Life after 'rock bottom': Recovering alcoholics help N.B. women overcome drinking problem

Sheila Walker, 59, is the newest hire at Sophia Recovery Centre in Saint John, where attendance at group meetings has doubled since the onset of COVID-19.

The centre is one of a kind in Atlantic Canada offering peer counselling exclusively for women by women in recovery and engagement with the programs has been growing month over pandemic month.

Walker says her experience with the despair and shame of addiction and her journey back from "bottoming out" is what she'll take on the road in Charlotte County.

"My past is my greatest asset," she said.

As a mobile outreach worker, she'll be meeting with women in safe places close to where they live, with a long-term goal of creating local support groups that could sustain themselves in the smaller communities.

"I absolutely believe that during the last year, women have had to deal with incredible stresses," said Walker.

"Whether it's employment, daycare, or maybe quarantining with your mate for two weeks and you've got issues with them," she said. "Then we get into a new field of abuse, family abuse."

Walker said she's hearing from women who say they never showed any signs of addiction, now "falling down that rabbit hole."

What started as drinking for pleasure or relief, she said, has turned into compulsion. Drinking is no longer a choice.

"So now you're in deep," she said.

Regaining a passion for life after sobriety

For Walker, the do-or-die moment came in her 40s.

She had a job, a car and an apartment but she didn't recognize herself.

"I looked into the mirror and I thought, 'What happened to that young, beautiful woman who had dreams and aspirations? Where did she go?'"

"All that was left was this dying woman. I was dying."

The road back to sustained sobriety was difficult she said, but she did regain her passion for life.

She moved to Costa Rica and took up surfing and writing. She felt healthy and happy.

It was the arrival of grandchildren that lured her back to New Brunswick, and now she's excited about the work she's going to do.

"You get back what you give away," she said. "When I look into another woman's eyes, that shared life experience does promote trust. It transforms both our souls."

Surge in online meeting attendance by women

In Moncton, recovering alcoholic Dianna Wright has tripled down on her attendance at group meetings and now participates six days a week.

She said it's partly to protect her seven years of sobriety during an especially anxious time and partly to gird up the group, which lost some regulars early in the pandemic.

"They disappeared and never came back," said Wright, who worried others would follow.

"When they hear of other members falling away, it's like: Why not? Why don't I go ahead and do it too because Sally's doing it, Mary's doing it. We're probably going to die anyway, or some dramatic thing, and an alcoholic can make up any excuse to drink."

Wright said she has noticed more women attending group meetings, especially when they moved online.

Now they're discovering that they have a problem that they didn't have before- Dianna Wright

"There's so much access now that wasn't there before," she said. "In face-to-face meetings, it's about 80 per cent men. Sometimes it's me and 23 guys. But I would say on Zoom, it's about 60 per cent women."

Wright thinks women's attendance is up as much as 50 per cent from where it was before the pandemic.

"They're working from home now and a lot of women like their wine, and a lot of women say they've started having their wine earlier and earlier," said Wright.

"Maybe their hubby is working across the country, and they're stuck at home with the kids, and they're drinking more wine at night or more than they're used to.

"Now they're discovering that they have a problem that they didn't have before."

Wright said she can relate to feeling out of control.

"I was up to 15 drinks," she said. "Beer and tequila because I couldn't drink the beer fast enough."

In 2012, she crashed her Kia Rio into a parked train while she was living in Texas. The airbag broke most of her ribs.

"That's when I finally realized I could have killed people," said Wright, who grew up in California and also lived in Texas and Nevada before moving to New Brunswick.

At 47, that life is behind her, she said, and it's important to be a model to others, that it's possible to change.

"I don't want to escape my life," she said. "I'm content. I can show up for things that I never used to show up for."

"I snowshoe. I hike, for goodness' sake. I have pieces of happiness and joy. I never used those words before."

'Calm before the storm'

As executive director of Sophia Recovery Centre, Julie Atkinsonis also trying to plan for what's ahead.

She expects many more women will be seeking help as their situations worsen.

"One of the most significant risk factors in addiction is isolation," she said. "Addiction is the loss of a healthy community and a sense of connection."

She has two volunteers who run a weekly group in Saint Andrews, but they were urging her to bring more support to the region, she said.

That's why she sought the funding for Walker's outreach job. It's enough to keep Walker mobilized two days a week.

Atkinson hopes Walker will reach places where there's suffering.

"Every woman who comes in here has a family and a whole range of connections in the community that have been destroyed by her addiction," said Atkinson. "When you help women recover, you can also restore those families to a happier place."

Atkinson said women helping women answers a need at many different levels.

"We know that women experience stigma differently and women tend to spiral down to a lower place more quickly than men. We also know in many cases, women who are experiencing addiction have experienced other really difficult things. Violence and domestic abuse are not uncommon."

Atkinson said providing a safe space was a founding principle of Sophia Recovery Centre. The non-profit was created by the Sisters of Charity in 2009.

"We're trying to be prepared as an organization for the aftermath of COVID, which we have not necessarily seen in our numbers here yet," said Atkinson. "We feel in a way we're in the calm before the storm because we're fully expecting the course of women's addiction to worsen over the next six, 12, who knows maybe 18 months and then see those women reaching out for help."