Real Life Relationships: Finding clarity in a blurry world

Instead of asking for help, he chose to end his life in the middle of the night by filling our 1987 Volvo station wagon with carbon monoxide.

Two decades later, on Dec. 3, 2017, my life also felt unmanageable, but I chose instead to ask for help.

I had always thought I was broken and would never be fixed.

So, instead of engaging, I withdrew from life, and I isolated myself from friends.

When I tried to push through my social anxiety to engage with my peers, I could only do so with the crutch of best friends like Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan. These brown liquors, when paired with Coca-Cola magically allowed me to loosen up and engage socially. For a time, this worked. Then something changed, and I could no longer stop after a couple of drinks.

The relationship I was building wasn’t with another person. It was only liquor that allowed me to escape into a blurry world where, in the moment, I felt no pain.

When I finally became so desperate that I knew I had to stop drinking to save my life, I realized very quickly that there was no way I could work my way back to health alone.

So, I reached out to a friend, and I asked for help.

The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection.

An addict in the throes of the disease is looking for an escape from fear and pain.

The only solution we understand is our substance of choice — alcohol, for me and millions of others — because we believe we can control it and that it can replace the hole in our souls that exists because we’re unable to attain the connections we need to truly live.

The reality is that we can’t truly control our addictions or our lives in ways that allow us to have healthy relationships with others.

In late 2017, my addiction was killing the person I had been and wanted to be again.

My relationships were crumbling, and I was experiencing more suicidal ideation than I ever had before. Thoughts of suicide have been part of my experience being diagnosed with anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember. But never as vivid as this.

Over time, the person I was continued to change until I didn’t recognize the broken soul who was staring back at me in the mirror. I hurt people I cared about, and even when my blood was devoid of alcohol, I was far from the person I wanted to be.

On a Saturday in December that year, I’d driven to Charlotte to get away from Atlanta for a few days and talk to my college roommate — who had been sober since 2001 — about how my drinking had changed over the past few years.

He loaned me his copy of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous,” circled several sections for me to read, and gave me a choice to go to a meeting the next morning.

“After you read what I circled, we can go, if you decide you want to go,” he said.

After hours of reading and reflecting on the ups and downs of my drinking experiences, there was no question about going to the meeting.

My relationship with the program that saved my life began in that room.

Days earlier, I had considered ending my life. But now I was on a path that I would soon learn was filled with the connections and relationships I’d been unable to find as I became more and more mired in active alcoholism.

The first words of the 12 Steps confirmed that I wasn’t alone and only had to be if that’s how I chose to live.

Today, as someone who has stayed sober for more than four years by working the 12 Steps, I understand that the words “we” and “our” in the first step are what has allowed the program to work for millions of people across the world for more than 80 years.

The program I now work daily is about progress, not perfection. The relationships I’ve built in active sobriety have been built from a much healthier place than ever before. I’ve found the tools I need to create and maintain healthier relationships than I ever understood were possible for me.

Almost 26 years ago, my dad, Steve Romig, ended his life.

After brushing up against my own suicide, I confronted the pain, shame and failure, and I asked for help to live a better version of my life through sobriety.

Did I veer off his path with my choice? Was I ever on it in the first place? There’s no way to know either answer, but I believe that in accepting that white chip — and establishing myself in AA-based sobriety — I did what he couldn’t do.

I chose life.

I was amazingly lost. I was filled with shame. I was terrified. I was more flawed than I’d ever imagined.

But I didn’t want to die.

I’m still a bit broken, but now I have the tools fully at my disposal to make needed adjustments and seek the connections I’m looking for in healthier ways, rather than being consumed with the toxicity of active alcoholism.

Jeff Romig has spent his career learning the ins and outs of community as a journalist, political strategist, nonprofit executive and fundraiser. He founded the nonprofit, Suicide Survival Stories, and wrote the book, “Don’t (Expletive) Kill Yourself.” In opening up about his life, Jeff hopes that people who share similar struggles will see their own value, push through their dark moments, embrace resiliency and stay alive. For more information about Suicide Survival Stories and Don’t (Expletive) Kill Yourself, visit suicidesurvivalstories.org. Follow Jeff on Twitter and Instagram at @sharewithsss and @dfkybook.

Real Life Relationships is a monthly reader-contributed essay that explores the many ways in which we are connected and the all of the emotions those connections can bring into our lives. Interested in contributing? Email nedra.rhone@ajc.com with the subject line “Real Life Relationships.” Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/).