Recovery Stories IV - Marney Winfield

of hats. I kind of always have worn a lot of hats, and so I've just not recently it feels like recently, But I've recently graduated with my master's and social work. So I am a clinical therapist. Don't be scared, thank you. Yeah. And also I was working for Addiction

Treatment Services. I worked for that agency will still actually technically do for four and a half years, and I was interning as an intern for Mental Wealth at Mental Wellness Counseling into private practice and also working alongside my wonderful husband launching to seventeen Recovery, and it required me to go to a lot of seminars and workshops and conferences and consortiums because he doesn't know how to say consortiums. And at these I noticed that they would ask this

question a lot. It was very popular but very powerful, and it was what is your why? And so I'm sitting in these trainings and they say, what is your why? And so I'm like, okay, I can think about that. I'm like, because I signed up for it, and like why, Well, because I need the credits and I need to learn the material. Why because I need to pass a class? Why because I need to graduate? Why? Well, because I want to get my degree and vi a clinical therapist.

Why because I want to help people? Well? Why because people help me. I'm a person in recovery and I want to give back. And that's what's passion. That's my passion. That's where I'm at right now. So what is your guys' is why, like, why are you here tonight? Right? Some of you are in treatment? And I say this with the almost sincerity I am so freaking proud of you, guys and ladies. Oh my god. Like swhere it starts. So I was a Phoenix lady myself and a lot

of different capacities and throughout my lifetime. But that's I started, you know, I started here, and I'll get into that in a second. So my story is there different chapters? I don't know, for those of you who've ever done open talks and you're like thinking about what you're going to say, and you're like, oh my god, I don't

even know how. I don't even think I want to go back there, Like I don't think I even really want to sift through the chaos that was my life to figure out what to share and what not to share. But this is messages of hope, so I'm going to try to veer in that direction. I grew up in Saline, which is near ann Arbor, downstate, and I had a really good, really good childhood. I had a really good upbringing,

good core values. Alcohol was present in our household. My father, who is now sixteen years sober who actually is present here today in the back. So, I mean, he's got sixteen years he's like, I don't know, one hundred and twelve. So now I'm just kidding. There was use in our home through when I was growing up, and actually my dad was like my party buddy. We drank together and stuff.

So later in life, but anyhow, but for the most part, everything was good, you know, no know, negativity, no physical abuse or emotional abuse in the household. Like I grew I had a really good upbringing. I had a lot of culture. I had a lot of travel, I had a lot of experiences. I was a very privileged child. I grew up and went to grew up and went to Michigan State. Is that is that a real thing? Went to Michigan State for my undergraduate degree. And I

didn't really know. I never was one of those people that knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. And it is not where I'm going with this that I didn't want to be an alcohol because I didn't want to be that either. But I didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't want to be a you know, a cop. I didn't want to be a firefighter. I didn't want to be a veterinarian. I didn't want to be an accountant. I didn't want to

be a hairdresser. I like all these things. I knew my limit, I knew my skill set, let's just say that, and I knew it. But I knew I was good with people. So a lot of that had to do with showing me into My jobs that I chose were in the service industry. It's for those of you that know the service industry, it's very there's a lot of substance use in prevalence in the service industry. But I met Michigan State and I'm doing really well. I got

my head on pretty straight. I'm working at a restaurant called the Rivi or a cafe, which is not a cafe, it's a bar. And I got a really good education. But junior years when I really started noticing my relationship with alcohol was not normal, even though at Michigan State and partying things were acceptable, right Binge drinking is acceptable, hangovers are acceptable, drinking during the day is acceptable, drinking

in the morning is acceptable. Being smelling like booze at eight o'clock in the morning at your class is acceptable because you know you're in college and people don't really care. But it ended up catching up with me and my grades started slipping end of junior year into senior year. But I graduated with honors. I did great. I did get my first UI. When I was in college, ran through a stop sign. Slap on the wrist, No big deal.

