{"id":15249,"date":"2022-08-05T15:52:57","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T20:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/?p=15249"},"modified":"2022-08-05T15:52:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T20:52:57","slug":"a-journalists-story-of-addiction-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/meditation\/a-journalists-story-of-addiction-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"A Journalist’s Story of Addiction & Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is written by multimedia journalist, Dana Knowles, and originally published on Rocky Mountain PBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

 
\nDENVER \u2014 I\u2019m not anonymous anymore. I\u2019ve taken my story out of dark church basements to shine a light on my experiences. I\u2019ve given keynote speeches in ballrooms filled with hundreds of counselors and health care workers. I\u2019ve participated in public service campaigns. I\u2019ve shared my story with friends and family in person and over social media.<\/p>\n

Next month I will have six years in recovery from opiate pain killers and alcohol. On August 28, 2016, my husband decided he\u2019d had enough and kicked me out of our house. Less than a week later I ended up on an airplane to south Florida for my third time in drug treatment in under two years. I was alone \u2014 I had no phone, no wallet, no money. My husband told me I had to stay away for at least three months and that if I didn\u2019t figure out a way to get better, I might not be able to return home. I took those three months to start healing, to lean into my pain that I\u2019d been trying so hard to numb, and figure out its root causes which ultimately came from childhood trauma. <\/p>\n

I was molested at the age of five by the teenage son of a caregiver. From that point, part of my emotional development stopped, and a void opened up in my heart. I spent most of my life trying to fill that space by attempting to achieve some form of perfectionism, which for several years manifested into eating disorders. Then I discovered opiate pain killers after they were prescribed post-surgery for a labral tear in my right hip. From the first time I took them, my first thought was \u2018THIS is what I\u2019ve been waiting for my entire life.\u2019 It was perfect. I found perfection in a feeling. <\/p>\n

Opiates gave me euphoria and energy. They helped me keep up with my life. I could do it all; be the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect cook with a perfect house. But it was awful because after a few months they stopped working and I had to take more and more just to feel normal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eventually, an even worse cycle started. To avoid the terrible withdrawal symptoms from opiates (cold\/hot sweats, nausea, flu symptoms, body aches, insomnia, paranoia, stomach pain, diarrhea, and leg cramping), I would drink alcohol. It didn\u2019t take me long to figure out that alcohol could numb all of those symptoms. If my kids didn\u2019t have anywhere to be after 5 p.m.; I would start drinking in the evenings when I ran out of opiates. That pendulum cycle went back and forth for almost a year. I\u2019d be able to stop all substances for a few days, but the withdrawal from opiates would get so bad that I\u2019d start drinking again. <\/p>\n

After three months in treatment, I learned how to cope with my trauma and process the things that trigger me. But I knew that I had to find a way to maintain my sobriety and live my life. I discovered that there is no one way to recover from addiction. There are many solutions. I found mine in a practice called Transcendental Meditation. It\u2019s my main form of self-care. It enables me to release stress and decompress my nervous system everyday so that I can adapt to the demands and changes of life. <\/p>\n

I also no longer use the words \u2018self-improvement;\u2019 instead I use the word \u2018evolution.\u2019 \u2018Improvement\u2019 implies that this is all a linear process and it\u2019s not. It took me three times in rehab to finally \u201cget\u201d how to do sobriety. What I figured out is that it has nothing to do with staying sober. It has to do with getting my mind right so that I no longer need the drugs and alcohol to cope with life.<\/p>\n

Now I put myself first, even before my three kids because if I\u2019m not healthy, I can\u2019t take care of them. Now I laugh louder. I love harder. I listen better. I rest more. I no longer try to have it all, do it all or be it all. I\u2019m just me and whether it\u2019s too much or not enough for people is on them. <\/p>\n

Since I got out of treatment in 2016, I\u2019ve had 20 friends die of overdoses after relapsing and two die by suicide. I often wonder, “Why not me?” Part of the reason I\u2019m not anonymous anymore is because of them. I want my friends who\u2019ve passed to know \u2014 wherever they are \u2014 that I speak up for them. For me, their deaths aren\u2019t in vain. I know they tried. <\/p>\n

Another reason I\u2019m not anonymous anymore is because I want all the introverts, dreamers, sensitives, people with depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders or any other mental health issue to hear me and see me, so that they can hear and see themselves and not be afraid to ask for help.<\/p>\n

\n

 
\nDana Knowles is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS and can be reached at danaknowles@rmpbs.org. To learn more about the TM technique, you can connect with your local TM teacher here<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocky Mountain PBS journalist, Dana Knowles, shares her story of addiction, recovery and passion for telling her story. Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":15253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,81,53],"tags":[161,209,87,78,69,201,292,79,97,32,174,37,22,135],"class_list":["post-15249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditation","category-news","category-people","tag-anxiety","tag-benefits","tag-depression","tag-happiness","tag-health","tag-inner-peace","tag-meditation-benefits","tag-press","tag-ptsd","tag-stress","tag-tm","tag-transcend","tag-transcendental-meditation","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15249"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15259,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions\/15259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}