It took me about 6 years of trying and failing to finally get Sober. It’s a period in my life that genuinely felt like a blur. I can’t remember a lot of events that others can and I could never put any events I do recall in any kind of chronological order. The moments I can remember the most vividly are the ones where I had lost all hope in my life. It feels like each time it happened, that things could not get worse, yet they did. Bottoms have trap doors. To me there is a very unique feeling to that hopelessness. When I have felt it truly, I was completely indifferent to the world and myself. It is a very dangerous place to be, I could make terrible decisions that could affect the rest of my life on a whim simply because I did not care about the consequences in the moment. I’d like to say I never did anything that impacted anyone or myself too much, but I will never be able to comprehend how my family coped with me when I would reach this state of mind.

The fascinating thing about that feeling of complete hopelessness is that I attribute it to me finally getting sober this time more than anything else. In 2015 I had been working for my father, not sober, when I got caught stealing and was immediately fired. It was one of the worst days of my life only for the fact that I had broken my father’s heart. I fled down to Florida from New Jersey where I was staying at the time and the next few months after that were the most isolated times of my life. I didn’t talk to or see anyone and stayed pent up in my room staying up days at a time. There was a very strange comfort in it but I was truly dying inside. March 17, 2015 at around 11am I got a call from my mom, she informed me dad had died of a heart attack. He was 60, fell asleep on his couch (as he always slept on the couch) and he never woke up. I could not believe it.

If there is one thing I will be forever grateful for it’s that something told me to reach out to my father 3 days before he died. I hadn’t talked to him in 6 months but he responded to me this time and we had a very deep talk. I remember feeling a major weight off my shoulders afterwards. God truly works in mysterious ways. I went back up to New Jersey for the service, no way was I sober, and I spent the next two months at home crying myself to sleep every single night. Hell was here, the nightmare would not end, Dad was gone.

After 2 of the most miserable months of my life, my mom informed me that my father had left some money and I would be able to use it to go back to treatment. I said yes immediately. I was as hopeless as ever heading down for treatment again but as I said earlier, that hopelessness is what started the beautiful foundation I have in my life today. I finally gave up trying to do things my way, I had done it for years and got nothing in return but heartbreak. I also made the decision very early on that I was just going to do what people suggested I should do, those who had my best interests and the results were incredibly better than anything I have ever come up with. We call this surrender in recovery and if you ask me, true recovery is not possible without it. As soon as I determined I did not know what was best for me in any area of my life and followed guidance, my life got dramatically better. It was because of my hopelessness that I was finally ready to listen, thank god the right people were put in my life as soon as I was ready. God just seems to work that way.

Hope had been restored.

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Guest Author Bio
Daniel Wittler

Daniel Wittler is an Outreach Specialist for Recovery Local, a local addiction/recovery based marketing company. He advocates long-term sobriety by writing for websites like Journeypure.com, providing resources to recovering addicts and shedding light on the disease of addiction. Daniel has been sober for several years, is active in his recovery community and likes to share his message of hope to show absolutely anyone can get sober once they are ready to.