Jason Vanderburg
College Writing II
Dr. Uraina Pack
February 7, 2025
Recovery is not a singular, life-altering moment but rather an accumulation of choices, losses, and realizations that finally tip the scale. Moving to a new environment, severing old ties, and surrounding myself with positive support weren’t solutions in themselves, just survival tactics. They were the beginning of a metamorphosis, not its completion. In their research article Turning points toward drug addiction recovery: contextualizing underlying dynamics of change, Bellaert et al. (2022) reinforce this concept, demonstrating that addiction recovery is nonlinear and shaped by social shifts, personal realizations, and external support. Their findings mirror my own experience.
I wobbled up the driveway on a borrowed bicycle, gripping the handlebars with one hand, cradling a 12-pack of beer in the other. The cold gnawed at my fingertips, the dampness settling into my bones like an unshakable weight. Home was a basement beneath what had once been a church, its walls sweating with mildew and stale regret. Across the street, people slipped into the back entrance of another church, searching for something I was sure I’d never find. Guilt had long lost its boundaries, spreading like ink in water. I rationalized my drinking — it wasn’t heroin, after all. I had survived three years of addiction’s worst, hadn’t I?
I had weekend custody of my three sons. I had a girlfriend who wasn’t part of the chaos. I had cut ties with my past life, trading the chaos of Erie’s lower east side for the uneasy quiet of rural Fairview. It had been two years since my last psychiatric hold, longer still since jail and rehab, and I was nearing the end of nine years of probation. But I knew the truth: if I didn’t stop using, I’d lose everything. And this time, I cared. This time, it mattered.
I told my therapist I’d been thinking about going to a meeting. She nodded. “Then you should go. Just one. See what happens.” I’d sat through a hundred meetings before, but I had never gone with the intention of staying clean. That night, anxiety twisted my guts as I watched people slip into the church basement across the street. I was going. I think I had known all along.
I kept going. I sat in those basements, listening to strangers say things I had spent years avoiding. I let myself belong to something. I failed. I tried again. I started showing up for my own life. Seven years later, my world is fuller than I ever imagined. Recovery isn’t a single moment. It’s every moment after the one you decide to keep going.
Bellaert, L., Van Steenberghe, T., De Maeyer, J., Vander Laenen, F., & Vanderplasschen, W. (2022). Turning points toward drug addiction recovery: Contextualizing underlying dynamics of change. Addiction Research & Theory, 30(4), 294–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2026934