Falling into the Lord's Hands
A story of addiction & Recovery
by Violet Yates
Cover Photo by Natalja Sidorenko
Copyright © 2011 Violet Yates
Smashwords Edition
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Falling into the Lord's Hands
A Story of Addiction & Recovery
This is my story of alcohol addiction and how it got its hands on my life for a long time; years, in fact. I want to share my story, in the hopes that people with addiction will seek help. I did, and for that I am eternally grateful. With Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible.
I spent almost my entire adult life waiting for my life to begin, waiting for life to get on an even keel, a steady medium. Meanwhile, life was passing me by. I didn't realize it then, but that steady medium was attainable, but only if I chose the right path.
I grew up in Hawaii in the 80's, on the Big Island. It's big compared to the other islands, but small in terms of things to do. As a teen, I found things to do, but they weren't necessarily good things. I have also had issues with my mental health since I was a teenager, like anxiety, hearing voices (only sometimes) and paranoia. I did things that a lot of teenagers did, like use drugs and drink. I experimented. I binged on alcohol. I took magic mushrooms and had a really bad time of it, a couple bad trips. I did lot of the things that parents don't want their kids to do, because they weren't safe. I had pre-marital sex. I had a boyfriend who was four years older than me. I shoplifted, ran away from home, broke curfew. I had a crew of friends whose sole purpose seemed to be to find the next party and surf. I smoked pot constantly. I dropped out because I was too high all the time to make sense of any of my assignments; I'd forget about them, too. Then, to make every cliché about teen girls come true, I became pregnant. On purpose.
I was in an abusive relationship with my boyfriend, E, at the time I had my first son in 1990. He was very possessive and controlling, and although I loved him, I wanted out by the time my son was walking. But I found out I was pregnant again, so I stayed.
When my second son was born in 1992, E's father died of cancer, so he left to New York to settle things. I started going to Thy Word Ministries up in Captain Cook. I loved it. I had a relationship with God and I felt at peace with myself, my family and my surroundings. When E came back, however, he didn't like the extra time I spent at church, and he refused to go with me. One night, after he had drunk more than a few beers, E attacked me because he thought I was being unfaithful with a friend of ours, just because I gave the guy a ride to church every now and then.
It was then that I knew I had to get out of the relationship, but I was a single mom who was scared, not only of being on my own, but afraid of what he would do to me if I kicked him out. This fear turned out to be warranted, because after E moved out, he stalked me for a while, as well as broke into my house.
A friend of ours came to stay with us and I became infatuated with him. I stopped going to church. J gave me the extra push I needed to end my relationship. Then J broke my heart by leaving after he'd placed an ad in the personals for women. I started spending time with an old friend from high school, a girl, and then we decided to rent a house together. We both had kids and it seemed perfect. Just then J came back, and he moved in with us.
I never dealt with the anger of the abusive relationship I had been in with E; I just began to drink to try to make the hurt go away. J started taking care of the kids while I was too hung over in the mornings to climb out of bed. CPS came to visit a few times, and in the end they made me go to therapy, but no substance abuse classes. I moved out of the house when I no longer got along with my roommate, having found an apartment that was just right for me and my kids.
I did okay for a while after that. I still drank, but learned to hide it better. I partied when the kids were with their father, but when they were home I was sober. I went back to school and got my high school diploma. I started college. Even then, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote several letters to the local newspaper, which were published.
My boyfriend, J, was jealous and controlling. He wasn't really physically abusive, but he had just gotten out of a relationship with a girl who cheated on him, so he didn't trust anyone. I tried not to give him any reason to mistrust me, but nothing worked. It drove me crazy. We started fighting, and pretty soon we started breaking up and getting back together. I don't know how many times we did that, but it really took a toll on me. I wanted so badly for him to believe in me. I hadn't done anything up to that point for him to believe I was unfaithful. I started having anxiety attacks.
That changed after a while. First, I would get involved with people when he and I were on a break. Then, I started doing it while I was still with him. I was drinking a lot on the weekends, too- binge drinking again. I drove drunk quite a few times. I was depressed, and had thought of suicide by the time 1996 rolled around.
My sons' father wanted to move back to Upstate New York with them. I reluctantly let him take them on a trial basis. I wanted to get out of there, away from my problem, so I decided to fly up to New York and check things out. I liked it there. The very idea that you could drive 150 miles and not wind up in the same place was awesome to me. So I decided to move to New York. I thought that running from my drinking problem would help. The downward spiral had begun.
I spent the last six months in Hawaii finishing up classes at the local community college and getting ready to move. Me and J were still together but really rocky, breaking up and getting back together. He didn't live with me. I was working part time delivering pizzas and going to school full time. I loved school, but he seemed to be threatened by it. I couldn't handle a live in relationship with him because I couldn't deal with the jealousy on a daily basis. We had an understanding, that when I left we would press pause. I didn't know if we were meant to be, but I couldn't put my life on hold, or make him wait for me to figure things out.
I got my own apartment in Catskill, New York in the winter of 96/97 and proceeded to get my life together. I enrolled in college across the river. I was lonely, because I hadn't met that many people, so I convinced J to move to New York, which was probably a mistake. I drank every weekend still, and had a new bar to hang out at. One of those nights, the bartender took my keys and I had to get a ride from a stranger who worked there. The guy nearly raped me on the way home. It was a bad time, but I was blessed to have been able to stop him.
I got a job delivering pizzas again and started making new friends at work. Soon enough, I started wanting to spend time with them as well as with J. He didn't like it. We fell into the role we had played a couple years before- I drank a lot and he watched the boys when I was drinking or drunk. I was experiencing anxiety attacks again, only this time, I went to the hospital for them and was prescribed zanax, which really didn't do much but helped a little.
My aunt Kookie died in the summer of '97 and I took time off work and flew to Minnesota. My cousins and I talked about my relationship and they prompted me to get out of it before it got worse. It was already getting bad- J had screamed at me during one fight and lifted a chair above my head like he was going to hit me. The kids had been there in the room with us. It was time.
So when I got back to New York, I broke it off with J. After that, there was no one to hold me back from drinking. I drank at every opportunity when I wasn't working. I drank when the kids were asleep. I would go to friend's houses after work and drink there, often staying up until dawn. I got involved with someone from work and he ditched me one night, so I got drunk and drove like a madwoman out of the Dunkin Donuts parking lot because I was angry. Someone called the cops but they didn't catch me- I was told by my friends to hide for a while until the cops went away. Around this time, I tried to stop drinking. I wasn't addicted yet. I tried near beer, thinking it would be the same, but it wasn't. Soon though, I was back at it.
I somehow made it through two semesters of college before I decided to take a break. In reality, I just wanted to party, and I knew I couldn't if I had to go to school. I hung out with D from work, my future husband. I fell in love with him. At first, my feelings weren't reciprocated. Then I went to Disney World with my parents and my sons, came back and we got into a relationship.