- April 28, 2024
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Eight-year Palm Coast resident Robert Oshesky was really trying to control his drinking this time. But then he saw a gas station, and he figured he’d grab a few quick beers on his way home.
“I was completely oblivious of being an alcoholic or an addict of any sort,” he said. “I rejected all of it. ... I was bent on being different and beating the game.”
Being different from his family, he means. He had heard his mother preach for years about the dangers of alcoholism but watched as family members drank heavily anyway. He always brushed her warnings off as hyper-religious.
He knew the Twelve Steps. And that wouldn’t be him.
After all, he was 26 and married, had a good job, just bought a house and had a baby on the way.
So what if he had a couple beers already that night, before coming across that gas station? He was fine.
And then it happened.
A traffic wreck. Brand new truck. Smashed to pieces.
“I did nothing but cry and sob uncontrollably for two months,” Oshesky said. And that was between the panic attacks. That’s when he decided to do this “recovery” thing for real this time. He got a new sponsor. He got serious.
He got sober.
And he’s stayed that way. No drugs. No drink. Since September 2003.
“I really felt and believed that my life depended on it,” he said. “I felt helpless. I felt like I didn’t have a chance.”
Oshesky will conduct a question-and-answer session about his recovery from addiction Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Florida’s Recovery Month Celebration, at the Daytona Beach Bandshell.
Hosted by the Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral Healthcare and Keep Kids Drug Free, the event kicks off with a Ride for Recovery motorcycle run, which starts at 1:30 p.m. at Flagler Beach High Tides at Snack Jacks, and ends at 5 p.m., at the Bandshell. When the ride ends, the celebration starts.
There will also be a “Recovery’s Got Talent” show, a cop-dunking booth and other activities.
“We’re trying to battle the stigma,” Keep Kids Drug Free Regional Prevention Director Victoria Kress said. “(Recovering addicts) don’t blame anybody else. ... They take responsibility. ... That’s what recovery is: It’s just learning to overcome.”
For her, the most important thing is letting people who are struggling know they’re not alone, “and there are people who understand and want to help them.”
“We have a wonderful, amazing recovery subculture in our community,” she added. “And they’re all going to be at this event, celebrating life.”
Since Oshesky’s last drink, 10 years ago this month, he’s immersed himself in service work, visiting the prison to preach the Twelve Steps. He surrounds himself with people who hold him accountable. He looks to a higher power.
“You can’t keep it if you don’t give it away,” he said, harping on the importance of breaking down his own ego. “My struggles are no way over just because I have surrendered to my disease.”
But not everyone realizes what he realized in time, he said, adding that his brother Daniel died last month, following complications of alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.
“My brother drank to the bitter end,” he said.
But in a way, he credits his brother’s partying ways with leading to his own wake-up call. His brother used to drink with a friend that Oshesky later reached out to for help when he was first looking to sober up. Because the friend had known Daniel’s struggles, Oshesky felt ready to follow his lead.
But his brother never had that chance.
“I'm just a garden-variety, run of the mill recovered alcoholic,” Oshesky said. “This life full of miracles I have today is available to anyone with the desire to change and enough willingness to do something different in their life. ... Every moment of my life, every breath I get to take, is yet another miracle. If I got everything I deserved, I simply wouldn't be here.”
Visit floridarecoverymonth.com, or call Victoria Kress, at 254-1241.
