How Affection from My Emotional Support Animal Saved My Life

It's February 13th, 2020, and almost 9:00 on a Thursday evening, which means I am attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that I don't want to be at because I just worked 10 hours. I let out an impatient groan in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church as a person speaks at the podium. Everybody seems so happy at AA meetings, but I have never been sober long enough to feel that happy. Despite feeling depressed, I was piecing together a decent amount of sobriety. I was lonely, missing my dog Dolly, and barely able to afford to feed myself. No matter how hard I tried, things always just seemed to get harder.

My Ex Gives Away My Emotional Support Dog

Just about two months previous, my ex-girlfriend broke up with me after I relapsed on alcohol and she had left me with nothing at all. I'm not even joking - aside from my clothes, she had taken nearly everything except our old worn-out couch. The worst part though was that she got rid of my one-year-old puppy, Dolly, when I wasn't home and I never saw her again after briefly kissing her goodbye one morning before work. I was still new to NC and really only knew my ex-girlfriend, so when we broke up I was really all alone. My dog was also a registered Emotional Support Animal who was used in therapy to help me combat ADHD and depression.

December got worse as the month crawled on and I was spiraling into a dark hole. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop drinking because I couldn't take the pain that I felt inside. Nobody would hang out with me because people don't like hanging out with lonely drunks who are self-loathing and miserable. Things hit the breaking point after I spent Christmas alone and fell through my upstairs attic and had a severe head injury. It took me a two-week trip to Washington D.C. where I spent the entire time getting blackout drunk and running around the city, hiding from the cops who were trying to keep me in the hospital.

Love at first site on Valentine's Day

Back to February 13th - I'm leaving the AA meeting when my sponsor finds me and says, "I was listening to the radio on the way over here Andrew. They got some dogs on sale down at the shelter for $25 for Valentine's Day weekend." The cost of adopting a dog was kind of holding me back from getting a dog, but I also hadn't given up my search for Dolly and 2 months had gone by. It was pretty apparent I wasn't getting her back. Getting a dog would help with the loneliness I faced in my empty townhouse, so I figured I'd take a look at their website to see what dogs were there.

As soon as I got home, I grabbed my iPad and headed for my bed so I could check out if I would be adopting or not. I wasn't seeing any dogs that screamed "That's the perfect dog for you" and they were all mostly older and I wanted at least only a couple years old at the latest. Luckily I kept looking until the very last page and photo, where my sweet Magnolia was just posted about a few hours before I checked my iPad. She was the most beautiful dog I had seen, so I made sure to take off from work early to bring her home on Valentine's Day.

The next day, work flew by luckily and I scooted out of my office at 4 o'clock and drove straight down to the shelter to make sure she was still available for adoption. They confirmed she was still there and asked if I wanted to meet her, to which I obviously said yes. One of the staff members escorted me back there and said, "You are lucky that you are the first person to meet Kitty because she won't be here long. She is one of the sweetest dogs I've met in here, but this is the third time she's been brought back to the shelter." I informed her that she wouldn't be coming back to the shelter after I adopted her.

When I entered Magnolia's (aka Kitty's) crate, she bounded over to me and instantly started kissing all over my face. We were both super excited and I made it official that I would be adopting her. I paid the $25 adoption fee, got her papers, and I walked her out of the shelter for the last time.

Magnolia hopped in the front seat and had the biggest grin on her face. I will never forget that joy as I felt whole for the first time in months. That first night we also went and got biscuits at Bojangles, walked for a really long time around the neighborhood, and then cuddled up in bed and fell asleep early. It was the perfect first night with my new dog. Things were happy for a little while, but that was before the pandemic became reality and everything locked down.

Coronavirus shuts down the country

The first sign that the pandemic would be much worse than I originally The first sign that the pandemic would be much worse than I originally thought was the girl I was dating at the time called off a date downtown. I was on vacation but my manager called me and told me that I would be working from home until further notice and it seemed a little dramatic, but it did concern me. The seriousness of it came suddenly when it seemed like half of New York City was suddenly overtaken with the virus.

What I really didn't anticipate was how long this pandemic would hold the world hostage. Not only do I have an alcohol problem, but I have ADHD and am naturally very extroverted and outgoing. Normally that would be fine, but it was now towards the end of March and we had been locked down a few weeks. The girl I was dating dumped me, I was barely working at all at home and eventually started drinking again which meant trouble. I drank myself into the hospital and into such bad shape that it took me weeks to recover. Magnolia spent the entire time carefully watching over me and doing her duty as an emotional support animal. I did start working at the bank branch again which was the only human contact I would have until I moved into Raleigh in May.

Things got better for a while in Raleigh, but things started to slip again. The bank laid me off because they decided our underperforming branch couldn't handle the business lost during the pandemic. I bounced back and got a job with a roofing company. It was around this time I started dating someone again, but neither my job nor the girlfriend would make it through my next breakdown.

It was before Halloween and I had gone into a manic phase of Bipolar disorder (I found this out later on after I was diagnosed with Bipolar II). I was supposed to meet my girlfriend at the time at dinner with her parents. I spent the whole day drinking and was a mess at dinner. I couldn't even remember the dinner or the fight with my girlfriend after we got home. What happened next is something I never thought I would ever attempt. I still can't talk about the details but Magnolia and my girlfriend saved me.

Finding myself and falling in love again

I spent a week in a mental health facility - it was the longest week of my life as I sat there and thought about everything that transpired since the pandemic began in March. But something beautiful happened after that.

I got out of the hospital in the worst position I had gotten myself into. I had no money, no job, and my mind was still in a really bad place. My girlfriend wasn't working out and we broke up, but I started hanging out with a girl that I knew. I had one more drinking bender in December in which I broke my ribs and had a horrible hospital stay. Something different happened when I got out though. For the first time, I was with someone who treated me with compassion about my situation.

I remember being on the couch and holding my fiancé and Magnolia was laying on my lap, looking at me with loving eyes and no judgment. Nobody was disappointed or angry at me, in fact, they were letting me know that they believed in me and that I would turn it around for them.

Never before had anyone stuck around in this way and loved me unconditionally other than my parents who were across the country. Ever since then, I have remained sober from alcohol and I soak in every moment of the day I'm awake. I soak in every moment of every day, good or bad because I know that I wouldn't have made it back out from the dark cycle of my alcoholism without my favorite Valentine's Day Date.