Our Online Experience

I detoxed at home while taking care of two kids. Alone. Afraid. Praying to make it to that 7th day when I could enter the treatment groups. Each day I would go to the doctor and get breathalyzed and then given that days amount of librium but let me tell you this.... that librium reduced my chance of seizures but it did nothing for my nerves! Those of you that have detoxed off of alcohol know of what I am talking about.

It was around day two or three when I really thought I was going to lose my friggin mind. I was sitting at home, it was around 8:00 p.m. and my kids were driving me crazy. I felt like a trapped animal. My mind knew that by that time of night I should have been on my second 5th of Jose or some rot gut cheap tequila. I think it was the first time I could say I know what it meant to feel like I was crawling out of my own skin.

I got on the computer and started a google search for "recovery" that led me to a recovery chat room.  There was one woman from Canada  that seemed really safe to me. I private messaged her and told her I couldn't handle my kids. She talked me down and calmed me. Looking back, she basically told me to suck it up and deal with it, it wasn't the kids fault. She just had a nicer way of putting it!

That night led to many nights in that chat room with the same people from all over the world. Some of us were ending our evenings there and some were beginning their days there. This is where I began to bond with an online support group. I am friends with many of those people today, 7 years later, even though I no longer frequent that particular chat room.

We exchange phone calls, christmas cards, pictures of our families and have watched our children grow. We've been through deaths of our relatives, relationships ending and relapses. We have supported each other and each others families thru deaths of our online friends.

We laughed. There was a tremendous amount of laughter. I'm talking tears streaming down the face laughter.

I will never forget the day of the Popes funeral. There was a group of us that gathered in the chat room and were watching it together. The conversations that came from that experience were priceless. We shared so much about ourselves.

 This young man came in to the chat room newly sober when I was around 6 months sober or so. T would come into the chat room mostly on the evenings he took care of his invalid mother. There was another newly sober  young man there as well. Their sophomoric attitudes were both refreshing and annoying! hahaaaaa

We lost track of the other young man, but T hung in there thru some tough times and struggling with the program. This morning I was looking at wedding photos on Facebook. They are the photos's of T's wedding yesterday. Those photos are a beautiful reminder of the power of recovery.

The smile they brought me was a beautiful reminder of the power of our online experience. Some say online friendships aren't real. I beg to differ. My online experience has grown over the years. Some of those friendships are still from that chat room and some from other places on the web. No matter where they stem from, I am so very grateful for each and every one.