Riding the Storm Out

Many young adults hit a major turning point in their early 20s. For some, it stems from the reality of having to find that first job after college; for others, it’s sparked by a realization that a relationship, or a career path, has turned out not to be all it seemed.

But for Jennifer Storm, age 22 arrived with a truth that rested on the edge of the razor she used to slash her wrists with during a suicide attempt: she was an alcoholic and drug addict and her life had become unmanageable. After 10 years of abusing alcohol and cocaine, Storm landed in a rehab facility after this desperate act — and began a new chapter of her life.
“Rehab was the jolt that I needed to put it all into perspective,” she said. “It was absolutely critical … it saved my life.”

Storm described the long, difficult road leading up to her stint in rehab in Blackout Girl: Growing Up and Drying Out in America, published in 2008. This year, she’s back with a new memoir, Leave the Light On, which covers her post-rehab life, her early recovery experiences, and her emergence as a lesbian activist.

She said the impetus for this book came from feedback she received while as she toured the country several years ago promoting Blackout Girl.

“I had about 10 years of sobriety then, and people would ask me how I got to that point,” she said. “There are so many memoirs that cover the gritty details of addiction, and not nearly as many that talk about how to maintain sobriety.”

Addiction began at age 12

Storm’s latest book is unique in that it is one of the few recovery memoirs written by a young lesbian. Joe Amico, president of NALGAP: The Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies, noted that he knew of almost no other autobiography that covered the same ground as Storm’s.

“I am not aware of any other lesbian memoirs on recovery,” said Amico, who for many years ran a therapy practice in Phoenix. “To have a book that tells recovery from a lesbian perspective is significant.”

Leave the Light On discusses the issues that led to Storm’s alcoholism and drug addiction, which began at age 12 following a rape. After the suicide attempt that landed her in rehab, Storm sought a therapist’s help to begin unraveling all the threads that had kept her bound to her addictions: the rape, the death of her mother and an inability to sit with painful feelings. She also began dealing with her sexual orientation, a part of her self that had been carefully hidden.

“Once I came out of rehab, I knew I wasn’t going to use again, so I had to deal with why I did it,” she said. “One of the tenets of the (12-step) program is honesty … how could I work a program and hide this significant part of my life?”

To concentrate more fully on staying sober, Storm moved from her hometown of Allentown, Pa., to State College, several hours away. Even with this move, made possible with the assistance of Storm’s father and stepmother, she said leaving behind her drinking and drugging friends was one of the hardest things she had to do in early recovery.

“I had to give up my whole friendship network, really,” she said. “Our common bond was partying. Without it, I had little in common with people I had considered my closest friends.”

Rebuilding life around therapy

Storm initially rebuilt her life around recovery meetings and weekly sessions with her therapist. Later she focused on experiencing academic life once she applied to attend college at Pennsylvania State University. She came out and joined Lambda Delta Lambda, a lesbian sorority, which gave her a push into on-campus activism.

“The sorority gave me a social outlet outside the bars,” Storm said. “Don’t get me wrong — these groups still have a big drinking component, but they also have a huge service component. And many of the sorority sisters were (LGBT) activists, which got me into activism, which is at the core of what I do today.”

After starting and leading several LGBT and diversity-oriented groups during her undergraduate days at Penn State, Storm currently channels her activist energies into her job as executive director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, Pa., a non-profit agency that provides support and assistance to crime victims. She also maintains a brisk schedule of public speaking engagements related to the needs of young LGBT adults in recovery.

When she speaks to young people at college campuses around the country, one of the things Storm said she tries to get across is that they can choose to live a chemical-free life. That notion of choice is something that she said surprised her at the beginning of her sobriety, and continues to amaze her today.

“When I got sober, I couldn’t believe I had lived 10 years of my life the way I had, when I had so many other options,” Storm said. “Recovery was hard, but the fact that, on any given day, I could make the decision not to use meant that anything was possible.”

VITAL STATISTICS
Leave the Light On: A Memoir of Recovery and Self-Discovery
By Jennifer Storm
Central Recovery Press, 2010

Book Review by Suzanne K of “Leave the Light On: A Memoir of Recovery and Self-Discovery” by Jennifer Storm.

This is the second memoir by Jennifer Storm. Her first, Blackout Girl: Growing Up and Drying Out in America, depicted her haunting descent into addiction which occurred after she had been raped at age twelve. In Leave the Light On: A Memoir of Recovery and Self-Discovery, Storm picks up where the first book left off. Even without reading her first memoir, readers will be captivated by Storm’s account of life in recovery.

