*Me*
Hi, my name is Shrrene and I am a grateful believer in Jesus who is in recovery from alcohol addiction, depression, past effects of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, anger & control, isolation, fear, suicidal ideation, betrayal, neglect, guilt, shame, codependency, fear, and anxiety just to name a few.
*Childhood*
My childhood was full of fear and extreme darkness. As far back as I can remember substance and abuse was part of my story. the first 5 years of my childhood is not what I like to share but it is part of my story and explains who I have become as a result.
When I was 3 or 4 years old my mom and I lived in what was known as the ghetto above a liquor store in a studio apartment in Stockton CA. My mom was always drunk or hung over and had bruises all over her body. She would send me downstairs to the liquor store with a note & money for liquor and and her pack of Kool cigarettes and with the change I could get what I wanted. I would come back with whatever alcohol was written on the note for the clerk her cigarettes and a Dr Pepper and a candy bar. She always let me try her drinks and I knew early on that I enjoyed the taste and effects of alcohol even at that young age.
My mom was an alcoholic and drug addicted prostitute and had Men and random people in and out of our lives every day. The men in her life abused me physically and sexually almost every day and this became normal everyday life for me. If mom did something wrong in their eyes and I was around we would both get beat up and pay the price so I learned very quickly to keep my mouth shut and try to be invisible. I also learned from my mom how alcohol made her not care what was going on and that always stuck with me because of the kind of crazy lifestyle we lived. I knew my mom loved me because she always told me but she just couldn’t provide the kind of life she would talk about us having some day. most of the first 5 years of my life we would live either on the streets, a shelter, or a random person‘s place for the night we never stayed in the same place for very long.
My life forever changed one day in kindergarten, I was playing on the playground at school and hanging upside down on the monkey bars and my shirt went up and exposed my back and stomach and my teacher saw all the bruises that were all over my body and within the hour the police showed up and removed me from school.
I loved to rollerskate!
I was brought to the police station where I was photographed and asked questions all of which I answered the way I have been taught to answer with ‘It’s nothing’ or ‘I’m just really clumsy’ I didn’t tell them it was the random men or that my mom was always drunk and strung out when I would get beat and abused.
I loved to be outside
I said what I was told to say because I knew the consequences when I got home if I said the wrong thing, only I never made it home.
I was Immediately placed into a children’s orphanage and assigned a social worker. I Lived at the orphanage for about eight months. At the age of 5, I can remember having thoughts of wanting to die but not understanding what that really involved or how to Make it happen. It seemed that parents wanted new babies and not a dirty little abused five-year-old girl like me. While living in the orphanage, I can remember wondering why my mom didn’t come for me and why God didn’t love me. I do not think I even understood God or what any of it meant but I can remember thinking why he does not love me and help me. If he is not going to help me, why am I alive. Even at that young of an age, I was attempting to cry out to God, but I did not know how…
Two months before my sixth birthday finally it was my turn to go to a home. I can remember pulling up to this little house in Lodi California and seeing this cute little couple standing at the screen door and this would turn out to be my new foster family for the next 10 years, A mom and dad and two older brothers. I can recall two times that my birth mom visited me for supervised visits. The last time was about two months after living with my new family on my sixth birthday.. I didn’t see my birth mother again until I was 18 years old.
The next 8 years from the age of 6 to 14 even though I was finally placed in a home I was still dealing with so many issues from all the abuse I endured and still to this day I haven’t dealt with many of my past traumas and so some I will not mention until I’ve addressed them deeper in my recovery. I plan on seeking counseling for myself at some point and in the mean time sharing my story with others is tremendously healing and helpful for my recovery. I am finally starting this blog website which I have wanted to do for some time now but was scared.
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My new Parents(adorable)
Me and my 2 new brothers (Greg & Tim)
First Christmas with my new family
The last time I saw my Mom at 6 years old
My 6th birthday my mom visited me at my foster home
Teenage years
I knew early on that I had issues with substance abuse. My 2 foster brothers and I used to steal it from my foster dad who is also an alcoholic so he never noticed anything missing. We would take the alcohol out to the grape vineyards behind our house and drink. It was easy to hide out in the vineyards and drink, smoke cigarettes, and smoke pot.
