0.1.1 You know it’s right because it works.
My Story, Part 1.1
If you read My Story, Part 1, you know I spent years trying to solve the wrong problem—and it nearly cost me my life.
So how did I know when I finally found the right solution?
Because it worked. It worked.
My life started getting better—immediately. It started to be sunny within myself. I could smile again. It worked and it was obvious and delightful.
That first drink, with Katie Stark at her house when I was just a child, felt like THE missing puzzle piece snapping into place making a picture of myself that I could finally recognize. For the first time, I felt whole. That drink made life make sense. I had that feeling for years after—alcohol completed me.
I always felt different from other people—not in a special way, just... wrong and off. I wanted to belong, and alcohol made me think that I did. I genuinely felt that it worked. Sure I overdid it sometimes, but I would try again—I could reach that perfect point of feeling like I had my life together. Life made sense to me with alcohol.
Maybe if YOU looked at my life, or if I WAS LOOKING BACK ON MY LIFE, we would all know how absolutely preposterous this was - that alcohol “made me feel whole” - of course we’d all realize that I might be sick. But for me, having alcohol in my body felt like coming home, being at home. And without it I felt home-less.
Then at one point the flip switched. I didn’t notice it right away, but alcohol stopped working.
What once made me feel whole and alive now left me feeling empty, confused, resentful, and suicidal.
I tried tirelessly to make it work again, to rewind to a time when it worked. But no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t go back.
I’d built my life around alcohol—it was my best friend, my religion, my savior. Admitting it had turned on me felt implausible. How could something that had helped me so much at one time quickly become my worst enemy? It just didn’t make sense.
I was resourceful, creative, in my solutions to look at everything other than the one thing that was killing me.
I’ve had relationships like that since—the kind where I clung to the memory of the good times while everything around me was falling apart.
If you looked at the data of my life, the trend line was diving straight toward the bottom right corner—fast. That’s what alcohol became. Of course I tried—and I’m proud that I did. I spent countless hours, money and time. I’m strong-willed, strategic and creative. (Traits I would later put to much better use!)
All I needed was a messenger- someone grounded in neutrality who could gently reflect what was actually happening.
The clear eyes that could see for me (because mine were bloodshot and it was dark in the daytime). Cami Walker was that messenger. She shared her story in the sweetest, most compassionate voice, and helped me make the connection. She wasn’t faking the kindness, she had simply had a similar experience and she was sharing it with me.
She said it wasn't about being a bad person. It was simply this: what once worked, no longer did.
Once I became willing to see it—that the thing I thought was saving me was actually destroying me—I became willing to try another path.
The ugly truth didn’t seem so ugly when I realized it was the key to staying alive.
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We know something is the right solution because it works—because life starts to shift, even if just a little, in the right direction. The arrow in the chart starts going up, not down. Sometimes, though, we can’t see what’s not working until someone else shows us. We need a voice with perspective we don’t yet have.