Anyone who’s been through treatment for addiction knows that recovery is a scary time. You worry about it when you’re nearing the end of your treatment, and you worry constantly about it during the early days of your recovery. This happens regardless of what your drug or addictive behavior of choice is, how long you’ve been addicted before you seek and go through treatment, whether you’ve relapsed once or several times since treatment, who you are, where you live, how much money you have, how old you are, your sex, religious, political or any other type of affiliation. In short, recovery takes some getting used to.

And there’s no better primer than reading Storm’s tale of making it through the period of early recovery – without losing her sanity.

This is not to say that there weren’t some tenuous moments. Whose recovery is smooth sailing, anyway? Not anyone that this writer has heard about. Truth to tell, however, Storm’s account doesn’t veer into details about protracted and numerous relapses. She does say that she did relapse at one point, but got back into treatment and subsequently was Keaable to maintain her sobriety.

The fact that Storm survived her addiction and suicide attempt (she cut her wrists) is a testament to her underlying courage and determination to live. The memories of the rape, the guilt and shame and self-hatred that plagued her for years and she buried with alcohol and drugs took a lot of therapy and many hours of 12-step meeting attendance and one-on-one discussions with her sponsor to overcome.

You often read in articles and advice about recovery that you should follow a regimented schedule in your first weeks and months after treatment. With no more 24-hour monitoring or every minute accounted for with therapy, meetings, or scheduled lectures or activities, the sudden freedom of recovery can throw anyone into a tailspin. Storm tells readers she very much needed the comfort of stability, and keeping to a regular daily schedule helped her begin to climb up from the depths of self-doubt and despair. Reciting the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer also kept her from losing her grip.

Newcomers to recovery will find helpful tips scattered throughout the book. For example, Storm says that it’s a good practice to mix up your 12-step meetings. Why should you do this? For one thing, it helps to keep things fresh. You won’t be hearing the same people tell the same stories over and over again. By attending different meetings, you’ll also be exposed to more people in recovery. Since it’s tough to meet new people when you’re still feeling raw and vulnerable, this is an excellent and non-threatening way to get to know new people who are clean and sober.

Another tip is to be cognizant of the so-called 12-step rules. Every fellowship has a few of them, whether they’re called rules or just recommendations. Did you know that you shouldn’t make any major life changes in your first year of recovery? This includes getting married or divorced, selling your house (unless you have to for financial reasons), and so on. You shouldn’t date in the first year – so, no love interests (especially for women who have been traumatized). You also can’t share your story until you’ve got a full year of recovery under your belt. And you can’t lead a meeting or sponsor anyone until you reach your first year recovery milestone.

Attending 90 meetings in 90 days (the “90 in 90” rule) is also strongly recommended for newcomers. The first 90 days are the most critical for newly sober individuals. This is a time when internal self-worth issues are most common. Storm found her salvation in keeping herself busy and involved in the 12-step program. She relates that in early recovery it’s easy to get sucked back into negative thoughts or wallow in self-pity of depression that follows such a major life change (going through addiction treatment and starting recovery).

Early recovery is also a time when panic attacks frequently occur. They usually come and go quickly, but can be devastating nonetheless. Storm recounts she committed to her Higher Power and just rode it out whenever panic overwhelmed her.

Desires and cravings, as every addict who’s gone through treatment knows, are two different things. They’re both tough to deal with, no matter when they occur. When old triggers resurface, Storm advises those new to recovery to recite the Serenity Prayer over and over. In addition, take deep and cleansing breaths while you say the words. You also need to avoid old people, places, and things that caused you to use in the past. And you simply must remain vigilant about your disease. You have to put your needs and your recovery above everything and everyone else.

In an easy-to-read style, Storm takes the reader through her early days in recovery. As she recounts her struggles to move into her own place, overcoming her conflicting thoughts of her own sexuality, dealing with old and new friendships, her up-and-down relationships with her parents and siblings, going on to college, starting a career, and, ultimately embarking on intimate relationships, readers cannot help but find insights into their own lives.

This memoir is not a manual or workbook for how everyone should manage their recovery. Each person is unique and must take his or her own path. But the book is a page turner, and Storm’s fresh and sassy style is completely engaging.

As for Storm, we’ll probably hear more from her in the future. As Executive Director of the Victim Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she has put her passion into helping others. She remains clean and sober – and happy at last.

