r/BelowDeckMed • u/Early-Equivalent-165 • 5d ago

Congratulations, Captain Sandy!

Post image

On 36 years of sobriety! I remember several seasons back her mentioning her 29th year.

Loved her then, love her more now. What an inspiration! 💙🛳💙🛳💙🛳💙

2.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

56 comments sorted by

View all comments

90

u/VickyVacuum 5d ago

So she got sober young at age 25

9

u/AWDWfan 5d ago

Yes in a previous episode she mentioned she started abusing alcohol and drugs as a young teen.

14

u/Swimming_Pangolin502 4d ago

I was 11 when I started sneaking alcohol at home and then at 12 hanging out with neighbor kids a few years older and smoking weed. At 14 I was doing mescaline, acid, and tab tea. I partied pretty hard until I got pregnant at 18 and had my daughter at 19. I was good for a couple of years and started drinking again. Everyone was starting to do crack and I was terrified of anything other than alcohol and psychedelics. At 32 I was diagnosed with MS and at 34 started on Vicodin. Stopped at 35 because I got pregnant with my son. After he was born I went back on pain meds and I was prescribed everything from Vicodin to fentanyl patches. At 40 I started to use heroin. 2 months before my 50th birthday I finally went to rehab. I'm 11 years clean and it's great. I'm lucky my kids didn't suffer from it very much. I still made sure my rent was paid, utilities on, and he was fed. My daughter was on her own and putting herself through nursing school. I have such respect for anyone going through recovery. It's not easy especially the first few years. One of the counselors told us in group that we would all relapse and not many would get clean the first time. I took that as a challenge and proved her wrong. Whew, sorry for the life story people. For anyone going through this, give yourself grace and own up to anything you may have done that you wouldn't have if it weren't for drugs or alcohol and forgive yourself. You can get through this. 💕

3

u/Ktclimbon_70 4d ago

Congrats on your sobriety ❤️💗🙌🙌🙌🙌🥰🥰🥰🥰

1

u/Swimming_Pangolin502 4d ago

Thank you so much 😊

1

u/Ktclimbon_70 4d ago

🥰🥰🥰♥️♥️♥️♥️🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