My Recovery Story....from a lamb to the living life out loud

I look back at all the sleepless nights I made my 39 plus fathers stay up and wonder is she going to make it...will she make it back in one piece will she avoid the law, when is she going to quit drinking. I drank to escape my reality that I was dying with cancer and that one day back then my thinking wasn't strong, it had no belief system, it was a lost soul drinking to fill a void that pain had caused from being taken out of Russia. I developed cancer when I lost separation with my biological father and his partner. My mother was a Siberian tiger and I had 39 fathers who slept with the Tiger and then 9 months latter I was born in Russia. For years, after drinking I didn't know why I was drinking at the time I just knew I was trying to play God or really to see if God wanted my existence.

Drinking till the lights came on

In college my sophomore year into my junior fall hit me the hardest because a best friend forever of mine was dead on the same day the twin towers fell. Today, I have had a breakthrough and wonder if someone didn't put something in his drink when he wasn't watching. He wasn't the type to really be depressed I had no idea of his bi-polar which probably was misdiagnosed for depression is what it should of been. Lights would go on in the bars and we would ask for one more song, one more song, one more song! At that time we would see who could do the most shots and then walk home. I could always slam more shots than the guys I had it down to a science.

The night of the Blackout

It was in the spring I think around march of 2002 when I found out that I had brain cancer or well better to be reminded that I was dying. That same year Dr. Hendrickson, told me, "Joy you are a walking miracle" - so then did I drink to hide the pain in my body and mind? He said, Most people that have an x-ray like yours are in wheel chairs and they don't live past 40 they die because the pain is to heavy; have surgery or die. This two with Spina Biffida Oculta Type A, none the less was taking me down in college. I began to exercise faithfully after it and, go down to 125 and felt pretty damn good about it. But, that night I drank so much that I did black out at the "THE GUYS HOUSE" Military brats who were going to be in the war since the towers had fallen. Drank so much that night that one of my other good friends carried me up and down the steps to go to the bathroom and then put me on the couch with a bucket to have if I needed it. This would be a defining moment and, I hadn't puked the whole time of my drinking; a rock bottom you could call it. Then a few days latter after this event I had 6 - 16oz Bacardi cokes in 30 minuets and that next morning I was taking a Spanish test and had to excuse myself to the bathroom. I had clearly hit the wall of death in the face again and some bird on my shoulder told me to pull it together. I was out drinking every night for a year and one half.. . . .it was time .... to stop ... .

Panama City Beach Florida Campus Crusade

Looking back my fathers were actively in my life and in my existence I just didn't realize it but looking in the rear view mirror I know what my conscience was now it was my fathers guidance because I wasn't getting that from the people that adopted me at the age of 3 but, I was still just a baby because of Trauma I didn't grow because of severe separation anxiety and loss of my 39 fathers. They were believers in the Catholic Church and to this day now are Christians most of them are because I was a reformed Catholic. I went to Inter Varsity they couldn't tame me down, so I went to a group called Campus Crusade for Christ and they got to me; their ministry was bigger and had more song writers and one guy spoke to my heart that night and changed my life forever. He said, that drinking had taken a toll on him and then he found Jesus at the cross roads of getting out of hell in his life and because a singer/songwriter. He told us we don't have to live that lifestyle anymore, that there is something bigger out there that LOVES US so much that he died for us and took on our sins. Soon after that night, I went back to my dorm room junior fall and cried, I cried myself to sleep because I knew I was drinking because I didn't have love in my life, that I was filling it with liquor to find love and appreciation in my life. Never felt love from my foster parents and even as an adult they became sociopaths or perhaps always were. People cover for them and they act all nice nice but, its a self deceptive life and lie. Then, you take people who don't know anything about my past from Russia the time I was with my Fathers but, they worked for the FBI so I was put into an orphanage or stolen from their house I don't remember which happened first. So, after hearing the message at Campus Crusade I started to make small changes in my life. I would drink less or at least feel convicted if I did and had a moral conscience about my choices. They would meet Wednesdays and I would try to attend as many as I could. My freshman year I had a prayer group that would meet once a week. I was starting to see God work more in my life by not drinking and then one day I watched a movie it was in the afternoon evening of my junior spring year 2002 when watching a movie called Tuesdays with Morris, to make a long story short he had a clever way to deal with cancer or HKG Lymphoma. His view of life was one of that you need to keep on dancing, keep going, don't stop for any reason or any cause. I decided to stop drinking that next very morning when I sat up in bed and said, "I cannot live this way anymore, I don't want to feel like this anymore" and, the voice said, "Joy, you don't have to, I will carry you" and with that I knew my Angels were with me they made me feel like I had made the right decision. Then, after this time went buy it was march and spring break was coming up and I wanted to go somewhere so I saved up my money and went to Florida on a bus to minster to people who cannot stop drinking. It changed my life I met a two men there that helped me "PULL IT TOGETHER" - they told me that Jesus love me so much that I don't need to drink anymore and that no problem was to big for him not to handle. Growing up as a Catholic it just didn't make sense, they make you feel guilty for everything. Never and still to this day do I feel guilty for drinking because it was a choice and that choice is/was forgiven by my Father in Heaven who died for our sins to give us everlasting life. Ali, and Justin I think that his name now a chiropractor and Ali was at Rutgers attending school his wife works for Disney World now and he is in pharmaceutical sales I think. I have lost touch with them but, they were the two grounding forces that helped me to quit drinking. I feel bad that we lost touch but, I knew he loved his girlfriend very much and I didn't want to hinder that relationship because he was such a flirt. A much better friend to help me remind myself that I had a drinking problem and I had a problem with 'love' in my life. I drank because my heart was broken the second I left Russia and it seeped into my adult and teen life but, I didn't remember why at that time. As a teenager I would spend countless days trapped in my room listening to Tom Petty sing Wildflowers and You don't know how it feels to be me -" Free Falling all seemed to spell out my life story. He was right on Target and so was Def Leopard. I would write poetry about life and the living and put together a book and still have it in my storage locker some where.

