Dis-Ease – Causes the Disease of Addiction

Sober doesn’t Suck! is a safe place for people to share their stories of being an alcoholic, addiction and recovery openly and honestly. There is no requirement of sobriety for posting, if you’re concerned about your using I want to hear from you too.

I recently received the following article from Ester Nicholson.  I’m honored to share her words, hoping someone will find comfort and hope in them.

If you’d like to tell your story, your feelings about your own addiction or that of someone else in your life please head over to the Sober doesn’t Suck! page. Addiction affects the people around us, I’m interested in sharing all sides.

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From my earliest memories, maybe as far back as when I was five years old, I lived a life of emotional dis-ease.  I was afraid of my own shadow.  I can’t remember a time prior to my sobriety, (and even the first several years of my sobriety) when I didn’t have that knot in my gut, (my emotional guidance system), that I was in fear.  In fear of what?  Well, of everything.  Bill Wilson, founder of AA states, “we are haunted by a hundred forms of fear.”  I would say that the majority of people on this planet are haunted every minute of every day by this sense of desperation, but because they’re not addicted to drugs and alcohol, can’t identify their addiction to this insidious infection called fear.

I was afraid of being left alone, and of not being left alone – both fears running at the same time.  I was afraid of being abandoned and rejected; yet I was afraid of commitment too.  I was afraid of telling the truth for fear of getting into trouble, and I was afraid of not telling the truth for fear of getting into trouble.  I was afraid of what others thought of me, and I was deathly afraid of not being thought of at all.

I was a FRIGGIN MESS!

The constant feelings of being emotionally off-balance and out of alignment with my wholeness led to the manifestation of other addictions.  I was addicted to boys by the time I was ten, usually identified by adults as “boy crazy.” Now I know that I wasn’t boy crazy, but boy – was I crazy, as I desperately searched for anything and anyone who could take the fear away even for a moment.  If you could convince me that I was lovable, worthwhile, beautiful and worthy, the knot in my gut would go away, until you became all too human with your own dis-ease, and left me. Then I’d be on the floor in the fetal position, holding my stomach where that knot was like a hot poker burning a hole into my soul.

Fear was killing me – until I took that first hit of cocaine.  “Holy macral Batman,” I have arrived.  Sheeeiiit, I’m rolling now.  Fear – what fear?  I’m as courageous as they come.  I’m a singer, and when I would take a hit of cocaine I could hit notes higher than Minnie Ripperton – only while I was high of course.  I was even more beautiful than Cheryl Tiegs and smarter than Hillary Clinton, but oh wait, my high is coming down – I need another hit, and another to maintain this false level of courage and bravado.

I have crossed an invisible line from which there is no return. I’m hooked, a junkie.  I’m a crackhead – me – a crackhead.  I’m powerless and my life isn’t just unmanageable, my life is coming to an end if I don’t do something quick.

What can I do to save my life?

Well, stop doing drugs is a start of course, but what about dis-ease that caused me to do drugs in the first place?  The dis-ease that made me insane?

I had to open my heart to the possibility that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.  The power greater than myself that I call God, Life, Universal Presence, whose thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and whose ways are higher than my ways.  I came to believe that It could restore me to the truth of who I was before I became disconnected from my true identity – my Soul!  The definition for the word “restore,” is to bring back; reinstate; return (someone or something to a former condition, place or position.  It means to renew.

This is a powerful, powerful statement, because that means I wasn’t created out of fear.  I wasn’t created to be emotionally imbalanced and a total screw up, as most people suffering from addictions think they are.  I was created out of peace, balance, wholeness, love, harmony and all good, but I was conditioned by the environment I was born into to be fearful and insane.  Through reconnecting to my soul, I have been restored, reinstated and returned to my roots – wholeness.

How? By turning my will and life over to the care of God whose nature is love. By taking God out of the sky, the churches, and the rooms of AA, CA and all the other A’s; by taking my God out of the men in my life, out of the drugs and alcohol and Krispy cream donuts, and placing It back within my own heart – where it has been all the time.

Fear no longer runs my life.  I am restored.

Written by:

Ester Nicholson, renowned vocalist for Bette Midler and Rod Stewart, former addict, teacher, speaker and author uses her own astonishing story as the core of her powerful book: Soul Recovery – 12 Keys to Healing Addiction..and 12 Steps for the Rest of Us-A Path to Wholeness, Serenity and Success (Hay House/Agape Media).