I was adopted at the age of 12 and shortly after that my younger foster brother got into a major car accident. He was 15 and drinking and driving with his friends and was thrown from the vehicle. He was in a coma for two months and almost died. When he finally woke up everything and everyone in our family was different. He had permanent brain damage and has been living in treatment facilities for the last 35 years. I spent a lot of time in the hospitals with my family to be with my brother and during all those many visits I met some older kids in the hospital cafeteria and I would eventually sneak out of my house to hang out with them.
As a result of my brother’s accident, my foster dad had stopped drinking and started going to AA. Some of the times I would go with my Dad and I could tell at that early age how I could relate to the people in the rooms. Something about them just felt comfortable to me.
I had a very addictive personality as far back as I can remember and wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be loved. I often said yes to the substance offered to me, speed, ecstasy, pot and I always said yes to my friend alcohol. I started sneaking out and going to parties in my early school years and I hung out with a lot of older kids. One night when I snuck out at the age of 14 I was at a party and ended up being raped by an older guy and of course, alcohol and drugs were involved. Again I never told anyone and kept it to myself, after all, I knew how to isolate and hide the pain and fear.
*Married/Adult life*
It was late into my freshman year of high school that I met the love of my life, Rick, at Taco Bell. I thought this cute blue-eyed boy handing me my food was so cute that I should get a job there and so I did. We became good friends and for the first time in my life, I was not being treated as an object or being abused or forced into anything by the opposite sex. We developed a close friendship and We begin dating when I was 15 and he was 17 and I fell in love!
My 16th birthday Rick took me to “Great America” amusement park
he was a nice Christian boy with an amazing family that I always looked up to and wished I had. He had a nice normal family with no abuse or substance issues.
Our 2nd date was a High school dance. I am 15, he is 17.
We dated for 10 months and we had a plan put together to get married. I told my parents we wanted to marry and they said OK someday when you’re both older. I said no we are planning on it now of course it was a no from both of them. Rick and I had already called every single state to find out if we can get married without parental consent and not one state said it was OK. So we put our plan into action. His parents approved of our plan to marry and they obviously knew God had a plan for our lives even at that young age. The day came for me to ask my parents one last time and they said no. I literally walked out my front door with the clothes on my back and hopped on a Greyhound bus And went from CA to OR 20 hours later to live with strangers(Rick’s Grandmother) for the next 2 1/2 weeks.
I called my parents and told them that I would not return until they had papers permitting me to Marry at age 16. When they finally agreed and I came home I went to the authorities to prove I wasn’t a missing person any longer. Rick and I left for Nevada the next morning to get married. I was 16 and he was 18. All of our friends thought we were crazy but we were just in love. And this September 10th we just celebrated 31 years married.
Our wedding day headed to NV to a courthouse
9-10-1990
As a result of my childhood, I had become a very shy and introverted person. I am often told I look mad or sad and that I don’t smile. Many people tell me I have an RBF( resting bitch face:) I always hide my true feelings from others to avoid being hurt and I have always felt deeply ashamed of my past and I have never really dealt with the trauma I endured. I’ve shared a lot with my husband because I feel safe with him but I’ve never really explained all of it in detail or how it’s changed me on the inside. I did not want my husband to look at me as broken even though I have always felt broken inside. Rick always treated me right and made me feel very safe. The first and only man I have ever loved and trusted.
High school days
1989/1990
Rick and my foster dad ended up being able to find my birth mother and we finally reunited when I was 18.
The day I was reunited with my birth mom I was 18 years old
My birth mom and I had a great relationship for the 11 years we had together as adults.
My beautiful Birth mom Becky
My mom ended up dying at a very early age of 46 from liver cancer. My mom told me she fought so hard for those first few years to get me back when I was placed in foster care but after being a bank robber on the run, a prostitute, a drug dealer, and going from state to state trying to get money to fight the court system she ended up getting caught & went to prison which I later found out was why the adoption went through. But it was in prison where she finally got her life together and got clean and sober and finished school. My baby brother was 14 when our mom died and Rick & I fought the court system and his father for custody of him which we won and then raised him from the age of 14 on.
My baby brother AJ
Our mother was able to get her life straight for my brother so she wouldn’t lose custody of another child.
Mom and AJ
I promised myself I would make sure that my brother did the right things the rest of his teenage years for our mother and today he is almost 33 with a beautiful wife and 3 kids.
