A Story of Recovery:

Ending Six Months of Terror

I joined my first AWOL ( a 12 step study of the steps in sequence) after I’d been in FA for two weeks, and I was spectacularly afraid of the group of people pressing into the small room with stained-glass windows. My fear of people exhibited itself as irritability and anxiety when I helped set up the room. I lasted four months in that AWOL before I had a break. In my second AWOL, we had just completed Step 5 when I got very full of myself and had a break, which meant I had to leave the AWOL and go back to day one again..

When my third AWOL began, I absolutely wanted to stay abstinent and complete the AWOL. Toward the end of that AWOL, I met a woman who truly had what I wanted, and I decided to switch sponsors. We then got to be in a second AWOL together. It was during that second AWOL that I started waking up in the middle of the night. I’d try to calm my mind, but I was unable to get back to sleep. I was taken hostage by racing thoughts. I’d watch the night slip sleeplessly away, staring at the red digits on my illuminated clock. With dread and exhaustion, I’d turn the alarm off at 5 am, and I’d get on my knees with my hands shaking and my heart pounding.

I’d been on anti-anxiety and social-phobia meds for eight years prior to FA, but after joining the program and getting abstinent, I was able to work with my doctor to get off the medication. Now, however, it was as if the awful symptoms for which I’d previously been medicated came back wearing boxing gloves. My mental and emotional disarray was everywhere. Bringing suicidal thoughts to my new sponsor was not the way I wanted to start this relationship. I believed in the power of rigorous honesty, but I was having a tough time experiencing my truth and sharing it with her. Halfway through my commute every morning for our call, I’d park my car on a dark, winter street with headlights and brake lights streaming past me. My hands would be shaking as I held my phone to commit my food. I hated my feelings. I was shamefully embarrassed about my suicidal thoughts, but my sponsor told me if I just kept telling the truth, everything was going to be okay.

Am I going to leave my car in the parking lot and walk to the bridge and jump, or leave my car in the slow lane with the flashers on and jump from there?

I couldn’t possibly leave my belongings behind for my son to dispose of. What if I got rid of everything I owned and then didn’t have the courage to jump?

I did not want to take the road back to psychiatrists, medication or Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I could not even bear the whisper of a food thought. If I ever ate flour and sugar again, I knew I’d cave into a bottomless despair I couldn’t survive. I knew that there was no problem that flour and sugar could not make worse. After six months, I went to see my physician, and she ordered a blood test. The results revealed that my thyroid had gone from hypo to hyper. She explained that the symptoms of hyperthyroid included disrupted sleep as well as erratic and racing thoughts. Really? I thought. Amazingly, my six month period of terror was soon relieved once my thyroid medication was adjusted.

I can’t believe I chose to tell the truth that entire time.

I can’t believe my sponsor told me if I just kept telling the truth, everything would be fine.

I can’t believe she was right. Again.