Non-Fiction: Leave the Light On by Jennifer Storm

Lesbians and Substance Abuse – Curve Magazine – Web Articles 2010
Part three of Victoria Brownworth’s social issues series: Why are Lesbians at risk of alcoholism and drug abuse?

Lindsay Lohan looked surly and sexy on May 24 as she appeared in court for a mandatory hearing. Her hair dyed black, she wore a low-cut white blouse and a black suit. No doubt Lohan thought she looked demure. No doubt she also didn’t think being late for the hearing after having missed her last court date was a problem. But to anyone who has dealt with a family member, lover or friend with addiction, Lohan looked like what she is: an addicted woman out of control of her life.

Lohan, 23, has become a poster child for lesbians with addictions. Her very public break up with dyke DJ Samantha Ronson was, according to numerous tabloid reports, a direct result of Lohan’s equally public drunkenness and drug abuse. When the couple split last year, Lohan was literally falling down drunk in public.

At the May 24 hearing, Lohan was ordered to abstain from alcohol and drugs and to wear an alcohol monitoring device. She tried arguing with the judge, but her attorney silenced her. Yet by June 8, the device had allegedly gone off  at a party after the MTV Movie Awards show and Lohan’s freedom was in jeopardy.

One more such incident and Lohan will be imprisoned for violating the terms of her probation for DUI and being caught with cocaine on her person.

Lohan may be a very public face of lesbian substance abuse, but she is only one of thousands of American lesbians suffering from addictions to alcohol and drugs.

The statistics on what makes an alcoholic woman are as sobering as they are alarming. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), one third of American women drink alcohol. Of those, one in ten drinks over the limit categorized as “infrequent” (one to 11 drinks per year) or  “moderate” (one drink per day).

The NIAAA defines heavy drinking as drinking more than two drinks per day and/or getting legally drunk (approximately three drinks over a five-hour period will make an average sized woman drunk) more than once a year.

A single drink is described by the NIAAA as a 12-ounce bottle of beer or wine cooler, a five-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

Alcohol is far more damaging to women’s bodies than to men’s due to how alcohol is metabolized and also because women’s livers are far smaller. Women are likely to develop alcohol-related diseases, including cirrhosis, breast and liver cancer, brain atrophy and osteoporosis, more quickly than men.

Women are also more likely to become severely depressed from frequent drinking than are men. According to the CDC, the rate of alcohol-induced suicide is much higher for women than men.

Why the difference between women and men? Alcohol passes through the digestive tract, is metabolized by the liver and is dispersed in the water in the body. The more water, the more diluted the alcohol. Most men weigh more than most women and pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies than men. Thus a woman’s brain and other organs are exposed to more alcohol before it is broken down. These differences account for the short- and long-term effects of alcohol on women.

The NIAAA notes that “women who have trouble with their closest relationships tend to drink more than other women.” Heavy drinking is more common among women who have never married, are living unmarried with a partner or are divorced or separated. A woman whose partner drinks heavily is more likely to drink heavily herself.

The NIAAA also asserts that “many studies have found that women who suffered childhood sexual abuse are more likely to have drinking problems. Depression is closely linked to heavy drinking in women, and women who drink at home alone are more likely than others to have later drinking problems.”

According to the CDC, white women tend to drink most heavily in their teens, 20s and 30s, while African-American women are more prone to drinking heavily in middle-age. Native American women have problems with alcohol at a rate far higher than women of other ethnic origins.

Like Lohan, Jennifer Storm started drinking in her teens. By the time she was 15, Storm had become, as she details provocatively in her memoir Blackout Girl, a black-out drunk. She had begun drinking at 12, but she says she was stealing sips from her mother’s drinks at six.
“I drank to protect myself,” says Storm, a vibrant 34-year-old social worker/victim’s advocate who is a commissioner to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

While Lohan is the public face of lesbian addiction, Storm has made herself the public face of lesbian recovery, and with her girl-next-door good looks, it’s a face that more lesbians with addiction issues should see.

Now 12 years sober, Storm is outspoken about her own struggle to get sober and about how the culture of drinking and drugging within the LGBT community is a silent epidemic slowly killing many of our members. “It’s easier to pretend to be heterosexual than to be out. And it’s easier to pretend to be heterosexual when you are high.”

Storm knew she was a lesbian at an early age and drank to cover up both her feelings and a reality she didn’t know how to address.

