A Shift in Perspective (Guest Resident Post)

“It’s all about perspective!” So they say, and so I’ve been told. In active addiction, this statement drove me up the wall; all I could wrap my mind around during the last few years of my crazy drug-addicted life was… “perspective?! Life is a joke, there’s some perspective for you!” I was so consumed with hate and misery, of course my only perspective lie at the bottom of a bottle or within the confines of a syringe. 

Today, I am in recovery from the unmanageability of addiction and alcoholism and I can say with ease and comfort that facing all of life’s obstacles truly is a matter of perspective! And today I am living with a brand new perspective- A God-given lens of clarity and direction!

My name is Katiana and I am a grateful recovering heroin addict and alcoholic with nearly a year and a half of sobriety under my belt. I will be honest in sharing that it has not been an easy nor comfortable journey. But getting to a place in my life, where embracing life’s challenges through an altered perspective, has become one of the handiest of tools in my day to day life of living in the solution.  Changing the lens of despair and acceptance of failure to the lens of motivation and endless possibilities brings me Hope each day. Whereas once I would come across a pit in the road and fall carelessly inside, stuck for months on end, today, I journey with caution and discernment and utilize my support and accountability partners who offer me solutions when I struggle to see the path before me.

Prior to recovery I could not fathom the idea of complete sobriety as a possibility . In fact, I remember on two specific occasions laughing at my friends when they shared with me that they had a few months of clean time under their belt. Of course, I was intoxicated when my friends shared such triumphs with me, but looking back on this experience it makes perfect sense why it took me as long as it did to finally welcome the idea of a life of recovery. Today I know the true value of asking for help; for those of us who share the mental illness of addiction and alcoholism we know far too well that oftentimes this is quite the challenge for us. In recovery though, to ask for help is to choose to live life and to live it to the fullest and that’s living a life with a different perspective!

Ultimately, the hard choices I’ve had to make amidst this journey of living a sober life I certainly could not have followed through with were it not for my God above and the support of all the wonderful women I live with at Hope Is Alive Ministries. In my sober life, each day I face challenging circumstances and new situations. Like living in a brand-new city, learning to become financially independent, and remaining single for the very sake of keeping my focus on recovery. But by maintaining my new perspective and staying grounded to the commitments I’ve made; I’ve grown tremendously and have matured beyond my expectations.

It’s been the miraculous work of God that’s paved the way to and through this journey of recovery. Having lost all faith many years ago, it amazes me how God finds us in our darkest corner, planting a seed of hope within our hearts at the pivotal moment of complete despair, and then unravels a golden road to freedom for us to follow. My hopes for this blog is that in sharing my journey in recovery and the experiences I find to be momentous, others might find recovery to be more than just a possibility and dare I say adventurous and exciting! 

Though my life today is nowhere near put back together, with court costs and debts galore, I do believe I have succeeded in reaching that ultimate sense of wonder and joy which is at the core of our desired human existence. And I certainly could not have found such peace and purpose in my life if God hadn’t placed me right where I belong, here at Hope Is Alive Ministries. So blessed am I!