was not. I just wanted the emotions to stop, to subside. I was searching for a way to escape the grief. Once summer was over, the COVID restrictions alleviated enough that I wanted to attempt to live a college lifestyle. Drinking was part of the role of every college student around me. It was easy to join in with them.

Thinking that grief would be the worst thing I faced, I became reckless. A friend I trusted took advantage of me after I needed a ride home from a party one night. Waking up that following day alone and naked in my room with no recollection of what had happened brought a sinking feeling in my stomach. Of all days, it was my deceased boyfriend’s birthday. You could say that was my first rock bottom.

That day I gave myself over to addiction. I went to another party that night and said yes to more than alcohol. I never intended to do drugs, but that morning was already competing for the worst day of my life. I became friends with people who lived for the party. I started my days at the gas station buying a couple of tall boys of white claw. I’d finish off fifths of fireball from the night before. I turned into a version of me that I never imagined I’d become.

I lived on the edge, and I knew it. I shut out my family, real friends, and those who cared about me most. My sister knows me better than anyone in my family, so she wasn’t going to let me distance myself. When she confronted me, I used any excuse I could conjure up. I was trying to have fun while I was still in college. There were countless times when I would tell myself it was the last time, but I could always justify the next time. “It’s a social thing,” “Everyone else is doing it,” or my favorite, “I don’t want to stop yet.” Yet. As if I had any actual control over it.

I had many moments of crisis. My second rock bottom consisted of me crumbling to my knees in my dad’s arms.  He held me while I was sobbing going through withdrawals. When he was telling me it was going to be okay, I knew I had a problem.

I tried to get sober several times. Failing made me realize it wasn’t just myself that needed to change. It was the friends and the environment I was around. I began cutting people out of my life. None of that was enough. Without God, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had given up on trying to get sober as it was seemingly too hard.

Watching two friends from high school get married was a reminder that the one I wanted to marry wasn’t here anymore. The wine stopped tasting gross after a couple of drinks. Five drinks in, it started to taste like water. I wasn’t blackout, and I was familiar with drinking and driving. I thought driving would be no different than the times before. That’s the thing about alcohol; it impairs your judgement. Seeing the car after that, I knew I needed help for real this time.

The wreck wasn’t my only reason for giving up drinking. It was the last rock bottom I wanted to create for myself. The drinking and my decisions led to all these horrible experiences. I knew what I had been doing was wrong. I deliberately ran from God partly because I was angry at Him but mostly because I wasn’t ready to confront my pain.

After the wreck, I recognized what had been the case for a while: God was telling me to confront my struggles. I started by going to therapy. My therapist happened to be thirty years sober, so God used him to open my eyes to a better life. I began meeting with my deceased boyfriend’s mom monthly to catch up, which led me to learn about Celebrate Recovery. Having a faith-based recovery program was vital. She also pointed me toward churches with great young adult communities. I had to fully commit to God daily if I wanted to be sober for good.

The first week, I went to multiple recovery meetings at different churches. I started letting myself feel all the things I had tried to numb. Leaning on God, I took one day at a time. Some days, I failed by sipping my sister’s drink. On other days, I had no desire to drink at all. Some days, I felt the shame of all I had done was too much to handle. None of it was easy, but it has been worth it. I still have a sponsor that I meet with weekly, along with my therapist.

My therapist told me that when you want a drink, tell yourself, “I’ll have a drink tomorrow.” Once tomorrow comes, tomorrow becomes today, and you can’t have a drink today. You never make it to “tomorrow” because tomorrow stays tomorrow. I still use that logic when I have a rough day sometimes. I begin my day with quiet time reading my Bible.

I began reading the Bible everyday, and I found that it provided a new perspective to take throughout the day. 1 Peter 5:8 states, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Satan has a way of attacking you the most when you’re trying to turn your life around. Seeing the Enemy prowling around me, I realized I must be doing something right. My perspective of things changed. I started to see my quality of life come back.

I reflect often on how far God has brought me. I could never take the credit for where I am now. All I did was admit that a change was needed, but God did most of the work. When my parents named me, they called me “in Honor of our Lord and His all-sufficient grace.” I realize now that my story is a testament to the truth of His saving grace. He is unconditional love and hope for an eternal future. Recovery certainly isn’t linear. We are, after all, simply human. Be forgiving to yourself. Find a community and people that will allow you to grow in your faith. Go through the twelve steps and get a sponsor or accountability partner. Most of all, be patient.

If recovery is an ongoing battle, it’s never solely ours to fight. Why worry, when God is in control? The apostle Paul wrote, “If God is for us, then who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31). This verse isn’t just about “who” can be against us but “what,” whether it be a daily battle with alcohol or something else entirely. Because whatever comes after rock bottom, you won’t face it alone.