#Recovery Welcomes You

My name is Cameron Tatiana Fishback and I was adopted from Russia at a very young age. I was adopted from Vyksa Russia at age two by two very loving and supportive Americans. My parents have always been there for me and have always had my back since day one! I lived in Michigan for a year after they adopted me and then we moved to Akron Ohio. I was raised in Akron until I graduated high school. I also grew up playing golf and became very good at it. 
After graduation, I moved to The LowCountry area so I could pursue my dream of becoming a professional golfer and work in the golf industry. After I moved down and started golf college, I decided to work a lot of great jobs in the customer service industry. While I was in school, I worked in retail, restaurants, after school programs with kids and I even volunteered at an Alzheimer’s daycare. I didn’t have much time to drink much or go to parties while I was in school. 
After I graduated golf college two years after starting college, I met this wonderful guy who was a few too many years older than me but I promised myself that I would stay in contact with him and hopefully we would become close friends. I decided to move to Atlanta and work at a golf academy in downtown Atlanta and drive in that insane traffic everyday. I put my whole heart into that job and I loved working with kids but about a month later, I decided to leave the job and move back to The Lowcountry area. I hardly drank while I was in Atlanta and if I did drink, it was only two drinks and only at home. I missed the beaches and the area so I was ready to move back to the area. 
When I moved back, I became an activities coordinator for Marriott and I was still in constant contact with the guy that I met after college. We started to talk more and then we got together often. When we would get together, I only drank socially and only a few times a week. Before you knew it, we started to date and then in a blink of an eye we were engaged. I thought he was the true love of my life at that time but looking back on it, we both weren’t ready for that big of a commitment. I still only drank very little around him. 
Soon after we were engaged, we both broke off the engagement and went our separate ways. I thought I lost the love of my love and deep down, I was very heart broken. I ended up drinking way more than before. The way I coped with our breakup was by drinking alcohol. Instead of drinking one or two drinks a day, it doubled and then even tripled. Before you knew it, I was drinking a bottle or two of vodka a day and I was drinking early in the mornings. I also was walking with two to three 1 litter vodka bottles in my pants, under my winter clothes at one time in my life. If I wasn’t sleeping, I was drinking. I was drinking from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. I would drink at work, work functions, family functions, social events and even at church functions. I was always carrying water bottles full of vodka in it and I always thought people didn’t know, but they did. I also drank at all family holiday functions and then I always ended up drunk and passed out. I was considered a death drinker and that happened very fast for me. I got my first DUI in 2017 and then my second one which is my last one in early 2019. 
Whenever I would drink, My BAC level on average was a .2 or higher. The legal limit is a .08 and the highest I have ever blown was a .36 and I should have been dead after that, but my higher power, God kept me alive. When I moved back to Akron Ohio at the end of 2018 due to my drinking problem, I thought I would be healed and sober but that didn’t happen. I ended up becoming a town drunk to the point of knowing all of the local cops, EMS responders, and hospital nurses. Most of my friends and family soon realized that I was a town drunk and a lot of them distanced me to the point where I only had my parents as my support group. No one wanted to be around me and they didn’t want me around them in public because I would either be drinking already or already drunk by the time they were with me. When I was drunk, I was a very mean drunk. I even tried to beat up my parents by punching and hitting them when I was drunk and they had to duck tape me down because I wouldn’t stop. I don’t remember doing that, but that’s what alcohol does to certain people. Not all people are mean people, sometimes it’s the disease that’s controlling them into a mean person. There’s a whole science behind how the brain works with addiction and it’s very interesting.  
I have blown a tire on my car, gotten into a few fender benders, gotten two tickets with in a week due to walking too drunk locally and I was getting picked up by local cops a few times a week all because of alcohol. By this time in my life, I should have been dead but God wanted me living so I can share my Faith, Hope, Love and Experience to others around me. My life became unmanageable and I couldn’t fix this problem on my own any longer. I had made a lot of horrible mistakes in my past due to this horrible disease and I became a thief, a liar, sneaky and a daily drunk. I even left a rehab center in Toledo early and got drunk. I then lost my luggage at a bus station and then ended up in Columbus and not Cleveland Ohio, all due to being too drunk. I could go on and on with what I have done but all I will say is that being a town drunk is no fun and it doesn’t do any good. All it does is gives you horrible hangovers, gets you in trouble, ruins friendships and relationships. 
I was feeling hopeless, depression, scared, fear and even anxious at one point. Fear is a thief of dreams, so if anyone is feeling fear, don’t be, because it’s trying to take away your dreams and hope in life. I didn’t want to live any longer and I wanted to give up on those around me, including myself. I had no positiveness around me, I didn’t feel like I had any faith that I have now. I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. From all of my horrible mistakes that I’ve made, I felt like I dug such a deep, dark and damp cold hole, I couldn’t feel or see any light. I was feeling scared all the time and I felt like I was going to stay in that hole the rest of my life. 
After loosing three jobs within four months, going to two rehabs and leaving both of them early, almost becoming homeless and living on the streets for the rest of my life, I finally got my act together and started on the right path again. I couldn’t live like that any longer and I wanted to start doing the right things again. I started to attend A.A. regularly, working the 12 steps, spending quality time with my dog Cody, start working again, becoming positive and I wanted to rebuild my life again. I wanted to feel fearless and not fearful. I wanted to feel hopeful and not hopeless any longer. I also wanted to have my faith strong again and not feel faithless. 
I’m not here to tell you to stop drinking and I’m not telling you that you have an addiction problem. I’m sharing my story and you can take something from it but you don’t have to either. All I want to tell you is that we all are on a journey and if we all stay faithful, do the right things in life and be kind to one another, everything else in life will work itself out. Everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t see it right away and sometimes it takes a long time to see the light at the end of the tunnel. God will never put us in a dark, long and damp tunnel and then leave us there. He will always bring us through and make us stronger!  
I am rebuilding my life by starting work again, helping others around me, staying faithful daily, praying everyday, sharing my story to influence others and starting to rebuild my relationships and friendships that I lost while I was drinking. There are a lot of people I either worked with, close friend and close family who gave up on my at one time, but they came back and has supported my sober decisions. These people have given me another chance and they also give me encouragement along the way. I’m truly blessed for my support network that I have and I thank my lucky stars everyday for these people. I am hoping to hide these positive and faithful pieces of jewelry that can help one another. As we are all on our own path in life, we are all going through something and if you can find these pieces of jewelry and if it can help you, I would love for you to give it to someone who is in need of help or re-hide it and then through faith alone, the right people will find the right pieces of jewelry that will be able to help them. 
As my mother always told me when I was growing up, If you can dream it, you can do it. You can be anything and do anything if you put your heart and mind to it. You are smart because God made you smart and Through God, all things are possible! 
All we need is Faith, Hope, Love and Support in life! 

Thanks for following my journey, supporting my dream of helping others and always helping me grow in my adventure. 
Thanks for everything,Cameron Fishback