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Hello
everyone, my name is Diane Potvin and I am a recovered alcoholic and
have not picked up a drink since 2-14-87, and I say that with much pride.
Even if I only speak of today, there is so much to celebrate.
Just to let you know how it was then, I am going to tell you a story.
It’s a story that gives me a hole in my being but that all changes
when I start to talk about my recovery. First things first.
I had a childhood that included verbal, physical, sexual and emotional
abuse. Being the oldest of three children, I was the brunt of a very
unhappy Irish-Polish marriage. I was in and out of therapy for depression
and suicide, spending 13 months in Norwich State Hospital when I was
17-18 years old.
Not getting any of the healthy skill one needs to create a productive
life, I went out and created the same type of environment that I was
running from. Swearing I never would be like my mother and father, who
were both alcoholics, I did just that and worse. My father’s two
sidekicks were his bottle of whiskey and a black belt that he used on
me frequently. I swore I would never become a drunk or hit my children,
and now I sadly say, I did both...somewhere a long the line thinking,
as long as I use my hand it would be okay....and of course it was not.
I left home after I graduated from high school and moved to Hartford
from Ellington. I continually got into relationships that were abusive.
After two kids and a broken marriage, I lived from one eviction to another.
I loved my son and daughter very much back then but alcohol and men
became more important than they were to me. I say this with much regret
and shame. No child deserved the treatment that I was giving my children.
I would show up at my son’s little league games drunk (if I showed
up at all) and I was so far into my addiction that I only remember going
to my daughters baseball and soccer games after I was sober. I came
from lousy parents and eventually became one myself. When my daughter
was 14 and my son was 17, they both left me, stating "they couldn't
stand to see me the way I was anymore, drunk and beaten up". My
daughter went to live with my sister and my son went to live with his
girlfriend. Did I stop drinking….sadly no. It continued for almost
three more years until I was homeless, unemployable and drunk every
day.
That life ended when I finally had a moment of sanity, I saw myself
in the mirror for the first time in years and saw the person that my
alcoholism had turned me into.
Today, let’s talk about today. It is great!
I have been in recovery for 14 years and ever since I went into treatment
my life has been on the positive path. I had been unemployable for 2
years before I got sober, so when I got out of a 28-day program, I was
assigned by our town's workfare program to the first selectman's office.
I was assigned there because they were without a secretary and ten years
before I had worked in an office as a clerk, so I guess they figured
I at least knew how to answer the phone, type and file and to some extent
I did. I worked there for 20 hours a week, making $70.00 every 2 weeks.
Boy, was I grateful.
After 2 1/2 months, the first selectman at that time asked me if I would
consider being her secretary. Oh course I said 'yes' and held that position
for almost 14 years, accumulating almost 1300 hours unused sick time.
In November I gave all that up to work for CCAR as an Area Coordinator.
One of the things that I was taught when I got sober was that 'you can't
keep it unless you give it away' and I have volunteered since the second
year of my sobriety.
I volunteered at the hospital in town which had a program where people
in recovery visited patients that the doctor felt had a secondary condition
relating to addiction. I, along with a few other women, started a women's
retreat which was held every 6 months for 9 years. I was on the Board
of Directors at Community Prevention for Addiction Services for 11 years.
I am on the Ryan White Consortium and the Connecticut Planning Group
for Connecticut.
I am a Notary Public and a Justice of the Peace. I became a Justice
of the Peace because a lot of us in recovery are very spiritual but
not religious and I developed a ceremony for those in recovery to celebrate
this event. It was my joy to marry one of our members, Joey Petrello,
to his wife Debbie last summer.
I have been volunteering for Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery
(CCAR) ever since it started. Along with Bob Savage and a couple others
from Connecticut I met with residents from the other 5 New England States
(NEAAR) to see if we could develop a plan to organize the recovery community.
As a result, CCAR was born.
In November I was hired by CCAR to become one of three Area Coordinators
throughout the state of Connecticut. The decision to leave my municipal
job was not easy from one angle but very easy from the other. The difficult
part was that I was vested, with accumulated sick time I might have
gotten when I retired but the easy side was the passion that I feel
for this movement and the certainty that now is the time to make the
message public.
I feel the need to be doing exactly what I am doing today because I
have borne witness to loss after loss because of lack of organization
in the recovery community. We are losing funding, services and lives
this disease. Doors that once were open are now closed.
Today I have three wonderful grandchildren who have never seen their
Nana drunk or behaving inappropriately. I have a strong marriage with
a loving life partner, and it will stay that way as long as I keep doing
what I did when I first got sober….."don’t drink, go
to meetings and reach out to those in need." I love my kids and
grandkids dearly and tell them and show them every chance I get. And
they love me....the woman in recovery that I am.
They is another reason why I am willing to stand up any where and say
that 'my name is Diane Potvin, and I am a recovered alcoholic' and tell
my painful story. With the loss of treatment and services, and with
my grandkids having me as a grandmother and alcoholics as great-grandparents,
it sickens my heart that they might have to go through the increasingly
impossible contortions that the people of our state and our country
have to go through to get the services they deserve. I don't want them
to have to go to jail because they passed over that invisible line of
addiction just because there are no services in the community to help
them.
Things need to change and for that I am willing to give up my story
to show that recovery and treatment DOES WORK. My hope is that many
many more people become willing to do the same because the people with
the power won’t know unless we tell them about our miracle. We
are living proof of the miracle of recovery.
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