NOKIA

Lights, Camera, Action N to he O to the KIA. We were a gentlemen s club of drinking champions I had fallen off the wagon again and fell trap to the fast life living large. Until one day I was in an airport running in heals, to a gate in Georgia on the way back for Christmas I had no clue where the hell I was or how to get to my gate. The kind gentleman helped me find my way and I'll never forget him. I still think about him from time to time because now I bet it was one of my fathers. I had it all I had the life, liberty, the fast life the good life and it was over in a year and a half because someone was watching porn on a laptop at our store in the ice cube of the experience center and I freaked out and said a four letter word and out I was on the street after spending my whole check on Christmas that year. This would be the fall of my mental health, my addiction, and my life drowning in the tubes of how quick life can turn on you from hero to zero. But, I picked myself up and I did find 3 careers that were almost equal to 40k plus benefits but they didn't last. One ended up because I was dyslexic and another was due to Drinking so again the bottle got me put into crisis and I haven't left Crisis Mode since 2010.

Transition into better times only lasted six years 2010 - 2020

I ended up getting a job at Target and Starbucks and worked 16 to 18 hour days saved 50k and lost 40k by identity theft by some ones write of passage they thought they could just take the money away from me and then when I was going to go to college being down here I got side tracked on a damn guy and now this has been the essence of my fall was his double life. In the best shape of my life at early 30s and then to be almost dead in a auto wreck in 2016 that has made me gain almost 100 lbs. The weight just won't go away, it doesn't stop I am an anorexic and I don't eat and I still gain weight I hate it. I am about ready to jump a bridge metaphorically because of this because I gets me so mad that I RED LINE 90000 RPMS. At this time I was bringing in money, spending it, and saving it what seemed to be great but, I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life because of so much unprepared planing on my part. That's one thing I failed at is knowing what to do with my life because I was dying of Cancer so I wanted to live life but, I didn't want to add too much stress to life. It took me to realize I had children in my first life before I went on ice and they were on ice with me for 39 years and then they came off ice as soon as I pulled my life together all was going to be working well. Then it was working so well I had 18 more children miracle original officer captain sophisticates. Then the car accident stooped me dead in my tracks and looking back between the double life relationship I was in and the auto wreck with no direction has put me into a Crisis Center to deal with all the above. There is so much more that I haven't covered but, one day I hope to piece my stories together and write a book about coming out of my recovery because there is a God, and he saves lives every second we are born again and become the women and men we need to be. It was because of the Original Copy Officer Captain Sophisticates that I found teaching, that I found I might be a good dietitian or wellness coach and help people with ladc too who knows what tomorrow brings but, I know who I go home to.