My Sobriety Story with Grace

“I didn’t know how much actively using dulls one’s external expression of spirit.”

This series showcases personal stories of addiction recovery and sobriety. Today’s edition features

Grace Alexandra Hayden

. Born and raised in Minnesota, Grace lives in Minneapolis with her three dogs, two daughters, and one feral cat. When not at a dog park or helping people buy and sell real estate, she is either fishing, playing pickleball, or writing. Her first book, Fish Food: A Feminist Moby Dick, is available on Amazon, Ingram, or at www.grace-hayden.com. You can find her newsletter at:

Grace’s Substack

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When and how did you get sober?

A month after my 18th birthday, upon getting expelled from a boarding school, I asked my parents to help me get into residential treatment. It was January 26th, 1985. For me, losing what I saw as a launching pad to get out of Minnesota after high school, I knew I had one simple choice. I was either going to risk stepping into the unknown future of learning how to live sober or keep spiraling into the darkness of addiction that I knew would end my life.

From age 10 to 14, I watched my parents flail at their attempts with treatment and sobriety. They got divorced when I was 10. They were both addicts; my father primarily addicted to alcohol; my mother downed a fistful of barbiturates every night. My mother was able to stop using pills, but never stopped her nightly consumption of wine. My father, after three failed in-patient treatments, was able to stop using by taking Antabuse and doing out-patient at Betty Ford in California.

I attended The Hazelden Center in Plymouth, Minnesota for six weeks. Even though I wasn’t happy about being there or doing the work that was assigned, I knew that I could not do sobriety by myself. I knew I couldn’t figure out a path forward by myself. I resolved to follow whatever Hazelden prescribed because I didn’t want to squander this opportunity. There was also an unspoken desire to not end up like my parents who either straight-up relapsed after treatment or “modified” their use, but still were actively dependent.

This might sound simplistic, but I followed what I was told in treatment and followed their aftercare recommendations. If The Twelve Steps didn’t work, I don’t think they’d be around decades later.

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What was the turning point in your decision to get sober?

My “turning point” was a series of smaller a-ha moments beginning with me attending a couple of Family Week programs for my father’s treatment programs. Even though I started drinking at age 10, my mother and I consumed three bottles of wine over dinner while on a vacation, which granted me access to alcohol three to four times a week with her after dad left the house. As time passed and I learned about alcoholism and drug addiction as a family disease, seeds were being planted.

By 12, I was smoking pot and rummaging through my friends’ bathroom drug cabinets for pills. Intellectually, I knew my behavior wasn’t normal, but using made me feel better since the first 10 years of my life were filled with actively addicted parents who were verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive.

My paternal grandfather had been sober since the early 1950s. He and my grandmother lived in Palm Springs, California. Despite the distance, we talked every week on the phone. That was when phones were attached to walls with cords and you had to dial a “1” for long-distance. He coached my mother with how to help my father get sober even though he was no longer living in Minnesota and they were divorced. My mother always said that if my father could get sober, he would be welcomed back. She never acknowledged her addiction to pills or daily reliance on wine as an issue. My parents were hugely codependent, if you haven’t noticed.

Since I was fairly well-educated as to addiction and alcoholism, when I started blacking out one to two times a week prior to turning 15, I knew the disease had firmly taken hold. Ironically, it was about this time my father finally was able to maintain sobriety. He moved back home and became active in Alcoholics Anonymous. So, as my use got worse, there were always people around acting like beacons that there was another way. I noticed everything, but I kept my insights secret. I wasn’t ready to stop using.

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What surprised you about getting sober?

I was surprised by how much better I felt once I really acknowledged I needed help and that I didn’t want to drink or use drugs anymore. There was this tactile, energetic release with really surrendering to Step One. I wasn’t expecting to feel anything but scared. And, I was scared, but I also felt safe. I felt like there might be something greater than myself that I had now allowed to take control of how the path of sobriety and recovery would unfold.

I was also surprised that I could genuinely laugh and smile. I remember arriving at in-patient treatment and meeting the person who was going to show me the ropes. She was this cool Black woman with leather pants. I made some snarky comment about how I was expecting everyone to be in sweats or hospital garb and I would have dressed better had I known. We chuckled. She looked at me and said that she thought I had beautiful eyes when I smiled. No one had ever commented on my eyes before, but I had been sober for about six days waiting to be admitted, and I didn’t know how much actively using dulls one’s external expression of spirit.

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What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered on your recovery journey?

My biggest challenge has been thinking that I’ve finally understood how recovery works. As soon as I think I have significant understanding or insights, life throws me a curveball.

Connected to this is forgetting that The Twelve Steps are not static. They are living and dynamic and as long as I am alive, I will have to keep re-engaging with them as needed, or as life requires.

As I near my 40th anniversary, I remind myself that I can and do still learn from someone who has 40 hours of recovery, 40 days, or 40 months. It’s a daily grind and no one has all the answers as to how it works or why it works. Recovery is an individual experience we do in community with others. It’s that diversity of experience that contributes to its mystery and success.

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What are the biggest benefits or gifts of sobriety?

Being sober allows for hope. The hope for love. The hope for dreams being achieved. The hope that healing can happen.

Connected to hope, is that sobriety allows for a new, stronger relationship with the self. When I started using, I began to trust that this thing, be it alcohol or drugs, was who I was. I needed to be high or drunk. I didn’t like myself without chemicals. After years of having this false sense of self and thinking it was real and necessary, getting to know myself was initially terrifying. It was the best gift of recovery to come back home to myself.

And this journey is not taken alone. It still can be painful and scary, but all addicts who don’t want to use again have to make this journey. It’s where that light lives. It’s where dreams reside.

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What words of advice would you give someone who’s considering sobriety or newly sober?

Be honest. Be open. And, be willing. Set the ego aside. You’re here because whatever you were doing didn’t work. After treatment, my father gave me the advice to “stick with the winners.” He meant that if someone relapses or is in an unhealthy place, to not cling to them. Keep going to meetings, keep hanging out with people who are working the steps. A drowning person is apt to drown their rescuer, that’s why one throws flotation devices.

Also, it’s a 24-hour program. Just worry about today. If I, at 18, had thought of being sober at age 58 with the decades of peaks and valleys life holds for each of us, I would have caved and crawled back in the bottle. But, staying in the present is the key. Be here now. That’s all we have.

Want to share your sobriety story?

Thank you for sharing, Grace! We look forward to connecting with you in the comments.

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