Unfortunately, like many teens and women who drink to excess, Storm was sexually assaulted. Which made drinking even more necessary to cover her pain.

Her leap into rehab and sobriety was painful and she acknowledges that the pain doesn’t end with getting sober. Storm says finding other sober lesbians is more difficult than she’d hoped, but she won’t date women who drink to excess.

“There’s nothing more boring than being sober with a drunk,” she says. “There’s this big fear that you can’t have fun or be fun sober. I’m here to say that you can do both. I am having the most honest laughter of my life sober. I highly recommend it!”

Storm’s upbeat attitude belies the struggle she went through to get and stay sober. She wrote her second memoir, which was published in April, “Leave the Light On” because “we love the gritty, down-and-dirty tales of being drunk and degraded,” she explains. “But no one says what happens afterward. I wanted to explain how you stay sober.”

Lohan and Storm provide two divergent scenarios for lesbians with substance abuse–Lohan is still an active addict whose life is spiraling out of control in a very public fashion where even her parents and close friends seem unable to help her. Storm is the poster girl for sobriety–and an inspirational speaker on the subject.

The stories of both women, however, tell the tale of lesbian substance abuse–a tale that starts most often with self-loathing. And their stories are repeated again and again in the LGBT community.

“I drank to get high and I drank to tell myself I was not a lesbian,” says Sonya, who, like both Lohan and Storm, started drinking in her teens.

“Some people think that because being gay has gone mainstream and everyone is watching Glee, it’s easy to come out and easy to acknowledge being a lesbian or gay or transgender. It isn’t. The media makes it look like everyone is cool with queers. That’s so not the case, though. The thought of my parents finding out made me so anxious, I had to calm myself down. It started with drinking, then I was taking Xanax friends gave me. By the time I was 15 I was a drunk and addicted to pills. And I wasn’t any closer to coming out.”

Sonya ended up in rehab. And older sibling found her passed out on the floor of her bedroom. She was taken to the hospital, treated for alcohol poisoning and briefly hospitalized in a psychiatric unit, because the doctors who treated her thought she had attempted suicide.

“I hadn’t tried to kill myself,” she explains. “I just drank more than usual on top of the pills. The thing is, you need more and more drugs and drinks to make you feel high. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to be normal.”

Rehab helped her addiction, but not the underlying issue. “I still had to come out to become a whole person. That line ‘you’re only as sick as your secrets?’ That’s about not coming to terms with whatever it is that makes you do drugs and alcohol in the first place. And for me, that was being a closet queer.”

Courtney Penniman knows what Sonya is talking about. Penniman is CEO of  the Stonewall Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, which she founded. The Stonewall Institute is a state-licensed outpatient behavioral health program that treats all people suffering from drug and alcohol abuse, but caters specifically to the LGBT community, with queer counselors to address the very specific concerns of LGBT substance abusers.

Penniman, an MSW with a string of counseling degrees, is herself many years sober. For her, founding Stonewall was an act of love and commitment. In her own youth she’d been where many LGBT substance abusers are–in a vicious and self-defeating cycle of self-loathing and self-medicating. She wanted to create a safe and self-affirming space for LGBT people with addiction issues.

Unfortunately for the millions of lesbians with substance abuse problems, places like Stonewall are few and far between.

Psychologists and addictions counselors are agreed that the LGBT community faces more problems with addictions than the straight community. Myriad papers in journals as well as books from the LGBT community itself are clear: queers are dealing with stresses that provoke and promote substance abuse and te culture Storm and other sober queers decry of bars and clubs as the main centers for socializing just underscore the problem.

According to a 2004 study in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, the incidence of substance abuse among lesbians is far higher than in heterosexual peers.

The study, which focused on lesbians from Atlanta, found “significant negative correlations were found for females between internalized homophobia and lifetime use of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes, as well as monthly use of marijuana.”

The reasons are succinct: homophobia and sexism coalesce to make lesbians hate themselves. That may sound overly simplistic, but listen to the stories of lesbians in the throes of substance abuse or those who are on recovery like Storm and Sonya: the consistent, incontrovertible facts are that self-loathing demands self-medication. And while not all lesbians self-medicate, many flirt with alcohol and drugs, but do not reach the point of all-out addiction. What’s more, the main places for lesbians to meet off-line continue to be mostly bars and clubs.

