I watched as Bradley Cooper’s character looked straight at the camera and slowly pulled down the garage door. My chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe. I knew exactly what he was about to do. More than that, I knew what he was feeling. I glanced over at my husband, who was sound asleep beside me, and the tears started to fall.
It has been four years for me. Four years since I woke up in the ER surrounded by my family. Four years since I felt exactly what that character was feeling on the screen. Those emotions weren’t new or distant—they were familiar. He may have been a character in a movie, but in that moment, he was me. Aging, past my prime, an alcoholic, and an embarrassment to the people I loved most. Alcohol had slowly turned me into everything I never wanted to be.
I had a plan. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, always finding a reason to delay it, always convincing myself I could put it off one more day. But that Friday morning, I couldn’t find a reason to stay. I had made a mess of our lives. My oldest son was angry with me. I was no longer allowed to babysit. My youngest daughter wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. My husband told me he didn’t want to be married to a drunk. My best friend of more than 40 years told me she was done. I knew people would grieve, but not for the person I had become—only for who I used to be before alcohol changed me. They were already sad. In my mind, this would free them. They could move on and stop worrying about me.
You’d think the simplest and most obvious solution would have been to quit drinking. I tried. Every single day. But I was terrified. Alcohol had become so deeply woven into who I was that I didn’t know how to exist without it. What started as a crutch had turned into my lifeline.
So I grabbed the bottle of Xanax I had talked a friend into giving me. I poured the pills onto the counter and thought, that should do it. I pulled a beer from the fridge, put the pills into my mouth, and swallowed them down with a long drink. Then I went to my bedroom and laid down, fully believing I would drift off to sleep and never wake up. I thought it would finally be over.
But suddenly, panic set in. I wasn’t finished. I loved my family, and I couldn’t do this to them. I tried to throw everything up, but I couldn’t. Desperate and scared, I called my husband. I didn’t want him to know what I had done, so I tried to tell him without really telling him.
“Hey, are you coming home? What time will you be here? Will you be home before Devon?” I asked, my voice frantic.
He knew immediately something was wrong. “Why? What did you do?” he asked. He stayed on the phone with me and had his partner call 9-1-1.
All I wanted was for him to come home so my daughter wouldn’t be the one to find me. By then, I was struggling to stay coherent. He was angry, thinking this might be the last conversation we would ever have. And instead of telling him how much I loved him, I was worried about getting my friend in trouble for giving me the Xanax. To him, it sounded like that was all I cared about.
I vaguely remember the ambulance and the paramedics. I somewhat remember a dear friend showing up to make sure I was still alive. After that, everything becomes blurry.
I spent nearly a week in the psych ward. The first few days, I was still heavily affected by the Xanax. I know my husband was terrified that I had permanently damaged my brain. Slowly, I began to clear. I started reading again. I participated in group sessions. I talked with doctors. More than anything, I just wanted to go home.
Physically, I was okay, but emotionally, I felt strange for weeks. I had no idea how to live without alcohol. Eventually, I started drinking again—slowly at first, then heavily. I found myself right back where I’d been. It took more fight than I thought I had. It took a kind of strength I wasn’t sure existed in me. But the looks on my family’s faces were enough. The fact that they kept showing up for me, even after everything, was enough. It was time I finally showed up for them.
And then, one day, I did. I made an appointment with an addiction counselor. I began doing the hard work of healing myself from the inside out. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple: follow the directions, be honest, and dig deep. I had to face what brought me there in the first place.
I had no idea, four years ago, just how much living I still had left to do. I couldn’t imagine how fulfilling it would be to rebuild my relationships with my children. I didn’t know how deeply I could love my husband—the man whose love saved my life. And my grandbabies… it still scares me to think about how close I came to missing all of this.
So now I sit here, grateful for a second chance that Bradley Cooper’s character—and so many others—never received. I still have things to do. I still have life to live. And if you ever find yourself thinking you can’t find a reason not to, remember me. The purpose was always there. I just lost sight of it for a little while.