AJ, Chelsie, Jacob, Jordynn and Jackson
*Alcohol and Addiction*
I did not touch alcohol again until after my son was born and I was in my mid-20s I casually begin drinking with friends just socially. Rick would join me now and then but I could tell it wasn’t for him and that he was what we in AA call a Normie, someone that could stop at just one. Just having one made no sense to me.
Cruise 2008
During that time I always kept my drinking under control the best I could but I always managed to overdo it. I would sneak it very often and my husband would not notice that I drink a lot more than I let on. I drank to escape my thoughts, my feelings, my past, my hurts, habits, and hang-ups.
Active addiction
It did not really get excessive until we moved to Arizona 13 years ago. I would sneak and hide it whenever I could I would isolate all the time and I was definitely a closet drinker, literally I would hide alcohol in my closet and drink in there all the time. I had a comfy pillow and books and would hide out in my closet to drink to oblivion. I had hiding spots all over the house but my closet was my number 1 hiding spot. I would hide mini’s or bottles in the lining of my purses, inside clothes, inside shoes, inside boxes. Garbage can liners, in drawers, outside in the backyard in bushes. I had many many hiding spots.
1,2,3….Too many
After having our second child much later in life I progressively begin to drink a lot more and always in secret.
My beautiful Isabella (Izzy)
I was in a new state working remotely from home and had literally no friends and had postpartum depression on top of my other depression. Working remotely from home meant drinking in isolation was that much easier.
My son Andrew and daughter Izzy
I could start earlier and earlier in the day and keep a steady buzz through my whole day. I am ashamed to say I would drive my kids around town. I was what they call a functioning alcoholic until I wasn’t.
Baby Izzy
I had always felt out of control inside my own mind. I had never really addressed any of my past abuse or my feelings from my insane childhood. I covered up my feelings and thoughts and alcohol helped until it didn’t. I became good at stuffing my feelings.
In the next few years living in Arizona, I continued down a very destructive road by drinking and hiding it. it was easy to hide and say nothing I have been hiding so much my entire life it felt normal. When asked if I had been drinking, my answer was always a lie!
*Medical issues*
In May of 2014 at the age of 39 it was discovered that I had a heart issue and after many stays in hospitals and medical issues I then had my first open-heart surgery to have my mitral valve replaced.
2014/2016 2 open heart surgeries and a stroke
I spent a lot of time in the hospitals dealing with Afib and heart issues. you would have thought that would have made me stop drinking but it didn’t. As soon as I was healed enough to get around I was up to my old ways.
In January 2016 only A year and a half later I ended up having a stroke which led to my second open-heart surgery. Again I continued to drink.
Helicopter from one hospital to the next for surgery on my brain after my stroke
*Recovery*
During all this time with my heart issues, my husband started going to a program called CR and dealing with his own issues of life. He was always telling me about CR and I would tell him no thanks that I wasn’t into that sort of thing, besides I could stay in isolation and drink while he went to CR. I figured he was probably talking about me there anyway and I didn’t want to admit I had anything to work on, meanwhile, deep down inside I knew I needed to do something about myself but I couldn’t admit that I had a problem.
Finally, a little over 6 years ago my husband brought me home an AA big book that he had gotten from an Al-Anon meeting. I was so shocked As I did not even know he was going to Al-Anon meetings
I pushed it aside and thought I don’t need this, there’s nothing wrong with me but after a few days of thinking and praying about it I decided to go ahead and look up the meetings had had told me about, I finally decided to go check it out.. what I discovered once I got into the rooms of AA was other people were not only like me but they actually understood me. Suddenly it felt like a second home.
My recovery books
I found a place with people that I felt comfortable with so I decided to continue going to AA because it made me feel like others understood me and I could remember that familiar feeling how I felt all those years earlier when I used to go with my foster dad.
After attending AA for a few months I decided to check out CR and see what it was all about.
some of my Broken Chains CR Forever family
they had a group for addictive behaviors so I would attend that and I started to feel like people understood me and I started to make friends and open up slowly.
My dear friend Jennifer who has been on this journey with me
AA and CR have taught me to be thankful and how to not dwell on my past or let my past dictate my mood or my future. God has truly opened my eyes and my heart to start on the road to recovery and he continues to show me every day how to have relationships and how I do not need to drink to be worthy of friendships or love.
Since going to AA and CR I made some true friendships and meet some people I can truly depend on. I Love both programs and cannot thank my husband enough for not giving up on me.
