Addiction Recovery Story #33, Climbing Rose: Starting at the Bottom, Searching for the Sun

“How many times can a person hit bottom?” I once asked my longtime/current therapist. “That’s the question, right?” he said. I slipped and fell Monday night and hit bottom again, emotional scrapes, bruises and all. I was drowning in fear, which, allowed to fester, turned to anger. But now, things are better. Like a Climbing Rose, I continue to grow, and to seek the light. This is the latest installment in a series started on 1/31/21.

Climbing Rose, alcohol ink, 2021, Linda Silver. My talented cousin Lin has been producing beautiful art since girlhood in the Bronx. I’m proud to say that our good Dads were brothers — and our Italian grandma’s name was Rose.

I have two painful memories of hitting bottom — that hard, harsh reality that finally points you on a path to addiction recovery. Things can’t get worse than this, you think. Swimming in your addiction (mine is sugar/overeating), you somehow glimpse a slice of the truth. In your erratic, unsteady, seeking-the-next-fix state, you miraculously see that you are wrecking your life and the lives of those you love. You are a silver ball in a pinball machine, bouncing in a playing field of flashing lights and noises. You have no control. Things can only get better.

One recollection is so haunting and dark that I have only shared it with a handful of people closest to me.

It was right before our planned Christmas drive to Maine in 2016. I had a pecan pie in the oven, made with a recipe from famous pastry chef Emily…