Content Warning: pregnancy loss, death by drug overdose
In the social media realm, sobriety-related posts present enticing promises to people who might want to quit drinking, from promises of glowing skin and better sleep to weight loss and the prospect of a life so fulfilling that the idea of escaping to drink seems unimaginable.
Appealing as they are, such promises are only true sometimes, especially the ones about loving your life so much that you won’t want to escape it.
In my early recovery, I subscribed to the belief that doing the “next right thing” would shield me from the unknown future, that getting my addiction under control would end my suffering.
The bulk of my suffering was caused by drinking, when, out of desperation for companionship, I found myself repeatedly entangled in relationships with men who feared commitment. When one of them did offer me commitment, it turned out that he struggled with opiate addiction. Ignoring it, I trusted that love alone would conquer it.
As no one likes to admit, love was not enough. Pile on the pain of the pandemic and the world being shut down, and he was driven back to the needle. I saw him for the last time, blueish, before the coroner wheeled him away. Just before his relapse and death, we had talked about what it would look like to build a family. His rough, calloused hands carefully held my face as he gently whispered, “You are my family,” and I shared with him that I wanted to have a baby. Not a week later, in what felt like an instant, he was gone.
Instead of seeking help, I dove into every possible bottle to avoid the pain of losing him. My dreams of a family were shattered. I felt I would never find a partner, fall in love, or become a mother.
That year, isolation and grief landed me in eight alcohol-related hospitalizations that lasted from three days to five weeks. When I finally got sober in November of 2020, I needed to believe that I had paid my dues of emotional suffering due to a life of alcohol addiction. I had to hold onto the hope that if I could stop pouring this poison into my body that everything would go just right. Surely, sobriety would bring me peace and a life I would want to embrace rather than escape, a belief that I carried until recently.
In December of 2023, I was in a new, healthy, long-term relationship and finally felt safe enough to consider actually trying to get pregnant.
On a chilly afternoon, I went to the grocery store and filled my cart with snacks, suddenly strolling into the family planning section. Like a teenage girl with a secret, I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and I snuck a box of pregnancy tests into my shopping cart. My stomach fluttered with excitement as the cashier rang up my total. Rushing home to use the bathroom, I ripped into the box and tore open the test packaging.
A faint pink line came up.
Eyes wide, my chest tightened with anticipation as I pulled out another test and waited.
I was pregnant.
Grabbing the third test, I waited again.
I was still pregnant.
After years of not trusting myself or my partners, I rejoiced!
Finally, I get to be a mom.
On Christmas, I told my partner the news, the joy of which was the best gift I could give. Weeks later, we confirmed the pregnancy with an ultrasound. Upon hearing the heartbeat, we beamed at each other, bright with excitement.
We shared the news with our loved ones and colleagues, and I started to write notes to the baby in a collection of random thoughts titled, “All The Things I Wish I Had Known.”
The joyous anticipation abruptly extinguished during a routine checkup on January 30th, 2024. The ultrasound delivered the heartbreaking news of a silent miscarriage. “I’m so sorry, Jessica,” the sonographer said quietly. “The baby is gone.” Looking at the screen, trying to make sense of her words, I listened for a heartbeat that was not there. On the screen was a misshapen sac. My heart sank. My eyes watered. My partner squeezed my hand tightly as the room spun out of control.
Despite my beliefs about recovery, life had shattered the illusion of sobriety as a shield against pain and loss.
About one out of four pregnancies don’t make it. “It’s not your fault,” my doctor explained. “There’s no reason.” As I wept silently in my partner’s arms, tears in his eyes, too, my heart felt the familiar feeling of shattering. My thoughts raced.
Will I ever become a mother?
Do I have the courage to try to get pregnant again?
What if I never become a mother?
I’ve been through enough already – why do I have to go through this?
Haven’t I done all the right things?
This final reflection is precisely where I got things wrong about recovery and had some serious unlearning to do.
Recovery, I learned, is not a guaranteed dispensary of desires earned through time and effort.
Sobriety, it turns out, does not equal immunity from hardship but rather equips us with the tools to face life’s challenges.
In the face of this loss, I revisited a note I had written to my unborn child.
Difficult times come to reveal something about you to yourself,
Something that you would have never known otherwise.
How could you know how strong you are
If you never had something to overcome?
Don’t seek hardships, but when they come,
Say, “Hello. What are you here to teach me?”
Recovery doesn’t exempt us from life’s tribulations but transforms our ability to navigate them. Reading the note and contemplating this loss, I needed to process the lesson that recovery owes me nothing. It has armed me with the means to handle life’s challenges without needing to escape.
When my partner passed away in 2020, isolation and alcohol were my coping mechanisms. When I miscarried, I immediately leaned on others for support, accepting offers of food and companionship. I took time off of work, cleared my calendar, and sought refuge with my sister after having surgery to complete the miscarriage on February 1st. Simply put, I have allowed others to take care of me and changed the narrative of how I respond to hardship.
It’s my birthday weekend, and I canceled the celebration because of my broken heart. Still, I choose to stay sober and sit with the inevitable pain that comes with this past week’s events.
During group support meetings that I lead with The Luckiest Club, we always close with a reading of “The Nine Things” from Laura McKowen’s book, Push Off From Here. Laura says, “I wrote the nine most important things I needed to hear — from myself, from others, from what I understood to be God — when I was in the dark hell of my addiction. They were the things I still needed to hear daily in sobriety.” I needed to hear these things to recover from the miscarriage and gather myself to move forward:
- It is not your fault.
- It is your responsibility.
- It is unfair that this is your thing.
- This is your thing.
- This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
- You can’t do it alone.
- Only you can do it.
- You are loved.
- We will never stop reminding you of these things.
Hello, hard times.
While I am not grateful for them, I am thankful for how I have learned to handle them, a testament to the essence of my sobriety.
About the author, Jessica:
- Jessica Dueñas, Ed.S., the founder of Bottomless to Sober and 2019 Kentucky State Teacher of the Year, is an educator in recovery who provides coaching services to individuals needing support in accomplishing their goals. In addition, Jessica facilitates professional development for organizations on wellness, leads workshops on writing and wellness, and is also available as a speaker for events.
- In 2021, Jessica was named a Kentucky Colonel, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the state of Kentucky, for her service work in education and recovery spaces.
- Read more about working with Jessica, including testimonials here.
Upcoming Opportunities:
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