Oct 21, 2015 | By Tim Stoddart

Swimming Through My Addiction – A Story About Never Giving Up

Personal Addiction Recovery Stories

There is a familiar expression that goes like this: You’re either going to sink or swim.

5 years ago, I was drowning. I was drowning myself in $2.28 bottles of rare reserve vodka. I would take these pints of vodka with me almost anywhere I went. I would go to sleep, and wake up with them hidden within an arms length. I was making no effort to swim and I was sinking at a rapid pace. I was on the verge of losing my job because of my drinking. My roommate and life long friend had seen enough and he was fed up with me. I was deep into my alcoholism. My little brother was outrunning me and didn’t even like taking to me. I could see all of this, but more importantly, I could still feel all of this. Barely, but I could feel it none the less. And it fucking hurt.

When I quit drinking I had no idea I would be writing this 5 years later having had the discipline to stop for good. But here we are. Today I am exactly 5 years sober. When I first quit, my co worker and friend Pam Plaza told me to “keep swimming”. And I did. It was a challenge and I liked it. I mean, I honestly hated it, I wanted to drink, I still do, almost every day. But I knew if I kept swimming I would be glad I did. I swam right into community college. Having been out of school for 7 plus years that was intimidating. Let’s call it the first wave I swam into. I came out of that wave with a 3.5 gpa and a scholarship for another year. So far, so good. Keep swimming.

Things got better at work. I stayed afloat long enough to move off the night shift and back to normal society and do some customer service. In the year I worked the front desk for 40 hours every single week. Our “helpfulness of the front desk” scores were over 90% for 7 of 12 months at the busiest hotel in our area. This was more of a team oriented relay race in the pool, but none the less, I raced my leg about as good as possible. I will always take pride in that.

School got better too. It turns out I like to write. Also turns out, that writing is what I found to be the most necessary and beneficial tool to recovery. I even aced a research paper about it called “Writing Off Addiction”, catchy title right? I liked all these challenges, but I really liked being successful in exceeding expectations. So I kept swimming.

Somewhere along the way I remembered that I really love hockey. So I let that water I had been swimming in freeze up. Then I bought some ice skates, even though I couldn’t skate. But I figured it out. I got up at 6am several times a week for 3 months. Once I was comfortable, I started going to pick up games. Because I love and understand hockey, I started scoring goals. And then I started setting them. My goals in school saw my GPA get better. But I didn’t get another scholarship. I kept going anyway. Work got a little less fun and a little more tedious. But I kept going. Life was so busy now, but I’m not drowning anymore. I’m swimming faster than ever. I’m even skating when the water freezes up.

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Then shit got real serious. Remember my roommate and my brother? Well we decided to start a business together off a $400 investment each. That $1200 has turned into a logo and a business that people are wearing all over the state. You can’t come into, or go out of the airport without seeing it. Swimming and skating wasn’t enough anymore, so now we are flying. Flying into a world of fashion and into business decisions. When you get to a point when people talk to you with overwhelming pride for what you are doing, I promise you will learn a lot about yourself. People believe in you and if you haven’t already, you will start to believe in yourself.

I regret to say I never finished school. I am 2 math classes short of getting that diploma. However, I feel like I learned what I needed at the time and I found myself. Education is the greatest gift you can give yourself but you should only be getting it if it’s something YOU want for yourself. Otherwise it’s wasting time and money.

At the end of the day I didn’t know how to do any of the things I have done over the last 5 years. I literally jumped head first into several different pools of challenges. I was either going to sink or swim. I kept swimming. I can tell you first hand that if you do the same, no matter who you are, you will probably do the same. My only regret is not taking the leap sooner. Do whatever the fuck you have always wanted to do with your life because it’s way too short to look back and wish you had done something else.

I didn’t do any of this alone. I had amazing people around to throw me a life vest when I was running out of air. That still happens too. But I always keep swimming and because of that, I am 5 years sober today and I am literally living out my dreams in front of your eyes. Have faith in yourself to do the same if you’re not already. Just keep swimming.