I hated waking up to another miserable 'groundhog day'.
Instagram: @spiritledsobriety22
My website is: https://SpiritLedSobriety.com
My name is Paulette Kengg, and I'm a Christian wife, mother and grandmother living in Texas. I'm also a retired award-winning editor and author of five books, the most recent being Spirit-Led Sobriety, written under the pen name of Paulette Kengg for privacy reasons.
To date, my biggest foe and strongest enemy has been alcohol, the beast which was conquered once and for all on 12/29/22.
As the youngest of five kids, I grew up in a home with two miserable alcoholics in a very small home, where secrets were created and never shared with anyone, including each other. Plenty of yelling, screaming, images of my dad trying to strangle my mom with my siblings and I scampering about on the floor of their bedroom, crying and so scared. How many times did one of our uncles faithfully come in the middle of the night to rescue us by bringing us to his home, where we had to wake up our cousins - AGAIN - to sleep with them.
Of the two parents, my dad was the one who loved me. The pressure was on to produce a son, so after the fourth try a son was finally born, so the last thing my mom wanted was another kid. And then there was me. Looking back as a wife, mother and grandmother myself, I don't blame her a bit for not wanting anything to do with me. The poor woman was exhausted and abused on a regular basis, with no one to talk to.
My life forever changed when one of my uncles shot and killed my dad in cold blood while in a drunken rage. I was given Jack Daniels and coke that night by my oldest sister, who was married at the time and came and picked me up to get away from it all.
In the coming decades I was raped while still a virgin, lived through two failed marriages, a miscarriage, two layoffs totaling four years all while as a single mom, sexual harassment and more. Thankfully my mom and I reconciled our relationship and had a few good years together before she lost her life tragically and unnecessarily at the hands of others.
I was a "normal drinker" for most of my life, even though there were periods here and there of heavy drinking.
Shortly after my mom passed away and after I recovered from knee surgery, I landed the 'job of my dreams' as a regional editor of a healthcare magazine. I was responsible for the South Texas region, and part of my job was developing story ideas - something I was very, very, good at. My new boss was elated and a big boost to my ego, saying all the other editors were jealous that their regional editors weren't coming up with nearly the amount of compelling copy as hers was. My daughter had grown up and moved out of state, so I was alone with nothing else to do but work at the job I loved so much.
Enter the very most unwelcome insomnia, which would consume me for the next almost 10 years. Much to my surprise I met a wonderful man who became my third and final husband around this time. Unfortunately after we married and I moved in with him, I discovered he had a very bad snoring problem. Not good for anyone, but especially for someone with insomnia.
I ran into an old friend and we had dinner. She innocently suggested that I have a glass of wine to help me fall asleep. Never did it ever occur to me to use alcohol for the drug that it is, to help me fall asleep. I talked it over with my husband, and we both agreed it couldn't hurt anything (because I'd never had a problem with alcohol before).
Almost instantly - I can safely say within a week - my brain became addicted to alcohol. I'd wake up after a few hours and just pour another glass - much like taking another aspirin or OTC medicine. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It wasn't too long before I was drinking an entire bottle a night, sometimes two.
Because my husband and I slept in separate bedrooms, I would hide the empty bottles in my rainboots. When he left for work, I'd put the empty bottles into a plastic shopping bag and rush to the store, throw them away in the store's trash bin outside before going in to buy replacement bottles.
My beloved has a photographic memory, and sometimes I would spend hours driving around trying to find the exact same wine labels so he wouldn't notice any missing. After some time, I began drinking hard whiskey. No ice, no Coke. Just whiskey. At 2 am, 5 am, 8-9 am, 1-2 pm and so on while he was at work. Repeat over and over the process of now going to different liquor stores.
Of course I tried AA several times but it never took. I refused to label myself or believe I had a chronic disease that only I could diagnose. I began reading loads of books about addiction and recovery, listening to podcasts and took several online courses.
And while my periods of freedom (a/k/a sobriety) were getting longer and longer, I was still so freaking hard on myself when I would pick up a drink. Honestly I began worrying about my mental health because while I wasn't suicidal, let's just say I hated waking up to another miserable 'groundhog day'.
I had a terrible accident while alone at our vacation home one night and literally almost died. I am literally a living miracle, saved for such a time and purpose as this, I suppose.
Eventually I was treated by a team of three doctors simultaneously for 1.5 years for my insomnia: a board-certified sleep specialist, a cognitive behavior therapist specializing in insomnia, and my primary care physician. Together we cracked the code of my insane sleep-deprived brain, so alcohol was no longer the solution but it sure was the bigger problem of the two, at this point.
My husband was very supportive of me throughout this period, even though he didn't understand why I just couldn't stop drinking. I tried many forms of therapy and counseling, all of which were immensely helpful. Unfortunately, the first place I always thought I should have been able to go to was the last place I went to: our church.
When I confessed my problem to one of my dear old pastor friends, he said he'd been "clean and sober for 20 years now". The relief and no longer feeling ashamed was palpable. He put me in touch with a counselor friend who I worked with for over a year.
Today I'm living my best life and feel amazing. I never planned to write a book about my experiences and all I learned from doing research, but it happened anyway and it came into the world quite quickly, after just about two months. I initially planned to have just enough copies printed for my family members to read after I'm dead, but wondered what would happen if I presented my humble offering to the world of hurting souls just like me.
My sleep problems have been resolved, I've learned how to manage my emotions without numbing and spend my time helping others in recovery through my Facebook group, blog posts and just making myself available in whatever ways the needs present each day.
I'm grateful for the whole bloody mess because I wouldn't have this ministry today. I've created an important, lasting legacy for my daughter and grandkids, and shown my siblings we can recover when we put the work in and never give up on ourselves. I'm grateful to God for leading me out of alcohol prison in the crazy ways he did, because you know what? They worked for me.
My advice to anyone struggling with alcohol would be to surrender to God and let him lead you one step at a time, even and especially if your path looks different from others. He created each of us as unique people with different gifts, abilities and experiences, so of COURSE our paths aren't meant to be the same. :)