My husband and I have a newly restored relationship as a result of both of us being in recovery.
My amazing Hubby Rick
God has truly opened my eyes and my heart to start on a road to recovery and he continues to show me love unconditionally. I have a new relationship with God and I talk to him often, that was not the case years ago even after being a Christian for most of our marriage. I have a pretty amazing husband who has always been standing by my side and just waiting for me to finally get it. I am not perfect or healed or cured but I’m in a much healthier happier place now in recovery. I’ve made many mistakes in my recovery and relapsed time and time again, but I have my faith, tools, and God as I continue my path of recovery. I love to read books and blogs and encouragement through quotes and websites and I love listening to podcasts on recovery. Now not a day goes by that I dont have something to do in the recovery world.
Some of my recovery books
My Amazing son Andrew and his fiancé Elizabeth
I continue to make a living amends to my son Andrew daily. I was a drinker through his entire childhood and did not get sober until he was an adult. My next huge amends to him will be on November 19, 2021, when he and his beautiful fiancé, Liz, get married. My biggest gift to both will be a sober Mom who is present and will remember that monumental day for years to come
My Family. Left to right- Elizabeth, Andrew, Rick, Me, Izzy, Sandy (MIL) and Ron (FIL)
Without CR, AA, my husband, and some amazing men and women in my life I would not be able to say and finally believe that I am a good mother, wife, and friend. I no longer hang my head in shame and guilt for my past and my hurts habits and hang-ups.
My hubby and I are proud members of BCJC(Broken Chains for Jesus Christ)
My past is just my story, not my identity, and once I finally realized that, it has no more power over me.
In my recovery, I share my struggles so it can help someone else. Now I am a volunteer, go to bible studies, help lead studies, lean small groups and I am a Hope dealer for Jesus! I still attend AA and CR and I continue to work on myself daily.
With my hubby right before I shared my personal testimony at a fellow CR
I didn’t have a typical Rock bottom, I had an ‘I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired’ moment. I’m not someone who lost everything. I still had my family, my house, my cars, my job and never went to jail or rehab or had DUI’s by the Grace of God but I was slowly losing myself. It was not until 2 years ago on 9-10-19 (our 29th wedding anniversary) after my husband found my stash in my closet AGAIN that I truly sat down and prayed and asked God to remove that desire to drink from me.
The last picture of me in active addiction 9-10-2019 (before dinner)
By working on the steps of staying involved in CR and AA on 9-11-21 I will have 2 years of sobriety.
My 1 year sobriety Chip I treated myself to 9-11-2020
My new 2 year sobriety chip just came, YEAH! 9-11-2021
I’ve continued to stay involved in CR, AA, and recently joined Broken Chains a motorcycle bike enthusiast group of people on fire for God. It took me over 30 years to say yes to my husband on getting a motorcycle. Now I love it and find that I want that wind therapy as much as he does. It’s turned into something we both love and share.
Riding with my #1 guy!!
Now I love all programs of recovery. God has truly opened my eyes & heart to life on the road of recovery. I have a new relationship with God and a restored relationship with my husband. He has always been by my side and my biggest cheerleader. I’ve developed friendships with men and women in recovery who are a mess just like me. I am not perfect or healed or cured but I’m in a much healthier place now that I am in active recovery. I’ve learned to never give up and to keep coming back. Now I am utilizing tools that I have slowly put in my toolbox. I’m continuing to learn About myself and healthy boundaries and how to love myself and others. Now not a day does not go by that I do not have something to do with recovery.
If you are questioning your relationship with alcohol, I encourage you to reach out, do not give up, listen to others, accept the help. There is hope and you are worth it no matter what you have told yourself or been told by others. You are more than your hurts, habits, and hang-ups and in the AA rooms, we say ‘It works if you work it, and you’re worth it!!
Now after finally getting some sobriety and recovery under my belt I have decided to step outta my comfort zone and start a blog…. I do not know anything about writing, I am a Jr high school Assistant manager of a kitchen cafeteria, I am a lunch lady!!! A fricking lunch lady people.
My amazing Lunch Lady Crew!!!
So what, I am doing it anyway!!!
One thing you should know about me, I am stubborn, and I do not give up!!!!
Active Addiction to Sobriety!!
If someone as broken as I was can do it, so can you!!