I didn't really even think it was a thing. I just thought I was a college student who got caught. After I graduated, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I was in I took a bunch of different jobs in sales positions, lived a bunch of different places. Nothing really set nothing really set in. I kind of was like a nomad, but was doing okay everywhere I

went until I wasn't. I don't want to spend too much time on the negative stuff that happened to me, or like the chaos and the detriment that was my life for a lot of years, because not that it's not important, it is important. It's important for you to explore those things and deal with those things and not sweep everything under the rug in terms of what you've

dealt with and what you've had to go through. But in the time that makes sense, and always with the idea that you want to keep what you're doing strength based and forward focused. Those are the two things that are really important and what I think of now in terms of recovery. After I graduated Fast Forward, I went to a bunch of rehabs. People always ask like, when is it that you actually when it clicked, Like, when

is it when you actually it stuck? And for me it was it was for when it was my idea, it had to be my idea. The treatment center that I went to, I went there on my own terms. It wasn't because of the judge. It wasn't because of my parents. It wasn't because of a boyfriend. It wasn't because of an employer, it wasn't because of a roommate.

It was because I knew I needed to go or I wasn't going to die that point, I had already been hospitalized multiple times for detox, had been septic at one point, and it was just terrible relationships, abuse, physical, emotional, and it was time for me to turn things around. And I knew if I was going to do that, I couldn't do it by myself. And I needed to

take this seriously. So I went into treatment and went to Bear River, and I went in with full intentions of just doing the work and doing exactly what our friend Kim talked about earlier, keeping things real right, getting honest with myself, honest about why I was there, getting honest about the things I had been through, getting honest about who I'd hurt, getting honest about the PEOPLEHOO had hurt me, doing my four step stuff right, getting it all out, and really realizing like what do I need

to do to move forward now? And the advice that they give you is say you need to change everything. That's exactly what I did. There were very, very very few people except for pretty much my family that I actually kept contact with after I left that place and I started over, and I did everything different than what I had done before. It's one of those things where I just knew it I needed to readjust my life and like refocus and have it be real this time.

For me to do that, I got a job at Addiction Dream and Services, and I was making like eleven dollars an hour. So here I was like with this bachelor's degree, and I'm just like I just need I need to be around people that know what I am and know what I'm doing and be okay with it. And that was where that's where I ended up and so and I could help other people along the way, and that's where I got lined up doing my coursework for my master's degree. And you know, now I'm on

that route right now and it's it's going amazing. The one thing I do want to talk about, so people always ask me how I met Corey. We are we are an exception to the rule. All right, We're just gonna say that. So I, uh, they say not to get in relationships within the first year and what have you. This was totally unintentional, mind you. The treatment center that uh, that I was talked just speaking of, he actually was

working there at the time as a tech. Now this there was not any sort of weirdness when I was there.

I promise you that I handed God we literally I was like this, this guy's funny and he's serious about his recovery, and I'm going to listen to what he has to say, because that's what I'm supposed to do, is listen to what people have to say that you know, are actually legit about their own recovery and so you know, so I actually tracked him down afterwards on Facebook and I was like, where's the meet Where's there a meeting? And he's like, I don't think I can go to

a meeting with you. And I was like, well, you said for to stick with the people who stick with the winners, and so anyway, from that point on, we ended up we ended up getting together later down the line, and I can now call him my husband, and it's amazing and he's an amazing man. When they say that the promises come true, that's for real. Maybe not overnight, you know, not as fast as you want them to,

but they definitely do. Of all the trauma that I've been through, Like, that's not the stuff that I focus on today. I focus on what I need to do for myself to stay sober, and that's making sure that I am refilling my own recovery tank, as I call it, right, doing the things that I need to do to make sure that I have less of a chance of picking

up today. Whether it's meetings, whether it's talking to somebody at the office, Uh, maybe it's to maybe it's touching bees with my family, you know, maybe it's exercising no me you know, all these promises and all these miracles come true, and the biggest miracle in my life, as most of you guys know, and if you don't, I am a new mom and it is. I know it is the ultimate blessing, and that I can guarantee you

is the work of a higher power. So I know that my higher power is on my side, always has been. It's just sometimes I wasn't listening. My husband, my best friend Corey today he's my why. And my little baby back there who's crying, he's my why. All you guys in this room today, you guys are all my why. So keep doing what you're doing. Stay clean and sober. You're doing amazing. Give yourself hat on your back, give

yourself some grace. Thank you for coming tonight. Take care, everybody, have a good evening.