“Clean Recovery was there for me…and continued to be there for me. That was priceless.
– Sarah M., a client of Clean Recovery Centers in Tampa, FL
Clean Recovery Was a Lifeline for Sarah.
. . . a clean testimonial.
HITTING BOTTOM
Sarah turned to alcohol and prescription pills when the chaos in her life became unmanageable. In her mid 20’s, the solution was using, and it led to her bottom. She attempted suicide in 2016, losing all her possessions, her job, and her car.
A CONSTANT HELL
“The feeling of needing a fix is like drowning,” she recalled. “You’re frantically struggling to breathe. Until you give in to the fix, you feel like you’re dying. It’s constant hell.”
For Sarah, the terrible thing about addiction were the moments when nothing else mattered but the addiction, the fix. “It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced,” she added.
NO SUPPORT
For the addict, a supportive family can be a key to recovery, but Sarah did not have that. “My family made things worse by not understanding. They didn’t want to understand alcoholism. They did not understand me or what I was going through.”
BINGE DRINKING SEEMED NORMAL
Because Sarah’s family drank themselves, they viewed her binge drinking as normal. “In their view, an alcoholic was a homeless man with a brown paper bag, and I didn’t fit that view,” Sarah explained. But they weren’t there when Sarah woke up in hotel rooms covered in vomit, alone and cold in a bathtub, or the nights she blacked out. They didn’t see how alcohol really affected her.
“I was in enough pain, enough insanity, to hand my life over to God. Without that bottom, I wouldn’t have stayed sober or been open to listening to others.”
AN ILLNESS, NOT JUST A WEAKNESS
“Most people don’t see addiction as an illness. It’s not just the drinking, it’s the thinking aspect of the illness that I struggled with the most,” Sarah said. A good example was her family. They never saw Sarah drink so they didn’t think she had a problem. “They just thought if I had more self control, I’d be fine to drink normally,” she explained. “I know that I can’t drink normally and no amount of self will or knowledge will allow me to drink normally.”
MOM COMES THROUGH
A big step for Sarah came then her mother agreed to let her move to England for help, getting her out of her Connecticut surroundings. “I met a sponsor who took me through the steps, and next week I celebrate one year of sobriety,” she noted with pride.
TREATMENT CENTERS – A LIFELINE
“Treatment centers were one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Sarah said. I made real friends for once in my life – people I stay in contact with. Clean Recovery was there for me while I was in Florida, and continued to be there for me. That was priceless.”
Visit the Testimonials page of the Clean Recovery Centers website to download Sarah’s testimonial and see other My Life, Clean testimonials.
