A New Beginning with Serenity Renewal for Families
Marianka’s Recovery and Family’s Healing
My name is Marianka and I am a recovered addict, an active member a 12-step recovery program, and a participant in multiple workshops at Serenity Renewal for Families. I can’t tell you how many times I have talked about Serenity Renewal for Families in 12-step meetings and heard fellow addicts echo the praise I sing about this organization.
Here is my story:
One New Years Eve years ago, I tried cocaine for the first time with some of my favourite people. It was an experiment, an attempt to lighten up and loosen some of my hard no’s I had so fundamentally believed in as a former high performance athlete. I won’t lie, I was very excited to experience it and then happily move on from that experiment to being the responsible person, parent and wife that I was. No big deal. But it was too late.
I needed it to feel empowered. The chokehold of using this substance had set in and I couldn’t go a week, days or even hours without the next hit. When I was high, I felt as if I stood a foot taller than everyone else. I became the funniest, most attractive, most charismatic and best conversationalist in the room. The rituals around using became so entrenched in my mind, horrifically I would convince myself that using cocaine was much like a cigarette break (I was too good to smoke cigarettes). I believed that because I had control over my drinking, that surely cocaine was something I could taper off in no time! I told myself that I was a responsible, competent person and that I will be just fine, so I thought.
Me in heavy addiction
My identity was now rooted in the instant gratification of addiction. Within months, I had an insatiable appetite for my drug of choice. I could not stop. It was now keeping me upright and functioning because without it I felt a terrible, horrible and demoralizing feeling. It only took a few months– the person I once was had completely disappeared. Without cocaine, I was too sad, too angry and felt inadequate. It was a deep obsession of the mind, always calculating how much I had left based on my plans. Panic would ensue if I couldn’t obtain what I wanted in time. The insanity of addiction took over.
When my mother-in-law died I was at my peak, my husband’s grief was so profound and I could not manage one hour without my drug. I thought it helped me to stay alert, stay positive, manage the household, and do the things a supportive spouse would do. But I could not. I fell through the cracks, my children fell through the cracks– who was the Mom that couldn’t get the kids to school on time? Me.
Even though cocaine stopped being fun I kept using it so I could sustain myself with a distraction. The sorrow of a death in the family, coupled with what was now a full-blown addiction began to affect my physical body. Everyone saw it first and I was the last to realize it. I lost 40 pounds, my cheeks had sunken in and darkened and I had aged about 10 years in a matter of months. My body couldn’t keep up with my children’s high energy levels and to my horror, I had become what I see now as ‘a deadbeat mom’.
At work, I consistently missed deadlines, couldn’t keep a thought straight in my mind. I experienced aphasia – the sudden inability to find words and psychosis after every single using session. Cocaine toxicity had set in. I was too afraid to talk to people, thinking they would discover my secret. So instead of engaging with my neighbours, colleagues and friends, I withdrew and became dangerously isolated. After many hospital visits, I had wondered if perhaps I did in fact have a serious problem.
By the time my secret was indeed revealed my known life was in complete tatters. I had funded my secret habit by siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from our family. I had violated my family home, having had an affair with my husband’s best friend while in active use. I was determined to complete a 30 day inpatient rehab program and graduated with 30 days of complete abstinence.
It was now time for me to pick up the pieces of my broken home and life. My husband and I began with an agreed approach of 100% transparency and I knew I had lost all rights to be trusted. We then started marriage counseling with an experienced therapist with training on the impact of addiction on a marriage. The couples counselling was provided by Serenity Renewal for Families. They have been a rock in my recovery towards my family’s acceptance and growth.
Here is why this organization is so key. We addicts who recover do it with a lot of help from our new 12-step community and organizations like Serenity Renewal for Families I became serious about this program from the get-go and have made many new healthy friendships and now feel purpose, fulfillment and happiness in my life. But the people I hurt are still suffering. While I have new-found contentment in my recovery, our family unit as a whole struggled deeply.
We needed someone with proper training to guide conversations. In the face of total collapse, Serenity Renewal for Families helped us find effective communication practices, more patience with one another and tangible tools on how to listen instead of argue. My spouse found support, was listened to and received help with residual emotions through the help of educated Counselors.
We didn’t stop there, we each have had individual sessions with counselors as a way to navigate our resentments and despair. We also registered our 6 and 8 year old boys in the BABES program, where we spoke with other parents about the effects of addiction on families while giving the children a safe space to learn about peer pressure and coping strategies, among many other topics. Recovery is a family undertaking.
My supportive husband and me feeling much healthier in recovery!
I am so grateful that I surrendered to the staff and programming at Serenity Renewal for Families. The staff have a wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience to share some having recovered themselves from addiction. No other organization is so highly spoken about in my 12-step meetings.
So many need this support; just think about how many addicts will be born today, will die today and those who are left behind.
A new power, a new peace, a new happiness and sense of direction flowed into me after completing the programs at Serenity Renewal for Families. We continue to have good days and learning days. Now, I am a present mother and wife. Now, I am hopeful about our future. These are new muscles we must practice everyday as a family to heal effectively.
I was so excited to hear that Serenity Renewal for Families is embarking on a new program called REBOUND – Choices and Choices Jr. They will be going into high schools first and then hopefully into Elementary Schools to inform the youth of today and tomorrow that they have choices to make. I hope our boys get to take this ten-week program, so they make better choices than I initially did regarding substance use.
Because of the financial destruction of my using, we couldn’t afford to pay for the services we desperately needed and are so grateful that Serenity Renewal for Families is able to subsidize 100%. It’s because of your donations, and people who have paid it forward that we can heal as a family.
This Easter, the most powerful gift you can offer a family in despair, is the gift of hope to see another happy day. A donation can help a struggling family, educate a teenager about drugs and alcohol, guide a child through the ins and outs of decision-making, aide in the emotional well-being of a spouse and help everyday people like me through the nightmare of addiction. After all, recovery is a ‘we’ journey.
Marianka
P.S. Thanks to a generous donor, who is matching $20,000 worth of donations that come in at this time of year! They are doubling the power of your gift! Thank you for impacting families like ours. We are so grateful to have our lives back.
