By: Casey Mckeown, Alumni Care Coordinator
While in sober living, our most authentic connections can happen at night as we review our day with our roommates and chat about our life experiences. In that present moment, we share vulnerable and honest conversations with one another. As a result, true authentic experiences are shared, and real accountability is given by our closest friends.
This time gives us a valuable opportunity as we wind down our day to think about what the day may have brought us. As we start the healing process, we look to our sober support to see where we need to take action or corrective measures in our lives and where we have lived by self-will that propelled us into the next debacle.
This space is one of the safest places for women in early recovery.
From my own experiences in sober living and inpatient treatment, the real recovery started with these late-night conversations with my roommates when no one was looking and having the ability to pour my heart and feelings out to the women next to me. Authentic recovery for me started when I was able to feel safe enough to be raw and genuine with other women in the program. This space is where I began to be comfortable in my own skin and could practice honest authenticity. There was fear of being my true self, and my roommates helped me walk through a ton of fears and validated that being me was just what God intended me to be.
I’m so thankful for the women who roomed with me in treatment and sober living.
Looking back, I can see what they really had done for me, and I’m genuinely thankful to those women for never judging me and validating that being just who I am is all I needed to be. Sober living truly saved my life. Treatment helped start the healing process, but sober living is where I learned how to deal with life on life’s terms. Sober living also allowed me to take a hard look as to why I was so afraid of myself.
Like anyone in early recovery, my decisions always landed me in the next institution or into the next fight with a family member or friend. These late-night conversations allowed me to pick apart why I was showing up the way I was because I had women in my life that were willing to hold my feet to the fire. As our days ended, these conversations were filled with every honest emotion you could think of: happiness, laughter, joy, sadness, and even grief.
At the end of the day, my higher power saves me from the insane thought that one day I will be able to drink like a normal person.
I am so grateful for the women that were put in my life. They were able to point out all my insane thinking, and my higher power placed all these women right in front of me to help show me the way out and to access a power larger than myself. Had I not been honest in those late-night conversations, I would not be where I am today. So, my suggestion to any woman in sober living would be to start being honest with anyone and in any way, even if it’s only with your roommate, late at night, to start.
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Contact us for more information about how Windhaven House can help you achieve and maintain lasting sobriety. Call (877) 373-9898 or send us a message now.