“I look around my community,” notes Storm, “and I see women in their 40s, 50s and 60s still going to the bars and still getting drunk. That ‘functional alcoholism’ myth just validates people never getting sober. How can we live our lives honestly if we are drunk or drugged all the time? How can we know who we really are?”

Is there a preventative for all this substance abuse? Penniman and Storm have suggestions from different vantage points, but both recommend self-validation and self-love as the first step toward recovery or first step away from the lure of addiction. As Storm’s memoirs make clear, addiction is very seductive, even as it takes your life away bit by bit.

Penniman’s program is a variation on standard 12-step programs. It focuses on self-affirmation and true pride as a new foundation to replace the self-loathing that led to the self-medicating. Honesty, Penniman believes, is essential to moving forward from addiction.

Storm believes the LGBT community must stop hiding its drug and alcohol problems.

“One message I always send to young people,” Storm says, “is that you don’t have to be alone and you are not alone. As a community we need to be setting a better standard for ourselves. I am a proud member of our community, but we hide our issues so well. Most of us were taught to hide who we are. We set a horrible standard for ourselves. There is very little mentoring or role-modeling in our community. We have to learn to be our own role-models.”

Storm is eager to help others face the demons she herself faced. “I would like people to be able to point to me and other lesbians who are sober and say: ‘There’s someone who is functioning and not alcoholic.’ We spend too much time in bars and clubs trying to forget who we are. Instead we need to address who we are and deal with it. We need to get honest so we can be who we really are. We deserve more than being drunk. We deserve to live our lives sober and unafraid.”

Seeking Help

Alcoholics Anonymous: aa.org,  gayalcoholics.com

Pride Institute: www.Pride-Institute.com Gay & Lesbian Chemical Dependency & Mental Health Care 1- 800-54PRIDE begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 800-54PRIDE end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Stonewall Institute
Phoenix, Arizona
1-602-535-6468 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-602-535-6468 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.stonewallinstitute.com

Sober Recovery: Lesbian Sober Living Program
soberrecovery.com/links/gayandlesbianresources.html

Lakeview Health, Gay and Lesbian-Friendly Drug Rehab Centers
1-800-884-1727 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-884-1727 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
lakeviewhealth.com/gay-lesbian-drug-rehab

Warning Signs of Addiction

One or more of these signs can be an indicator of addiction and mean you should seek help.
1. Overwhelming need/desire to drink or do drugs

2. Drinking or doing drugs alone

3. Keeping drinking/drug-taking secret from friends and family

4. Only able to have sex when high

5. Lost time from school or work due to being hung-over or high

6. Spending excessive amounts of  money and/or time on drinking/taking drugs

7. Inability to be with friends or family who don’t drink/do drugs

8. Drinking/doing drugs in dangerous situations, such as when driving

9. Loss of memory/blacking out after drinking/doing drugs

10. Being arrested for DUI or for hurting someone while under the influence

View my video and vote for me if you think my idea is worthy.

My show would be a very frank and candid discussion about Addiction in America. It seems that almost every day we are hearing stories of people who are dying from untreated addictions. Our country is consumed with the idea of addiction, we are fascinated by those who die from this horrible epidemic yet we aren’t providing viable solutions to this problem. I would love to host a show that would really discuss the ins and outs of addiction. What is a real addiction and what isn’t? How do we prevent addiction? How do we reach out a hand and help an active addict? Are we over drugging our children with pharmaceuticals and creating addictions while we try to treat compulsive disorders? Are we confusing compulsive disorders with true addiction? And if so how do we tell the difference and how to do we offer alternative solutions to compulsive disorders that do not create addictions?

In the follow-up to Blackout Girl, her memoir of alcohol addiction, author Storm continues her compelling journey to fulfillment as a functional, substance-free human being. Fresh from a 28-day rehabilitation program, Storm finds she must shed many friends and routines from her past in order to work her 12-Step AA program and move forward in her life. Along the way, Storm chronicles her day-to-day in its frustrations and mundane details, but also faces a life-threatening medical emergency, comes out as a lesbian, has a first gay sexual encounter, plans the first-ever Penn State Queer Prom, and finds her passion as an activist. Throughout, she relates her story with candor, humor, and insight, making this an engaging and occasionally thought-provoking memoir of growing up, getting over past mistakes, and extending oneself to others and the world at large.

- Publishers Weekly, 4/5/2010 | Link

http://www.ktnv.com/global/Category.asp?c=164911&autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=4622405&flvUri=&partnerclipid=